The GOP Convention

[Nbadan]

The parts the M$M didn't show you...

Ron Paulist "seat them now" versus the GOP Convention "USA"...

vr5kMguEqi8

Talk about bad timing...bet the representative from Puerto Rico felt like shit

Meanwhile...An attendee at the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Tuesday allegedly threw nuts at a black camerawoman working for CNN and said “This is how we feed animals” before being removed from the convention, a network official confirmed to TPM.....

[hitmanyr2k]

You have to love the unity of this convention :lol

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/28/rules-fight-sparks-drama-at-rnc/

[Nbadan]

The RNC in 100 seconds..

OuDgp18hiG0

[boutons_deux]

Republican governors tout job gains -- to Obama team's delight

They could not resist. One by one, Republican governors of three presidential battleground states took the floor at the party’s national convention and touted recent job gains in their states – not Mitt Romney’s preferred message.

First up was Gov. John Kasich of Ohio: 122,000 jobs created since he took office last year, he boasted, and a state that has leaped from 48th to fourth in job creation.

INTERACTIVE MAP: Tally up the battleground states

Next came Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia: “Over the last two years, with Republicans and Democrats working together, our unemployment rate is down 20% to 5.9%," he said. “We've added 151,000 net new jobs.”

Finally, there was Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. “Like many places across the country, Wisconsin lost more than 100,000 jobs from 2008 to 2010,” he said. “Unemployment during that time topped out at over 9%. But because of our reforms, Wisconsin has added thousands of new jobs, and our unemployment rate is down from when I first took office.”

Obama’s reelection team was delighted – particularly with Walker.

“Highlighting how unemployment is dropping, the economy is growing, and small businesses are adding jobs, his message tonight was vastly at odds with how Mitt Romney talks down the economy,” Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said in an email to the media.

Her subject line: “We Couldn’t Have Said It Better Ourselves, Gov. Walker.”

But not all was lost for the Republican presidential nominee, whose joint appearances with all three governors in their states have showcased the clash between his political needs and theirs.

http://mobile.latimes.com/p.p?m=b&a=rp&id=2633586&postId=2633586&postUserId=7&sessionToken=&catId=7716&curAbsIndex=2&resultsUrl=DID%3D6%26DFCL%3D1000%26DSB%3Drank%2523 desc%26DBFQ%3DuserId%253A7%26DL.w%3D%26DL.d%3D10%2 6DQ%3DsectionId%253A7716%26DPS%3D0%26DPL%3D3

:lol

[boutons_deux]

How the Republicans Built It

It was a day late, but the Republicans' parade of truth-twisting, distortions and plain falsehoods arrived on the podium of their national convention on Tuesday. Following in the footsteps of Mitt Romney's campaign, rarely have so many convention speeches been based on such shaky foundations.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, in the keynote speech, angrily demanded that the American people learn the hard truths about the two parties, but like most of those at the microphone, he failed to supply any. He said his state needed his austere discipline of slashed budgets, canceled public projects and broken public unions, but did not mention that New Jersey now has a higher unemployment rate than when he took over, and never had the revenue boom he promised from tax cuts.

"We believe in telling our seniors the truth about our overburdened entitlements," he said, but his party has consistently refused to come clean about its real plans to undo Medicare and Medicaid. "Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to put us back on a path to growth," he said, but Mr. Romney has consistently refused to tell the truth about his tax plan, his budget plan, and his health care plan.

It was appropriate that "We built it," the needling slogan of the evening, was painted on the side of the convention hall. Speaker after speaker alluded to the phrase in an entire day based on the thinnest of reeds - a poorly phrased remark by the president, deliberately taken out of context. President Obama was making the obvious point that all businesses rely to some extent on the work and services of government. But Mr. Romney has twisted it to suggest that Mr. Obama believes all businesses are creatures of the government, and so the convention had to parrot the line.

"We need a president who will say to a small businesswoman: Congratulations, we applaud your success, you did make that happen, you did build that," said Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia. "Big government didn't build America; you built America!"

That was far from the only piece of nonsense on the menu, only the most frequently repeated one. Conventions are always full of cheap applause lines and over-the-top attacks, but it was startling to hear how many speakers in Tampa considered it acceptable to make points that had no basis in reality.

Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, for example, boasted of the booming economy in his state, never mentioning that he and Mr. Romney opposed the auto bailout that has played an outsized role in the state's recovery. (Apparently Mr. Obama's destructive economic policies do not apply everywhere.)

Andy Barr, a Congressional candidate in Kentucky, made the particularly egregious charge that the president was conducting "a war on coal," ruthlessly attacking an industry and thousands of struggling miners.

He was apparently referring to the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions and prevent power-plant pollution from drifting through the East Coast states. The country desperately needs to reduce its reliance on coal, which is far more polluting than natural gas, but that goal gets harder to achieve every time someone like Mr. Barr makes it out to be an attack on a way of life.

Considering how Mr. Romney has conducted his campaign so far, most recently his blatantly false advertising accusing Mr. Obama of gutting the work requirement on welfare, it is probably not surprising that the convention he leads would follow a similar path.

Voters looking for a few nuggets of truth would not have found them in Tampa on Tuesday.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=965623&f=28&sub=Editorial

ALL LIES, ALL THE TIME :lol

The putrid stench of Karl Rove's "reality" permeating the Repug choreography.

[boutons_deux]

The Secret Weapon: All of Us

The Republican National Convention opened by smacking President Obama with the theme "We Built it."

To pound that message, Republicans turned to a Delaware businesswoman, Sher Valenzuela, who is also a candidate for lieutenant governor. Valenzuela and her husband built an upholstery business that now employs dozens of workers.

Valenzuela presumably was picked to speak so that she could thunder at Obama for disdaining capitalism.

Oops.

It turns out that Valenzuela relied not only on her entrepreneurial skills but also on - yes, government help. Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog group, documented $2 million in loans from the Small Business Administration for Valenzuela's company, plus $15 million in government contracts (mostly noncompetitive ones). :lol

In a presentation earlier this year, Valenzuela described government assistance as an entrepreneur's "biggest 'secret weapon.' " :lol

Someone has set up a parody Web site, using the name of Valenzuela's company, First State Manufacturing, to mock the Republican message. The site, FirstStateManufacturing.com, declares, "Thank God government was there for me."

employment data for the 64 years from the beginning of Harry Truman's presidency to the end of George W. Bush's. ... an average of two million jobs were created per year when a Democrat was president, compared with one million annually when a Republican was president.

for Romney himself. He built his Bain empire partly because he was smart and hard-working, but also because of a great education and because of tax breaks for debt financing. Tax loopholes helped him build his fortune, and other loopholes gave him the low tax rates to retain it.

If the Republican convention wishes to highlight and explain Romney's success, it should have a moment of silence to honor our infernal tax code. :lol

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=965682&f=28&sub=Columnist

[boutons_deux]

GOP Platform Lies About Abstinence Education’s Effectiveness

enshrines a misguided approach to sex education that will actually lead to more unplanned pregnancies:

We renew our call for replacing “family planning” programs for teens with abstinence education which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and respected standard of behavior. Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100 percent effective against out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS when transmitted sexually. It is effective, science-based, and empowers teens to achieve optimal health outcomes and avoid risks of sexual activity. We oppose school-based clinics that provide referrals, counseling, and related services for abortion and contraception.

Touting abstinence-only education programs as “effective” and “science-based” is simply not true. In fact, abstinence education curricula often lack very basic facts about contraception, pregnancy, sexual assault, and effective barriers against sexually transmitted diseases. Some abstinence-only courses, such as the health class in California that instructs students to prevent STDs with “plenty of rest,” teach blatant misinformation.

Abstinence-only education is based on the specious theory that teenagers shouldn’t be taught anything about sex because they shouldn’t be having sex. But promoting abstinence hasn’t worked in religious communities — a full 80 percent of evangelicals report having sex at least once before marriage — and won’t work in schools, either. The approach fails to take into account the fact that 70 percent of teenagers are sexually active by the time they turn 19, and sitting in a health class that pushes junk science won’t dissuade them otherwise. To achieve the goals the Republican Party puts forth, schools across the country need to implement comprehensive sex education that will have honest conversations with young adults about sexuality.

http://thinkprogress.org/education/2012/08/29/764771/gop-platform-lies-about-abstinence-educations-effectiveness/

Repugs, ALL LIES, ALL THE TIME :lol

[boutons_deux]

Gay Marine Beaten To Bloody Pulp To Fire Up RNC Crowd

http://o.onionstatic.com/images/17/17868/16x9/635.jpg?1564

http://www.theonion.com/articles/gay-marine-beaten-to-bloody-pulp-to-fire-up-rnc-cr,29352/

[jack sommerset]

Boutons, did you watch any of the speeches last night? God bless

[CosmicCowboy]

Republican governors tout job gains -- to Obama team's delight

They could not resist. One by one, Republican governors of three presidential battleground states took the floor at the party’s national convention and touted recent job gains in their states – not Mitt Romney’s preferred message.

First up was Gov. John Kasich of Ohio: 122,000 jobs created since he took office last year, he boasted, and a state that has leaped from 48th to fourth in job creation.

INTERACTIVE MAP: Tally up the battleground states

Next came Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia: “Over the last two years, with Republicans and Democrats working together, our unemployment rate is down 20% to 5.9%," he said. “We've added 151,000 net new jobs.”

Finally, there was Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. “Like many places across the country, Wisconsin lost more than 100,000 jobs from 2008 to 2010,” he said. “Unemployment during that time topped out at over 9%. But because of our reforms, Wisconsin has added thousands of new jobs, and our unemployment rate is down from when I first took office.”

Obama’s reelection team was delighted – particularly with Walker.

“Highlighting how unemployment is dropping, the economy is growing, and small businesses are adding jobs, his message tonight was vastly at odds with how Mitt Romney talks down the economy,” Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said in an email to the media.

Her subject line: “We Couldn’t Have Said It Better Ourselves, Gov. Walker.”

But not all was lost for the Republican presidential nominee, whose joint appearances with all three governors in their states have showcased the clash between his political needs and theirs.

http://mobile.latimes.com/p.p?m=b&a=rp&id=2633586&postId=2633586&postUserId=7&sessionToken=&catId=7716&curAbsIndex=2&resultsUrl=DID%3D6%26DFCL%3D1000%26DSB%3Drank%2523 desc%26DBFQ%3DuserId%253A7%26DL.w%3D%26DL.d%3D10%2 6DQ%3DsectionId%253A7716%26DPS%3D0%26DPL%3D3

:lol

:lmao

Talk about trying to spin it! The point is that across the board, states with republican leadership are doing better than states with democratic leadership.

"In states with Republican governors, the average unemployment rate is a full point lower than in states with Democratic governors. It makes a difference. Republican governors lead seven of the 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates. And 12 of the 15 states that have been ranked 'best for business' have Republican governors."

[Yonivore]

:lmao

Talk about trying to spin it! The point is that across the board, states with republican leadership are doing better than states with democratic leadership.

"In states with Republican governors, the average unemployment rate is a full point lower than in states with Democratic governors. It makes a difference. Republican governors lead seven of the 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates. And 12 of the 15 states that have been ranked 'best for business' have Republican governors."
Ironically (not really), the Obama administration fought reforms in those states (most notably Wisconsin and New Jersey) that resulted in the gains experienced in Republican-led States.

So, I guess, Republican Governors could claim credit for the job gains for which Obama keeps taking credit.

[boutons_deux]

The blatant strategy of the Repugs since 2009 has been to block economic stimulus, to deeepen and extend the Banksters' Great Depression, counting on high unemployment to defeat Obama.

The LAST THING the Repugs want now is increasing employment in ANY state, even in Repug states (but of course, the govs want credit for increasing employment in their states.

[coyotes_geek]

lol boutons

[TeyshaBlue]

So their strategy is to block economic stimulus (except for when they don't).

I'm sure the employment increase was just an oversight. Any day now we'll have legislation in R states banning hiring. http://homerecording.com/bbs/images/smilies/facepalm.gif

[hitmanyr2k]

I'd be interested to know how many of these GOP governors pulled a Paul Ryan and used stimulus funds to create/save jobs and then hypocritically railed against it.

[coyotes_geek]

I'd be interested to know how many of these GOP governors pulled a Paul Ryan and used stimulus funds to create/save jobs and then hypocritically railed against it.

Roughly, all of them.

[boutons_deux]

Low Favorability Trails Romney Up to the Convention Dais

http://news.yahoo.com/low-favorability-trails-romney-convention-dais-020112894--abc-news-politics.html

And since dumbed down Americans think electing a President is a personality/beauty/beer-partner (so easy, fun, superficial!) contest rather than policies/platform contest (too hard and serious! NOT fun!), Gecko is pretty much fucked.

