Republican convention

[LisaA]

I just saw part of Paul Ryan’s speech on YouTube. Wow, where did this guy come from? He’s the most “presidential” of the bunch on either side. I can easily see him as president in the future. Heck, I could easily see his face on Mount Rushmore!

I am fortunate to have had many opportunities to hear from Paul Ryan as a regular listener to Bill Bennett (former Sec of Education and Drug Czar, Prof at Boston U and also a former Democrat!) who with the late Jack Kemp founded an organization called Empower America. Paul Ryan was mentored by both of these men and has been a frequent guest on Bennett’s radio program.

His command of economic principles, his ability to communicate them and his personal integrity are out of this world. In fact Bill tried hard to convince him to run for President this time. I think he believed he was not quite ready and also concerns about the brutal campaign on his young family made him decide against running for Pres. But as the number two on this ticket he provides energy, knowledge of Congress, and has incredible strength of purpose.

The added bonus is his personal appeal. I bet there wasn’t a dry eye in the house last night when he spoke of his mom. He is the total package and I too see him in the White House someday!

Lisa

 

[qui_est_ce]

The added bonus is his personal appeal. I bet there wasn’t a dry eye in the house last night when he spoke of his mom. He is the total package and I too see him in the White House someday!

Lisa

YOWZA!

PS, It will be a while before I let you off the hook on that one!

 

[LisaA]

I don’t have to know how to play the piano to be able to give a valid opinion on the talent of the pianist. BTW, your use of “bragged” is hyperbole.

Your being impressed is an appropriate and educated reaction. Will that, though, translate into their being elected and helping to sweep the accursed Democrats out of Congress?

First, where in the Forum rules does it say that one must be wholly familiar with a candidate for office before being alllowed to comment on that individual?
Second, I have now gone to the effort of learning a bit about those people, and yes, a few appear to be interesting, but it is very unlikely that I’ll switch sides and vote for them.

Fine. I thought that you were going to point to some inner-city crook as an ideal Democrat, but you didn’t, and pointed to a man who is willing to some extent to stand up to his party as when he criticized its attacks on Mitt Romney’s private equity career. Obama strategist David Axelrod had fired back that Booker was “wrong” for calling the attacks on Romney’s Bain Capital tenure “nauseating.” Good for Booker!

But, even there, one has to wonder if he will rise above state politics - now Mayor of Newark, tomorrow Governor of New Jersey?

Rich:

The candidates and elected officials are either already governors, congressmen, not running for Congress—IOW I am not predicting they will sweep “the accursed Democrats out of office” but that they are examples of the depth of our Republican bench. There ARE some outstanding candidates that I would like to see come in, Josh Mandel for
example but they aren’t part of this thread. The point being, I see a bright future for our party in contrast to the Democrats who seem to be without a bench for 2016 on.

You are right that there are not rules against weighing in when you proudly state you know nothing about the issue. I didn’t say you weren’t allowed to weigh in but given your position why bother?

As to Cory Booker, I’ve been impressed with his ‘get things done’ attitude, willingness to face serious problems in his city and what I see as true concern for its citizens rather than a desire for power and prestige. I had forgotten about the Bain issue until you mentioned it. I know they put him in the penalty box for that remark but it’s a smart move to showcase him at the Convention.

Oh and if you want to see a HILARIOUS video get the YouTube of Booker and Christie. It’s a scream!

Lisa

 

[meltzerboy]

I liked Paul Ryan’s speech: well-crafted, well-delivered, inspirational, at turns moving and humorous. But one thing I don’t understand about Paul Ryan’s congressional voting record: doesn’t he appear to be a big-spending conservative since he voted in favor of the auto bailouts, TARP, the Obama stimulus, and other economic programs that many Republicans were opposed to? And how does Ryan’s record mesh with his current plan to cut entitlement spending? I see a disconnect in his economic philosophy. Am I missing something?

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

You are right that there are not rules against weighing in when you proudly state you know nothing about the issue. I didn’t say you weren’t allowed to weigh in but given your position why bother?

LOL! Not “proudly”! BTW, it’s quite all right for a GOP partisan to weigh in on something about Dems even given their positions. I don’t live in just one cave, and you in an other. Better we all sit around the fire where we can exchange ideas - idiotic though yours might seem to me and as stupid as mine may appear to you!

As to Cory Booker, I’ve been impressed with his ‘get things done’ attitude, willingness to face serious problems in his city and what I see as true concern for its citizens rather than a desire for power and prestige. I had forgotten about the Bain issue until you mentioned it. I know they put him in the penalty box for that remark but it’s a smart move to showcase him at the Convention.

