Romney to Reveal VP Choice Tomorrow (Saturday, August 11)

[basso]

[bigtexxx]

^

nailed it.

[Commodore]

Obama has no chance of winning Wisconsin

[Northside Storm]

Originally Posted by Commodore Obama has no chance of winning Wisconsin

Adding two points to Mr. Romney’s figures in Wisconsin makes him more likely to win the state, of course, although he remains the underdog there: the model now projects Mr. Romney to lose the it by 5.2 percentage points. Still, his chances of pulling off a win in Wisconsin improved to 20 percent in the forecast, from just 12 percent on Friday. Of course, Mr. Ryan may not actually produce a 2-point bonus for Mr. Romney in Wisconsin. Mr. Ryan represents just a corner of the state rather than Wisconsin in its entirety, and his favorability ratings are lukewarm in other parts of the state. Based on a more sophisticated method that accounts for the favorability ratings, I estimated that Mr. Ryan would be worth about 1 point to Mr. Romney in Wisconsin instead.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes...ove-the-polls/

huh.

[Northside Storm]

Deng Xiaoping has no chance of becoming paramount leader of China!

[GladiatoRowdy]

Originally Posted by bigtexxx I love how our resident academic can be so intellectually lazy when providing his economic opinions? "It's not his fault"? You're blinded by "Oblamer" bias.

Actually, I perceive B-Bob as having the ability to place blame exactly where it belongs. Where we are, given the starting point and circumstances to be handled in the next section, is remarkable, in a good way.

He has had 4 years and has proven that he cannot work across the aisle.

Claiming the same false thing over and over again just makes you a repeated liar. Obama and the Democrats bent over backwards to compromise, taking single payer and the government option off the table before even really beginning in the ACA debate is a perfect example. Obama held a seven hour long, televised (I saw it streamed) summit on healthcare and the only suggestion, from every Republican, was "clean sheet of paper." This was after a year of debate and compromise and was a laughable suggestion.

Every olive branch extended by Obama hit a wood chipper and every time he extended his hand in friendship, he drew back a bloody stump. That is how it is and no amount of lying can overcome that basic fact about Obama's efforts to "work across the aisle."

Unemployment is truly a national disgrace

I agree, much more of the stimulus should have gone to infrastructure projects, which would have gotten more people working.

Obama hasn't lowered it

Actually, it has gone down quite a bit since the peak, after Bush's Depression.

as his team promised.

If this is where you trot out one estimate among the dozens provided to try and prove that Obama's administration "promised" some magical unemployment figures, stop it.

From Politifact.com

"Claim: "He’d … lower unemployment."

This rephrases a tired GOP charge that consistently gets Mostly False or worse ratings. Many Republicans have claimed that Obama promised his stimulus package would keep the national unemployment rate below 8 percent. But Obama never made such a vow.

The GOP claim is based on a January 2009 report issued by the incoming Obama administration. It contained a chart projecting that unemployment, if the stimulus was approved, would top out at 8 percent. The report, however, contained several disclaimers warning that the projections were subject to "significant margins of error" and a high degree of uncertainty due to a recession that was "unusual both in its fundamental causes and severity.""

He's failed.

He has done a couple of things really well, many things acceptably well, many things worse than I would have liked, and a couple of things egregiously badly. In that way, he is like every other President I have ever lived under. However, he would be a much better option than Romney, and this is coming from a guy who will be voting Johnson/Grey this year.

[bigtexxx]

Originally Posted by GladiatoRowdy In that way, he is like every other President I have ever lived under. However, he would be a much better option than Romney, and this is coming from a guy who will be voting Johnson/Grey this year.

Glad to see you don't have enough confidence in Obama to vote for him. You're starting to show signs of growing as a thinker.

[GladiatoRowdy]

Originally Posted by bigtexxx Glad to see you don't have enough confidence in Obama to vote for him. You're starting to show signs of growing as a thinker.

It isn't that I lack confidence in Obama, I just like another guy better. Of course, I would rather have a bucket of warm piss in the Oval Office than Romney.

[rimrocker]

[glynch]

The Social Terrorist Vision of Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand: Politics of the Anti-Christ

I will admit it, when I read Atlas Shrugged several years ago, I got caught up in the scrawling epic with bigger than life characters. Apparently, Paul Ryan enjoyed it too; so much so that in 2005, at a banquet honoring the author, he said, "The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” While he has since tried to walk back from those remarks, it’s clear that the Vice Presidential candidate’s political ideology has been heavily influenced by Alisa Rosenbaum, the Russian immigrant otherwise known as Ayn Rand.

What I initially missed in Atlas Shrugged was the underlying themes of superiority of the successful and a disdain for the less fortunate. In Rand’s novels, the poor are basically lazy dullards who deserve their lot in life. Actually, they deserve worse, if only the government would get out of the way and stop propping them up with hand-outs. The Paul Ryan budget proposal, which propelled him to national prominence, reflects the same basic belief system. If the Ryan plan were passed, it would deny eight million people food stamps, thirty million people access to healthcare, and send two million kids into poverty; all the while giving even more tax cuts to the wealthiest in society].