If there's only a tiny Gecko bounce, in the next 10 days, then Gecko is as dead as Nate Silver says he is.

Looks like wooden, empty NoWhereMan Gecko is outshone by both Queen Ann of "You People Can't Know Our Tax Returns" fame, and sociopath and fiscal fraud Ryan.

[TeyshaBlue]

I'd be interested to know how many of these GOP governors pulled a Paul Ryan and used stimulus funds to create/save jobs and then hypocritically railed against it.

Most likely all of them. Except, according to boutons, they are against economic stimulus, so I guess by extension of that "logic", none of them.

[coyotes_geek]

And right on cue, a change of topic from boutons. :lmao

[TeyshaBlue]

:lmao

[coyotes_geek]

Low Favorability Trails Romney Up to the Convention Dais

http://news.yahoo.com/low-favorability-trails-romney-convention-dais-020112894--abc-news-politics.html

And since dumbed down Americans think electing a President is a personality/beauty/beer-partner (so easy, fun, superficial!) contest rather than policies/platform contest (too hard and serious! NOT fun!), Gecko is pretty much fucked.

If there's only a tiny Gecko bounce, in the next 10 days, then Gecko is as dead as Nate Silver says he is.

Looks like wooden, empty NoWhereMan Gecko is outshone by both Queen Ann of "You People Can't Know Our Tax Returns" fame, and sociopath and fiscal fraud Ryan.

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Costs

wooden, empty NoWhereMan Gecko


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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Thucictholous - Man - Published 42 AD

[2] Rock - Roll It Up - 1977 - F. Lower Publishing

[3] Everything you always wanted to know about wooden, empty NoWhereMan Gecko, but were afraid to ask. - Issue 287 - QKS Publishing

[boutons_deux]

CG :lol

TB :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

I post smileys when I'm getting bitch slapped.

[boutons_deux]

Most likely all of them. Except, according to boutons, they are against economic stimulus, so I guess by extension of that "logic", none of them.

They SAY they were, are against economic stimulus,

"Govt is the problem"

"Govt CAN'T create jobs and wealth"

yadda yadda yadda

BUT

many of them have taken the $Bs and claimed full credit when HUSSEIN's stimulus landed in their constituency. FRAUDS, all of them

[coyotes_geek]

The blatant strategy of the Repugs since 2009 has been to block economic stimulus, to deeepen and extend the Banksters' Great Depression, counting on high unemployment to defeat Obama.

The LAST THING the Repugs want now is increasing employment in ANY state, even in Repug states (but of course, the govs want credit for increasing employment in their states.


They SAY they were, are against economic stimulus,

"Govt is the problem"

"Govt CAN'T create jobs and wealth"

yadda yadda yadda

BUT

many of them have taken the $Bs and claimed full credit when HUSSEIN's stimulus landed in their constituency. FRAUDS, all of them

So boutons, which one of your two alter-egos is the liar?

[CosmicCowboy]

:lol

I often wonder what cruel act of fate created Boutons.

[Drachen]

:lol

I often wonder what cruel act of fate created Boutons.

LOL I try to picture him every once in a while (curiousity is a bitch), is he some young kid who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, or an embittered middle aged man who finds no joy in life. (yes there are dozens of other possibilities, but on the seldom occasions I put any concious thought into it this is what I come up with)

[Yonivore]

MSNBC abandons GOP convention during every speech by a minority (http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/28/msnbc-abandons-gop-convention-during-every-speech-by-a-minority/)


One of the left’s favorite attacks on the Republican Party is that it is the party of old white people, devoid of diversity and probably racist.

Take a look at the diverse MSNBC panel:


http://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/120254459.jpg

With the exception of Nikki Haley (of Indian descent -- and only because they probably didn't know), NBC's page of video clips, from the Convention, only carried speeches by Whites. Mia Love and Artur Davis gave two of the most impassioned and dynamic speeches of the evening yet, nothing...No Davis, No Love.

Video: Tuesday night's RNC speeches (http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/28/13532831-video-tuesday-nights-rnc-speeches)

Maybe this explains it:

Republican National Convention puts a brown face on a white party (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-white-party-20120828,0,7089439.story?track=rss)

Todd: GOP Putting Minorities In Front At Convention To Appear Diverse (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/28/chuck_todd_gop_putting_minorities_in_front_at_conv ention_to_appear_diverse.html)

I think it was rabid Chris Matthews that used the term "racist dog whistle" to describe what he viewed as the nuanced way Republicans express their racism. And, every time a minority represents the Republican Party, they're called sell-outs, ignorant, tokens, or worse.

Ask Mia Love, Artur Davis, Nikki Haley, Brian Sandoval, Sher Valenzuela, Ted Cruz, or Luce’ Vela Fortuño if they are tokens or if they are conservatives.

Because of new media, political forums and social networks, tactics such as were exhibited above, have less impact but, are telling, none-the-less.

A couple of days ago, James Taranto, at the Wall Street Journal, countered by saying something to the effect of, "If you're hearing a dog whistle, that means you're the dog."

It's becoming increasingly apparent, to me, that people such as Chris Matthews are the racists.

[CosmicCowboy]

LOL I try to picture him every once in a while (curiousity is a bitch), is he some young kid who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, or an embittered middle aged man who finds no joy in life. (yes there are dozens of other possibilities, but on the seldom occasions I put any concious thought into it this is what I come up with)

I'll go with embittered middle age man. Probably in a dead end job, a grotesquely fat wife, and was always last to get picked in elementary school when they divided up sports teams.

[boutons_deux]

So boutons, which one of your two alter-egos is the liar?

What's the problem?

the two "alter egos", the frauds, are the hypocritical Repugs who trash govt, Keynesian counter-cyclical stimulus, and Obama, but LOVE when govt $Bs fall in their districts so they can claim credit and pander for votes.

[coyotes_geek]

:lol

I often wonder what cruel act of fate created Boutons.

I'm pretty sure it involves a couple of out work Atari programmers who blame Ronald Reagan and IBM for their misfortune and a malicious virus program that lay dormant on an early model cassette drive until Al Gore came along and unleashed the boutons 1.0 program upon the world by inventing the internet. George Soros and the kooks at thinkprogress did a re-write and left us with the boutons 2.0 program that we see today.

[coyotes_geek]

What's the problem?

the two "alter egos", the frauds, are the hypocritical Repugs who trash govt, Keynesian counter-cyclical stimulus, and Obama, but LOVE when govt $Bs fall in their districts so they can claim credit and pander for votes.

So there isn't a blatant strategy by republicans to block stimulus programs.

Glad we've got that settled.

[boutons_deux]

So there isn't a blatant strategy by republicans to block stimulus programs.

Glad we've got that settled.

you're still confused.

Repugs SAY they hate govt and stimulus, and will block it if possible (when they are NOT the initiators of the stimulus).

But Repugs LOVE when the $Bs of stimulus (they couldn't stop) fall in their laps.

[TeyshaBlue]

Boom goes the logic bomb.

[TeyshaBlue]

So their strategy is to block economic stimulus (except for when they don't).

[coyotes_geek]

you're still confused.

Repugs SAY they hate govt and stimulus, and will block it if possible (when they are NOT the initiators of the stimulus).

But Repugs LOVE when the $Bs of stimulus (they couldn't stop) fall in their laps.

Gotcha. Repugs hate stimulus and want to block it, yet they get very happy when their efforts to block stimulus fail because they love stimulus so much.

lol boutons

[boutons_deux]

MSNBC abandons GOP convention during every speech by a minority (http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/28/msnbc-abandons-gop-convention-during-every-speech-by-a-minority/)



Take a look at the diverse MSNBC panel:


http://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/120254459.jpg

With the exception of Nikki Haley (of Indian descent -- and only because they probably didn't know), NBC's page of video clips, from the Convention, only carried speeches by Whites. Mia Love and Artur Davis gave two of the most impassioned and dynamic speeches of the evening yet, nothing...No Davis, No Love.

Video: Tuesday night's RNC speeches (http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/28/13532831-video-tuesday-nights-rnc-speeches)

Maybe this explains it:

Republican National Convention puts a brown face on a white party (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-white-party-20120828,0,7089439.story?track=rss)

Todd: GOP Putting Minorities In Front At Convention To Appear Diverse (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/28/chuck_todd_gop_putting_minorities_in_front_at_conv ention_to_appear_diverse.html)

I think it was rabid Chris Matthews that used the term "racist dog whistle" to describe what he viewed as the nuanced way Republicans express their racism. And, every time a minority represents the Republican Party, they're called sell-outs, ignorant, tokens, or worse.

Ask Mia Love, Artur Davis, Nikki Haley, Brian Sandoval, Sher Valenzuela, Ted Cruz, or Luce’ Vela Fortuño if they are tokens or if they are conservatives.

Because of new media, political forums and social networks, tactics such as were exhibited above, have less impact but, are telling, none-the-less.

A couple of days ago, James Taranto, at the Wall Street Journal, countered by saying something to the effect of, "If you're hearing a dog whistle, that means you're the dog."

It's becoming increasingly apparent, to me, that people such as Chris Matthews are the racists.

IIRC, Fox Repug Propaganda network refused to carry HUSSEIN's State of the Union speech.

[TeyshaBlue]

And right on cue, a change of topic from boutons. :lmao

[boutons_deux]

TB :lol

[boutons_deux]

Gotcha. Repugs hate stimulus and want to block it, yet they get very happy when their efforts to block stimulus fail because they love stimulus so much.

lol boutons

you got nothing.

eg, Repugs voted against THEIR TARP, knowing they couldn't stop it if they wanted to. And then they could "blame" TARP on the Dems and claim they voted against it.

But not one of the Repugs would have allowed the TBTF fail. They would have bailed every one of them out just like the Dems did.

Pretty tricky, huh? You probably aren't capable of "gotcha" it, but stick with it.

[Th'Pusher]

MSNBC abandons GOP convention during every speech by a minority (http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/28/msnbc-abandons-gop-convention-during-every-speech-by-a-minority/)



Take a look at the diverse MSNBC panel:


http://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/120254459.jpg

With the exception of Nikki Haley (of Indian descent -- and only because they probably didn't know), NBC's page of video clips, from the Convention, only carried speeches by Whites. Mia Love and Artur Davis gave two of the most impassioned and dynamic speeches of the evening yet, nothing...No Davis, No Love.

Video: Tuesday night's RNC speeches (http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/28/13532831-video-tuesday-nights-rnc-speeches)

Maybe this explains it:

Republican National Convention puts a brown face on a white party (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-white-party-20120828,0,7089439.story?track=rss)

Todd: GOP Putting Minorities In Front At Convention To Appear Diverse (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/28/chuck_todd_gop_putting_minorities_in_front_at_conv ention_to_appear_diverse.html)

I think it was rabid Chris Matthews that used the term "racist dog whistle" to describe what he viewed as the nuanced way Republicans express their racism. And, every time a minority represents the Republican Party, they're called sell-outs, ignorant, tokens, or worse.

Ask Mia Love, Artur Davis, Nikki Haley, Brian Sandoval, Sher Valenzuela, Ted Cruz, or Luce’ Vela Fortuño if they are tokens or if they are conservatives.

Because of new media, political forums and social networks, tactics such as were exhibited above, have less impact but, are telling, none-the-less.

A couple of days ago, James Taranto, at the Wall Street Journal, countered by saying something to the effect of, "If you're hearing a dog whistle, that means you're the dog."

It's becoming increasingly apparent, to me, that people such as Chris Matthews are the racists.

The GOP can roll out as many African Americans and Latinos as they want at their convention, but that floor of delegates was about as whitebread as they come. That's an issue for the GOP and will continue to be an issue as long as they attempt to cater to the right-wing fringe of the party of which you are a part.

[leemajors]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/29/two-people-removed-from-rnc-after-taunting-black-camera-operator/


Two people were removed from the Republican National Convention Tuesday after they threw nuts at an African-American CNN camera operator and said, “This is how we feed animals.”

Multiple witnesses observed the exchange and RNC security and police immediately removed the two people from the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

The convention released a statement saying, “Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated."

[boutons_deux]

Romney party yacht ‘Cracker Bay’ flies Cayman Islands flag in Tampa

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/crackerisland_120829a-615x345.jpg

Romney came under fire earlier this year when it was revealed that he had millions stashed in the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven. In August, Vanity Fair reported that Romney still had a personal stake in at least 12 of Bain Capital’s Cayman Island funds, worth up to $30 million.

The candidate recently insisted to Fox News host Chris Wallace that “there was no reduction — not one dollar reduction — in taxes by virtue of having an account in Switzerland or a Cayman Islands investment.”