With the bad reputation Newark has for all its problems, New Yorkers, aside from our overweaning self-absorption, don’t see much merit in paying attention to what’s going on across the River. I know better now. Booker, in the fawning language often used in politics, may be a “comer.”

Oh and if you want to see a HILARIOUS video get the YouTube of Booker and Christie. It’s a scream!

Will do.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

I liked Paul Ryan’s speech: well-crafted, well-delivered, inspirational, at turns moving and humorous. But one thing I don’t understand about Paul Ryan’s congressional voting record: doesn’t he appear to be a big-spending conservative since he voted in favor of the auto bailouts, TARP, the Obama stimulus, and other economic programs that many Republicans were opposed to? And how does Ryan’s record mesh with his current plan to cut entitlement spending? I see a disconnect in his economic philosophy. Am I missing something?

You aren’t the only one to notice that disconnect between his current reputation and his voting record in Congress. A bit of sweeping under the rug, perhaps, by the GOP.

 

[Jeanne_S]

Calling the election for Romney already? I thought you were a Dem.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

I just knew I’d get ganged up on!

 

[7_Sorrows]

In other words, you have no names. Just as I said, the Democrat party has no bright young leaders with fresh ideas. They have minorities who buy into the decades old welfare spending/identity politics philosophy of the Democrat party - gays, abortion, race baiting and welfare - to go along with the tired old hacks like Biden, Reid and Pelosi. What a party to be proud of.

Ishii

great points Ishii!

 

[Jeffrey]

And what has that got us… a worthless pro death president. THE WORST president ever. And I thought carter was the worst. We need to get these pro death ppl out of office.

CMatt,

Please don’t violate anyone’s fantasy with nasty facts. That would be rude.

John

 

[Jeffrey]

_Abyssinia

Please don’t violate anyone’s fantasy with nasty facts. That would be rude.

Their were minorities in key positions in the republican party for many years, but it is only recently people have started to notice because there is a different air that the rising stars are bringing and it is not only the fact that many of them are minorities. Michael Steele, Condoleeza Rice etc. Republicans have an advantage in electing Latino politicians over democrats

 

[Jeffrey]

Whoefully incorrect. More lib kool aid.

That may be part of the Republican plan to get the RNC nominee elected. Make it more difficult for the poor and working poor to vote.

 

[Jeffrey]

Because the msm promotes that garbage… I agree with you… pick the best person. Race shouldn’t be the case… niether should gender.

I don’t get why the republicans try so hard to find “minorities” to promote. Why not just choose the best candidates and not dwell on the accidents of a person but the substance. Condoleezza isn’t even pro-life.

 

[ByzCathCantor]

Whoefully incorrect. More lib kool aid.

This challenge is indeed a stretch, as you state. Even the ACLU endorsed the voting plan.

 

[Jeffrey]

Still open under Bush… closed in 2009… so it shut down under obama.

I read the whole thing…production shut down under Bush…a skeleton crew remained until early 2009.

John

 

[MJE]

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell said Wednesday that a reference to President Obama’s golfing in Sen. Mitch McConnell’s RNC speech is an attempt to link the president to Tiger Woods and his “lifestyle”:

Republican speakers referencing Obama & Chicago are racists:
Chris Matthews says:
“They keep saying Chicago by the way, have you noticed? They keep saying Chicago. That’s another thing that sends that message – this guy’s **helping the poor people in the bad **neighborhoods, screwing us in the ‘burbs.”

Except the Republican’s are NOT saying the poor have been helped by Obama. They are arguing that the poor have been harmed by years of liberal policies.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Politifact Goes All In for the Obama Campaign; PropagandaFact is Born

For a long time conservatives have suspected and accused Politifact of bias against the right, but with Paul Ryan’s speech, they’ve come out obviously as a propaganda wing of the Obama campaign. The manner in which they lie is so blatant and shameless it should be clear to anyone with a modicum [or emoticon if you’re MeggiMac] of critical reading.

They rate Paul Ryan’s statement “false” that Obama lied about his promise to a GM plant’s workers that under his policies, it would stay open.

Here is Obama’s actual statement from the speech he gave at the Janesville plant:

“And I believe that if our government is there to support you

, and give you the assistance you need to re-tool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another hundred years. The question is not whether a clean energy economy is in our future, it’s where it will thrive. I want it to thrive right here in the United States of America; right here in Wisconsin; and that’s the future I’ll fight for as your president.”

