Republican National Convention

[Gaspar]

Ryan hit it out of the park!

Ouch!

Great Ryan soundbyte:
"President Obama is the kind of politician who puts promises on the record, and then calls that the record!  But we are four years into this presidency. The issue is not the economy as Barack Obama inherited it, not the economy as he envisions it, but this economy as we are living it.
 
College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.  Everyone who feels stuck in the Obama economy is right to focus on the here and now.  And I hope you understand this too, if you're feeling left out or passed by: You have not failed, your leaders have failed you.

None of us have to settle for the best this administration offers – a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us.

Listen to the way we're spoken to already, as if everyone is stuck in some class or station in life, victims of circumstances beyond our control, with government there to help us cope with our fate. . .

I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life.  I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself.  That's what we do in this country.  That's the American Dream.  That's freedom, and I'll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners." 

[Gaspar]

Willing to bet that Clint Eastwood is going to be the mystery speaker tonight.

[Hoss]

Ryan hit it out of the park!

Ouch!

Great Ryan soundbyte:
"President Obama is the kind of politician who puts promises on the record, and then calls that the record!  But we are four years into this presidency. The issue is not the economy as Barack Obama inherited it, not the economy as he envisions it, but this economy as we are living it.
 
College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.  Everyone who feels stuck in the Obama economy is right to focus on the here and now.  And I hope you understand this too, if you're feeling left out or passed by: You have not failed, your leaders have failed you.

None of us have to settle for the best this administration offers – a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us.

Listen to the way we're spoken to already, as if everyone is stuck in some class or station in life, victims of circumstances beyond our control, with government there to help us cope with our fate. . .

I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life.  I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself.  That's what we do in this country.  That's the American Dream.  That's freedom, and I'll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners." 

Notice he left out the lie about Obama allegedly removing the work requirement for welfare.  Where was that at?  Hmm?

[carltonplace]

Whats with Ryan's constant throat clearing? Does he have tourettes? His speech was boilerplate: he blamed a factory closing on President Obama that was actually closed before he took office. He lied about the about the Medicare cuts and he lied about his own budget's plan for Medicare.

Dr Rice's speech was excellent, I truly admire her.

I noticed that some audience members booed when NM Governor Susana Martinez spoke espanol...bad form folks.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Whats with Ryan's constant throat clearing? Does he have tourettes? His speech was boilerplate: he blamed a factory closing on President Obama that was actually closed before he took office. He lied about the about the Medicare cuts and he lied about his own budget's plan for Medicare.

Dr Rice's speech was excellent, I truly admire her.

I noticed that some audience members booed when NM Governor Susana Martinez spoke espanol...bad form folks.

He lied about it because he is a liar.

Booing?  Well, to paraphrase, "it's the Republicans, stupid..."
And I guarantee there will be a similar event where I get to say, "it's the Democrats, stupid..."

[erfalf]

He lied about it because he is a liar.

Booing?  Well, to paraphrase, "it's the Republicans, stupid..."
And I guarantee there will be a similar event where I get to say, "it's the Democrats, stupid..."

I think any gathering of the magnitude of the conventions is going to have its fair share of jerks and egg heads. Hopefully most are in the audience though.

[Townsend]

Ryan hit it out of the park!

Ouch!

Apparently a park of mis-truths.



Fact check: Paul Ryan at the RNC

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-08-30/paul-ryan-fact-check-republican-convention/57432326/1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=206567

TAMPA, Fla. – Paul Ryan's acceptance speech at the Republican convention contained several false claims and misleading statements. Delegates cheered as the vice presidential nominee:

•Accused President Obama's health care law of funneling money away from Medicare "at the expense of the elderly." In fact, Medicare's chief actuary says the law "substantially improves" the system's finances, and Ryan himself has embraced the same savings.
•Accused Obama of doing "exactly nothing" about recommendations of a bipartisan deficit commission — which Ryan himself helped scuttle.
MORE: Full coverage of the Republican National Convention
STORY: News analysis: Ryan says 'America needs a turnaround'
•Claimed the American people were "cut out" of stimulus spending. Actually, more than a quarter of all stimulus dollars went for tax relief for workers.
•Faulted Obama for failing to deliver a 2008 campaign promise to keep a Wisconsin plant open. It closed less than a month before Obama took office.
•Blamed Obama for the loss of a AAA credit rating for the U.S. Actually, Standard & Poor's blamed the downgrade on the uncompromising stands of both Republicans and Democrats.
And when he wasn't attacking Obama, Ryan was puffing up the record of his running mate, Mitt Romney, on taxes and unemployment.
Taking money from Medicare?
Ryan continued the campaign's false line of attack that Obama had "funneled" money out of Medicare to pay for the federal health care law "at the expense of the elderly." But that's contradicted by Medicare's chief actuary, in a statement at the end of the most recent report of the system's trustees (our emphasis added):
Medicare Actuary, April 23, 2012: [Obama's] Affordable Care Act makes important changes to the Medicare program and substantially improves its financial outlook ...
Medicare's money isn't being taken away. The Affordable Care Act calls for slowing the growth in spending, a move that — if successful — would keep the hospital insurance trust fund solvent for longer than if the reductions didn't happen.
Ryan himself proposed keeping most of these same spending cuts in his most recent "Path to Prosperity" budget. Yet, Ryan criticized Obama's cuts as "the biggest, coldest power play of all" and suggested seniors would suffer as a result.
Ryan, Aug. 29: And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. ... [T]hey just took it all away from Medicare, $716 billion funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.
The Affordable Care Act calls for a $716 billion reduction in the future growth of Medicare spending over 10 years, with most of that —about $415 billion— coming from a reduction in the future growth of payments to hospitals through Medicare Part A. And Medicare Part A's trust fund, as we've explained before, is in trouble financially. It's set to be insolvent in 2024, even with these spending cuts. Without them, the trust fund wouldn't be able to fully pay projected benefits in 2016, the Medicare trustees estimate.
Deficit commission
Ryan accused Obama of doing "exactly nothing" about recommendations from a bipartisan presidential commission to reduce the deficit. But Ryan himself was among a minority of commission members whose opposition scuttled the plan and prevented it from being sent automatically to Congress for action.
Ryan: He created a new bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanks them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing. Republicans stepped up with good-faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems. How did the president respond? By doing nothing — nothing except to dodge and demagogue the issue.
The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's report proposed deep spending cuts in both domestic and military spending, and an overhaul of the tax code that would have lowered rates but raised revenues — all in an attempt to slow the growth of government by $4 trillion over 10 years.
Many Republicans, including Ryan, opposed the military cuts and new tax revenue, while many Democrats opposed changes to Social Security that included raising the full retirement age.
The 18-member commission needed a super majority of 14 votes in order to bring the report to a vote in Congress. But it received the support of just 11 members. Seven members, including Ryan, opposed it, thus blocking congressional action.
In a statement on the final report, Ryan said he "could not support the plan in its entirety," but said some elements of it were "worthy of further pursuit."
Ryan opposed the commission's approach to paying for lower federal income tax rates by taxing capital gains and dividends as ordinary income (see footnote on page 29). In his own latest budget plan, Ryan proposed to keep the current capital gains tax rate, arguing that to do otherwise "could precipitate a flight of capital away from job-creating businesses."
Like Ryan, Obama thanked the commission in a Dec. 3, 2010, statement that promised to "study closely" its proposals for possible inclusion in his own budget plans. Nine months later, Obama submitted a deficit reduction plan to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that was designed to reduce the deficit by $3.6 trillion over 10 years through a package of spending cuts and tax hikes.
Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, tried to work out a so-called "Grand Bargain" that would have reduced the deficit through a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts — and even changes to Social Security. The New York Times reported that the Grand Bargain would have raised the retirement age and changed the formula for calculating benefits. But, as the Times reported, the deal fell through as members of Boehner's caucus objected to raising taxes.
In short, both Ryan and Obama have proposed deficit-reduction plans — and each opposed the other's plan.
Stimulus deceit
Ryan falsely claimed that the stimulus failed to help taxpayers and that it "cut out" the American people. Actually, more than 25% of stimulus dollars went to provide tax relief for workers.
Ryan: [The stimulus] cost $831 billion. The largest one-time expenditure ever by our federal government. ... You, the American people of this country, were cut out of the deal.
The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation calculated that about $230 billion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided tax relief. Much of that money, about $116 billion, funded the Making Work Pay tax credit for workers. In 2009 and 2010, the credit gave up to $400 to individuals earning up to $75,000, and gave up to $800 to couples earning up to $150,000.
Janesville plant closing
Ryan cited the closing of a GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis., as evidence of Obama's failing to deliver on promises made in the 2008 presidential campaign. But as it happens, the plant closed before Obama even took office.
Ryan: My own state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.
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.
Here's what Obama told workers during a campaign stop at the struggling GM plant in Janesville back in 2008:
Obama, Feb. 13, 2008: 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 ...
It's true that the plant didn't last another year, as Ryan said. In fact, the Business Journal in Milwaukee wrote that the assembly plant shut down on Dec. 23, 2008, at the tail end of the Bush administration, a victim of the financial crisis and dwindling demand for the SUVs produced at the plant. That's nearly one month before Obama was sworn into office.
About 100 workers were kept on in 2009 to finish a truck order and help shut down the plant, according to the Associated Press.
'Downgraded America'
Ryan faulted Obama for a credit downgrade for which Ryan's own party shares equal responsibility. Ryan said that "a presidency that began with such anticipation now comes to such a disappointing close," adding:
Ryan, Aug. 29: [Obama's presidency] began with a perfect AAA credit rating for the United States; it ends with the downgraded America.
Ryan refers to the decision of Standard & Poor's, the credit rating agency, to downgrade its score for U.S. Treasury obligations from AAA to AA+ on Aug. 5, 2011. That took place just four days after Congress voted to raise the federal debt ceiling, following lengthy negotiations in which House Republicans sought to force concessions from Obama and Senate Democrats as the price for raising the ceiling and averting the first default on Treasury debt payments in U.S. history.
In its report, Standard & Poor's blamed both Republicans and Democrats for failing to come to agreement on spending cuts or revenue increases sufficient to reduce U.S. deficits significantly. It said:
S&P, Aug. 5, 2011: The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. ...
Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee [of Congress] decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.
Ryan, of course, is among those Republicans opposed to any "new revenues" from tax increases.
Puffing up Romney's record
Running through Romney's credentials, Ryan boasted about Romney's fiscal and jobs record as governor of Massachusetts. But there's a bit less there than Ryan lets on.
Ryan: He was the Republican governor of a state where almost nine in 10 legislators are Democrats, and yet he balanced the budget without raising taxes. Unemployment went down, household incomes went up, and Massachusetts, under Gov. Mitt Romney, saw its credit rating upgraded.
It's true that Romney balanced the state budget every year — as Massachusetts' Constitution requires— and Romney never raised personal income taxes. But as we have notedwhenever this claim has arisen — which has been frequently — Romney did hike government fees by hundreds of millions of dollars, and he also closed loopholes on some corporate taxes.
Ryan also said that under Romney, "unemployment went down." That's true. According to unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in Massachusetts went from 5.6%when Romney took office in January 2003 to 4.6% when he left office in January 2007.
But when considered in light of an improving national economy, Romney's record on unemployment is a bit less impressive. Massachusetts' unemployment rate was slightly lower than the national rate when Romney took office, and it was roughly the same as the national rate when he left

