Eric Cantor Condemns Occupy Wall Street 'Mobs': They're 'Pitting Americans Against Americans' (VIDEO)

WASHINGTON -- Top House GOP leaders assured attendees at the 2011 Values Voter Summit Friday morning that despite all the attention on fixing the nation's economy, they remain committed to pushing the priorities of social conservatives, including defunding Planned Parenthood and defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) addressed the gathering of religious conservatives in Washington, D.C., where several of the GOP presidential candidates will also be speaking.

Cantor used part of his address to attack the Occupy Wall Street protests, and he condemned political leaders who are supporting them.

"This administration's failed policies have resulted in an assault on many of our nation's bedrock principles," he said. "If you read the newspapers today, I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country. And believe it or not, some in this town, have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans. But you sent us here to fight for you and all Americans."

But when he spoke at the Values Voter Summit in 2009, Cantor expressed a very different sentiment toward another movement that was arguably "pitting Americans against Americans" -- the Tea Party.

At that time, Cantor praised those protesters as "fighting on the fighting lines of what we know is a battle for our democracy.”

"People are beginning to wake up and see a country they don’t really recognize," said Cantor.

At the Washington Ideas Forum on Thursday, Vice President Biden discussed the parallels between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"The core is the American people do not think the system is fair or on the level. That is the core of what you're seeing on Wall Street," he said. "There's a lot in common with the Tea Party. The Tea Party started why? TARP. They thought it was unfair, we're bailing out the big guys. What are the people up on the other side of the spectrum saying? The same thing."

In his speech Friday, Cantor also promised the crowd that if Republicans win back the Senate and White House -- and retain control of the House -- in 2012, they will defund Planned Parenthood.

"I can tell you: After November 2012, we look forward to a Senate and a White House that will partner with us to once and for all eliminate government funding for all organizations that perform abortions," said Cantor to loud applause.

Boehner spoke about the House GOP's decision to defend DOMA, which recognizes marriage on the federal level as being between one man and one woman, after Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department would no longer defend the law in federal court.

"If the Justice Department was not going to defend this act passed by Congress, then we will," he said. "We're not only going to defend the law that Congress passed, but we're going to take the money away from the Justice Department that's supposed to [defend the law]."

Defending DOMA will not be cheap. A contract between the House and the private law firm hired to defend the law said that taxpayers will have to fork over $1.5 million. Boehner has not said where the money will come from; while he has consistently insisted he wants the Justice Department to foot the bill, the agency has given no indication it is planning to comply with that request.

 

Comments

[rolor]

12:19 AM on 11/14/2011

Since Cantor is benefitting from shorting on America, he stands to benefit from stoking a fire of conflict between Americans.

[Red Russet]

11:35 PM on 10/31/2011

Eric. Do some simple math here...99% is > or < 1%? Once you figure that out you'll have a better handle on what the heck's going on.

We know its important for you to go out and give speeches to special interest groups who fund you and your friends in the House and Senate, telling the religious conservatives all about how you will defund abortions by 2013.

Think about this: when your Christian Conservatives who were in your audience there, when they are back at home in their rust belt town in Ohio, or Indiana, and the dad hasn't had a real job in 4 years, and the mom works 3 jobs 6 days a week and there is no health insurance and no food on the table, what will they be thinking then, at the hour when their kids say they're hungry?

Do you think they'll still be thinking about how Eric Cantor thinks its more important to BAN ABORTIONS than to feed their kids? If its a choice between feeding their kids and telling some unknown woman she can't have an abortion, AND you have no help to offer for THEIR REAL PROBLEMS, WHAT CHOICE DO YOU THINK THAT MOM AND DAD WILL MAKE??

You and your party are making them suffer. If you really think they will vote GOP you are deluded. You and your GOP have nothing to offer the 99%.

[gseager]

10:18 PM on 10/31/2011

The sheer unbelievability of Cantor's words here make me proud to be a progressive.

Say that again, won't you Eric? Tell me again that working class people are pitting themselves against your rich buddies on Wall St.

No, I think your buddies, namely the top 1% pitted themselves against working Americans about 30 years ago.

And don't call the protesters mobs. They're real people with families and concerns about the direction this country's government is taking. They don't agree with corporate greed and the Wall St. injustices that target working Americans.

