MITT HITS THE FAN !

The Democratic National Convention closely followed on the heels of the RNC and everyone, even right wingers noticed the difference between the two conventions, noting that the democratic delegates seemed to be more animated and excited by the speeches that were taking place. The obvious factor was the diversity of the participants, with the DNC having multiple racial and ethnic participation of all ages which the RNC was primarily older white voters and a sprinkling of younger white female voters.

There definitely was a marked difference in the actual speakers and subject matter with the RNC focusing on making President Obama a one term president but neglecting to say what the Mittster would do differently.  Anger and resentment was the common theme by one politician after another, capped off by Paul Ryan who continued to lie about President Obama’s Affordable Health Care Reform and how he and the Mittster planned to save Medicare.  Clint muddied the waters with an off color soliloquy and finally Mitt himself was on deck. He gave a speech which was a version of his everyday stump speeches, failing to mention Afghanistan or the military and ending by saying that Russia was our number one enemy, not North Korea, not Al Qaeda, not Iran, but Russia.

The speakers for the DNC included a young couple with a young daughter who was born with a congenital heart defect that would require ongoing surgeries and previously had an insurance cap. With the affordable health care act they no longer have a cap and their daughter can continue to have the health care that she requires.

Speaker  Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs and partial use of an arm, in 2004 when her Back Hawk helicopter  was shot down in Iraq, drew standing ovations describing her work with disable war veterans.

 Sister Simone Campbell a Catholic nun and one of the “Nuns on the Bus” who toured the country protesting the Paul Ryan budget, assuring voters that the Republican fiscal proposals violate Catholic teachings as well as “our nations values”, using Matthew 25.40 (verily I say unto you, in as much as you did it for the least of my brethren, you did it for me), demonstrated that this election is about two different visions. 

Keynote speaker Julian Castro, Mayor of San Antonio and his identical twin brother were outstanding. Jon Stewart could not contain himself, saying the Republicans had Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida as their token Latino and the Democrats, they have so many Latinos, and that they doubled down with Julian Castro and his identical twin. Julian spoke of the realistic American dream, not a business you can start by borrowing from your parents, not inheriting one million from your father.

Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown Law School student who was slandered by El Rushbo was there to speak about affordable health care.  One after another the DNC speakers were everyday Americans with a story to tell and not bloated politicians filled with Anger, resentment and hate.

Vice president Joe Biden spoke about his closeness to the president and how he has seen his courage and determination first hand.

And then there was Bill Clinton who spoke for 48 minutes, scripted and ad libbing, repeatedly responding to standing ovations as he knocked down the Mittster’s and Mini Mitt’s lies.

Mitt Romney dared to ask the question, “are you better off now then you were 4 years ago?” and does not like the response given by Bill Clinton that of course we are!

Four years ago, Wall Street and banks were teetering on collapse, the U.S. auto industry, Chrysler and General Motors were in danger of bankruptcy, the nation was hemorrhaging 575 thousand jobs a month, 32 million citizens were without health care coverage, and two wars were raging, all as a result of 8 years of the Bush Administration which left the country in shambles with a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit and a severe downturn in the economy only surpassed by the great depression.

 Since then unemployment has been reduced, and unemployment benefits were extended, Wall Street reform was passed, the auto industry bailout that Romney was against, has revitalized the auto industry, the war in Iraq has ended and the affordable Health Care act was passed; Equal pay for women was protected by the  Lily Ledbetter Act,  fuel efficiency standards are doubling, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was eliminated and Osama Bin Laden is dead, to name just a few of the Obama Administration accomplishments which answers,  why we are better off now than four years ago,

President Clinton’s clearly defined  Romney’s argument, as  boiling  down  to  “we left  him a total mess, he hasn’t cleaned  it up fast enough, so fire him and  put us back in, is on point and definitely not the solution .  Clinton paraphrased another president saying “There they go again”, to emphasize the foolishness of their argument.

Bill Clinton also took on Paul Ryan and the Republican ad campaign that President Obama had taken 716 billion from Medicare to promote Obama Care, saying it takes some brass (he did say brass) to criticize someone for doing the same thing you’re doing.

President Obama received a 5 point bounce immediately after the DNC, but this bounce would only be a temporary setback for the Mittster unless he did something terribly stupid which is not hard for him to do. The Mittster in fact did not fail us and in fact once again provided the electorate with evidence that he is not fit to become the leader of the free world.

Sunday September 9, 2012, was the start of the week in which the Mittster lost the election.