I’ve added emphasis to the quote from the original Politifact article. This is their flaccid reasoning for calling Ryan’s accusation false:

That’s a statement of belief that, with government help, the Janesville plant could remain open — but not a promise to keep it open.

.…the article reported that Obama, who later provided an $80 billion auto bailout, had pledged to help keep the Janesville plant and others like it “viable.” That’s not quite the same thing as pledging keep the Janesville plant open. We find nothing in the article that he explicitly promised to keep it open.

1. Obama makes no use of the word “viable” – this is simply conjured up by his surrogates at Politifact to excuse his broken promise.
2. Paul Ryan’s point was not to blame Obama for the closing of the plant – it’s to point out the broken promises he made, disguised beneath his soaring rhetoric.

Here’s the statement from Paul 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.

These are merely facts, and the thrust of Ryan’s argument is not in any way dependent on the date of the plant’s closing.

1. Ryan’s point is that Obama promised a recovery, and even when his plan went through, his personal word that he made to the workers of that GM plant was empty and unfulfilled.

The Washington Examiner also points out the GM plant to this day is still on “standby” mode

soopermexican.com/2012/08/30/politifact-goes-all-in-for-the-obama-campaign/

 

[Jeffrey]

:clapping:

If Catholics voted thier faith… .obama never would have made it in.

What will I do if Obama is re-elected? Weep for the unborn. You are right - I am bitter that there are still catholics who would vote for such a man - in light of his pro-abortion policies.

Ishii

 

[_Abyssinia]

So how do you explain the abortion rate declining significantly under the Clinton administration?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_United_States

In September of 2000, in the waning months of the Clinton Administration, the Food and Drug Administration fulfilled the mandate of that president and approved the sale of RU486, the French abortion pill. It took some months to begin full-scale distribution, but it had reached the market by the time George W. Bush took the oath of office and was being heavily promoted by the media and the abortion industry.

According to the CDC, there were 20,093 “medical” (chemical abortions) for 2001 in the states it tracked, representing about 2.9% of the total abortions from those states. If usage figures given by the U.S. distributor of the drug are correct, that number is expected to explode in subsequent years leading to an overall increase in the number of abortions. That tide could turn, however, as more women hear of deaths and other problems with the abortion pill.

Three deaths have already been associated with the use of RU486 in the United States, and five others are known about from other countries.

No matter how she spins the numbers, the legacy of Sen. Clinton’s husband is not a world in which abortion is increasingly rare, but one in which it is increasingly dangerous. Are those the footsteps in which she plans to follow?

nrlc.org/news/2005/NRL02/AbortionIncreaseMyth.html

Abortion actually stopped declining by the time Clinton left office.

Dr. Randy O’Bannon, director of education at the National Right to Life Committee, says most of the abortion decline in the 1990s occurred during the first few years. That’s when the first President Bush was in office and shortly thereafter — before Clinton’s economic policies would have had an effect. O’Bannon said the rate of decline was higher in the Bush years and slowed during the Clinton years.

“In Clinton’s last year in office, the decline was not 1.7%, but just 0.1%,” O’Bannon explained, comparing the average decline in the 1990s with Clinton’s final year.

During the Bush years and the year after, abortions decreased by 113,000, or 7 percent. The number of abortions fell by only 46,500, or 3.5 percent, during Clinton’s second term in office, when his economic policies were in full effect. The abortion number even reversed itself one year during the Clinton presidency, from 1995-1996, and went up slightly.

In January 2009, the Alan Guttmacher Institute reported that the number of abortions nationwide have fallen to their lowest point in 30 years and have declined 25 percent since 1990 — with half of that time period coming under pro-life presidents. The number of abortions are now at their lowest point since 1.179 million in 1976, AGI said.

Meanwhile, research from a nonpartisan political watchdog group finds the claim false when compared with national and state abortion statistics.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania says that claims that abortions have not decreased under President Bush are “not true.”

“Politicians from Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Howard Dean have recently contended that abortions have increased since George W. Bush took office in 2001,” the researchers have written.

“This claim is false. It’s based on an opinion piece that used data from only 16 states. A study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute of 43 states found that abortions have actually decreased,” Annenberg indicates.

“The claim is repeated by supporters of abortion rights as evidence that Bush’s anti-abortion policies have backfired, or at least been ineffective,” it added. “But the claim is untrue. In fact, according to the respected Alan Guttmacher Institute, a 20-year decline in abortion rates continued after Bush took office.”

lifenews.com/2011/11/18/kathleen-kennedy-townsend-wrong-on-partisanship-abortion

 

[Jeffrey]

Awwww… .your ok Rich

I just knew I’d get ganged up on!