[deebeedonny]

01:30 PM on 10/31/2011

but, cantor doesn't say anything about, the camafloughed repubs, who call themselves teabaggers. there big beef, they just don't like paying taxes. i often wonder, do these people have any inkling, that it takes money to run a government? do they realize the republican tax breaks for the wealthiest and greedy corpiorations, who avoid paying u.s. taxes on their foreign proits, while they build and relocate to foreign countries, outsource american jobs, flood the market with their foreign made products, and "avoid" paying u.s. taxes on the foreign profits, which is taking away billions in u.s.revenue...cantor is running scared. The Occupy Wall Street Movement is bringing awareness to many important issues. while americans want our country to flourish, once again, they see people like eric cantor, who is literally betting against the american economy. cantor has invested in a proshares ultra trust fund, which is literally a bet against the american economy. if the economy fails, eric cantor profits. so there you have it, there are some of the reasons for The Occupy Wall Street Movenment, i am all for it!!!

[Shrank]

02:39 AM on 10/24/2011

Wasn't it Eric Cantor who called Occupy Wall Street protesters "rats, cockroaches, and drug addicts"?

I'm sorry, that was another tyrant who recently met his just reward. Eric, you're next.

[burningdr]

11:29 AM on 10/16/2011

For too long, Eric, you and your cronies have projected blame onto the masses and made us appear guilty for doing exactly what you actually do. Eric, you said the Occupy America movement is dividing America, when it is YOU and your minority economic royalists who have created the largest economic and political divide between classes in the history of the world!
Because your 1-10% of the richest represent such a small fraction of Americans, it is YOU who are the minority and the dividers. Democracy is about MAJORITY rule, not your tiny minority.

As Nobel prize winning Paul Krugman pointed out to you and your cronies Eric, “The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in your favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.”

Are you, Eric, more economically knowledgeable than the Nobel Laureate winner? How do you defend trying to have your 1-10% control the other 90-99% of us? Can you explain that, Mr. lying control freak? You and your gang have some serious karma that's backlashing at you, for trying to have your dictatorial regime rule in a democratic, majority rules nation!

[steam555]

01:29 PM on 10/12/2011

Eric Cantor has to be kidding, he's going to complain about the justice dept. not enforcing DOMA? What about the various immigration laws that are not being enforced? How about various laws the banks violated leading up to the mortgage crisis? Why not enforce some of them? What, we can pick and chose what laws to enforce. How about the next time I get a traffic ticket, I tell the judge I decided not to follow that law today.
What, is Obama to blame for everything? Does he think the American people are too stupid to see through his divisiveness? It's not the Republicans or the Democrats, it's the whole stinking, rotten political system. It's the way they can all be bought. The way they may have begun as ordinary citizens but became corrupted by the system. I don't think anyone that is in elected federal office has any clue what it is like outside of their cloistered, pampered existence.
What we need is a revolution at the ballot box. We need a box for "none of the above". If "none of the above" prevails in the election, a new election should be held within six months and over and over until we get who we want. How often have you gone to the polls and voted for the "lesser of the evils"?

[Mr Sick Of Greed]

03:38 PM on 10/11/2011

cantor, you are a useless tool in this neocon machine....
your day will come too....and before you know it, things are going to change,
there will be a fight, but your ideology will end up losing and so will your party of
hypocrisy and greed

[Mark V Reid]

03:03 PM on 10/11/2011

Yes Eric Cantor you are right in a way, the 99% is pitting itself against the 1%. And why? The fact that Occupy Wall Street has spread across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is due to the US Corporation having a power that is now a global phenomenon. Eric Cantor and followers - you are strongly enjoined to wake up to the world as it is and not how large corporations and their owners would like you to see it. Corporate Americans do have good qualities but offering that fact as a justification for what they do to American families and the wealth inequality would be like trying to refute Thomas Jefferson with claims about the good qualities of the British Empire. No amount of good qualities of the British Empire could justify the oppression and high tariffs of the colonies.

It leaves me astonished that anyone would want to defend the very entities and people that make their life financially unlivable and politically innocuous.

Eric Cantor your claims expose your ignorance of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It does not have a specific goal - and its power and international reach is related to that - and it is closer to the Boston Tea Party than the Tea Party.