“I think it’s ironic they do this aboard a yacht that doesn’t even pay its taxes,” a woman who lives at the marina where Cracker Bay is moored told ABC News.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/29/romney-party-yacht-cracker-bay-flies-cayman-islands-flag-in-tampa/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29&utm_content=Google+Reader

In your moocher faces, you 99%ers. :lol

[coyotes_geek]

you got nothing.

eg, Repugs voted against THEIR TARP, knowing they couldn't stop it if they wanted to. And then they could "blame" TARP on the Dems and claim they voted against it.

But not one of the Repugs would have allowed the TBTF fail. They would have bailed every one of them out just like the Dems did.

Pretty tricky, huh? You probably aren't capable of "gotcha" it, but stick with it.


The blatant strategy of the Repugs since 2009 has been to block economic stimulus, to deeepen and extend the Banksters' Great Depression, counting on high unemployment to defeat Obama.

The LAST THING the Repugs want now is increasing employment in ANY state, even in Repug states (but of course, the govs want credit for increasing employment in their states.

One of you is a liar. Both of you are idiots.

lol boutons

[coyotes_geek]

Romney party yacht ‘Cracker Bay’ flies Cayman Islands flag in Tampa

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/crackerisland_120829a-615x345.jpg

Romney came under fire earlier this year when it was revealed that he had millions stashed in the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven. In August, Vanity Fair reported that Romney still had a personal stake in at least 12 of Bain Capital’s Cayman Island funds, worth up to $30 million.

The candidate recently insisted to Fox News host Chris Wallace that “there was no reduction — not one dollar reduction — in taxes by virtue of having an account in Switzerland or a Cayman Islands investment.”

“I think it’s ironic they do this aboard a yacht that doesn’t even pay its taxes,” a woman who lives at the marina where Cracker Bay is moored told ABC News.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/29/romney-party-yacht-cracker-bay-flies-cayman-islands-flag-in-tampa/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29&utm_content=Google+Reader

In your moocher faces, you 99%ers. :lol


And right on cue, a change of topic from boutons. :lmao

[boutons_deux]

CG :lol

Too complex for ya, obviously

The Congressional and Gecko election posse Repugs WANT a horrible economy to get rid of HUSSEIN.

The governors NEED to show how they are job creators/economy stimulators to their "all politics is local" states.

[boutons_deux]

the thread is GOP Convention, a VERY BROAD topic.

CG :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

Uhhhh....you got that it's not Romney's boat, right? More than 30% of the superyachts are registered in the Caymans.

[Yonivore]

That's not the Cayman Islands' flag.

[TeyshaBlue]

CG :lol

Too complex for ya, obviously

The Congressional and Gecko election posse Repugs WANT a horrible economy to get rid of HUSSEIN.

The governors NEED to show how they are job creators/economy stimulators to their "all politics is local" states.

If by complex you mean bat shit crazy, then yeah.

[Drachen]

Uhhhh....you got that it's not Romney's boat, right? More than 30% of the superyachts are registered in the Caymans.


That's not the Cayman Islands' flag.


www.alternet.org
Romney puts on his shoes before his socks.

In a shocking report proving that Romney is a robot, a joint thinkprogress/alternet investigation has uncovered that Romney has used his multi trillions of dollars to replace his feet with robotic counterparts so that he could better run for president..........



And right on cue, Boutons changes the subject

[Wild Cobra]

That's not the Cayman Islands' flag.
Is it Manitoba?

[Yonivore]

Is it Manitoba?
Bermuda.

[Drachen]

Is it Manitoba?

cant tell from here, could be that or bermuda, they are the same flag with different patches.

[CosmicCowboy]

Appears to be Bermuda flag.

[Wild Cobra]

cant tell from here, could be that or bermuda, they are the same flag with different patches.
Probably Bermuda. I doubt we would see Manitoba on a yacht.

[coyotes_geek]

the thread is GOP Convention, a VERY BROAD topic.

CG :lol

Apparently broad enough to merit discussion of things that don't have anything to do with the convention whatsoever.


CG :lol

Too complex for ya, obviously

The Congressional and Gecko election posse Repugs WANT a horrible economy to get rid of HUSSEIN.

The governors NEED to show how they are job creators/economy stimulators to their "all politics is local" states.

Just keep moving those goalposts, liar.

[coyotes_geek]

That's not the Cayman Islands' flag.

repugs just want people to think that's not the Cayman Islands' flag............

[boutons_deux]

6 Big Lies By Republican National Convention Speakers, Day One

1. The "You didn't build that" deception. By now, Obama's rhetorical trip-up on the campaign trail is the stuff of legend, because in the construction of a series of sentences, Obama left an opening for Romney and his allies to suggest that the president meant something entirely different from what he said. At a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va., Obama said that a business owner's success requires government investment in infrastructure such as roads and bridges. "If you've got a business, you didn't build that," he said -- meaning, quite clearly, the roads and bridges. Republicans, however, pulled the quote from its context and ran with it. And Romney is determined to carry that ball to the finish line.

Never mind that even mainstream media have repeatedly refuted the meaning falsely imparted to the president by Romney and company. As of Tuesday night, the Obama quote was altered even further in the "Hands" videos to make it seem that he was shaking his brown finger in the face of lighter-skinned business owners: the audio track takes the words, "Let me tell you" from earlier in the speech, and sets them just ahead of the out-of-context quote to make it sound like this:

"Let me tell you, if you've got a business, you didn't build that."

Here's the actual quote in its entirety, with the Romney edit in bold:

"There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

2. The welfare lie. The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced that it would consider providing waivers to states from the implementation of welfare-to-work requirement in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program if the states could demonstrate that they had a more effective means of helping welfare recipients find work. Romney has seized upon this announcement to claim that Obama is "gutting welfare reform" and eliminating the TANF work requirement -- a blatant lie that has been reported as such by many news outlets.

If facts actually mattered to the Republican Party, and truth-telling actually mattered to Romney, that would have put an end to the promulgation of the lie. But when a lie feeds a false but effective narrative about a black president and welfare, Romney and his allies apparently can't bear to give it up.

Several convention speakers took up the theme, most notably Rick Santorum, who said:

"And this summer [Obama] showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency by waiving the work requirement for welfare."

Artur Davis, the former Alabama Democrat turned Virginia Republican, put it this way:

Bill Clinton took on his base and made welfare a thing you had to work for; this current crowd guts the welfare work requirement in the dead of night.

Davis' part in promoting the lie is especially sweet for the G.O.P. Because he's African American, he provides a certain amount of insulation from charges of racism, despite the obvious racial dog-whistle to those voters who see welfare as a black thing.

3. The "dependency" lie. The Republicans have found a useful corollary to the welfare lie in their invention of a Democratic dependency doctrine, which sells the false idea that Democrats deliberately seek to make people dependent on government benefits as a means of winning votes. It flows from the Republicans' emerging producerist narrative, which was a staple of the racist rants of President Andrew Jackson -- the idea that the world is inhabited by "makers" and "takers," with the "takers" characterized as anybody outside of one's own constituency.

The most juvenile articulation of this steaming pile of prevarication was delivered by radio host and former actress Janine Turner, who followed up a Ben Franklin quote with this:

Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Today Obama enables an entitlement society that says, "Give me liberty and gimme, gimme!"

Why? Because Democrats depend on dependence.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose entire political career is a creation of the Koch brothers' Americans For Prosperity enterprise, chimed in with this description of the outcome of progressives' attempts to recall [7] him from the governor's mansion after he gutted labor protections for public employees and slashed the education budget:

On June 5th, voters in my swing state were asked to decide if they wanted elected officials who measure success by how many people are dependent on the government, if they wanted leaders who believe success is measured by how many people are not dependent on the government, because they control their own destiny in the private sector.

4. The immigration lie. Back in the primary campaign, Romney encouraged undocumented immigrants to "self-deport [8]." And after Obama announced that his administration would no longer deport undocumented immigrants who, as children, were brought to the United States by their parents, the Republican right cried foul. But that didn't stop Ted Cruz, the Tea Party-backed candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas, from claiming, in a head-smacking moment, that the Obama campaign was "going to try to divide America" by "tell[ing] Hispanics that we're not welcome here..."

5. The government takeover lie. It's an oldie but goody, the notion that any new program or regulation amounts to a "government takeover" of some aspect of the economy. Ted Cruz, who may easily take the evening's prize for packing the highest number of falsehoods into three sentences, appeared to claim that the Affordable Care Act and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Board amounted to "government takeovers of healthcare, of financial services and many aspects of our economy."

6. The regulations lie. Another favorite myth of Romney and the Republicans is that Obama has burdened business with an unprecedented level of new regulation when, in fact, the George W. Bush administration issued more final rules in its first three years than has the Obama administration over the same length of time. Nonetheless, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, N.H., claimed that "Under this Administration, the regulations are up and job creation is down."

7. The good guy lie. But perhaps the most blatant lie promulgated on the opening night of the Republican National Convention was uttered by Ann Romney, wife of the presidential nominee, who told the assembled delegates and the millions of voters watching the convention from their living rooms that her husband is a "good and decent man."

http://www.alternet.org/print/election-2012/6-big-lies-republican-national-convention-speakers-day-one

[boutons_deux]

Romney Is Lying Through His Big White Teeth



e're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers," says Neil Newhouse, a Romney pollster.

A half dozen fact-checking organizations and websites have refuted Romney's claims that Obama removed the work requirement from the welfare law and will cut Medicare benefits by $216 billion.

Last Sunday's New York Times even reported on its front page that Romney has been "falsely charging" President Obama with removing the work requirement. Those are strong words from the venerable Times. Yet Romney is still making the false charge. Ads containing it continue to be aired.

Presumably the Romney campaign continues its false claims because they're effective. But this raises a more basic question: How can they remain effective when they've been so overwhelmingly discredited by the media?

The answer is the Republican Party has developed three means of bypassing the mainstream media and its fact-checkers.

The first is by repeating big lies so often in TV spots - financed by a mountain of campaign money - that the public can no longer recall (if it ever knew) that the mainstream media and its fact-checkers have found them to be lies.

The second is by discrediting the mainstream media - asserting it's run by "liberal elites" that can't be trusted to tell the truth. "I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans," Newt Gingrich charged at a Republican debate last January, in what's become a standard GOP attack line.

The third is by using its own misinformation outlets - led by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and his yell-radio imitators, book publisher Regnery, and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, along with a right-wing blogosphere - to spread the lies, or at least spread doubt about what's true.

Together, these three mechanisms are creating a parallel Republican universe of Orwellian dimension - where anything can be asserted, where pollsters and political advisers are free to create whatever concoction of lies will help elect their candidate, and where "fact-checkers" are as irrelevant and intrusive as is the truth.

Democracy cannot thrive in such a place. To the contrary, history teaches that this is where demagogues take root.

The Romney campaign has decided it won't be dictated by fact-checkers. But a society without trusted arbiters of what is true and what is false is vulnerable to every lie imaginable.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/13178-romney-is-lying-through-his-big-white-teeth

[coyotes_geek]

boutons, why do you lie so much?

[boutons_deux]

CG :lol

[coyotes_geek]

Is it because you're a bad person?

[TeyshaBlue]

6 Big Lies By Republican National Convention Speakers, Day One

Great walls of text with a net value of zero

http://www.alternet.org/print/election-2012/6-big-lies-republican-national-convention-speakers-day-one

lol alternet.

[boutons_deux]

TB :lol

CG :lol

I :lol at your denial that your Repug assholes are blatant, exposed, incorrigible liars.

[Drachen]

Well I almost called it.

[TeyshaBlue]

TB :lol

CG :lol

I :lol at your denial that your Repug assholes are blatant, exposed, incorrigible liars.

I :lol at your inability to post a cogent, original thought. lol alternet. lol denial.



"I'm sure alternet updated their non-story. Right?"

Fuck no.


http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6086209&postcount=62

[coyotes_geek]

TB :lol

CG :lol

I :lol at your denial that your Repug assholes are blatant, exposed, incorrigible liars.

I :lol at the word incorrigible coming from you.

[boutons_deux]

Convention: Lies and Dog Whistles

Well, here we go. The week has begun in Tampa, report Adele Stan and Peter Montgomery, with Ralph Reed, that great Christian casino gambling enthusiast, rallying the troops, advocating that the fall election be dedicated to "the Lord." This invocation comes in advance of what promises to be a toxic waste dump of hate and lies and race-baiting for the next four days.

Tom Edsall said it without quite saying it this morning in the Times, that this Romney-Ryan campaign is becoming among the most racist we've ever seen. The two key lies so far are totally about race--that Obama is soft on welfare recipients, and that he's "robbing" $716 billion from Medicare (77 percent of recipients are white) to "pay for Obamacare" (that is, to extend health care to black and brown people who don't deserve it, havent earned it, etc.).