 In response to a question by Meet the Press Moderator, David Gregory regarding his plans to repeal Obamacare, the Mittster flipped right before our eyes. For months in numerous stump speeches he had said, over and over again, that he would repeal and replace Obamacare on day one of his administration, however in his response he answered that he was not planning to repeal or replace all of Obamacare and would keep the pre-existing conditions portions and would allow children to be covered on their parents policies no matter what age for an indefinite period of time.  This was a new position by the Mittster, given voluntarily without any prompting and yet it was short lived. Several hours later his campaign announced that the Mittster had not changed his position.

World events changed quickly and by Tuesday evening,(9/11/12), news was breaking out that protests were taking place in the Middle East as a result of an anti Muslim film posted on YouTube.  Protesters in Egypt were gathering outside the American Embassy. A statement was issued by the embassy, saying the embassy opposed “continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims- as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”

The Mittster saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate his foreign policy skills injecting himself in a fast moving scenario in Egypt, while the President was discussing the issues with Israel. The Mittster criticized President Obama for issuing an apology for American values. In a brief news conference in Jacksonville, Florida, Romney said that it was “a terrible course to – for America to stand in apology for our values.” When our grounds are being attacked and being breached, that the first response of the United States must be outrage at the breach of sovereignty of our nation. And apology for American’s values is never the right course.” Nice speech under the right conditions but reporters noted that the Mittster issued the statements before protesters had climbed the embassy walls in Cairo. and before the Ambassdor was killed in Libya.  In his defense the Mittster said, “It’s never too early for the United States Government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.”

Several hours later in Libya, protesters attacked the American Consulate in Benghazi, killing Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three employees.  Romney even after additional facts became known to him, continued with his criticism.  Romney’s speed in using the protests for his own political purposes was soundly criticized by everyone including some fellow Republicans.  It was considered a violation of a tradition of having at least momentary unity in the face of a foreign threat.  Other Republicans said that Romney had hurt himself by failing to appear steady and presidential.

President Obama Rebuked Romney, stating, “I think most Americans, Democrats and Republicans, understand that that there are times when we set politics aside and one of those is when we’ve got a direct threat to American personnel who are overseas,”

As if all of this was not enough to be considered Mitts Armageddon. The Mittster outdid himself by making statements which were videotaped and released by the Magazine, Mother Jones.  In a fund raiser to major donors, $50,000 a person, in Boca Raton, Florida on May 17, 2012, Mitt joked about being Latino. He said that his father was born in Mexico to American parents, but if they were Latino, he would have been Latino and would have had a better shot at securing the Latino vote.  The Mittster does not understand that he cannot obtain the Latino vote, not because he is not Latino but because he stands for everything that Latinos are against. The Mittster did not volunteer that his father was born in Mexico where his parents fled in order to avoid prosecution for practicing polygamy.

Further damage control was needed for the Mittster’s additional statements that showed him describing nearly half the country’s population as “dependent on government and unwilling to take responsibility for their lives.”  Romney did not dispute the comments in which he told supporters that he didn’t need to worry about Obama’s supporters because they relied on government services and paid no income tax.

“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.” All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.” “That –that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. These are people who pay no income tax.”

Romney said he would focus on nonaligned voters and not on Obama supporters. “My job is not to worry about those people; I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

When it was learned that the speech had been taped and released he quickly called a press conference in which he said that he stood by his statements but admitted that he could have made the statements more elegantly but it was off the cuff in response to a question.

This was not the first time that the Mittster was caught saying that he wasn't worried about poor people. He later corrected this by saying that he wasn't worried about poor people because they had safty nets. Now he is attacking the safty nets!

The media was again called it a gaffe however  It's time for the media to stop labeling Romney's missteps as Gaffes, because they are not gaffes but a true revelation of Romney's ingrained personality. He has previously made off the cuff statements to donors and thereafter tries to spin away his statements. On April 15, 2012, he was overheard by reporters from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News during a fund raiser telling donors that he planned to eliminate tax deductions and cabinet departments such as HUD and Education.  Once again when he learned that his statements had been overheard, he quickly retracted his statements just as he is trying to do now. He has been making speeches saying that he is interested in 100% of the people and wants to help them become less dependent on government. This would be a decent spin but for the fact that his speech was recorded where he said he has no use for those people who show no responsibility for their actions!

