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Subscribe to RSS2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum joins Morning Joe to discuss the Tuesday Illinois primary, his comments on contraception and the HHS mandate, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, campaign organization issues, taking on Mitt Romney, and what it's really like running for president.
Presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Monday morning where he responded to Mitt Romney's assertions that Santorum is a "lightweight" when it comes to economic issues. "If I am a lightweight, I agree he is a heavyweight, he is a big government heavyweight, that's what his record was."
Santorum listed the Massachusetts health care law, tax increases under Romney as governor of that state and his overall jobs record, saying, "if that's the kind of heavyweight that Mitt Romney thinks that we need, then we should probably just stick with Barack Obama."
Asked whether his campaign had gotten "off-message" with a debate over birth control, Santorum pushed back. "The issue is not contraception, the issue is government-mandated health insurance and that to me is completely on message." Santorum said he will continue to talk about the administration's initial decision to require religious organizations to provide birth control to employees as part of their health care plans.
Pressed on comments he made last fall about his feelings that contraception is "wrong," Santorum replied: "I was talking about my own personal faith and what I was saying is that the issue of out-of-wedlock births and what's going on with the destruction of the American family is something that I will talk about and have talked about in this campaign. I wasn't talking about access to contraception, that wasn't the issue."
Republicans have battled to make the contraception debate about religious liberty in the context of federal regulations that would force employers affiliated with religious institutions to offer coverage for contraception in their insurance policies -- even if that religion has moral objections to the use of contraception.
In that context, Santorum said, contraception "should" be part of the political debate.
"The only reason I would talk about this issue is, as I said, with respect to government mandates on people of faith," Santorum said. "That's why this issue continues to be talked about, and should be talked about -- in the context of the government forcing people of faith to do things against their religious beliefs."
Santorum fell further behind rival Mitt Romney in the race to the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination after Romney won all 20 of Puerto Rico's delegates in the territory's Sunday primary. Santorum's strategy for securing the nomination may hinge on blocking Romney from attaining the necessary delegates, and sparking a contested convention in August.
"What I've said is that I think it's going to be very difficult as this goes on for anybody to get to that magic number," Santorum said in a separate interview on CBS, adding that he thinks the odds of a contested convention are "increasing."
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Probably the most unjust is Santorum’s involvement with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who went to prison for bribing Washington politicians. Look at the Tan family and their staggering array of human rights abuses on the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands. The Tan family ran sweatshops on the islands and Abramoff working with his political contacts provided legislative cover for the truly rancid sweatshops, their human rights violations and almost fathomless moral quagmire of forced prostitution and abortions. Watch the 20/20 Special Shame of Saipan and research this yourself.
This is a very interesting -NEW YORK – As Senator Rick Santorum prepares to address the American Legion on Friday, the head of VoteVets.org (formerly IAVA PAC) reminded Pennsylvanians to remember the Senator’s real record. “Senator Santorum will highlight his superficial role in appropriating emergency funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, in his speech, but his record shows he has been one of the Senate’s most hostile members to the troops and veterans,” said Pittsburgh native, Iraq War Veteran and Chairman of VoteVets.org, Jon Soltz. “Rick Santorum voted against veterans before he voted for them.” In just the last few years, Senator Santorum turned his back on troops and veterans multiple times. Senator Santorum: · Had the audacity to vote against appropriating a billion more dollars for procurement of proper body armor and other equipment for Guardsmen and Reservists risking their lives in Iraq, just when body armor issues were coming to the forefront. (Motion to table Landrieu Amendment No. 452, 4/2/2003) · Voted to deny the Veterans Health Administration millions of additional dollars by restoring pre-2001 taxes on those making more than $1m and closing tax loopholes corporations exploit. (Stabenow Amendment No. 3141, 3/16/2006)
USHonor, The votes on your post are from me because they are the "BEST" post on this vine, "Salute"
Does anyone wonder why so much fault is found with mandatory Health Care insurance when mandatory automobile insurance laws, laws mandating wearing seat belts, laws mandating wearing helmets and so on have been in place for some time and are totally accepted? What amazes me is how there are those who accept criticisms and emotionally strongly support those criticisms when logically they are totally slanted, biased and even fictionally justified. Again, if the Republicans really and honestly want effective, quality and reasonably priced healthcare in this country, which is desperately needed, then they need to participate in honest and responsible bipartisan fine tuning of the intended laws, in this case with Obamacare, and not just block and fault everything to benefit only "the money" and then try to con the people.
The Britts have Margaret Thatcher, we have Sarah Palin, and idiots like Santorum.
Since the only votes he will get are the dumb votes, well, he is a shoe in.
"Rickety is spreading his disease to his weak minded followers"
Country calls Santorum an evil douchebag.
I believe he has got a shot to go all the way especially with the President appearing to violate some constitutional issues time and again. We need transparency not a Rambo type Ivy league president turned US President.
Santourum should have said Romney is a big corporate heavy weight, with eyes set for coporate American to have free reign.
Two idiots:
Bible in one hand, while the other holds a corporate charter towards the future.
GW (and not Bush) is doing spins in his grave with the 2 choices right now.
America got suckered into a needless war (Iraq), and the last thing I don't want, is to dis-honor is your service and those killed. My /Our gratitude is beyond comprehension.
My problem is with candidates taking away "freedom" of choice, or being led down a path of servitude that we are already trying to get away from.