Commenter Omegadon asked last week: "Michael: Is there any element of the GOP that you don't consider loathesome?" I've been thinking about this over the weekend. Having trouble coming up with much.

Let me answer this way. I may not have much good to say about today's conservatism and Republican Party, but I do have criticisms of Democrats and contemporary liberalism. As I've written many times over the years, they are too fixated on rights without enough corresponding emphasis on responsibility. But when I say responsibility I mean civic responsibility (behavior in the public sphere) more than personal responsibility (behavior in the private sphere). That is, I mean citizens behaving in a way that nurtures and sustains the common good.

Honest conservatism can be valuable. It can provide that counter-balance. But we don't have honest conservatism today. We have a radical party that is dedicated in essence to three propositions: the financial liberation of the top 2 percent; the need to start more wars as the way to exercise moral authority in the world; and the peddling of oogedy-boogedy nonsense that's a step or two removed from bloodletting and alchemy.

Actually, now that I think about it, it's dedicated to two other propositions, too:

the idea that Democrats aren't Americans who have different and worse ideas but are in fact un-American, which leads to this politics as perpetual warfare business;

and the idea that black people shouldn't really have the right to vote in the same way white people do.

As I've said many times going back to the Guardian days, I'd be delighted to have a more-or-less honest, moderate-to-conservative Republican Party. Democrats and Republicans could then talk with each other. They could work together on outcomes like structuring a sensible carbon tax, an idea so socialistic and radical that Exxon's CEO supports it. But that isn't what we have.

So no, Omegadon, not much to admire. And as for the rest of your question, the "both sides" part, I've written it dozens of times--sure, the Democrats aren't blameless. They lie sometimes. But it's not part of their portfolio in the same way because their positions, taken one by one, are more popular. To take a timely example, Social Security and Medicare are popular. Majorities want them preserved, and strongly so. Democrats want to preserve them, so they have the benefit of being able to speak the truth on that point.

Republicans, however, have wanted to destroy Social Security since 1935 and Medicare since 1965. But the programs are popular, so they can't say that. Most government programs are in fact fairly popular, so the party that supports those programs just has to say "we support those programs," while the party that's against them has to lie.

We're going to be hearing a lot of those lies this week, and a lot of quasi-racist dog-whistling about how Obama doesn't feel the same way about America as "we" do. So no--still not sure what I should find non-loathsome about that.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/27/convention.print.html

[boutons_deux]

...

[TeyshaBlue]

Don't you already have a shitty thread for your op-eds?

[boutons_deux]

Queen Ann lecturing Hispanic You People

Ann Romney Wants Hispanic Voters To Get Past ‘Their Biases’


You’d better really look at your future and figure out who’s going to be the guy that’s going to make it better for you and your children, and there is only one answer… It really is a message that would resonate well if they could just get past some of their biases that have been there from the Democratic machines that have made us look like we don’t care about this community. And that is not true. We very much care about you and your families and the opportunities that are there for you and your families.

Hispanic voters have so far remained skeptical of Mitt Romney and the Republican Party, who stood out as the most anti-immigrant candidate during the Republican primary and touted a plan to make undocumented immigrants so uncomfortable that they would “self-deport.” He has also promised to veto the DREAM Act that would give young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children a path to citizenship. Ann’s accusation of Democratic manipulation echoes comments made by Arizona governor Jan Brewer (R) earlier in the day, when she claimed Obama was “race-baiting” and pandering to Latinos.

Ann also offered a recent trip to Puerto Rico as evidence of her ties to the Latino community: “I had the most rocking time in Puerto Rico at a political rally than I’ve ever had in my entire life. You people really know how to party. It was crazy!”

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/29/769081/ann-romney-wants-hispanic-voters-to-get-past-their-biases/

Queen Ann :lol What a stupid, privileged bitch

[boutons_deux]

oops, messages ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Jeb Bush: GOP Should ‘Stop Acting Stupid’ With Latino Voters

Bush repeated his criticism of his party’s immigration policies Tuesday:

Speaking at a panel discussion at the Republican National Convention, Bush repeated his frequent warning that the party must change its tone, an admonition he has frequently raised about the party’s hardline position on immigration.

“The future of our party is to reach out consistently to have a tone that is open and hospitable to people who share values,’’ he said, adding “the conservative cause would be the governing philosophy as far as the eye could see … and that’s doable if we just stop acting stupid.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/29/767231/jeb-bush-gop-should-stop-acting-stupid-with-latino-voters/

:lol

[Yonivore]

:lmao!

MSNBC Anchor: GOP Senator Likening Obama to Tiger Woods (http://freebeacon.com/msnbc-anchor-gop-senator-likening-obama-to-tiger-woods/)


MARTIN BASHIR: We have seen an early draft of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s forthcoming oration. Can I quote something from you? “For four years, Barack Obama has been running from the nation’s problems, he hasn’t been working to earn re-election. He has been working to earn a spot on the PGA Tour.” How about that?

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Well, we know exactly what he’s trying to do there. He is trying to align to Tiger Woods and surely, the — lifestyle of Tiger Woods with Barack Obama. Obviously, nothing could be further from the truth. They find every way they possibly can to –

BASHIR: Lawrence — don’t you think — don’t you think that what he’s really trying to do is to suggest that the president is not paying attention to the central issues that come with the responsibility he has? Is he really – Mitch McConnell really making a connection with Tiger Woods who, of course, has become infamous for chasing various cocktail waitresses around Las Vegas and so on?

O’DONNELL: Martin, there are many, many, many rhetorical choices you can make at any point in any speech to make whatever point up want to make. If he wanted to make the point that you just suggested and I think he does want to make that point, they had a menu of a minimum of ten different kinds of images that they could have raised. And I promise you, the speech writers went through, rejecting three or four before they land order that one. That’s the one they want for a very deliberate reason. That — there’s – these people reach for every single possible racial double entendre they can find in every one of these speeches.
Could it be McConnell is alluding to the fact Barack Obama has played more fucking rounds of golf, in the past four years, than most professional golfers -- including Tiger Woods?

When you've got a lib like Bashir questioning your logic, you've gone around the bend.

:lmao

I didn't realize Lawrence O'Donnell still had a paying gig.

[DarrinS]

So, noticing that the president likes golf is now racist?

smh

[baseline bum]

Don't you already have a shitty thread for your op-eds?

gfy fucked and unfuckable TB :lol

[boutons_deux]

Don't you already have a shitty thread for your op-eds?

TB :lol

[z0sa]

Mods, plz rename this thread ":lol Boutons"

[boutons_deux]

Ryan is spewing tonight, it's gonna be great fun to knock his fraudulent, sociopathic ass out of FL.

[DMX7]

Race incident sees Republican convention expulsions

Two people were ejected from the Republican National Convention when they threw nuts at a black CNN camera woman and said "this is how we feed animals," the network said Wednesday.

"CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum" on Tuesday, the opening day of a gala at which former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney will accept his party's nomination to challenge President Barack Obama in November's election.

"CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment."

Several witnesses observed the exchange, CNN reported, and convention security personnel immediately removed the two people from the forum.
The convention confirmed the incident in a statement late Tuesday.

"Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated," organizers said.

The incident is surely not what Republicans wanted 10 weeks out from the election. Romney has struggled to attract African American voters as well as Hispanics, and he is also on the wrong side of the gender gap, with polls consistently showing women voters preferring Obama to Romney.
Current TV journalist and talk radio host David Shuster first tweeted about the incident Tuesday night.

"GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying 'This is how we feed animals,'" Shuster posted on Twitter.

http://news.yahoo.com/race-incident-sees-republican-convention-expulsions-155400054.html

[Clipper Nation]

:lol Neocons
:lol Cheaters
:lol Election fraudsters
:lol Dumbass racists

[DMX7]

If you weren't told which convention a "race incident" occurred at, would you really have to guess?

[jack sommerset]

Race incident sees Republican convention expulsions

Two people were ejected from the Republican National Convention when they threw nuts at a black CNN camera woman and said "this is how we feed animals," the network said Wednesday.

"CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum" on Tuesday, the opening day of a gala at which former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney will accept his party's nomination to challenge President Barack Obama in November's election.

"CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment."

Several witnesses observed the exchange, CNN reported, and convention security personnel immediately removed the two people from the forum.
The convention confirmed the incident in a statement late Tuesday.

"Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated," organizers said.

The incident is surely not what Republicans wanted 10 weeks out from the election. Romney has struggled to attract African American voters as well as Hispanics, and he is also on the wrong side of the gender gap, with polls consistently showing women voters preferring Obama to Romney.
Current TV journalist and talk radio host David Shuster first tweeted about the incident Tuesday night.

"GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying 'This is how we feed animals,'" Shuster posted on Twitter.

http://news.yahoo.com/race-incident-sees-republican-convention-expulsions-155400054.html

I would have thought this crowd would get a chuckle out of this story with all the trolling and name calling that goes on here. God bless

[jack sommerset]

Ryan is up. God bless

[DMX7]

Ok, that was pathetic.

[jack sommerset]

We can do this! God bless

[Th'Pusher]

I thought Ryan gave a great speech. Now if we can just get some specifics on deficit reduction. We wont.

[ColinB]

Qaz0N-2LCZ0

[Th'Pusher]

Qaz0N-2LCZ0

:toast Gotta say that is pretty well produced.

[Yonivore]

Have they named the speakers for the DNC convention, yet?

Because, with Nancy Pelosi advising fellow Democrats to steer clear and Hillary Clinton headed for the Cook Islands -- apparently to get a conceivably far away from Charlotte as possible -- I'm wonder who they're going to get to talk for two or three days. I know Bill Clinton, someone with no political future about which to be concerned, and Debbie Wasserman-Schmitt, and I'm guessing Elizabeth Warren and, :lmao , Joe Biden. But, that's all I come up with and those aren't exactly the caliber we've been witnessing at the RNC.

Is there an agenda out yet?

[ElNono]

http://www.demconvention.com/this-week-in-the-news-speakers-announced/

[Th'Pusher]

Have they named the speakers for the DNC convention, yet?

Because, with Nancy Pelosi advising fellow Democrats to steer clear and Hillary Clinton headed for the Cook Islands -- apparently to get a conceivably far away from Charlotte as possible -- I'm wonder who they're going to get to talk for two or three days. I know Bill Clinton, someone with no political future about which to be concerned, and Debbie Wasserman-Schmitt, and I'm guessing Elizabeth Warren and, :lmao , Joe Biden. But, that's all I come up with and those aren't exactly the caliber we've been witnessing at the RNC.

Is there an agenda out yet?

The mayor of San Antonio?

[Yonivore]

http://www.demconvention.com/this-week-in-the-news-speakers-announced/

I get a server error when I try to follow the link.

[ElNono]

I get a server error when I try to follow the link.

Was working when I pasted it... now I get a blank screen... check later, I guess...

[ElNono]

Here's another list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Democratic_National_Convention#Speakers

[Stringer_Bell]

Wow, I'm pretty sure that is the best that the RNC could do - and it sucked. I was expecting much more from Ryan, but his obliviousness was overwhelming. I really wanted to come away thinking that he was going to make this race interesting, but the Republicans have no chance.

If Romney doesn't lay out some specifics manana, the DNC has an easy job ahead of them.

[Th'Pusher]

I get a server error when I try to follow the link.

I'm assuming you live in Texas, but are you so seriously uninformed that you did not know the keynote speech was being delivered by Julian Castro?

[Yonivore]

Here's another list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Democratic_National_Convention#Speakers
Thanks!

[Th'Pusher]

Wow, I'm pretty sure that is the best that the RNC could do - and it sucked. I was expecting much more from Ryan, but his obliviousness was overwhelming. I really wanted to come away thinking that he was going to make this race interesting, but the Republicans have no chance.

If Romney doesn't lay out some specifics manana, the DNC has an easy job ahead of them.

I agree that they need to lay out specifics, but I thought Ryan did a great job a selling an agenda with little substance.

[Stringer_Bell]

I agree that they need to lay out specifics, but I thought Ryan did a great job a selling an agenda with little substance.

But all he basically said was..."vote for us, and we'll just undo everything Obama did to get everything back on track." Saying there was little substance is giving the speech too much credit, there was NONE. He's a good speaker, very articulate for a white man - but he didn't do much of anything except tell the base that Romney is running to repeal all things Obama.

I wanna know what happens to all the 18-25 yo's that are working shit jobs that don't have benefits and are currently covered by their family's plan thanks to Obamacare. I wanna know what happens to all the people that had pre-existing conditions that got insurance plans. I wanna know what happens to all the people that didn't have insurance before Obamacare that are currently under some sort of long-term treatment. Go ahead, repeal whatever, but tell the American people what will replace it immediately after the repeal...to just repeal it and not have a plan is the height of injustice and one of the most un-Christian things I can imagine being done to lots of families.

