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Conventions are for partisans. Fire up the base. Nothing of substance ever comes out of the conventions.

The "debates" should be more important. Unfortunately, politicians usually choose to not answer the questions posed to them if they would cause them to stray from their talking points. Occasionally we learn something new about a candidate, but it is exceedingly rare. Thus, the debates are generally useless to voters who are undecided as well.

Fact checking Bill Clinton’s speech and other Democrats at the convention in Charlotte - The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact...c8d13_blog.html

We are not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”

— Former president Bill Clinton, quoting Romney campaign pollster Neil Newhouse
Whew. In a previous life, The Fact Checker covered the Clinton White House and always marveled at Bill Clinton’s speechifying, his apparent command of policy and his sometimes slippery use of the facts. We are going to offer an initial take on some of his claims — and those of other Democrats — and then may come back to others in the coming days.
Everyone needs to get some sleep.

“He [Obama] has offered a reasonable plan of $4 trillion in debt reduction over a decade. For every $2.5 trillion in spending cuts, he raises a dollar in new revenues, 2.5 to 1. And he has tight controls on future spending. That’s the kind of balanced approach proposed by the Simpson-Bowles commission, a bipartisan commission. … It passes the arithmetic test.”
— Former president Bill Clinton

“President Obama’s plan uses the bipartisan commission’s balanced approach. It reduces the deficit by more than $4 trillion.”
— Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

The repeated claim that Obama’s budget reduces the deficit by $4 trillion is simply not accurate.

By the administration’s math, you have nearly $3.8 trillion in spending cuts, compared to $1.5 trillion in tax increases (letting the Bush tax cuts expire for high-income Americans). Presto, $1 of tax increases for every $2.50 of spending cuts.

But virtually no serious budget analyst agreed with this accounting. The $4 trillion figure, for instance, includes counting some $1 trillion in cuts reached a year ago in budget negotiations with Congress. So no matter who is the president, the savings are already in the bank.

Moreover, the administration is also counting $848 billion in phantom savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the administration had long made clear those wars would end.

In other words, by projecting war spending far in the future, the administration is able to claim credit for saving money it never intended to spend. (Imagine taking credit for saving money on buying a new car every year, even though you intended to keep your car for 10 years.)
Rather than good arithmetic, independent budget analysts called the maneuver “a major budget gimmick.”

The administration also counts $800 billion in savings in debt payments (from lower deficits) as a “spending cut,” which is a dubious claim. We didn’t realize that debt payments were now considered a government program.

There are a number of other games being played, so fake money is being used to pay for real spending projects. In effect, most of Obama’s claimed deficit reduction comes from his proposed tax increases.

Meanwhile, both Clinton and Van Hollen claim Obama’s budget has the “balanced approach” of the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission proposal. But the Simpson-Bowles plan is actually quite different, calling for tough spending cuts and substantial tax reforms — not the faux proposals contained in the president’s budget.

“We could have done better, but last year the Republicans blocked the president’s job plan, costing the economy more than a million new jobs. So here’s another job score. President Obama: plus 4.5 million. Congressional Republicans: zero.”
— Clinton

Obama’s jobs plan was more of a rhetorical device, aimed at Republicans, rather than a real plan. He even used the same $1 trillion in previously-agreed savings with Republicans, mentioned above, that was supposed to be in his budget in order to pay for this plan. The jobs plan also would be paid for with the imaginary money from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The administration argued that the budget had never passed, so the money could be used again.)

Get the picture? Clinton praises Obama both for his sound budget math and for his jobs plan, even though the money to fund the budget and the jobs plan is used twice. That certainly doesn't pass the Arkansas 2+2=4 test.

We have noted the problems with Obama’s claim that 4.5 million private sector jobs have been created. (It is a cherry-picked figure.) As for whether 1 million jobs would be created through Obama’s jobs plan, that is merely a fuzzy and optimistic projection. Bloomberg News surveyed 34 economists and found that the median estimate was that the plan would add or keep 275,000 workers on payrolls.