Behind Mr. Ryan’s budget is the ‘Ayn Randian’ notion that taxes and regulations reduce the incentive for the best and brightest in our society. What we have actually seen is that reduced tax rates on the upper end of the economic scale have only created wider ‘wealth chasms.’ We got a tiny taste of laissez faire capitalism when an under-regulated financial industry nearly took down the whole economy. And post-Katrina New Orleans gave us a glimpse of life without government intervention. While the notion of carving out our destiny without government interference may sound rugged and romantic, in the real world, it would be a pretty chaotic place.

Even more difficult to defend than the economic feasibility of Paul Ryan’s budget is its morality, or lack thereof. When Mr. Ryan (a Catholic) spoke at Georgetown University, 90 Georgetown professors wrote a letter protesting his "continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few." Mr. Ryan responded by saying, “I do not believe that the preferential option for the poor means a preferential option for big government." That begs the follow-up question, if not from the government, from where will the needed assistance come?

That question, at least in part, is what prompted four nuns, who have devoted their lives to working with the poor, to get on a bus and take their message to the heartland of America. It was outside of Ryan’s office in Wisconsin that Sister Simone Campbell told her []audiences that if every church and synagogue and faith community in the nation were to try to do what federal programs now do, it would cost them, in essence, what the government pays -- the money has to come from somewhere. While Ryan would not want to admit it, the only logical conclusion to his plan is that millions of struggling Americans will slip through the cracks.[/B]

Ayn Rand was much more open and honest about her belief system; publically condemning the notion of ethical altruism, preferring her own “virtue of selfishness.” A self-described atheist, she accepted this was contrary to Christ’s teachings to ‘take care of the least of these.” Her religion was capitalism, and she unabashedly wrote that the individual “should exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others, nor sacrificing others to himself.” Of course, Jesus did not “shrug” off the world like the heroes of Atlas Shrugged. Instead, he became the ultimate sacrifice by giving his life for everyone. That’s a very different message than the one you will find in Ayn Rand’s books or Paul Ryan’s budget.

Jeff Fulmer lives in Brentwood Tennessee and is the author of the book Hometown Prophet. For a free copy of his e-book, “As a Christian, Why the GOP Doesn’t Speak for Me,” simply subscribe to the Hometown Prophet Newsletter at http://www.hometownprophetbook.com.

[mc mark]

WOW! Quite an admission from the RNC chairman.

GOP Chairman: Romney Is Not Ready To Lead on Day One Without Ryan

Appearing on Meet The Press on Sunday, Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus admitted that Romney would only be ready to lead “on day one” with Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-WI) by his side.

[glynch]

Originally Posted by BetterThanEver A liberal choosing a conservative as VP to strengthen his base. It's a replay of 2008 with socialist state healthcare. If he rolls back the Marxist healthcare policies in his state, it might work out better this time.

Romney a liberal. What is next? Romney a Marxst-Socialist because he has not come out against government funds for public libraries?

[glynch]

Originally Posted by rocketsjudoka Coming in late to this thread but I giver Romney for making a risky political move. Romney has pretty much played it very safe this election and this was the type of bold move that he needed to make. This could backfire on him badly but without it he was pretty much being defined as rich and out of touch with little reason to vote for him from the base except that he wasn't Obama.

Do you give Hitler credit for making "risky political moves" in his early years?

[basso]

Originally Posted by rimrocker

Mr. President, take your campaign out of the gutter.

[glynch]

Oh, but at least you have to hand it for the millionaire Ryan for being so totally ballsy as to try to cut the benefits for the poor, the childen, the disabled and the elderly.

Besides he works out a lot and votes for wars he never fights in.

Such courage.

[mc mark]

Originally Posted by basso Mr. President, take your campaign out of the gutter.

What a whiny bitch!

You and your kind had no problems wallowing in the dirt the last two elections.

Nut up or Shut up!

BTW please post the link showing this is coming from the Obama campaign.

[bigtexxx]

Originally Posted by mc mark What a whiny bitch! You and your kind had no problems wallowing in the dirt the last two elections. Nut up or Shut up! BTW please post the link showing this is coming from the Obama campaign.

The dog pile liberals are showing signs of cracking. Likely because they fear Ryan will stir up the tea party voters?

VESUVIUS HERE THEY COME

[RocketMan Tex]

I can't wait until someone asks Rep. Ryan how his budget will benefit the poor and elderly.....

[rimrocker]

Originally Posted by basso Mr. President, take your campaign out of the gutter.

I'm no president. I am, however, vice-president of a local youth sports organization. Never had to campaign though.

[SamFisher]

Romney distancing himself from Ryan's calling card, the budget is so totally Romney.

His primary achievement was a health care plan in Massachusetts that he now thinks is the work of the devil and unspeakably evil.

He's pretending like he's going to support a tax plan that "broadens the base" by closing unspecified loopholes; this is a man who made hundreds of millions of dollars due to an industry which exists solely because of a tax loophole.

He chose the running mate on the basis of his budget plan which he now denounces.

Classic Romney.