GOP Convention

[TeddyBallgame]

- So far the GOP convention has gone amazingly well with an impressive roster of accomplished Republican governors, senators, congressmen and others who constituted a good mix of the nation in terms of sex, ethnicity and geography and who generally had compelling personal success stories to tell and pointed, credible attacks on the incompetent, dishonest, left wing bunch of whiners, weiners and losers currently in power.

- On the first night, the several impressive speeches included ones by Love and Arturo Davis (best of the night I thought) and Ann Romney (who really impressed in her first ever speech to a national TV audience of millions with an obviously heart felt personal tribute to her husband and the message that nobody will care more or work harder to solve America's current problems than MItt and that he will get the job done) and Chris Christie who surprised some people with what for him was failry low key speech that seemed primarily to be an attempt to let the voters know that unlike the Deemocrats the GOP viewed voters as intelligent and responsible adults who deserved gthe facts instead of lies and diversions and who, once given the facts, would be willing to accept the hard decisions that lie ahead in the struggle to revive the economy and control the public debt. Christie's most memorable line was "real leaders don't follow polls they change polls". That may well have gone over Obama's head but probably struck a responsive chord with millions of viewers.

- Night two was even more impressive with long time GOP heavyweights such as Portman and Pawlenty and Huckabee and Rice as well as rising stars in the party such as the latino women governor of New Mexico.

- Some of the funniest lines were said by Tim Pawlenty such as that Obama is the tatoo president because ``It seemed pretty cool when you went for the tatoo, then later on you started to realize that it actually was pretty ugly and you were stuck with it for awhile and then you had the unpleasant experience of explaining it to your family`.

- Condi Rice gave the most statesmanlike and intellectual and impressive speech and was the only one to speak without a teleprompter and rely just on rough notes. Just imagine Obama trying that!

- Paul Ryan`s speech was also excellent in achieving his objectives of humanizing both him and Mitt and persuading Americans that the Romney-Ryan ticket would actually lead and would solve the crucial economic and financial problems facing the country. Ryan`s delivery is perfect in that he has a real facility for expressing complex financial problems in a way that is understandable and expressing their solutions in a way that is persuasive and non-threatening.

- His funniest and saddest line in reference to the more than half of new university graduations who can`tr get a job today was, Ùniversity graduates should`t have to spend their 20s `staring at faded posters of Obama back in the same bedroom in their parents house where they slept during high school and asking themselves when they can start their lives.`

- Tonight Mitt Romney has forty minutes to earn the support of the forty million Americans who`ll be watching the final moments of the GOP convention on TV. This forty million viewers number may grow now that the identity of the mystery speaker preceeding Romney has been revealed as Clint Eastwood. Maybe he`ll make some quips such as that his first starring role in movies was playing the Man With No Name whereas Obama`s first starring role in politicas was playing the Man With No Resume. Perhaps Clint willl mention that his two successful years as mayor of Carmel and his 45 successful years running his own production studio makes him better qualified that Obama was in 2008 to be president. Maybe as the director and one of the stars of the movie Space Cowboys, Clint will tear a strip off Obama for cancelling the space program. In any case, it will be interesting.

- As for Mitt, this moment is important although less so than the debates where Obama will have to forgo the teleprompter and face Romney in person. Hopefuly tonight, Mitt will come across as human and capable and commited and prepared to lead the country out of the worst mess it has been in since the Great Depression. One thing is certain ... unlike the phony media creation Barry Obama, Mitt Romney has written his own speech and wonèt just be blowing fake smoke from behind styrofoam Greek columns.

 

[Kreskin]

Condo Rice the inner circle of neocons who lied Americans into war. She should be in prison.

 

[coldstream]

The thing bores me to death. I caught about 2 minutes of Gov. Christie of New Jersey's keynote speech because i thought he is so representative of Republican party stereotypes... a big, dumb, rude, verbose, grasping, petty ideologue and fat slob.. who didn't bother to mention Mitt Romney's name for 16 minutes.. until he'd exhausted his personal credentials to be the party nominee in 2016. He'd informallly told a reporter that Romney had no chance for victory earlier in the Converntion. I don't think any insiders in the party have any illusion as to Romney's prospects.

