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Democratic National Convention; Charlotte, NC Sept 4-6
Topic Started: Aug 3 2012, 11:12 PM (7,656 Views)
Baldo
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Krauthammer On Obama: "One Of The Emptiest Speeches I Have Ever Heard"

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I was stunned. This is a man who gave one of the great speeches of our time in 2004, and he gave one of the emptiest speeches I have ever heard on a national stage. Yes, it had cadence, and yes, there were deceptions in it, but that is not what is so striking about it. There was nothing in it. This is a man who believes that government can and should do a lot. There is nothing in here that tells us how he's going to go from today to tomorrow. For any of the so called goals and what government is going to do, what is he going to enact?

At least Romney had a five point plan. What we heard from Obama was a vision. And he pulls numbers out of a hat. 100,000 new math and science teachers. 600,000 more people working in natural gas. Two million more trainees, and he doesn't say how we get from A to B. It's a vision. I have a vision of an America where there is no disease and everybody has a private airplane, but unless I tell you how we get there, I’ve said nothing. And what is so surprising, is that - all he had left - he can't speak about his record on the economy, and it's not a good one. As we heard, he didn't speak about achievements, the one that's liberals like, ObamaCare, stimulus and etc… they're unpopular.

So, at least he would talk about the future, what he's going to to. There was nothing there. I’m amazed that he was -- it was like this is a guy who is the A student in the class turning in a paper clearly a C, and the teacher says, “How could you do this? Why did you mail it in?” I felt the Biden speech was infinitely better, because it was empathic and carried a message, but the Obama speech, I thought was flat and had no content in it. Otherwise, I loved it, really…snipped

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/09/06/krauthammer_on_obama_one_of_the_emptiest_speeches_i_have_ever_heard.html


see video at site
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LTC8K6
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That’s It??

I take back every criticism I made of Romney’s speech last week. Next to Obama, Romney was Demosthenes. I’m not the first to say tonight of Obama’s speech: That’s it?? I’m reminded of the story George Will likes to tell about Orioles manager Earl Weaver, who once said to an umpire after a blown call, “Are you going to get any better, or is this it?” That now applies to Obama. If this is his high water mark, he’s going to lose the election badly. I’m actually starting to feel good about Romney’s chances tonight.

...


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/09/thats-it.php
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LTC8K6
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State Dept. Again Refuses to Name Capital of Israel

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/state-dept-again-refuses-name-capital-israel_651863.html
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Joan Foster

I think that "I AM the President" line is going to show up in ads...and not ones Obama will like.
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Kerri P.
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http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-obama-phantom-peace-dividend-033637499--election.html
FACT CHECK: Obama and the phantom peace dividend

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama laid claim to a peace dividend that doesn't exist when he told the nation he wants to use money saved by ending wars to build highways, schools and bridges.

The wars were largely financed by borrowing, so there is no ready pile of cash to be diverted to anything else.

The claim was one of several by Obama in his acceptance speech Thursday at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., and by Vice President Joe Biden in earlier remarks that did not match the facts. A look at some of their assertions:

OBAMA: "I'll use the money we're no longer spending on war to pay down our debt and put more people back to work — rebuilding roads and bridges, schools and runways. After two wars that have cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars, it's time to do some nation-building right here at home."

THE FACTS: The idea of taking war savings to pay for other programs is budgetary sleight of hand, given that the wars were paid for with increased debt. Obama can essentially "pay down our debt," as he said, by borrowing less now that war is ending. But he still must borrow to do the extra "nation-building" he envisions.

He made a similar statement in his State of the Union address, and it is no less misleading now than in January. And the savings appear to be based at least in part on inflated war spending estimates for future years.

___

OBAMA: "We will reform and strengthen Medicare for the long haul, but we'll do it by reducing the cost of health care, not by asking seniors to pay thousands of dollars more."

THE FACTS: Some of the proposals the Obama administration has floated in budget negotiations with Congress would ask Medicare beneficiaries to pay more. Among them: revamping co-payments and deductibles in ways that could raise costs for retirees and increasing premiums for certain beneficiaries.

Obama even indicated a willingness to consider raising the eligibility age, currently 65, to 67. As word of some of the proposals leaked out, the president faced a backlash from fellow Democrats. He has since said he would not accept Medicare cuts as a part of a deficit reduction deal, unless it also includes higher taxes on the wealthy. Still, some level of increased costs for middle-class and upper-income Medicare recipients is likely to be part of any future deficit reduction deal.