If someone would like to be informed about what the Occupy Wall Street movement is really all about, one should start here: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/10/why-occupy-wall-street-is-not-the-tea-party-of-the-left/

[opposingthumb]

11:22 AM on 10/11/2011

Listen Cantor - Wall Street pits Chinese labor against Americans and Cantor blames Americans for protesting. Time for Cantor to support American workers in their efforts to find jobs.

[fromdnorth]

09:29 AM on 10/11/2011

Cantor is softening... He is less TeaParty and more Putin...

[hamsteronwheel]

05:22 PM on 10/10/2011

we're all hamsters on neocon "financially engineered" and "financially innovated" wheels

American coup d'état in broad daylight

American unelected Super Congress

American Shadow Government

Unites States of israel

8/11/2011

"EIGHTY-ONE CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES from all over the country, led by Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, are traveling to Israel thismonth.

Most are freshmen congressmen, and the group includes half of all the freshmen Republicans voted into office in 2010.

The weeklong trips are being paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), which was created in 1990 as a supporting organization of

AIPAC, America’s major pro-Israel lobbying organization, and theyarelocatedinthe same building.

AIEF, which is only one of numerous organizations pushing pro-Israel policies, has an annual budgetof

over $24 million, with an even larger endowment.

This is an extraordinary situation.

NO OTHER LOBBY ON BEHALF OF A FOREIGN COUNTRY COMES ANYWHERE NEAR CONTROLLING SUCH WEALTH OR TAKING SO MANY OF AMERICA'S ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES ON A PROPAGANDA TRIP to its favorite country.

Not all those going on these trips are enthusiastic. The wife of one congressman who made a similar trip some years ago said that she and her husband had never been exposed to such pressure in all their lives. She said that at one point on their trip, her husband — a normally extremely tough man — was curled up in a fetal position."

http://original.antiwar.com/alison-weir/2011/08/10/israel-lobby-dominates-congress/

[Red Russet]

12:04 AM on 11/01/2011

The AIEF's funding comes partly from money we send Israel.

SO we are being lobbied with our own money. DUH.

Lets end this now.

[Craig Bovia]

05:08 PM on 10/10/2011

There are people that pit Americans against Americans. Eric Cantor is one of the top leaders of those actions. I guess he must be looking in his mirror

[Sterling Wright]

03:22 PM on 10/10/2011

Could someone please take a moment to explain to me why the following "demand" would not be viable or realistic if made by the Occupy demonstrators?

The government instituted TARP with the goal of having the banks lend that money back out in order to get the economy started again. As we all know, the banks, instead, sat on the funds.

Since the banks broke their end of the deal, would it be reasonable for the public to demand that the banks pay this money back, in full, and that the money be allocated to a jobs bill?

If this is not reasonable, why not?

Thank you.

[Red Russet]

12:07 AM on 11/01/2011

It's reasonable, and part of the money should go to fund EPA-type projects, rebuilding bridges, roads, etc. The rest, to the deficit.

[trinitygrace]

09:22 AM on 10/10/2011

hmmm. i recall the republicans supporting tea party rallies and faux news who was suppose to be covering the story were supporting it too. republicans were even hanging out of windows on capitol hill even encouraging them. rallies that spread hatred and division stating they wanted president barack obama to fail. well, it won't happen!!! demonstrat­ors with posters that had such strong and hatred speech on the posters. even a republican had a poster that he held out his office window on capitol hill slapping at a fellow politician on the poster. spitting and the calling of names of their fellow politicians. numerous death threats were also sent out behind these rallies. death threats!! that's low, very low!! some are in jail today because of those threats. the republican­s were speaking at and were even paid for speaking at those tea party rallies. well, we are now having our party! we're not a mob...we're "the people!" the republicans had their party. and it's over. it's now our time. bankers and republicans who strongly back bankers, big oil and the wealthy...ENOUGH! oh, have you heard the latest republican whine about the occupy the wall rally? they, john boehner are now saying, they are "rallies" "who are against obama". lol! lol! lol! what flip-flops! I'm going down to this occupy the wall rally! were's my sign! :-)

[mollysmomma]

03:08 PM on 10/10/2011

Love your post.....fanned and faved!

[mollysmomma]

03:13 PM on 10/10/2011

i also, remember at a t party rally, the repub congress folks held huge signs over the banister of the capital building......signs with.....don't tred on me.....written on them. the t party was borderline violent......and the repubs, fox, limaugh and all the right supported them.....and now are scared of them and feel they have to obey the kooks of the t party.