“During this period, more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been created under President Obama. That’s the first time manufacturing jobs have increased since the 1990s.”
— Clinton

Clinton is referring to the period since February 2010, the administration’s preferred date for counting employment figures. If you count from the beginning of Obama’s term, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that manufacturing jobs have declined by more than 500,000. Manufacturing jobs have been on a long steep decline since the middle of Clinton’s term, with some 2 million jobs lost during the recession that started at the end of George W. Bush’s term.

“More than 3 million young people between 19 and 25 are insured for the first time because their parents’ policies can cover them.”
— Clinton

Interestingly, Clinton frames this more accurately than President Obama. The Department of Health and Human Services in June reported that more than 3 million young adults would not have health insurance without the health-care law.

Obama prefers to cite a private survey, published by the Commonwealth Fund, that showed that 6.6 million young adults “stayed on or joined their parents’ health plans” in 2011. Not all of those people were uninsured; some simply joined their parents’ plans for other reasons.

“For the last two years, after going up at three times the rate of inflation for a decade, for the last two years, health care costs have been under 4 percent in both years for the first time in 50 years.”
— Clinton

Clinton tried to attribute this decline in health costs to the health-care law, but much of it has not yet been implemented. Most economists say the slowdown is more likely because of the lousy economy.

“It’s tempting to think that provider initiatives are truly denting costs, but it’s hard for changes in provider behavior to influence costs before they occur,” said a recent article in Modern Healthcare magazine. “Instead, the drop in healthcare cost growth is primarily attributable to the Great Recession’s impact on employment, private health insurance, government revenues and budgets.”

Indeed, government actuaries in June published an article in Health Affairs predicting health-care costs would begin to spike as the health-care law was implemented. “For 2011 through 2021, national health spending is projected to grow at an average rate of 5.7 percent annually, which would be 0.9 percentage point faster than the expected annual increase in the gross domestic product during this period,” the article said.

“Soon the insurance companies — not the government, the insurance companies — will have millions of new customers, many of them middle-class people with preexisting conditions who never could get insurance before.”
— Clinton

Actually, the original Congressional Budget Office estimate is that 16 million people would end up in private coverage and 16 million would end up on Medicaid. But the Medicaid number may shrink as a result of the Supreme Court ruling allowing states to opt out of the expansion of the program.

“The administration agreed to give [welfare] waivers to those governors and others only if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20 percent, and they could keep the waivers only if they did increase employment.”
— Clinton

We have written previously how the Romney campaign is exaggerating the immediate effect of the change in welfare rules, while at the same time it appears clear the Obama administration issued this notice without much consultation with Republicans in Congress. Something fishy may be going on.

The subject is worthy of a longer fact check in the future, but it is worth noting that prominent critics of the shift have raised interesting questions about this supposed 20-percent requirement. Clinton used this figure as a defense of the administration’s move, but there may be less to this than meets the eye.

“Democrats will preserve and strengthen Medicare. Republicans will end the Medicare guarantee.”
— House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.)

“He also didn’t tell you that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan wanted to end the Medicare guarantee and turn it into a voucher, which would leave seniors with the increased cost.”
— Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.)

The claim that Republicans will “end the Medicare guarantee” has been a frequent refrain at the convention, perhaps in response to fact-checker complaints about the incorrect charge last year that Republicans would “end Medicare.” But this phrase is a bit odd since there is no actual “guarantee” for any program that can be changed by some future Congress.

The most recent version of the Medicare overhaul promoted by GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan would allow all seniors to remain on traditional Medicare or try private plans subsidized by the government. The plan’s emphasis on reducing costs might require seniors to pay more out of pocket, but much is still uncertain about the full impact — years from now.

“Let me ask you: What do you think Mitt Romney would have done if that call came in? Well, Mitt Romney already told us what he would do. Mitt Romney says he likes to fire people. And Barack Obama? He likes to see people hired.”
— Gov. Jack Martell (Del.)

“After all, Mitt Romney’s the guy who said corporations are people.”
— Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren

These are a good examples of Democrats taking comments out of context, just as Republicans at last week’s convention devoted an entire evening to an out-of-context Obama quote. (Of course, it was Republican rival Jon Huntsman who first tried to make hay out of the “fire people” statement earlier this year.)