 

[TeddyBallgame]

The thing bores me to death. I caught about 2 minutes of Gov. Christie of New Jersey's keynote speech because i thought he is so representative of Republican party stereotypes... a big, dumb, rude, verbose, grasping, petty ideologue and fat slob.. who didn't bother to mention Mitt Romney's name for 16 minutes.. until he'd exhausted his personal credentials to be the party nominee in 2016. He'd informallly told a reporter that Romney had no chance for victory earlier in the Converntion. I don't think any insiders in the party have any illusion as to Romney's prospects.

coldstream ... Don't ever change, you're a laugh riot!

1/ In actual fact, Christie is about the only fat slob among the long line of GOP stalwarts who have spoken at the convention. Unlike the stereotypical Democrat who is a dumb, grasping, petty and lazy fat slob who spends his time wol;fing down potato chips while watching The View and waiting for the potal carrier to bring the welfare cheque, the GOP politicians on display here have been very healthy, fit, youthful types led by Mitt Romney who is about the most youthful and energetic 65 year old around and Paul Ryan who is a fitness buff who is in great shape and works out every morning. The last GOP president, Bush, was also a fitness buff who was in the 99th percentile of Americans his age.

2/ If Christie was retarded enough to believe that Romney had no chance to win then he would not have wasted the past four months campaiging around the country for Romney nor would he have wanted to be the keynote speaker at the convention.

3/ True, you "don't think" whether about GOP insiders or much of anything else. Currently, the presidential race is a dead heat in the polls. Rmoney and the GOP have been outspent including in viscious attack ads by at least four to one but this week his nomination as GOP standard bearer means that he will now have $160 million and counting at his disposal to not only close the spending gap but to outspend Obama's Chicago mafia on ads and other marketing ventures. In late September and early October, Romney will bury Barry's BS and blather in their three debates and Ryan will eviscerate poor old Joe in the VP debate and the polls will start to reflect this. Furthermore, the economy will continue to tank and the country will continue to approach the economic, tax and fiscal cliff of year end and the almost certain fall back into double dip recession that your hero's total ineptitude has fashioned for America.

Therefore, the only Republicans who at this early stage in the campaign are retarded enough to have given up on the Romney-Ryan ticket are those WOGS - wards of the government - who are on the take for various government giveaways. And since people like this are almost invariably over in your party of lefty losers, leeches, liars and loons, that means very few Republicans have given up on Romney. However, those independents and also those Democrats who are not leeches with hats in hand for government give aways are increaingly giving up on Obama after the past four years of astounding futility.

Condo Rice the inner circle of neocons who lied Americans into war. She should be in prison.

- Kreskin obviously pines for the good old days of Saddam Insane slaughering his countrymen and his neighbours and paying bounties to the families of Islamist terrorists who manage to murder Israelis and Americans and spending billions of dollars of UN donated money not on medical supplies but on palaces and weapons of mass destruction programs and generally doing as much sabre rattling and destabilizing in the Middle East and inspiring as much hatred and terrorist activities against Israel and The West as he possibly can.

- Rice and virtually every other significant politician in Israel and the West from Bush to Blair to Clinton (both Clintons) to all the rest believed Saddam Insane's lie that he already had weapons of mass destruction. And even if he did not have such weapons but was merely working hard to aquire them, there were about ten other sound strategic reasons for the West to want to topple this dispicable despot. This is why even Zipper Billy Clinton in 1998 had a senate resolution passed declaring that regime change in Iraq was a fundamental goal of US foreign policy.

- All of which means that while Saddam Insane was deserving of imprisonment for war crimes, Condi Rice assuredly was not.

- Indeed, reading your posts and her speeches over the years, one might more likely conclude that you were deserving of confinement in a small rubber room fa rmore than she was deserving of prison.

 

[JLM]

I think the entire charade that goes on for over a year before every U.S. federal election is a crass waste of both time and money. Both sides are tarred with the same brush and they only fool the bottom 10% of the mentality spectrum. What they should do is draw a name from the tax rolls, out of a hat, to flip a coin, to decide whether it's going to be Republican or Democrat.