[LnGrrrR]

Why Stringer, didn't you hear? Christians will cover the rest with charity. With all the extra money rich people will be getting from tax cuts, thief religion will guide them towards funding all those sick people.

[Stringer_Bell]

Why Stringer, didn't you hear? Christians will cover the rest with charity. With all the extra money rich people will be getting from tax cuts, thief religion will guide them towards funding all those sick people.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/000/681/what-you-did-there-i-see-it.thumbnail.jpg

[Trainwreck2100]

Wow, I'm pretty sure that is the best that the RNC could do - and it sucked. I was expecting much more from Ryan, but his obliviousness was overwhelming. I really wanted to come away thinking that he was going to make this race interesting, but the Republicans have no chance.

If Romney doesn't lay out some specifics manana, the DNC has an easy job ahead of them.

I guess they couldn't have a repeat of last time where Palin killed it on the mic got all them republicans hopes up, and ended up being a fucking moron.

[LnGrrrR]

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/000/681/what-you-did-there-i-see-it.thumbnail.jpg

:lmao Siri had a Freudian slip.

[SA210]

:lol Neocons
:lol Cheaters
:lol Election fraudsters
:lol Dumbass racists


Llg-a8FamJg

[CosmicCowboy]

You gotta give Ryan some credit...this was a GREAT line...


"college graduates should not have to live out their twenties in their childhood bedrooms, staring at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life."

[johnsmith]

I thought Ryan's speech was really good. It accomplished exactly what it's supposed to accomplish and that is to get the croud all excited and in a convention like tizzy.

I'm not sure why anyone is complaining that it lacked substance. I don't think in my lifetime I've ever heard a convention speech from someone running that actually had any substance at all. That's not what it's for.

[CosmicCowboy]

I thought Ryan's speech was really good. It accomplished exactly what it's supposed to accomplish and that is to get the croud all excited and in a convention like tizzy.

I'm not sure why anyone is complaining that it lacked substance. I don't think in my lifetime I've ever heard a convention speech from someone running that actually had any substance at all. That's not what it's for.

After Obama's 2008 speech they should be embarrassed to criticize anyone for lack of substance and outright lies.

[boutons_deux]

"college graduates should not have to live out their twenties in their childhood bedrooms, staring at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life."

And what is gecko/Ryan plan to correct that situation, which is directly a result of the criminal Geckos causing the Banksters' Great (Jobs) Depression?

Austerity for the 99% (including middle class tax hitkes), and tax cuts for the corps and 1%. aka, the same old trickle down LIE they've been peddling for 35 years, that has flattened household income as productivity rises, that has exploded mgmt compensation, and horribly increase USA income inequality.

[johnsmith]

After Obama's 2008 speech they should be embarrassed to criticize anyone for lack of substance and outright lies.

That's exactly right. If I remember correctly though, I honestly don't remember any of them ever having substance....either side.

You're older than me CC, I'm only old enough to have "cared" for the last 5 or so election cycles, but do you remember a convention speech where a politician laid out specifics on how to fix what was/is broken?

[johnsmith]

"college graduates should not have to live out their twenties in their childhood bedrooms, staring at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life."

And what is gecko/Ryan plan to correct that situation, which is directly a result of the criminal Geckos causing the Bankseters' Great (Jobs) Depression?

Austerity for the 99% (including middle class tax hitkes), and tax cuts for the corps and 1%. aka, the same old trickle down LIE they've been peddling for 35 years.

Exact same boutons response......different thread....:rolleyes

[boutons_deux]

JS :lol

You really have no retort, GFY

[Pelicans78]

Ryan seems to be a bright guy, but I'm not sure how anyone watching his speech think he can win alot of votes or be popular. He just sounds really geeky up there with little personality. A bit feminine as well when he speaks.

[CosmicCowboy]

Ryan seems to be a bright guy, but I'm not sure how anyone watching his speech think he can win alot of votes or be popular. He just sounds really geeky up there with little personality. A bit feminine as well when he speaks.

Interesting how preconceptions can color interpretations. I didn't get that at all.

[johnsmith]

JS :lol

You really have no retort, GFY

Well, considering that my point was that a convention speech isn't supposed to have substance and your reply asking what their plans are, I'd say it didn't merit a retort wouldn't you?

[Pelicans78]

Interesting how preconceptions can color interpretations. I didn't get that at all.

His speech substance was fine, but he doesn't really come across as being a strong leader. Sounds a bit nerdy up there with little charisma or personality. He's a bright guy still, but not sure what kind of leader he can be.

[boutons_deux]

Paul Ryan Obscures His Koch-Backed Agenda With a Pack of Lies in Convention Speech

The selection of Paul Ryan was, in and of itself, a strong bit of circumstantial evidence that the Republican Party is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Koch political enterprise

Lying to Obscure the Greed

In a move seemingly designed to taunt fact-checkers, Ryan reprised his claim that Obama broke a promise made during the 2008 presidential campaign to keep a General Motors plant open in Ryan's hometown of Janesville, Wis., but instead was ultimately responsible for its closing. But the plant closed while George W. Bush was in office, and Obama never made such a promise. (As I write, PolitiFact has already rated this part of Ryan's speech as false [4].)

Here's a taste of just how blatant the lying got, from the prepared text of Ryan's speech:

A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.” That’s what he said in 2008.

Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.

Ryan also repeated the $716 billion lie by the Romney camp, debunked here [5] by AlterNet's Joshua Holland, which recasts the Medicare budget savings built into the Affordable Care Act as a "raid" on the treasured program.

Then there were those deceptions based on sins of ommision, such as Ryan's purported proof of Obama's unwillingness to rein in the budget: the vice presidential candidate dared to speak of the Bowles-Simpson debt-reduction commission as if it was something he supported, when, in fact, it was Ryan who led Republicans on the commission to vote against its final recommendations. Likewise, Ryan failed to note that his own budget plan would trim $700 million from Medicare.

(The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn and the Washington Post's Jonathan Bernstein have excellent assessments of the fact #fail in Ryan's speech, here [6] and here [7].)

Ayn Rand, the Great Awakening and the Founding Fathers

The cognitive dissonance that clanged throughout Ryan's speech also extended to philosophical and theological references that would seem to cancel each other out, but have nonetheless come to characterize the philosophical pastiche that characterizes the talking points at Americans For Prosperity events. You've got your Ayn Rand [8] -- an atheist and Ryan's favorite philosopher -- present in Ryan's casting of Obamacare as the work of "central planners." You've got your Great Awakening in his assertion that our rights come from God, not government. (On this point, the comic Elon James White, who is African American, tweeted that if this is the case, God was a little slow.) You've got your Enlightenment-influenced Founding Fathers in Ryan's tracing of our rights to nature.

Add ire and stir, and you've got the Kochian prescription for rallying resentful white people to view government as the enemy, even though its dimunition would ultimately harm the very people enlisted as foot-soldiers in the anti-government cause, and further enrich the likes of Charles and David Koch.

Morals versus religion

Ryan is frequently depicted as pious Catholic, despite his denial of a preferential option for the poor -- a staple of Catholic doctrine, In one sign of the mainstreaming of Catholicism into the body of conservative Christian denominations, Ryan was also enlisted to vouch for Romney as a moral and pious man -- even if he is a Mormon, a member of a faith that both the evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics who make up the Republican white-people coalition view with some suspicion.

In coded language, Ryan assured convention delegates and television viewers that the morals that mattered most to them were among those most dearly held by Romney: opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. From the text of Ryan's speech:

Mitt and I also go to different churches. But in any church, the best kind of preaching is done by example. And I’ve been watching that example. The man who will accept your nomination tomorrow is prayerful and faithful and honorable. Not only a defender of marriage, he offers an example of marriage at its best. Not only a fine businessman, he’s a fine man, worthy of leading this optimistic and good-hearted country.

Our different faiths come together in the same moral creed. We believe that in every life there is goodness; for every person, there is hope. Each one of us was made for a reason, bearing the image and likeness of the Lord of Life.

Lies, delivery and the post-fact society

The gamble the Romney campaign has made throughout this campaign, and most obviously in this year's Republican National Convention, is that the truth no longer matters, and that facts are irrelevant to the voting process. There's probably less risk to that gamble than one might think.

It has long been proven that people vote based on their emotions and their self-determined cultural identity. Because the narrative offered by Ryan and Romney feeds on the resentment already felt by so many middle-class whites -- a sense that they are somehow being shortchanged while others advance from their previously restricted positions -- it resonates. And for the Republican voter, that's all the "truth" that matters, the "truth" that vindicates his or her rage. Facts be damned -- damned to hell.


http://www.alternet.org/print/election-2012/paul-ryan-obscures-his-koch-backed-agenda-pack-lies-convention-speech

[Th'Pusher]

I'm not sure why anyone is complaining that it lacked substance. I don't think in my lifetime I've ever heard a convention speech from someone running that actually had any substance at all. That's not what it's for.

I expected no substance in his speech last night, although I would like to see how Romney/Ryan will be reducing the deficit/debt over the short and long term. To date, I have seen promises of tax cuts and 'simplified tax code' but no details on how the debt will be reduced.

[DarrinS]

"college graduates should not have to live out their twenties in their childhood bedrooms, staring at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life"


Best line of the speech, imho.


But, as everyone knows, the top priority of a recent grad is being covered by mommy and daddy's health insurance. I know that's all I could think about when I was 21. :lmao

[boutons_deux]

Awash In Secret Donations, Republicans Reverse Support For Campaign Finance Disclosure

With GOP candidates relying on this flood of undisclosed money, something had to give: The party's longtime support for campaign finance disclosure laws has begun to erode.

The numbers are astounding: Groups that don't disclose their donors have spent more than $216 million in the 2012 election so far. (A previous Huffington Post report found that undisclosed cash, also known as "dark money," had reached $172 million by the end of July.) Almost 90 percent of this money has gone to help Republicans. The dark-money groups have helped to fill airtime over the summer while Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney built his war chest, have pummeled vulnerable Democratic senators with negative ads and will likely provide huge support for freshmen Republican legislators defending their seats between now and November.

As these groups, empowered by the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision and other court rulings, have become a vital weapon in the Republican Party's arsenal, the GOP has evolved its views on campaign finance disclosure.

On Tuesday, the party officially reversed course from previous party platforms and statements by enshrining its opposition to revealing secret donors in its 2012 platform. The party's guiding document opposes disclosure legislation "designed to vitiate the Supreme Court’s recent decisions protecting political speech in Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/campaign-finance-disclosure_n_1837841.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=083012&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

[boutons_deux]

"college graduates should not have to live out their twenties in their childhood bedrooms, staring at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life"


Best line of the speech, imho.



Just one of Ryan's huge distortions, lies, propaganda.

[elbamba]

I expected no substance in his speech last night, although I would like to see how Romney/Ryan will be reducing the deficit/debt over the short and long term. To date, I have seen promises of tax cuts and 'simplified tax code' but no details on how the debt will be reduced.

Because Obama's budget that he passed each of the last three years have really helped reduce the deficit and debt. I love voting for politicians who kept their promises like cutting the deficit in half. I love voting for politicians who call 10 trillion unpatriotic but have no problem with adding 5 trillion more to the deficit.

Politicians don't give specifics. If your criteria for not voting R is because of their lack of specifics then you are not being intellectually honest with yourself. If you vote for team politics there is nothing wrong with that given the current political climate. We don’t have many options. The rhetoric and spin might make the sides appear as polar opposites, but the conclusions have been almost entirely the same for each party. Can you distinguish the last 12 years by which political party was actually in office?

I have seen nothing but spending money we don’t have, unnecessary wars, promises that cannot be kept and that are made with no intention on being kept. I have seen a president who wins a Nobel Peace Prize while having a kill list, another president who spoke and acted as if he couldn’t pass the TASP test preach the importance of not leaving children behind. Seriously, lack of specifics only matters now?

[Winehole23]

Because Obama's budget that he passed each of the last three years have really helped reduce the deficit and debt.nitpicky, I know, but there hasn't been any budget bill passed for what, three, four years running now?

[elbamba]

nitpicky, I know, but there hasn't been any budget bill passed for what, three, four years running now?

Is my understanding. And this has been a bipartison effort not to pass a bill. Trying to pass a bill that you know the other party will never adopt is equally as bad as not trying to pass one at all as far as I am concerned.

[elbamba]

Please insert budget for bill above.

[DarrinS]

Because Obama's budget that he passed each of the last three years have really helped reduce the deficit and debt.



huh?