[Townsend]

Ryan hit it out of the park!

Ouch!

Romney campaign having to defend Ryan's speech:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/30/romney-campaign-defends-ryans-speech/

(CNN) – Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser for Mitt Romney's campaign, defended Paul Ryan against criticism of his speech, saying the vice presidential hopeful was not inaccurate when he blamed President Barack Obama for the failure of a General Motors plant in Wisconsin.

"He didn't talk about Obama closing the plant. He said that candidate Obama went there in 2008, and what he said was 'With government assistance, we can keep this plant open for another 100 years.' Here we are four years into his administration. That plant is still closed," Fehrnstrom said Thursday on CNN's "Starting Point."

Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker, catch the latest updates from the GOP convention on CNN's 2012 Conventions Live Blog, and check out the CNN Electoral Map and Calculator to game out your own strategy for November.

During his speech Wednesday night, Ryan told a story about then-presidential candidate Obama sharing with auto workers his hope that government could help keep their plant open. In his speech, Ryan quoted Obama as saying "if our government is there to support you ... this plant will be here for another hundred years."

The plant, however, was shut down within a year–a decision made in June 2008, prior to Obama winning election to the White House.

"That plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day," Ryan said at the convention.

According to a CNN Fact Check, Ryan may have been misleading on the facts, as there is little evidence suggesting Obama actually promised workers the plant would remain open.

"I know how hard your governor has fought to keep jobs in this plant," he said according to an account kept by the Council on Foreign Relations. "But I also know how much progress you've made - how many hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles you're churning out. 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."

While most of the plant's work had come to an end by December 2008, the Detroit News Gazette reported the plant didn't fully close until April 2009. CNN concluded in its research that while Ryan's statement was true-in the sense that the factory closed down while Obama was president-his speech was incomplete.

"To fairly evaluate Obama's statement, at least two pieces of context - missing from Ryan's account - would be useful: First, that Obama wasn't telling this plant that he'd save it from a pending closure. He wasn't addressing a plant that he knew to be closing, because the closure announcement didn't come until four months after his speech. Second, although the plant's last bit of production stopped early in Obama's presidency and the plant remains closed, the closure was planned before Obama became president."
Fehrnstrom also said Ryan wasn't arguing that Obama had closed the plant.

"What (Obama) said was with his recovery program, with government assistance, we can keep that plant open for 100 years. Four years later, it's still shuttered. I think it's a symbol of a broken economy under this president," Fehrnstrom said on CNN's "Starting Point."

The Romney campaign also stood by Ryan on claims that the congressman was misleading on his jab against the president over the so-called Simpson-Bowles plan.

"He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing," Ryan, who served on that panel, told the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night.

Ryan, however, left out that he helped kill the proposed report that the commission produced nearly two years ago.

Ryan was one of eight Republicans on the 18-member National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which Obama established in 2010. The commission was led by Erskine Bowles, who served as White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration, and former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson.
Bowles and Simpson proposed a sweeping program of spending cuts and a radical overhaul of the U.S. tax code, aimed at cutting projected budget deficits by a total of $4 trillion by 2020. The plan included changes to Social Security and substantial cuts in defense and discretionary spending.

But for their proposal to be adopted as official recommendations to Congress, the Bowles-Simpson commission needed 14 of the 18 votes. It failed on an 11-7 vote, with four Democrats and three Republicans, including Ryan, voting no.

Ryan was then the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, soon to be its chairman. He called the plan "serious and credible" - but said it relied too heavily on tax increases and failed to restructure federal health care programs like Medicare.

Obama never fully embraced the Bowles-Simpson recommendations. But he incorporated some of the recommendations the co-chairs made in a plan he sent to Congress the following April, one that called for a mix of spending reductions and tax hikes. And in August 2011, after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives balked at raising the federal debt ceiling, he signed a deficit-reduction plan that sets in motion $1.2 trillion in automatic, across-the-board cuts over the next decade. A congressional "supercommittee" that was supposed to find an alternative to those cuts failed to reach agreement in November.

The verdict:

Misleading. Obama didn't sign onto the Bowles-Simpson recommendations wholeheartedly, but he did take some of their suggestions to Congress in 2011. And Ryan ignores his own role in the failure of the Bowles-Simpson panel.

Defending Ryan, Fehrnstrom said the House Budget chairman "brought forth his own deficit reduction plan."

"That's not something this president did," he said. "Instead, he kicked the can down the road. This is why so many people have lost faith in this president."

Pressed further, Fehrnstrom added: "There's an obligation on the part of people in Congress if they reject Simpson-Bowles to talk about what they will put in its place. Paul Ryan did that. What this president did was what so many people before him have done, which is to form a commission."

[Conan71]

**YAWN**

Some one wake me up when the election is over.

[AquaMan]

Liars, cheats, chiselers and thieves.

How can that be boring?

[Townsend]

Ryan hit it out of the park!

Ouch!

ABC's take on it also disagrees with you.  3 pages of it.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/wireStory/fact-check-convention-speakers-stray-reality-17110536#.UD-EgtZlTYg

FACT CHECK: Ryan Takes Factual Shortcuts in Speech

Laying out the first plans for his party's presidential ticket, GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took some factual shortcuts Wednesday night when he attacked President Barack Obama's policies on Medicare, the economic stimulus and the budget deficit.