 

[tay]

Paul Ryans' Speech in 3 Words

by Sally Kohn

The first word was Dazzling - IMO, anything but. The last word was Distracting - all about what Ryan didn't say. It was the second word Deceiving that caught my attention.

"2. Deceiving

On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.


The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated.


Fact: While Ryan tried to pin the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on spending under President Obama, the credit rating was actually downgraded because Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling.

Fact: While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to prevent other plants from closing.


Fact: Though Ryan insisted that President Obama wants to give all the credit for private sector success to government, that isn't what the president said. Period.

Fact: Though Paul Ryan accused President Obama of taking $716 billion out of Medicare, the fact is that that amount was savings in Medicare reimbursement rates (which, incidentally, save Medicare recipients out-of-pocket costs, too) and Ryan himself embraced these savings in his budget plan.

Elections should be about competing based on your record in the past and your vision for the future, not competing to see who can get away with the most lies and distortions without voters noticing or bother to care. Both parties should hold themselves to that standard. Republicans should be ashamed that there was even one misrepresentation in Ryan’s speech but sadly, there were many."

Read more: [URL="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/30/paul-ryans-speech-in-three-words/#ixzz252i58pI5"]http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/30/paul-ryans-speech-in-three-words/#ixzz252i58pI5[/URL]

Indeed amusing that Ryan's dribble is even too much for Faux. Wonder when they'll catch up to Mittens...........



Mitt Romney tells 533 lies in 30 weeks, Steve Benen documents them


Mitt Romney tells 533 lies in 30 weeks, Steve Benen documents them

 

[L Gilbert]

How about the Governor of Ohio taking credit for his state's improving economy? Without the Auto bailout his state would be a mess, and the joker he's endorsing once said to let Detroit go bankrupt. Mittens said then that if the automakers take any money from Washington, they could kiss the American automotive industry good bye. Then this year Mittens wanted to take the credit for the health of the automotive industry.

What a bunch of maroons.

lol Bump.

I can't believe Canadians are watching American political conventions. It's like naval gazing. Or is that navel gazing?

It's the comedy factor for me.

 

[Goober]

coldstream ... Don't ever change, you're a laugh riot!

Teddy - An article on Lyin Ryan.

Paul Ryan accused over errors and half-truths in Republican National Convention speech | World | News | National Post
While politician’s constantly come under fire for their “he said/she said” perspectives and half-truths on policy and values, few speeches in recent American history have received as much criticism for containing errors and inaccuracies as Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night.

While Ryan’s speech fired up the party faithful in Tampa and across the United States, journalists, fact-checkers, and political wonks on social media have picked apart many of his main statements as being wrong or inconsistent with his voting record.

In particular his attacks on Medicare and economic stimulus seemed to be counter to the way he voted in Washington. In another attack on Obama, he blamed the president for a General Motors plant shutting down in his home state of Wisconsin, when it actually closed under the presidency of George W. Bush.

Even a Fox News columnist called the speech “deceiving.”

The Obama campaign gleefully issued the following response: “If you’ve seen any coverage of Paul Ryan’s speech in Tampa, you know that the consensus among journalists and independent observers is that it was … factually challenged.”


Fact-checking websites such as politifact.com and Factcheck.org have attempted to separate truth from political spin.

For those keeping score on statements during the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, Politifact rates Obama’s statements as 46% true or mostly true, 26% half true, 26% false or mostly false and 1% “pants on fire.” (That’s their polite way of saying “straight up lie.”)

For Romney, Politifact lists his statements as 29% true or mostly true, 28% half true, 34% false or mostly false and 9% “pants on fire.”

Still, politicians and strategists have shown little regard for getting their facts wrong.

“Fact checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,” Romney pollster Neil Newhouse told Buzzfeed when asked about the widely-discredited welfare ad.

 

[Mowich]

The RNC is all about tax reduction. So why are they are against the student tax credit? Is it because the savings don't go directly to Mr Monopoly?