[Winehole23]

or, what ever the appropriations are, is the budget. until about 1920 that's we did it. maybe we're going back to that.

[Winehole23]

huh?facetious. look at the context, dude.

[johnsmith]

I expected no substance in his speech last night, although I would like to see how Romney/Ryan will be reducing the deficit/debt over the short and long term. To date, I have seen promises of tax cuts and 'simplified tax code' but no details on how the debt will be reduced.

Agreed, but I'd also like a long lost rich uncle to leave me a billion dollars in his will. It's just not going to happen. Fuck, the United States Government wouldn't even tell us what was in the Obamacare bill until after it was passed, you think they're going to lay out their plans prior to election?

[johnsmith]

facetious. look at the context, dude.

He's going to have to look up the words facetious and context to understand this post.

[Th'Pusher]

Because Obama's budget that he passed each of the last three years have really helped reduce the deficit and debt. I love voting for politicians who kept their promises like cutting the deficit in half. I love voting for politicians who call 10 trillion unpatriotic but have no problem with adding 5 trillion more to the deficit.

Politicians don't give specifics. If your criteria for not voting R is because of their lack of specifics then you are not being intellectually honest with yourself. If you vote for team politics there is nothing wrong with that given the current political climate. We don’t have many options. The rhetoric and spin might make the sides appear as polar opposites, but the conclusions have been almost entirely the same for each party. Can you distinguish the last 12 years by which political party was actually in office?

I have seen nothing but spending money we don’t have, unnecessary wars, promises that cannot be kept and that are made with no intention on being kept. I have seen a president who wins a Nobel Peace Prize while having a kill list, another president who spoke and acted as if he couldn’t pass the TASP test preach the importance of not leaving children behind. Seriously, lack of specifics only matters now?

Specifics are required when one side is still blatantly selling trickle down economics as path to deficit/debt reduction as if we do not have ample evidence this failed policy.

Obama has failed in this regard, but he has at least taken a more pragmatic approach at a minimum admitting that spending cuts and revenue will need to be part of the solution.

[leemajors]

The bottom line is this: When Fox News fact checks you and calls you out for being a liar, then yes, your attempt at winning over America was an epic fail.


Amusing.

[elbamba]

Obama has failed in this regard, but he has at least taken a more pragmatic approach at a minimum admitting that spending cuts and revenue will need to be part of the solution.

Boy that clears it up for me.

[Th'Pusher]

Boy that clears it up for me.

I realize that simply admitting that to tackle the debt/deficit will require revenue and spending cuts is a pretty low bar, but it is better than what Romney/Ryan are proposing imo. Romney/Ryan are on record saying they would deny 10/1 spending cuts to revenue increases. This is illogical and stupid. I'm as fed up as the next guy, but these are the candidates we have been presented.

[ElNono]

I thought Barry *did* send a budget to Congress. Congress passing it or not is irrelevant if you want to see where Barry wants the dough to go.

For 2012, you can see what was requested in the "Requested" column:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

Same for 2013:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budget

[hitmanyr2k]

Ryan seems to be a bright guy, but I'm not sure how anyone watching his speech think he can win alot of votes or be popular. He just sounds really geeky up there with little personality. A bit feminine as well when he speaks.


Whenever I watch Paul Ryan speak I see the Beaver :lol . Ryan's mannerisms are hilarious. When he pauses after saying something, purses his lips and looks around at the audience he looks so dorky I can't help but chuckle. And he makes that same expression so many times throughout any speech.

http://images.zap2it.com/images/tv-EP00002560/leave-it-to-beaver-7.jpg

[jack sommerset]

Mitts big speech is coming up tonight. I hope all of you watch it. God bless

[ElNono]

let me guess, jack... it was a great speech! ron bless

[Capt Bringdown]

http://www.solidarity.com/hkcartoons/images/mikesep4.gif

[DMC]

I did everything I could to not watch the convention. It wasn't easy, as most stations were showing it.

On a lighter note, I met Judge Judy in Hartford at Morton's Steakhouse. That was cool.

[ElNono]

I did everything I could to not watch the convention. It wasn't easy, as most stations were showing it.

I'm not even trying to avoid it, and haven't seen any of it... Though it's mostly the wife watching TV...

[AFBlue]

I realize that simply admitting that to tackle the debt/deficit will require revenue and spending cuts is a pretty low bar, but it is better than what Romney/Ryan are proposing imo. Romney/Ryan are on record saying they would deny 10/1 spending cuts to revenue increases. This is illogical and stupid. I'm as fed up as the next guy, but these are the candidates we have been presented.

So just to be clear, no plan that legitimately addresses entitlements is better than plan that does? That's not a low bar...that's no bar.

[Drachen]

UGH, they stopped football to break to the convention about 30 seconds ago.

[DMC]

I'm not even trying to avoid it, and haven't seen any of it... Though it's mostly the wife watching TV...
Well at the end of the day and you're in a hotel room, your choices are limited.

[ColinB]

This little routine by Eastwood is terrible.

[Th'Pusher]

So just to be clear, no plan that legitimately addresses entitlements is better than plan that does? That's not a low bar...that's no bar.

Who said that? The Obama/Bohner deal that Paul Ryan helped scuttle because it contained revenue addressed entitlements. The Bowles Simpson proposal addressed entitlements which was also partially sunk by Ryan because it contained revenue. I realize Obama ignored Bowles Simpson for political purposes, but I think he may push for something similar in a second term. It'll be sunk by the Republican controlled house, but Obama has been willing to negotiate entitlement reform in exchange for revenue. The Ryan wing of the house has shown no such willingness to negotiate.

[ElNono]

Well at the end of the day and you're in a hotel room, your choices are limited.

right after I typed that, she switched to the news and there's Clint Eastwood :lol

[ElNono]

This little routine by Eastwood is terrible.

I would vote for him in a heartbeat if he would be 20 years younger, tbh

[ElNono]

First time I see and hear Rubio... and I already can't stand him :lol

[jack sommerset]

let me guess, jack... it was a great speech! ron bless

We don't know yet, brother. God bless

[ElNono]

Props to Nate Silver at 538...

Turning out your base may not be a sufficient strategy if your base has become too narrow. In 2004, Mr. Bush had an excellent base turnout — but he also captured about 40 percent or 45 percent of the Hispanic vote, a share that Mr. Romney is unlikely to reach. Without that relatively strong performance among Hispanics, the election would have been a tossup.

...

But pay attention during Thursday night’s speech to whether Mr. Romney offers any moderation on issues like immigration. Otherwise, he may have drawn a very narrow path for himself between now and November.

[AFBlue]

Who said that? The Obama/Bohner deal that Paul Ryan helped scuttle because it contained revenue addressed entitlements. The Bowles Simpson proposal addressed entitlements which was also partially sunk by Ryan because it contained revenue. I realize Obama ignored Bowles Simpson for political purposes, but I think he may push for something similar in a second term. It'll be sunk by the Republican controlled house, but Obama has been willing to negotiate entitlement reform in exchange for revenue. The Ryan wing of the house has showed no such willingness to negotiate.

I said "legitimate". When your budget doesn't get a single vote by either party, it's not legitimate. Are you suggesting no one brought it to a vote because it contained revenue? Or could it be that it just wasn't any good?

[ElNono]

We don't know yet, brother. God bless

brother, I doubt you need to hear Mitt to rate it. ron bless.

[jack sommerset]

brother, I doubt you need to hear Mitt to rate it. ron bless.

Wrong , again. God bless

[ElNono]

Wrong , again. God bless

it's ok, jack... your god forgives you. ron bless

[Th'Pusher]

I said "legitimate". When your budget doesn't get a single vote by either party, it's not legitimate. Are you suggesting no one brought it to a vote because it contained revenue? Or could it be that it just wasn't any good?

The Boehner/Obama 'grand bargain' was more legit than some budget Obama put out that had no chance of passing the Republican controlled house. Why in the world would he slit his own political throat by putting cuts to entitlements in a budget that had no chance of passing?

[Th'Pusher]

btw - this speech is absolutely horrible.

[Gold Tooth Carl]

btw - this speech is absolutely horrible.

Agree.

[DMX7]

Obama hates success!

[Clipper Nation]

Apparently, Willard tried to shake someone's hand, and the guy yelled back at Willard to "not touch him"... so much for all that party unity Preibus and Boehner were hyping up! :lol

[jack sommerset]

It's true, mitts right....we are not better off than we were 4 years ago. God bless

[Gold Tooth Carl]

Mitt is going to get eaten alive in debates. Its almost like he is whining in the speech.

[Th'Pusher]

It's true, mitts right....we are not better off than we were 4 years ago. God bless

I am tbh.

[jack sommerset]

Mitt is going to get eaten alive in debates. Its almost like he is whining in the speech.

No way. Obama will be on the defense and blaming the republicans. You can't erase the last 4 years. God bless

[Th'Pusher]

Mitt is going to get eaten alive in debates. Its almost like he is whining in the speech.

I just said that exact same thing to my wife.

[Gold Tooth Carl]

No way. Obama will be on the defense and blaming the republicans. You can't erase the last 4 years. God bless

Mitt had a chance with this speech. He blew it.

[jack sommerset]

I am tbh.

Good for you. 23 million unemployed are jealous of you. God bless

[baseline bum]

It's true, mitts right....we are not better off than we were 4 years ago. God bless

He really said that? Mitt thinks we were better off 4 years ago with $5 gas and the nation on the verge of collapse?

[jack sommerset]

Mitt had a chance with this speech. He blew it.

It was basic and to the point. Obamas 4 years is what Obama is running against. Not mitt. God bless

[Clipper Nation]

No way. Obama will be on the defense and blaming the republicans.
And how on Earth is Willard going to respond? He certainly wouldn't dare bring up his record, which includes Romneycare and a boatload of tax hikes, as Obama would probably nod and agree as neocons throw a shitfit.... basically, Willard can only keep playing the "Obama's fault" card....

GOP = f:lolcked

[jack sommerset]

He really said that? Mitt thinks we were better off 4 years ago with $5 gas and the nation on the verge of collapse?

No. God bless

[Th'Pusher]

Oh No. He's providing 'the specifics' now with his and Ryan's 5 point plan!

[jack sommerset]

And how on Earth is Willard going to respond? He certainly wouldn't dare bring up his record, which includes Romneycare and a boatload of tax hikes, as Obama would probably nod and agree as neocons throw a shitfit.... basically, Willard can only keep playing the "Obama's fault" card....

GOP = f:lolcked

You missed a lot of the convention if you think good old family man Mitts record was not brought up. A pretty good business man and governor, tbh. God bless

[ploto]

Whoever did his makeup should be fired! He looks even more artificial than normal.

[ploto]

Laugh at environmental concerns and cheer for military spending...

Not impressed.

[Pelicans78]

Good substance, average delivery.

[ElNono]

Looking back, I really enjoyed Clint Eastwood's skit...

[Spurminator]

Looking back, I really enjoyed Clint Eastwood's skit...

Was that the surprise guest? I was really rooting for hologram Reagan.

[ElNono]

props to coyotes_geek... he nailed it with Mitt running on "I'm not Obama"...

[Venti Quattro]

Cherry pickings for Obama :rollin

[ploto]

Pretty bad comment if the Republican guy says it is the best speech Romney has ever given.

[ploto]

Already a statement from the Romney campaign disowning Eastwood.

[Clipper Nation]

Pretty bad comment if the Republican guy says it is the best speech Romney has ever given.
Dude, this isn't a convention, it's a taxpayer-funded coronation... with that in mind, Willard could have taken a massive shit on stage and flung it at the crowd, and there'd be a line of neocon sycophants forming to tell us how great he did....

[ColinB]

Actual quote from the Clint Eastwood transcript: "Do you just - you know - I know - people were wondering - you don’t - handle that OK."

[Creepn]

See all them bad ass kids running around senseless? If they were black kids, they would've been called baby thugs.

[mavs>spurs]

^lol nigga we already knew who you were voting for anyway you don't have to tell us

[Clipper Nation]

As if the fraud wasn't bad enough, apparently Doug Wead revealed that Willard had been threatening to spend a shitload of money on permanently destroying Ron Paul's reputation if Paul didn't back off.... yet another perversion of our electoral process by the GOP, and they wonder why educated people don't vote Republican....

[SA210]

As if the fraud wasn't bad enough, apparently Doug Wead revealed that Willard had been threatening to spend a shitload of money on permanently destroying Ron Paul's reputation if Paul didn't back off.... yet another perversion of our electoral process by the GOP, and they wonder why educated people don't vote Republican....

wbrUPtwIKuk

[possessed]

As if the fraud wasn't bad enough, apparently Doug Wead revealed that Willard had been threatening to spend a shitload of money on permanently destroying Ron Paul's reputation if Paul didn't back off.... yet another perversion of our electoral process by the GOP, and they wonder why educated people don't vote Republican....