Romney is arrogant and truly believes that he is better than the 47%’s. That he is the only one with all the answers and if you don’t agree with him, your opinion is worthless and he has no use for you because you are a worthless moocher and leach who is dependent on government entitlements, do not pay taxes and are unwilling to take responsibility for your lives. He doesn't understand the middle and lower class people, obviously he's never had to be there. He's led a pretty guilded life and as a result he is completly out of touch with the common man, as evident by advice he gave to college students. "If you wnat to start a business, borrow from your parents", and in regards to student loans which he's never had, he said to the students,"shop around."

He has demonstrated myopic tunnel vision and is quick to criticize the poor and under privileged and has turned a blind eye to the fact that subsidies and entitlements are also provided to major corporation and industries such as farming and oil and that some major corporations like General Electric, also pay no taxes, but somehow he has not noticed that Michele Bachmann and her husband as well as Rick Santorum have also accepted subsidies and government aid or Paul Ryan who took 20 million from the stimulus bill for his district in Wisconsin.

The taped speech also contained Mitt’s idea of a  foreign policy in dealing with the Israeli/Palestinian issue. The Mittster said if elected he would not work toward a two-state solution. This two state solution has been the policy of the last three presidents and a policy that the Mittster

has publicly endorsed, but he said that he believes that the Palestinians do not want peace anyway and for political purposes are committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel. “ And so what do you do is you say, you move things along the best way you can , you hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem."

This is the Mittster, the same Mittster who insulted our ally Great Britain when he questioned their readiness for the Olympics.  In private conversations with an “in group” he feels that he is able to reveal his inner most thoughts, but what he has revealed is that he has no inner most thoughts. He doesn’t have to have any solutions. He is the man who has been chosen to save the free world. Chosen by who? By himself of course, after all he is the Mittster.

This time however some of his supporters, Republicans who had endorsed him were taken back by his; there is no other way of saying it, “stupidity.”

  Peggy Noonan writer for the Wall Street Journal said it was time for an intervention Romney’s theory of the case is all wrong. His understanding of the political topography is wrong. It’s time to admit the Romney campaign is an incompetent one. Romney always seems alone out there, a guy with a mike pacing an empty stage. All by himself, removed from the other humans. Its sad looking. It’s not working. After saying all this Peggy believes there is still time to right the ship.

The Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson,the Las Vegas Casino billionaire, having already spent hundreds of millions dollars to defeat President Obama are spending even more to buy ads that they will be running in the battleground states of Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Nevada. The Republican Party in these as well as in the states of Pennsylvania and Ohio have enacted legislation to prevent voter fraud which has been proven to be nonexistent in order to bar President Obama’s supporters from voting. This is the only way the right wing is trying to right the ship.

You can lend your support for the Democratic Party and President Obama by contributing to the campaign at https://my.barackobama.com. Tell them blu-dog sent you!

Other Republicans are taking a harder stance, if a harder stance can be taken. Laura Ingram said “if you can’t defeat a president with this economic record, you should shut down the party! Shut down the party and start again with new people. As if that would help. The Republicans in congress no longer represent their electorate and instead have pledged their allegiance to Grover Norquist and his silent partners.

Republican Senatorial candidate from Connecticut,Linda McMan said she disagreed with Romney’s insinuations.

 Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, who is trailing Elizabeth Warren in his bid for reelection said about Romney’s statements, “That’s not the way I view the world.”  Romney former governor of Massachusetts trails President Obama by 28 points in Massachusetts.

Virgina Republican Senatorial Candidate George Allen said “Romney and Paul are wrong about Medicare.”

Former Minnesota Governor, Tim Pawlenty, who had been considered as Romney’s running mate, resigned his position as national co chair of the Romney campaign, ostensibly to become a the head of a leading bank lobbying group. The media is not portraying this as a desertion of a sinking ship, but purely a business decision.  What do you think?

Fist Bump.

THE RNC, RESENTMENT, ANGER, LIES AND CLINT

With a tight script and good planning, the RNC was a good opportunity for Mitt Romney to humanize his robotic persona to make himself likeable, but what took place may be a harbinger of things to come

The RNC started with an attack on Ron Paul’s Maine delegates .Ron Paul the sole GOP primary candidate not to bow out of the race, endorse Romney or release his delegates sought to have his name thrown into the ring for the nomination even though he did not have anywhere the number of delegates to be successful.  Paul did not win a single state during the primary; however his ardent supporters worked arcane local and state party rules to take over several state delegations, including 20 of Maine’s 24 delegates. The RNC‘s delegate seating committee blocked his supporters from putting Paul’s name in for the nomination. They replaced 10 of Paul’s Maine delegates, preventing the state from submitting Paul’s name for the nomination. The Governor of Maine a Romney supporter decided to boycott the convention.  Paul’s supporters angrily walked out of the convention hall to the jeers of the Romney supporters.  During the roll call of the states, several states listed votes for both Romney and Paul, but when the count was repeated back, officials at the podium cited only the Romney votes.