Sen. Rob Portman, a former U.S. trade representative, glossed over his own problems when critiquing Obama's trade dealings with China. A day earlier, the convention's keynote speaker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, bucked reality in promising that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will lay out for the American people the painful budget cuts it will take to wrestle the government's debt and deficit woes under control.

And former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum stretched the truth in taking Obama to task over his administration supposedly waiving work requirements in the nation's landmark welfare-to-work law.

A closer look at some of the words spoken at the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla.:

RYAN: "And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. ... So they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama."

THE FACTS: Ryan's claim ignores the fact that Ryan himself incorporated the same cuts into budgets he steered through the House in the past two years as chairman of its Budget Committee, using the money for deficit reduction. And the cuts do not affect Medicare recipients directly, but rather reduce payments to hospitals, health insurance plans and other service providers.

In addition, Ryan's own plan to remake Medicare would squeeze the program's spending even more than the changes Obama made, shifting future retirees into a system in which they would get a fixed payment to shop for coverage among private insurance plans. Critics charge that would expose the elderly to more out-of-pocket costs.

———

RYAN: "The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare and cronyism at their worst. You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal."

THE FACTS: Ryan himself asked for stimulus funds shortly after Congress approved the $800 billion plan, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Ryan's pleas to federal agencies included letters to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis seeking stimulus grant money for two Wisconsin energy conservation companies.

One of them, the nonprofit Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp., received $20.3 million from the Energy Department to help homes and businesses improve energy efficiency, according to federal records. That company, he said in his letter, would build "sustainable demand for green jobs." Another eventual recipient, the Energy Center of Wisconsin, received about $365,000.

———

RYAN: Said Obama misled people in Ryan's hometown of Janesville, Wis., by making them think a General Motors plant there threatened with closure could be saved. "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."

THE FACTS: The plant halted production in December 2008, weeks before Obama took office and well before he enacted a more robust auto industry bailout that rescued GM and Chrysler and allowed the majority of their plants — though not the Janesville facility — to stay in operation. Ryan himself voted for an auto bailout under President George W. Bush that was designed to help GM, but he was a vocal critic of the one pushed through by Obama that has been widely credited with revitalizing both GM and Chrysler.

———

RYAN: Obama "created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way and then did exactly nothing."

THE FACTS: It's true that Obama hasn't heeded his commission's recommendations, but Ryan's not the best one to complain. He was a member of the commission and voted against its final report.

———

The article continues on if you're interested...http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/wireStory/fact-check-convention-speakers-stray-reality-17110536#.UD-EgtZlTYg

[Conan71]

Liars, cheats, chiselers and thieves.

How can that be boring?

The Democrat convention hasn't happened yet.

[AquaMan]

The Democrat convention hasn't happened yet.

I wonder if the dancing vaginas will show up.

[Townsend]

I wonder if the dancing vaginas will show up.

You mean Eastwood's neck waddle?  They'll be at the RNC this eve.  Uh-how-ya-doin'?



http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/08/30/close-friend-of-romney-clint-eastwood-is-thursdays-mystery-speaker

A close friend of Mitt and Ann Romney confirmed to Whispers Wednesday night that Clint Eastwood is indeed Thursday's mystery speaker at the Republican National Convention.

"It's him," said Paul Gilbert, who has known the Romney family for nearly a decade and served as the GOP presidential candidate's Arizona state chair. "I can confirm that, 100 percent."

Eastwood, a long-time Republican and former mayor of his hometown in California, Carmel, endorsed Romney earlier this year. At an August fundraiser, Eastwood said he believed Romney would "restore a decent tax system" to create "fairness."

[Gaspar]

The Democrat convention hasn't happened yet.

When it does, you can bet there will be styrofoam Greek columns, fog machines, and lots and lots of promises.  Every camera will be trained on a supporter as they sob uncontrollably.  Every speech will mandate equality, legislate fairness, and discount failure.  There will be puppies, rainbows, and of course the magic unicorns of President Obama's economic acuity.

No one will mention the debt.  There will be very little discussion if any of Obamacare, GM, or the stimulus.  Any discussion of the economy will be on the basis that it's someone else's fault. It's going to have to be Cirque du Obama, with a Chris Matthews diaper change every 20 minutes.