___

OBAMA: "We can help big factories and small businesses double their exports, and if we choose this path, we can create a million new manufacturing jobs in the next four years."

THE FACTS: Obama has claimed an increase of some 500,000 manufacturing jobs over the past 29 months. But this is cherry picking by the president. From the beginning of Obama's term 3 1/2 years ago, manufacturing jobs have declined by more than 500,000, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Manufacturing jobs have been on a steady decline for nearly two decades.

Even though there has been a modest uptick in manufacturing jobs this year, unless there is a major turnaround, it seems unlikely that Obama's goal of 1 million new manufacturing jobs can be reached by his target date of 2016.

___

OBAMA: "And now you have a choice: We can give more tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas or we can start rewarding companies that open new plants and train new workers and create new jobs here in the United States of America."

BIDEN: "Gov. Romney believes that in the global economy, it doesn't much matter where American companies put their money or where they create jobs. As a matter of fact, he has a new tax proposal — the territorial tax — that experts say will create 800,000 jobs, all of them overseas."

THE FACTS: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's proposal is actually aimed at encouraging investment in the U.S., not overseas.

The U.S. currently has a global tax system that is filled with credits, exemptions and deductions that enable many companies to avoid U.S. taxes and provides an incentive for corporations to keep their profits in other countries. Whether Romney's plan would spur investment in the U.S. is debatable, but it's not a plan aimed at dispersing profits abroad.

Experts differ on the impact of a territorial system on employment in the U.S. But Biden's implication that Romney's plan sends jobs abroad is not supported by the expert opinion he cites.

Kimberly Clausing, an economics professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore., said a pure territorial tax system could increase employment in low-tax countries by 800,000. But that did not mean U.S. jobs moving overseas. Clausing later wrote: "My analysis does not speak to the effects on jobs in the United States."

___

OBAMA: "You can choose a future where we reduce our deficit without wrecking our middle class. Independent analysis shows that my plan would cut our deficits by $4 trillion."

THE FACTS: Three years ago, Obama pledged to cut in half the deficit "we inherited" by the end of his first term, a mark he's set to miss by a wide margin. The deficit when he took office was $1.2 trillion, and the $800 billion stimulus bill Obama signed soon afterward increased the shortfall to over $1.4 trillion. The White House predicts this year's federal budget deficit will end up at $1.2 trillion, marking the fourth consecutive year of trillion dollar-plus red ink.

Obama's new $4 trillion target over 10 years resets the goalposts with some fancy budget footwork. For one thing, it includes $1 trillion in cuts already signed into law. And it assumes that Congress will pass the administration's plan to raise the capital gains tax, boost taxes on households earning over $250,000 a year and impose a minimum 30 percent tax on incomes above $1 million. It also assumes a reduction in the amount of interest the government must pay on its debt.

___

BIDEN: "After the worst job loss since the Great Depression, we've created 4.5 million private sector jobs in the past 29 months."

THE FACTS: This seems to be a favorite statistic, because many speakers at the convention cited it. But it's misleading — a figure that counts jobs from when the recession reached its trough and employment began to grow again. It excludes jobs lost earlier in Obama's term, and masks the fact that joblessness overall has risen over Obama's term so far.

As well, in the same 29 months that private sector jobs grew by 4.5 million, jobs in the public sector declined by about 500,000, making the net gain in that period about 4 million.

Overall, some 7.5 million jobs were lost during the recession that began in December 2007 in President George W. Bush's term and ended officially in June 2009 with Obama as president.

Never since World War II has the economy been so slow to recover all the jobs lost in a downturn.

___

OBAMA: "Millions of students are paying less for college today because we finally took on a system that wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on banks and lenders."

THE FACTS: "Technically it is true," said Bryan Cook, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the American Council on Education. "How much of a savings is not clear."

Large increases in federal Pell Grants, GI Bill benefits and the 2009 American Opportunity Tax Credit led to a significant increase in the amount of aid provided to students who qualify for these benefits. The current per year maximum Pell Grant is $5,550 — $900 higher than it was in 2008 for a program that serves more than 9 million students.

Under the Obama administration, Congress passed legislation requiring all federal loans be issued through the Education Department; previously, they were also issued by private lenders. This will also probably mean students pay less in the long term.

___

OBAMA: "In 2014, our longest war will be over."