 A Nevada Paul supporter stated “this is just the same as Hitler; there is nothing American about what just happened. This is the death of the Republican Party.”  

 The theme for the first day of the convention, “We Built It”, was based on an intentionally wrong interpretation of a speech by President Obama in which he essentially said that businesses were not built solely by an individual, that it also required the help of infrastructure like roads and bridges. Even Mitt Romney should realize that the success of the 2002 Winter Olympics required the contribution of $1.5 million dollars of American Tax payer money, and that he did not do it, all by himself.

The second day’s theme, “We Can Change It”, was just as innocuous. Paul Ryan gave his same old stump speech misrepresenting the facts regarding the Obama administration’s $ 716 billion transfer of funds  which was used to extend the Affordable care Act to 2024. He failed to reveal that his own budget called for a transfer of these same funds but the purpose is to reduce the deficit caused by his extension of the tax cuts for the rich.

Ryan also raised a fictitious issue by saying that President Obama was somehow responsible for the closure of the GM parts plant in Janesville Wisconsin, knowing full well that the closure took place under President Bush’s watch in December 2008.

 Ryan also critized the Stimulus, saying it raised the deficit, was not helpful and a waste of tax payer money, neglecting to say that he asked for and received 20 million of the stimulus money for his own district.

Ryan’s statement,”the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves” is hypocritical in that he has received criticism in a letter from the United States Conference of Bishops and from the faculty and administrators of Georgetown University   Georgetown University, for writing a budget “which disproportionately cut programs that "serve poor and vulnerable people." His budget was criticized for dismantling government programs and abandon the poor to their own devices." The letter goes on to say that Catholic teaching “demands that higher levels of government provide help---"subsidium"--when communities and local governments face problems beyond their means to address, such as economic crisis, high unemployment, endemic poverty and hunger." The letter criticizes Ryan for his attempts at "gutting government programs” and states that “Ryan is profoundly misreading church teachings." A statement issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops criticized the Ryan budget in similar terms. Knowing that he has received this criticism, Ryan evidently did not hesitate to make this statement about the true measure of a society, believing that no would notice his inconsistency and hypocrisy.

 Ryan seems to believe people will accept what he says just because he says it. Ryan has been described as a lace Curtin middle class individual who took a job as a Washington intern at the request of his mother who was afraid that he was going to become a ski bum. Except for a short period of employment in his family’s construction company, he has no experience in the private sector and all his work experience has been in Washington. He has distanced himself from the Ayn Rand philosophy of Objectivity but has not erased its teaching from his mind. He is out of touch with the working man and thus a perfect Mini Mitt.

 To further demonstrate his lack of credibility, it was also recently revealed that Ryan lied about his time in a marathon. He boasted about running a sub 3 hour marathon,which is the holy grail time for marathoners, and Runner’s World Magazine reported that his time was 4 hours, 1 minute.  Mini Mitt has to realize that with fact checkers, he can get caught every time he lies, which appears to be often

Whose strategy was it to have Ann Romney speak in Romney’s behalf?  If a man was applying to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 Corporation would he send his wife to intercede in his behalf? If this ploy was successful, would we expect that the wife would later be used to negotiate policy with Russia, China or Iran? 

Who scheduled Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey to speak after Ann Romney? She left the room, warm and content with her heart rendering stories about Mitt the saint and Christie displaced it with his anger and resentment, speaking primarily about himself, and New Jersey, neglecting to mention the Mittster.  Evidently he is planning to run in 2016.

The third day’s theme, “We Believe in America”, is an insult to all Americans.  Who doesn’t believe in America?

 Romney’s criticism of President Obama’s statement that he would slow the rise of the ocean waters and heal the planet, and that he instead, would help the American Family, was again taken out of context 

 On June 3, after obtaining the necessary delegates to garner the Democratic nomination President Obama made a speech in which he concluded saying,” America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past.  Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love. The Journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I can also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it , and fight for it, and  believe in it , then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back  and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care  for the sick, and good jobs for the jobless;  this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; This was the moment  when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored  our image as the last best hope on earth. This was our moment-this was the time –when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.”