So what, Chuck Norris does. He'll beat the fuck out of your educated, fag-loving ass. :ihit

[Th'Pusher]

I said "legitimate". When your budget doesn't get a single vote by either party, it's not legitimate. Are you suggesting no one brought it to a vote because it contained revenue? Or could it be that it just wasn't any good?

While long, I am posting the entire article as I feel it is a fair assessment of Obama's first term - applicable part to our discussion at the end in bold.


Barack Obama’s economic record
End-of-term report
The president’s record is better than the woes of America’s economy suggests

NOT since 1933 had an American president taken the oath of office in an economic climate as grim as it was when Barack Obama put his left hand on the Bible in January 2009. The banking system was near collapse, two big car manufacturers were sliding towards bankruptcy; and employment, the housing market and output were spiralling down.

Hemmed in by political constraints, presidents typically have only the slightest influence over the American economy. Mr Obama, like Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 and Ronald Reagan in 1981, would be an exception. Not only would his decisions be crucial to the recovery, but he also had a chance to shape the economy that emerged. As one adviser said, the crisis should not be allowed to go to waste.

Did Mr Obama blow it? Nearly four years later, voters seem to think so: approval of his economic management is near rock-bottom, the single-biggest obstacle to his re-election. This, however, is not a fair judgment on Mr Obama’s record, which must consider not just the results but the decisions he took, the alternatives on offer and the obstacles in his way. Seen in that light, the report card is better. His handling of the crisis and recession were impressive. Unfortunately, his efforts to reshape the economy have often misfired. And America’s public finances are in a dire state.

Seven weeks before Mr Obama defeated John McCain in November 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed. AIG was bailed out shortly afterwards. The rescues of Bank of America and Citigroup lay ahead. In the final quarter of 2008, GDP shrank at an annualised rate of 9%, the worst in nearly 50 years.

Even before Mr Obama took office, therefore, there was a risk that investor confidence would vanish in the face of a messy transition to an untested president. The political vacuum between FDR’s victory in 1932 and his inauguration the next year made those months among the worst of the Depression.

Mr Obama did what he could to ease those fears. As candidate and senator, he had backed the unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) cobbled together by Henry Paulson, George Bush’s treasury secretary. After the election he selected Tim Geithner, who had been instrumental to the Bush administration’s response to the crisis, as his own treasury secretary. The rest of his economic team—Larry Summers, who had been Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary; Peter Orszag, a fiscally conservative director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO); and Christina Romer, a highly regarded macroeconomist—were similarly reassuring.

Resolving a systemic financial crisis requires recapitalising weak financial institutions and moving their bad loans from the private to the public sector. Under Mr Bush, the government injected cash into the banks. But doubts about lenders’ ability to survive a worsening recession persisted. Mr Obama faced calls to nationalise the weakened banks and force them to lend, or to let them fail. Mr Summers and Mr Geithner reckoned either step would shatter confidence in the financial system, and instead hit upon a series of “stress tests” to determine which banks had enough capital. Those that failed could either raise more capital privately or get it from TARP.

The first reaction was one of dismay—stocks tanked. Pundits predicted Mr Geithner would soon be gone. But the tests proved tough and transparent enough to persuade investors that the banking system had nothing nasty left to hide. Banks were forced to raise hundreds of billions of dollars of equity. Bank-capital ratios now exceed pre-crisis levels and most of their TARP money has been repaid at a profit to the government. Europe’s stress tests were laxer, and some banks that passed have subsequently had to be bailed out.

General Motors and Chrysler presented a different challenge. Ordinarily a failing manufacturer would shed debts and slim down under court-supervised bankruptcy. But in 2009 no lender would provide the huge “debtor-in-possession” financing that a reorganisation of the two would require. Bankruptcy meant liquidation. That would have wiped out local economies and suppliers just as the banks were being rescued. On the other hand, simply bailing-out badly run companies would have been too generous.

Mr Obama’s solution was to force both carmakers into bankruptcy protection, then provide the financing necessary to reorganise, on condition that both eliminated unneeded capacity and workers. Both companies emerged from bankruptcy within a few months. Chrysler, now part of Italy’s Fiat, is again profitable, as is GM, which returned to the stockmarket in 2010. Nonetheless, the government will probably lose money on these two rescues.

The audacity of hope
Mr Obama’s attempts to fix the housing market were less successful. By early 2009 9% of residential mortgages, worth nearly $900 billion, were delinquent. The traditional playbook called for the government to buy and then write down the bad loans, cleansing the banking system and enabling it to lend again. But when the Treasury studied such proposals, it found there was no ready mechanism to extract dud loans from securitised pools. An alternative was to pay banks to write down the loans to levels homeowners could handle. But the risk then was “you either overpaid the banks…doing a backdoor bail-out without enough protection for taxpayers, or paid too little and banks would not be willing to do it,” recalls Michael Barr, who worked on those efforts and now teaches at the University of Michigan.

Instead, lenders were prodded to reduce payments on mortgages with subsidies and loan guarantees. Even Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, though now explicitly owned by the government, resisted taking part. As of April, only 2.3m mortgages had been modified or refinanced under the administration’s programmes, compared with a target of 7m-9m. Had Mr Obama ploughed more money into writing down principal at the start, the results might have been worth the political risk. “They were prudent,” says Phillip Swagel, an economist who tackled similar questions under Mr Paulson. “In retrospect, I bet they wish they had been imprudent, spent a lot of money, and actually solved the problem.”

Textbook economics dictates that when conventional monetary policy is impotent, only fiscal policy can pull the economy out of a slump. For the first time since the 1930s, America was facing just those circumstances in December 2008. The Federal Reserve cut short-term interest rates to zero that month and experimented with the unconventional, buying bonds with newly printed money. The case for fiscal stimulus was therefore good.


Sluggish growth since 2009 has fed opposing assessments of the $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Conservatives say stimulus does not work, or that Mr Obama’s was badly designed. Most impartial work suggests they are wrong. Daniel Wilson of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco inferred the stimulus’s effect through an analysis of state-level employment data. He concluded that stimulus spending created or saved 3.4m jobs, close to the CBO’s estimate (see chart 1).

Charges that the plan was made up of ineffective pork are also unfair. Roughly a third of the money went on tax cuts or credits. Most of the spending took the form of direct transfers to individuals, such as for food stamps and unemployment insurance, or to states and local governments, for things like Medicaid.

Liberals make the opposite case: the stimulus was too small. Ms Romer originally proposed a package of $1.8 trillion, according to an account by Noam Scheiber in his book, “The Escape Artists”. Told that was impractical, she revised it down to $1.2 trillion. Mr Obama eventually asked for, and got, around $800 billion. Some critics note that this was too small relative to a projected $2 trillion shortfall in economic activity in 2009 and 2010. But it was far more than Congress had ever approved before. Despite the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 2010, Mr Obama eventually got nearly $600 billion of further stimulus, including a two-year payroll-tax cut.


If stimulus worked, why has the recovery remained so sluggish? GDP has grown by just 2.2%, on average, since the recession ended in mid-2009, one of the slowest recoveries on record. For one thing, the economy hit air-pockets in the form of higher oil prices, caused partly by the Arab spring, and the European debt crisis. Moreover, from the fourth quarter of 2009, state and local belt-tightening more than neutralised the federal stimulus, according to Goldman Sachs (see chart 2).

Perhaps the simplest explanation is that recoveries from financial crises are normally weak. Mr Obama was guilty of hubris in thinking this one would be different. He also created expectations that, once his team gave up radical intervention in the mortgage market, he could not meet.

An economy in his own image

From his earliest days on the campaign trail, Mr Obama made it clear he wanted to do more than just restore growth: he dreamed of remaking the American economy. Its best and brightest would devote themselves to clean energy, not financial speculation. Reinvigorated public investment in education and infrastructure would revitalise manufacturing, boost middle-class incomes and meet the competitive challenge from China.

Once in office, Mr Obama devoted himself to that agenda, in the process displaying a fondness for industrial policy. “When we first started talking about the Recovery Act in December of 2008, the earliest discussions were about clean energy: smart grid, wind, solar, advanced batteries,” says Jared Bernstein, then an economic adviser to Joe Biden, the vice-president-elect. Some advisers, like Mr Summers, were uneasy with industrial policy. Others, like Mr Bernstein, argued that orthodox economics allowed for government intervention in early-stage technology.

Mr Obama’s personal priorities carried the day. The stimulus allocated some $90 billion to green projects, including $8 billion for high-speed rail. Some of this has clearly been wasted, but perhaps not as much as critics think. Less than 2% of the Department of Energy’s controversial green-energy loans, such as those to Solyndra, a now-bankrupt solar-panel maker, have gone bad.

The bigger problem with this spending is that it went against the economic tides. Last year Mr Obama boasted that America would soon have 40% of the world’s manufacturing capacity in advanced electric-car batteries. But with electric cars still a rounding error in total car sales, that capacity is unneeded. Many battery makers are struggling to survive. Makers of solar panels face cheap competition from China, while natural gas from shale rock has undermined the case for electricity from solar and wind. As for high-speed rail, extensive highways, cheap air fares and stroppy state and local governments make its viability dubious. A $3.5 billion federal grant to California may come to nothing as the estimated cost of that state’s high-speed rail project runs out of control.

Mr Obama has always portrayed himself as a pragmatist, not an ideologue. “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works,” he said in his inaugural address. In practice, though, he usually chooses bigger government over small.

Sometimes this is a matter of necessity. The complexity of Mr Obama’s health-care law was a result of delivering the Democratic dream of universal health care within the existing private market. The financial crisis made it necessary to deal with failing financial firms that are not banks, to rationalise supervisory structures and to regulate derivatives, all of which the Dodd-Frank Act does.

Unfortunately Dodd-Frank does much more than that. In other areas, too, Mr Obama’s appointees have proposed or implemented more costly and intrusive rules than their predecessors on everything from fuel-economy standards for cars to power plants’ mercury emissions. The administration says the benefits of these rules far outweigh the costs, but that case often rests on doubtful assumptions.

If the sheer volume of new rules has alienated business, Mr Obama’s rhetoric has also given the impression that he comes from a hostile tribe. This has been self-defeating, more so because his actions in the past year have suggested a change in direction. The White House has forced the Environmental Protection Agency to delay a costly and controversial new ozone standard. Mr Obama is now a cheerleader for shale gas. His administration has written new rules in favour of the industry, for example giving well-drillers an extra two years to meet emissions guidelines.

After initial indifference, Mr Obama has also warmed to trade. He struck a deal with Republicans to ratify three bilateral trade agreements, and is pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. An early round of tariffs on tyres proved an isolated provocation in an otherwise well-managed economic relationship with China.

This pragmatic turn may have come too late for Mr Obama to woo corporate America. Instead, free-market types worry that without the restraining influence of officials such as Mr Summers, Cass Sunstein and Mr Geithner (who is likely to depart at the end of this term), Mr Obama’s more interventionist disciples will have the run of a second-term government.

The elephant in the second term

In fact, Mr Obama is likely to move closer to the centre if he wins a second term. His principal legislative goals—health care and financial reform—are achieved. The Republicans are almost certain to control at least one chamber of Congress, precluding big new spending plans, regardless of the state of the recovery.


That leaves the public finances. There is little to commend in Mr Obama on that front. True, he inherited the largest budget deficit in peacetime history, at 10% of GDP. But in 2009 he thought it would fall to 3% by the coming fiscal year. Instead, it will be 6%, if he gets his way. Back in 2009, he thought debt would peak at 70% of GDP in 2011. Now it is projected to reach 79% in 2014 (see chart 3), assuming his optimistic growth forecast is correct.

This is not quite the indictment it seems: normal standards of fiscal rectitude have not applied in the past four years. When households, firms and state and local governments are cutting their debts, the federal government would have made the recession worse by doing the same.

Less defensible are the plans for reducing the deficit in the future. Chained to a silly vow not to raise taxes on 95% of families, Mr Obama’s plans have relied almost exclusively on taxing rich people and companies. Efforts to cut spending have fallen mostly on defence and other discretionary items (meaning those re-authorised each year). He has yet formally to propose credible plans for reducing growth in entitlements. His health-care reform did not worsen the deficit. But it did little about the growth in Medicare, the single-biggest source of long-run spending.

Mr Obama assumed entitlement reform would be part of a grand bargain in which Republicans also agreed to raise taxes. He miscalculated: Republicans have not yielded on taxes. But there is a deal to be done if Mr Obama wins a second term. Given the canyon dividing the two parties, it might seem more likely that they will both relapse into their usual mode of mutual recriminations. But both the president and the Republicans want an alternative to the alarming year-end combination of expiring tax cuts and sweeping discretionary and defence-spending cuts known as the “fiscal cliff”.