THE FACTS: Although most U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, thousands are likely to stay and continue a U.S. presence for years. There is no telling what fighting they might be drawn into, despite the decision to end the U.S. combat role.

Military leaders and administration officials have not yet said how many will stay, asserting that such decisions are far from being made. But analysts say the U.S. envisions a post-2014 force of as many as 20,000 American troops to continue training the Afghan forces, hunt terrorists and keep watch on Iran and other nations in the region.

___

BIDEN: "What they didn't tell you is that the plan they've put down on paper would immediately cut benefits to more than 30 million seniors already on Medicare. What they didn't tell you is the plan they're proposing would cause Medicare to go bankrupt by 2016."

THE FACTS: Biden wasn't referring to any Medicare plan of Romney or running mate Paul Ryan, but to the consequences of fully repealing Obama's health care law, which is unpopular with seniors even though it has sweetened Medicare in certain ways. A Medicare plan put forward by Ryan in Congress would have no immediate effect because it would apply only to future retirees.

Obama's health care law improved Medicare benefits, adding better coverage for beneficiaries with high prescription costs as well as removing co-pays for a set of preventive benefits. If the law is repealed, those benefits would be lost unless Congress decides otherwise.

Similarly, Romney's promise to restore Obama's $716 billion in Medicare cuts could have unintended consequences for the program. The cuts don't affect seniors directly, instead falling on hospitals, insurers and other service providers. Restoring the higher payments to providers would accelerate the depletion of Medicare's trust fund for inpatient care, from 2024 currently to 2016, unless Congress acts to stave that off.
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LTC8K6
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Joan Foster
Sep 7 2012, 06:17 AM
I think that "I AM the President" line is going to show up in ads...and not ones Obama will like.
IIRC, they used to laugh at Nixon for saying that.

Plus, it's a line from a movie.
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LTC8K6
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The speech of the night at last night’s DNC was not sputtering Joe Biden’s or plodding Barack Obama’s. It was NY Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s courageous closing benediction upholding the sanctity of life, religious liberty, and natural law. You probably didn’t see it because most of the networks and the DNC official livestream cut him off while unhinged lefties on Twitter cursed him out.

While they treat the archbishop as an extremist, the nutballs who turned the DNC into abortion-palooza have been embraced and exalted. My column today spotlights the Circus of the Vagina-gogues. Heaven help us.

...


http://michellemalkin.com/2012/09/07/circus-of-the-vagina-gogues-vs-archbishop-timothy-cardinal-dolan/
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foxglove

chatham
Sep 6 2012, 09:28 PM
Duke parent 2004
Sep 6 2012, 08:24 PM
Joan Foster
Sep 6 2012, 08:01 PM
As I said, no Mensa meetings were without quorums due to this crowd.
Do you think it's dramatically better outside the DNC?

Despite modern communications and that great invention of our time, the internet, the average American remains childish in his knowledge and understanding of this nation’s founding principles of limited government and constitutionalism.. What H. L. Mencken wrote almost a hundred years ago still applies today:

What [the masses] want principally are safety and security. They want to be delivered from the bugaboos that ride them. They want to be soothed with mellifluous words. They want heroes to worship. They want the rough entertainment suitable to their simple minds. All of these things they want so badly that they are willing to sacrifice everything else in order to get them. The science of politics under democracy consists in trading with them, i. e., in hoodwinking and swindling them. In return for what they want, or for the mere appearance of what they want, they yield up what the politician wants, and what the enterprising minorities behind him want. The bargaining is conducted to the tune of affecting rhetoric, with music by the choir, but it is as simple and sordid at bottom as the sale of a mule. It lies quite outside the bounds of honour, and even of common decency. It is a combat between jackals and jackasses. It is the master transaction of democratic states.

How better explain Obama's election in the first place?. And now that he has shown his cards, how better account for the very real possibility that he'll serve a second term?
And whose fault it is that, as you say, people are stupid. And exactly what is an average American. Are they someone I define or someone you define? And if any of us understood our constitution we would go back to States rights and not Washington DC rights. Our constitution is suppose to limit the Feds, or so I thought. If we dont want to follow the constitution then let us do away with the United Staes and just make us a democracy. But lets not blame the individuals for their lack of education when our tax dollars are suppose to be sent to the Federal Government to educate the individual. I guess some politicians would rather have ignorant masses than properly educated individuals to be in the voting booth. Based on this we should go back to the days when only landowners could vote?