The Mittster’s response to this, the “he would help the American Family” demonstrates  his lack of understanding of poetic license in that President Obama was saying he would help the American family and this great country in every way possible.

Mitt’s failure to recognize this maybe the result of his rigidity, his tunnel like vision where he believes that only he has the answers.  The nuance of the concept. “this is the moment” went over his head. I wouldn’t doubt it if he flunked English Lit 101, he clearly failed to understand   what President Obama was saying.

Clint Eastwood’s performance needs no review, he hammered President Obama, for the war in Afghanistan, saying oh you didn’t bother to call and ask the Russians about their 10 year war in Afghanistan?

 Clint it was George W. Bush and Dick Chaney who started the war in Afghanistan. Clint questioned why is necessary to be a lawyer to be president, forgetting that the Mittster was also a law school grad.

What does need to be reviewed about Clint is who arrange for Clint to be there in the first place and allowed him to perform an unscripted standup open mike routine without vetting his material. You’re good at firing people, Mitt. Do your duty.

The remainder of Mitt speech was a takeoff on a Jeff Foxworthy routine, “You know you’re a rich redneck when you have two broken washing machines on your porch and three wrecked cars in your front yard, but not as good as this joke.

 Mitt almost shed crocodile tears when he said “I wished the president had succeeded because I want America to succeed. Grover Norquist, Mitch McConnell both said that their priority was to make President Obama a one term president. A 100 days into his term, Hannity was playing the music for the Omen as he reviewed the inauguration.

On March 2, 2009 Bill O’Reilly said “Obama’s vision has not worked at all, of course it has only been 6 weeks, 42 days to fix the broken economy.

El Rushbo took some heat when he said on January 28, 2009, that he did not want the president to succeed. Romney was asked for his opinion and he said, “Rush Limbaugh is partially right, we don’t want failed policies to succeed.”  El Rushbo and the Mittster wanted President Obama to reverse 8 years of Bush’s disastrous administration in 8 days.

 So hypocrisy is rampant on this Romney/ Mini Mitt  team.

Mitt dared to ask the question, “are you better off now then you were 4 years ago?” and the answer is damm right,  of course we are!

 Four years ago, Wall Street and banks were teetering on collapse, the U.S. auto industry, Chrysler and General Motors were in danger of bankruptcy, the nation was hemorrhaging 575 thousand jobs a month and 32 million citizens were without health care coverage. Two wars were raging.

 Since then unemployment has been reduced, and unemployment benefits were extended, Wall Street reform was passed, the auto industry bailout that Romney was against, has revitalized the auto industry, the war in Iraq has ended and the affordable Health Care act was passed; Equal pay for women was protected by the  Lily Ledbetter Act, stem cell research was funded, fuel efficiency standards are doubling, the first Latina Supreme Court Justice was appointed, Libya was liberated, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was eliminated and Osama Bin Laden is dead, to name just a few of the many accomplishments by the Obama Administrations is why we are better off now than four years ago, when 8 years of  the Bush Republican Administration left the country in shambles with a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit and a the most severe downturn in the economy since the great depression.

Mitt once again failed to mention any specifics as how he would do better, he said that he would create 15 million jobs but he did not say how he would create them. He failed to mention the ongoing war in Afghanistan or the military but to his way of thinking, those are just minor issues and blanks can be filled in later. In trying to explain why he failed to mention Afghanistan in his RNC speech he said that he had spoken about Afghanistan and his policy the day before in a speech to the American Legion. A review of that speech has the Mittster saying, We are still in a war in Afghanistan. Our men and women in uniform remain in defense of our country. It was just one simple sentence, with no mention of any policy.  Mitt has to be aware that every word he says is captured on tape and he can not extricate himself from a lie by telling another lie. In his speech at the RNC he managed to say that his dad was born in Mexico and that his dad's family had to flee Mexico during the Mexican revolution. He thought that this was something he needed to say but somehow did not think to mention Afghanistan? 
 Mitt has not yet released his income tax return for 2011 and is afraid to reveal taxes for any other years. He thought that he was helping his cause by saying that he has consistently paid at least 13.5 per cent in taxes for the previous five years.  If he admits to this, it's easy to understand why he may be afraid  to release his taxes. If he can’t trust the American Public, why should the American public trust him?

FIST BUMP