A tax credit is a reduction in taxes owed. No one profits from a tax credit. What the RNC believe to be a class-warfare entitlement grab is the student 10k tax credit. In other words if a student owes up to 10k in taxes they can offset some or all if used for tuition in college or university.

The entitlement crap is way too far to the right. I know a wealthy guy who claims every single meal he eats in a restaurant and he makes no bones about, almost none of them are for business. He was questioned one year in an audit. They wanted to know the nature of the meeting in regards to the McHappy meal receipt. I am not joking.

If only a student could get away with that.

Just heard a news item about Texas. It appears that they just won a court case that will now make it unnecessary for citizens to show ID when voting. Apparently this is all in aid of the poor, it seems having an ID places unfair burdens upon them. Whoa.

Sorry, Kreskin..........that Texas thing just kind of set me back for a minute.

Back to the convention. I have to tell you that I have grave misgivings about a Republican White House, even more so than I had with George Jr. There is a moral inflexibility underpinning the Republican party that frankly I find most worrisome. In the speeches I have listened to there is absolutely no effort to separate church from state, if anything the faith of the person speaking is a key-note of the speech. I find it especially offensive that they would cite their beliefs in order to endorse banning abortion for everyone, no matter the circumstances, no matter the health of the mother. No abortions.

Yet Christian as they all profess to be, it seems to be that their faith allows them to dishonor the ninth commandment. I've seen rugs that don't lie as well as some Republicans.

Further, the Republican party doesn't give a hoot about those delegates on the floor and that was brought home again when I read this article.

"One of the reasons this Republican convention has been so deathly dull is that the real action isn't at the convention. It's at Cracker Bay. That's the name of the yacht that the Romney team just hosted 50 partiers, including some of his top donors. This was one of about a dozen events outside of the convention where they had private meetings with donors giving more than $1 million dollars to his campaign. Over $1 million a piece. Now, where do you think the real policy gets made?

You think Mitt Romney gives a damn what a delegate thinks? The only delegates that matter were on that yacht. They call this group the "Victory Council." This is made of people who are literally millionaires and billionaires and who dictate what Mitt Romney's positions will be. He's a legendary flip-flopper, but if you want to know what he really thinks you had to be on that boat.

They're so brazen the boat they were meeting on was flying a Cayman Islands flag. As one local put it, even their yacht doesn't want to pay taxes. In the old days, you'd be a little embarrassed about things like this and it would be huge news if you got caught. Now people treat it like it's perfectly normal."

Cenk Uygur: The Real Convention Is at Cracker Bay


If Republicans do get to Washington, they will find many of their ilk already ensconced in seats of power.

"The U.S. Constitution guarantees separation of church and state. What this nation needs now is separation of wealth and state.

Without such a protection, Americans stand to lose their democracy. They'll be ruled instead by an aristocracy of 1 percenters.

That's the 1 percenters' plan. To them, it was no more than a perk when the U.S. Supreme Court enabled politicians to open their wallets for unlimited, anonymous campaign contributions. That's because way before the 2010 Citizens United ruling, 1 percenters were working on a takeover. If the 99 percent don't stop them soon, don't establish some sort of separation of wealth and state, then the nation will lose its founding precepts -- that all men are created equal and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Aristocracies can ignore the governed.

Already the 1 percenters have been extraordinarily successful. The rich really do enjoy advantages. They've succeeded in stuffing Congress with their peers. In America, fewer than 1 percent of all people are millionaires. In Congress, 47 percent are. The median net worth of a U.S. senator in 2010 was $2.56 million.

Those guys haven't experienced what it's like to try to pay a mortgage, fix the car and keep food on the table for the average household with a median income of less than $52,000. They're completely out of touch with the 50 million Americans who don't have health insurance."


Leo W. Gerard: One Percenters Buying Themselves an Aristocracy

Just to make sure that money will never be a problem they reversed a previous policy decision.

Awash In Secret Donations, Republicans Reverse Support For 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."

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

Won't be watching all of Romney's speech tonight as something much more important is taking place. TSN is covering the Paralympics at 7 PM and I will be front and center cheering our Canadians on.