IMO Mencken wrote junk because he just did not understand that people do not want anything to do with politics. People, even 100 years ago TRUSTED the government to do the right stiff. Well guess what, they don't. They think they are more important than the masses. They are the individuals. Almost like the court of King George III. And when the people give up their control of government, they get what the most brilliant minds in congress give them. Nothing. And that is why when congress decides to pass a major program that affects the masses, they ALWAYS exempt themselves from those rules. OK, everyone who has ever been a congressman or senator and lives under obamacare raise your hand? How about social security, raise your hand? Dont be shy now. How about medicare? Anyone belong? Dang you folks are worse than the CEO's you keep saying you dont like.... Mencken should have wrote the American people just want to be left alone. We need to keep reminding ourselves that we are not a democracy. We are better than a democracy if we just follow the constitution.

lol rant on.... MOO
The people find it hard to believe that the elites don't wish for them to thrive. With the decline of Christianity and traditional religion in the public square, the leadership void is filled by those with selfish motives.

There have been a lot of things that have transformed the country over time including psychological manipulation via marketing techniques and the media. The effect of some foundations such as the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations are important. The Rockefeller Foundation have been at the forefront of the abortion movement (eugenics?) and the Carnegie Foundation has been active in education for a long time, to the detriment, IMO, of true education.

There have been faulty philosophies which have taken root. Keynesian economics, for one.

Many people are being made stupid and pathological. They need to reject the notions and manipulations foisted upon them by well meaning or not so well meaning "experts". They need to be more selective and discriminating and less open to every sales pitch. They need, IMO, to hold on to traditions, heritage, family and faith which form their own identities.

Edited by foxglove, Sep 7 2012, 07:44 AM.
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Baldo
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Clint Eastwood: “President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,”

Eastwood told The Pine Cone this week. “Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that’s what everybody needs to know. I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle.”
http://www.pineconearchive.com/120907-1.html
Edited by Baldo, Sep 7 2012, 11:17 AM.
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kbp

Baldo
Sep 7 2012, 11:16 AM
Clint Eastwood: “President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,”

Eastwood told The Pine Cone this week. “Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that’s what everybody needs to know. I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle.”
http://www.pineconearchive.com/120907-1.html
:party:
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Baldo
Sep 7 2012, 11:16 AM
Clint Eastwood: “President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,”

Eastwood told The Pine Cone this week. “Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that’s what everybody needs to know. I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle.”
http://www.pineconearchive.com/120907-1.html
Hell, we could have told you that four years ago.
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LTC8K6
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Democrats' Controversial Draft Platform Passed Unanimously in Detroit in August

Democrats are pretending that flaws in their party's platform, which excluded much pro-Israel language and any reference to God, are the result of "technical oversight." The truth is that the Democrats' draft platform was the result of a meticulous process handled by Newark mayor Cory Booker, and passed unanimously on August 11th.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/06/Democrats-Draft-Platform-Passed-Unanimously-in-Detroit-in-August
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abb
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Pigs fly!!! Hell has frozen over!!!

From the WaPo's Dana Milbank:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-obama-lowers-the-bar-on-hope-and-change/2012/09/07/dbf3ea82-f8dc-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_print.html
Obama the demigod comes down to Earth
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Joan Foster

abb
Sep 8 2012, 06:17 AM
Pigs fly!!! Hell has frozen over!!!

From the WaPo's Dana Milbank:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-obama-lowers-the-bar-on-hope-and-change/2012/09/07/dbf3ea82-f8dc-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_print.html
Obama the demigod comes down to Earth
Et tu, Brute...then, hit the road, Barack.

By the way, anybody else here look at the odious Sandra Fluke and think ....LEVICY!
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Duke parent 2004
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abb
Sep 8 2012, 06:17 AM
Pigs fly!!! Hell has frozen over!!!

From the WaPo's Dana Milbank:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-obama-lowers-the-bar-on-hope-and-change/2012/09/07/dbf3ea82-f8dc-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_print.html
Obama the demigod comes down to Earth
The only president of the past half century who came even close to delivering on his first-term promise was Reagan, and even "the Great Communicator" ultimately failed those who expected him to collar that monster, the federal bureaucracy.. Yet mainstream journalists continue writing as if campaign rhetoric and slick verbal virtuosity were once more credible than the dissimulation and bombast they were at the outset.

Each time the lights in my house flicker, I say to myself, "Ah, somewhere some young journalist-in-training has just kissed an electrical outlet."
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