Last summer Mr Obama and John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, briefly had a deal to raise taxes and cut entitlements. The bargain failed largely because of political miscalculations by both men. Mr Obama’s re-election might allow the two to pick up near where they left off. He still has a chance to improve the worst score on his report card. Mr Obama should go out and make that case between now and November 6th.

http://www.economist.com/node/21561909

[boutons_deux]

In the wake of these two high-profile mass killings, the Republican Party nonetheless decided to include a line in their party platform demanding that access to high-capacity magazines be protected:

Gun ownership is responsible citizenship, enabling Americans to defend their homes and communities. We condemn frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers and oppose federal licensing or registration of law-abiding gun owners. We oppose legislation that is intended to restrict our Second Amendment rights by limiting the capacity of clips or magazines or otherwise restoring the ill-considered Clinton gun ban.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/31/783141/gop-platform-endorses-high-capacity-clips-used-in-aurora-and-tuscon-mass-shootings/

[DMC]

See all them bad ass kids running around senseless? If they were black kids, they would've been called baby thugs.
No, they would be called janitors.

[DMC]

The nation's been fucked for a couple hundred years. No going back now. These clowns make a fortune off the status quo and then when they get 90 they stand up at the RNC and bitch about it.

[Yonivore]

wbrUPtwIKuk

Bottom line, if Ron Paul wants to get elected, in his District, he has to run as a Republican. If he's going to continue running as a Republican, he needs to be on board at the Convention, after the other 90% of Republicans decide who their nominee is going to be, and quite trying to poison the well with the delegates and paulbots. It's ridiculous.

It's like allowing a Democrat to have a delegation at the convention.

If he's going to be a Republican, he needs to climb aboard when it's obvious he's not going to be the nominee -- or, shut the fuck up. If I were Romney, I'd destroy him politically, as well. I'd damn sure try to run him out of the Republican Party.

[Clipper Nation]

Yoni, the fact that you're actually justifying voter fraud as part of your obsession with defending Willard and Team Red is REALLY pathetic.... if the GOP was smart, they would have welcomed the "Paulbots" (as you call us) with open arms as the salvation of their party... instead, they chose to alienate their only young, politically-active, intelligent voting bloc and embarrass themselves with how obvious the fraud was from the Iowa straw poll all the way to the RNC, tbh.... the neocon Boomer base is a sinking ship to which the GOP has chosen to permanently attach itself to, and it's their own damn fault, tbh....

Also, Ron Paul having a delegation at the RNC is easily justified.... his delegates were lawfully and fairly elected, as per the Constitution AND the GOP's own damn rules, tbh.... they were entitled to their seats at the RNC, and the fact that many of them were denied their seats is bigtime voter fraud.....

[Drachen]

Bottom line, if Ron Paul wants to get elected, in his District, he has to run as a Republican. If he's going to continue running as a Republican, he needs to be on board at the Convention, after the other 90% of Republicans decide who their nominee is going to be, and quite trying to poison the well with the delegates and paulbots. It's ridiculous.

It's like allowing a Democrat to have a delegation at the convention.

If he's going to be a Republican, he needs to climb aboard when it's obvious he's not going to be the nominee -- or, shut the fuck up. If I were Romney, I'd destroy him politically, as well. I'd damn sure try to run him out of the Republican Party.

Are you trolling now? Does ANYONE really think like this?

[Yonivore]

Are you trolling now? Does ANYONE really think like this?
Is he a Republican or is he a Libertarian?

[Yonivore]

Yoni, the fact that you're actually justifying voter fraud as part of your obsession with defending Willard and Team Red is REALLY pathetic.... if the GOP was smart, they would have welcomed the "Paulbots" (as you call us) with open arms as the salvation of their party... instead, they chose to alienate their only young, politically-active, intelligent voting bloc and embarrass themselves with how obvious the fraud was from the Iowa straw poll all the way to the RNC, tbh.... the neocon Boomer base is a sinking ship to which the GOP has chosen to permanently attach itself to, and it's their own damn fault, tbh....

Also, Ron Paul having a delegation at the RNC is easily justified.... his delegates were lawfully and fairly elected, as per the Constitution AND the GOP's own damn rules, tbh.... they were entitled to their seats at the RNC, and the fact that many of them were denied their seats is bigtime voter fraud.....
I didn't watch your video, the fact of the matter is Ron Paul has to trick his way onto the national political stage, every four fucking years. If he stuck to his principles, he'd run as the Libertarian he is and quit mucking up the Republican Party.

But, he can't do that because he knows he is unelectable as a Libertarian.

[TheMACHINE]

im a small business owner..im voting romney, since Obama hates success.

[leemajors]

Have you suffered under Obama?

[Creepn]

No, they would be called janitors.

You only wanted to attack me because of the evolution thread. Just let it go. You can't disprove anything.

[Clipper Nation]

Is he a Republican or is he a Libertarian?

He's a Republican if you go by the GOP's traditional, pre-neocon platform.... he's Libertarian compared to the country-bumpkin warmongering evangelicals, Tea Party racists, and slimy slick-talking crooks that populate today's GOP.....

[Yonivore]

He's a Republican if you go by the GOP's traditional, pre-neocon platform.... he's Libertarian compared to the country-bumpkin warmongering evangelicals, Tea Party racists, and slimy slick-talking crooks that populate today's GOP.....
So, maybe he should give one of those "I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me," and just move on.

[Wild Cobra]

So, maybe he should give one of those "I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me," and just move on.
LOL...

I was never with the republican party. I just have more in common with them that the lilliass liberals.

[DMX7]

Looking back, I really enjoyed Clint Eastwood's skit...

They should have walked him off the stage and straight to Bellevue.

[ElNono]

They should have walked him off the stage and straight to Bellevue.

For good or bad, he was the only one that didn't look like a robot, IMO.

The sad reality is that both him and the empty chair probably appeal more to voters than anything that came afterwards...

[boutons_deux]

Gecko got a tiny bounce of about 2% lead in popular vote, but is still trending down in electoral vote.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/

Repug voter suppression of Dem voters, now getting knocked down by the courts, and Rove/Kock Bros/USCoC/Wall St $Bs have a very steep incline against them.

[djohn2oo8]

Gecko got a tiny bounce of about 2% lead in popular vote, but is still trending down in electoral vote.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/

Repug voter suppression of Dem voters, now getting knocked down by the courts, and Rove/Kock Bros/USCoC/Wall St $Bs have a very steep incline against them.

Indeed. I had no idea Florida struck it down too.

[boutons_deux]

FL will very probably still do the crap Katherine Harris and accomplices did in 2000, setup construction roadblocks in poor areas, falsely exlude ex-felons from registered voters, etc, etc.

[SA210]

FL will very probably still do the crap Katherine Harris and accomplices did in 2000, setup construction roadblocks in poor areas, falsely exlude ex-felons from registered voters, etc, etc.

The GOP steal elections in this day and age? nah....


http://www.examiner.com/article/how-the-gop-stole-the-nomination?fb_action_ids=415100655214353&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=timeline_og&action_object_map={%22415100655214353%22%3A2811097 75335017}&action_type_map={%22415100655214353%22%3A%22og.lik es%22}&action_ref_map=[]

[mavs>spurs]

^If it weren't for his son Rand, Ron could sabotage the whole thing for Romney by running 3rd party.

[SA210]

^If it weren't for his son Rand, Ron could sabotage the whole thing for Romney by running 3rd party.

Well Ron Paul is making a special announcement on Jay Leno on Tuesday. I wonder what it is.

[boutons_deux]

How bad is it? GOP consultant on Romney “We should be pressing the panic button”


When Republican consultant Ana Navarro says of Romney that “Where his numbers are right now, we should be pressing the panic button,”, well, things like that tend to catch my attention.

Basically, Mitt Romney needs to win a higher percentage of white people than Ronald Reagan did. Good luck with that. Say what you will about Reagan, but I think we can all agree that Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan.

So what happens when you place all your eggs in the shrinking demographic of "Angry White Guys" while entirely ignoring and alienating the quickly growing Latino demographic? You end up with statements coming out of GOP pollster's that sound like this . . .

. . . if Republicans do not do better among Latinos, the party won’t just be worrying about holding on to Florida, he said. “We’re going to be talking about how not to lose Texas.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/31/1125875/-How-bad-is-it-GOP-consultant-on-Romney-We-should-be-pressing-the-panic-button

[Nbadan]

. . if Republicans do not do better among Latinos, the party won’t just be worrying about holding on to Florida, he said. “We’re going to be talking about how not to lose Texas.”

That right there is why a guy like Castro has a prominent speaking role in the Democratic convention and why he is likely to get a Cabinet or other prominent position in the Obama Administration...lets hope he doesn't get Cisneroed....the GOP is scared shit-less of a motivated Latino vote...so they will do anything to sabotage anyone who even resembles any shade of Cesar Chavez...

[Nbadan]

To little too late...there are already surveillance camera's tracking all your moves...everywhere you go...

[Wild Cobra]

Do you guys really think that Cuban Latinos are on the same sheet of music as those south of our border?

[SA210]

That right there is why a guy like Castro has a prominent speaking role in the Democratic convention and why he is likely to get a Cabinet or other prominent position in the Obama Administration...lets hope he doesn't get Cisneroed....the GOP is scared shit-less of a motivated Latino vote...so they will do anything to sabotage anyone who even resembles any shade of Cesar Chavez...

I've lost faith in the Democrat party a long time ago and it's gotten to the point of no return. I'm glad that Castro will be speaking, but I'm afraid he'll end up being just like them and beholden to Obama.

Either way, he has a possible future in the White House because of this, I said it back when this was announced, I hope he uses his opportunity to be honest and good.

I'll say one thing, Republicans will hate him because he's a Dem "Mexican", and we will all see them hate on his name "Castro", in a "Hussein" Obama kind of way.

I hope Julian has a spine and stands up to them, unlike this current Democrat Party.

[boutons_deux]

I doubt JC will stand up to anybody. He's up and coming so will alienate as few as possible.

The question is whether he can appeal to white people as well as brown.

[Winehole23]

GOP platform curiosity:


The 2012 Republican Platform calls for a complete overhaul of the federal tax system. No surprise there. But then it endorses a value-added tax or national sales tax as one possible solution to the nation's budget problems. This is shocking.



The VAT would be adopted only if it is accompanied by "the simultaneous repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment, which established the federal income tax," the platform states. A Republican-controlled Congress passed that amendment in 1909, and the states ratified it in 1913. The tax was aimed squarely at the ultra-wealthy, targeting the top 1% of wage earners.
Removal of the 99-year-old tax amendment is so unlikely that the platform plank seems facetious. As for the VAT, perhaps it was inserted in the document for yucks, too. A mere two years ago, "VAT" was an obscenity in GOP circles. The Republican National Committee, which produced the 2012 platform in 2010, vigorously attacked the value-added tax after Obama advisor Paul Volcker said that a VAT or a carbon tax might be needed to narrow the budget deficit. The RNC assumed that the Democrats would add the regressive VAT to existing taxes and consequently soak the middle class.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111903904904577615361581700788.html

[boutons_deux]

sales and VAT taxes are horribly regressive, which is a truth the Repugs hide.

[DarrinS]

I doubt JC will stand up to anybody. He's up and coming so will alienate as few as possible.

The question is whether he can appeal to white people as well as brown.

Why not just try to appeal to people?

[boutons_deux]

Senior Romney adviser: It wasn’t necessary to thank troops at convention

Senior Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom on Sunday defended his boss for not thanking U.S. troops or even mentioning the war in Afghanistan while accepting the Republican presidential nomination during the GOP convention on Thursday.

During an interview on CNN, host Candy Crowley asked Fehrnstrom if Mitt Romney snubbed the troops on purpose or if it was an oversight.

“Well, the day before the convention speech, Candy, Gov. Romney traveled to Indianapolis on Wednesday, and he gave a speech before the American Legion,” the senior adviser explained. “That was an invitation that President [Barack] Obama declined. … And in that speech he talked about Afghanistan.”

Crowley pointed out that even conservative Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol also blasted the former Massachusetts governor for failing to “utter a word of appreciation to the troops fighting.”

“It has been since 1952 when a Republican did not mention troops serving overseas,” the CNN host told Fehrnstrom. “In hindsight, he should have said something.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/02/senior-romney-adviser-it-wasnt-necessary-to-thank-troops-at-convention/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Not only are Gecko and Ryan sucky politicians their advisors suck, too, the GOP convention being a example of botchitude.