GOD bless America, and ALL those that have served to keep OUR Democracy alive!
I want any of the Teapublicans to show me something they have done to help the middle class. They have has a whole lot of talk but no action. They have tried to pass bill they knew would get out of the Senate. The Republican party is only of the rich and the corporations. Any woman that would even think about voting republican needs to just go home put on their aprons and wait on the man. They need to wash their mans feet with their hair and never talked back to him. That is what the whole republican party has turn into. A bunch of old woman hating, minority hating, all religions but my religion hating group of thugs. There is no way in hell I will every vote republican.
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012
Rick Santorum made all Pennsylvanian taxpayers pay for his kids' schooling while he lived in a $2M mansion in Maryland. This is the absolute definition of 'entitlement'.
Imagine what 'entitlements' he would garner as president.
Vote Santorum for a contraceptive free America! Yes folks, the brainy Santorum has figured out, all by himself (except for some help from the Pope) that America's biggest problem is contraceptives--both male and female. This limited government conservative will use all the power of the federal government to make sure that no one uses contraceptives once he becomes leader of the free world. Amen.
Job Creation
http://energytomorrow.org/job-creation/#/type/all
America's oil and natural gas industry supports 9.2 million men and women across the United States in a wide range of highly skilled, well-paying
professions. In fact, oil and natural gas industry exploration and production
wages are more than double the national average. An analysis of
API's public data, independent research and corporate annual reports finds that
the industry distributed $176 billion in wages paid to U.S. employees, plus
benefits and payments to oil and natural gas leaseholders.
Oil and natural gas companies invest in cutting-edge
technology and offer fulfilling careers to the next generation of American
engineers, geophysicists, chemists, earth scientists, geologists, climate
experts and explorers. These individuals, working with the best technologies,
will help find and recover oil and natural gas here and abroad and help secure
America's energy future. In addition, the industry employs professionals that
most people don't normally associate with our industry, such as botanists and
marine biologists, even zoologists and veterinarians.
With the right government policies in place, the oil and
natural gas industry can create more American jobs that can help grow the U.S.
economy, generate substantial new revenues for government and provide greater
energy security for our nation.
In fact, with increased access to U.S. oil and gas
resources we can create 1
million new jobs in the next ten years alone. To put that in perspective,
that would provide enough jobs for nearly every citizen of Rhode Island. A
recent study by Wood
Mackenzie found that by 2030, nearly 1.4 million new jobs could be added
through policies which encourage development of America's oil and natural
resources, and facilitate Canadian
oil sands production through the development of Keystone XL and other
related piplines. A few examples are as follows:
Shale alone could create 160,000 jobs in Pennsylvania, 20,000 jobs in
New York and 30,000 jobs in West Virginia by 2015.
exploration and development could result in up to 100,000 new
Florida jobs by 2016--just with increased access to federal areas
within the Gulf of Mexico.
the Keystone XL
pipeline could generate nearly
85,000 jobs by 2020
To learn more about the Wood Mackenzie study and view
state specific job creation numbers, view this interactive job creation map.
"The Pipe hwy to China, 1% Monopoly"
"Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea"
Samuel Johnson
WAIT WAIT WAIT
Ayatollah Rick Shall Rule America...
His Christian like Sharia law shall save the sinners.
Roms is neither "big government" nor a "heavyweight" (wrong YET AGAIN, Santo). Roms is nothing more than a venture capitalist, corporate raider, and self-deluding prevaricator. Send him and all his supporters back to frustrated anonymity, where they belong, just like McCain and Palin were dispatched in '08.
I don't think Romney is the government heavyweight. I think Santorum is. He keeps trying to run as some kind of outsider that will fix everything, when in fact, he is as inside Washington as you can get. He just doesn't work there anymore.
Anony mous: All you have accomplished is to make yourself look like more of an idiot then the GOP candiates have in this turtle race. Keep commenting and the GOP voters will be voting for you come november...Now that's as funny as voting for figNEWTon...or Romney...or Santorum...You see what I'am getting at...
VOTE The HARE & BIDEN 2012
I don’t know how everyone else feels but all of the ranting and raving about what God wants, by ministers, politicians and others, strikes me as being a bit much, as really being presumptuous. The individual doctrines taught in all religions, without exception, state that sincere humility is the prescribed way, is what God requires of His people. Now the question is, how do these supposedly knowledgeable people who are so caught up in their righteous egos, touting themselves, judging others and speaking for God, ever think that they are not really just offending God, actually going against His way? Simply a logical curiosity as it appears they are totally missing the message and rather are just caught up in being too pretentiously proud to even see their hypocrisy. I suspect that to really be consistent with the teachings one actually needs to leave the judging to God and strive to have humble compassion for all others ... but then that is just my thinking.
Santorum is a big phony and should drop out along with spoiled brat newt, I watched him after the Romney victory speech in Illinois and all he did is mimic Romneys views. while watching him, i observed his expressions and body movements and he looked like a Ken doll.(plastic and phony]
People truly need to take a very close look at Santorum. If one combines all thet this man has said and or suggested Santorum is the biggest government supporter out there. He even outdistances Newt. He has now gone to the point of suggesting he should decide where another man's child can and should vacation. He is in our Dr.'s office, in our bedrooms, does our shopping for us and now he wants to raise our children. How moronic.