 

[Tonington]

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) caught unscripted:

Jan Brewer endorses President Barack Obama - YouTube

Such candor! :lol:

 

[L Gilbert]

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) caught unscripted:

Jan Brewer endorses President Barack Obama - YouTube

Such candor! :lol:

lol Reminds me of the moron before DOHbama and how Republicans voted for DOHbama just to escape the Bush-type Republicanism..

 

[Goober]

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) caught unscripted:

Jan Brewer endorses President Barack Obama - YouTube

Such candor! :lol:

Well she is not going to win the Governor Popularity Contest.

 

[Kreskin]

- Kreskin obviously pines for the good old days of Saddam Insane slaughering his countrymen and his neighbours and paying bounties to the families of Islamist terrorists who manage to murder Israelis and Americans and spending billions of dollars of UN donated money not on medical supplies but on palaces and weapons of mass destruction programs and generally doing as much sabre rattling and destabilizing in the Middle East and inspiring as much hatred and terrorist activities against Israel and The West as he possibly can.

Ya right Ted, it's all stablized now eh? Get a grip.

 

[TenPenny]

I saw something on pbs which seemed to be a commercial for the GOP, it was kind of funny because it was all about how the 'successful' Hispanics are all Republicans, and only in the GOP will Hispanics be valued. I thought it was an interesting indication of a definite trend to go after racial votes; it's like the GOP is saying 'you guys can have the black vote, we'll go after Hispanics'.

Interesting, too, that Cruz was mentioned, but they skip over the fact that's he's Canadian. Of course, he skips over that part, too.

 

[gopher]

The thing bores me to death. I caught about 2 minutes of Gov. Christie of New Jersey's keynote speech because i thought he is so representative of Republican party stereotypes... a big, dumb, rude, verbose, grasping, petty ideologue and fat slob.. who didn't bother to mention Mitt Romney's name for 16 minutes.. until he'd exhausted his personal credentials to be the party nominee in 2016. He'd informallly told a reporter that Romney had no chance for victory earlier in the Converntion. I don't think any insiders in the party have any illusion as to Romney's prospects.

 

[Kreskin]

Romney did alright. Not sure how much energy will stick. The DNC is next week and they'll do their version of Hollywood.

On a side note, has anyone ever been to Carmel? There isn't a job in sight. Heck, their isn't a human in sight, or even a light, past about 7:30 pm. Clint Eastwood is hardly an expert in job creation.

 

[talloola]

Romney did alright. Not sure how much energy will stick. The DNC is next week and they'll do their version of Hollywood.

On a side note, has anyone ever been to Carmel? There isn't a job in sight. Heck, their isn't a human in sight, or even a light, past about 7:30 pm. Clint Eastwood is hardly an expert in job creation.

yes, I've been to Carmel, a small, perfectly laid out, rich little town, oozing in money, and is just
a place where all the wealthy get up each day, put on their expensive duds, and stroll around till
its time for lunch, where they sit around admiring each other, play tennis, go for little walks with
their little hybrid pooches, and talk about the good old days in hollywood.

Not an industry within 50 miles of the place.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

dul dull dull

 

[Locutus]

Mitt Romney RNC speech transcript - Politico Staff - POLITICO.com

Full Mitt Romney Speech at Republican National Committee RNC GOP - YouTube

Clint Eastwood Speaks at RNC - Full Speech - 'It's Time for a Business Man' - YouTube

 

[Praxius]

I only caught the highlights an hour or two ago as the Aussie media & entertainment shows made fun of most of it.... No, they made fun of just about everything including Clint Eastwood's attempt to trash an imaginary Obama that he kept turning towards.... Yet all there was when he kept turning to his left was an empty chair that he kept talking to.

Somebody either forgot their glasses or forgot their senile pills.

Glad I missed the whole thing. Seemed like much of the same crap as every other Republican Campaign / Convention and was pretty much word for word as Palin & McCain's crap.

The Aussie media summed it up pretty well though.

A lot of Obama attacks, very little substance and a complete show of obliviousness by the Republicans on who screwed everything up in the first place.