Here’s what Romney actually said, in a speech to the Nashua Chamber of Commerce: “I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means that if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. If, you know, if someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I want to say, you know, that I’m going to go get somebody else to provide that service to me.”

In other words, he was making a point about choice in health care — not hiring.
The remark about corporations, meanwhile, was a jocular response to a heckler.

For more, look at the four videos we have produced that show how both campaigns have taken such gaffes out of context.

“Because when Mitt Romney says he’ll get rid of Planned Parenthood and turn the clock back on a century of progress, it has real consequences for the 3 million patients who depend on Planned Parenthood each year.”
— Cecil Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

This is another example of Romney’s remarks being taken out of context.
This is his full statement:

“You get rid of Obamacare, but there are others,” Romney told CNN affiliate KDSK of St. Louis. “Planned Parenthood, we’re gonna get rid of that. The subsidy for Amtrak, I would eliminate that. The National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, both excellent programs, but we can’t afford to borrow money to pay for these things.”

In other words, he was talking about government funding.

“He singled out some areas of the budget he would eliminate or curtail, all in the name of achieving a balanced budget,” Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said later. “It would not be getting rid of the organization. They have other sources of funding besides government operations, but in order to achieve balance, we have to make some tough decisions about spending.”

A federal budget cut might be painful for the organization. Planned Parenthood’s budget is more than $1 billion, of which $489 million is for government health services grants, much of it for Medicaid funding. About $75 million of that is for family planning, none of which can be used for abortions.

“No, there wasn’t any discord…. It was absolutely two-thirds.”
— Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), DNC chair, interviewed on CNN

Wasserman Schultz, who on Wednesday earned Four Pinocchios for denying she made a statement that was caught on tape, insisted to the news network that Democrats were united in adding a reference to the Democrats’ platform that Jerusalem was Israel’s capital. The move was made after Republicans called attention to the fact that language from the 2008 platform had been dropped, alarming Jewish Democrats.

Yet Wasserman Schultz’s remarks are puzzling because Convention Chairman Antonio R. Villaraigosa had to ask three times for “aye” votes before concluding that the amendment had a two-thirds majority.

As The Post’s Scott Wilson reported, “The vote was far from decisive, however, and left many delegates who opposed the reinstatement of the language angry about the outcome. Some stood up from their seats inside the Time Warner Arena, shaking their fingers at Villaraigosa.”
Mark Landler of The New York Times reported that the change was “approved in a voice vote that had to be taken three times because of a chorus of noes in the arena.... The changes were meant to be a routine bit of business.... But they turned into a minor spectacle after the hall seemed balanced between yes and no votes, providing an unruly start to an evening meant to showcase attacks on Mitt Romney by former President Bill Clinton and others.”
Given such on-the-ground reporting, her claim of “no discord” is simply not credible.
(As is our practice, we generally do not award Pinocchios for these instant wrap-ups.)

Fact checking the opening night of the Democratic convention - The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact...c8d13_blog.html

The Democrats launched their convention with a series of speeches that put the best possible gloss on the president’s economic record and took various shots at GOP nominee Mitt Romney. First lady Michelle Obama, who like Ann Romney gave a mostly personal testimonial about her husband, did not give us much material to fact-check. But here’s a roundup of other notable claims Tuesday evening.

“Four years ago, America stood on the brink of a depression. Despite incredible odds and united Republican opposition, our president took action. And now we’ve seen 4.5 million new jobs.”
— San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, in the keynote address

Castro takes a debatable talking point from the Obama campaign — that 4.5 million private-sector jobs have been created since February 2010 (a year after the president’s stimulus bill was passed into law) — and makes it ridiculous.

First, this statistic includes only private-sector jobs, which means the decline in government jobs is simply excluded. Total jobs created in the United States from February 2010 is 4 million — and it is actually still negative if you start counting from the beginning of Obama’s presidency.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job creation in Obama’s entire presidency is minus 300,000 or plus 160,000, depending on whether you date his presidency from January or February.

Second, February 2010 is a cherry-picked month that puts Obama’s job-creation record in the best possible light. The end of the recession, June 2009, would be a more logical date from which to start counting jobs created; that would reduce the total to 3.4 million (for private-sector jobs) or 2.7 million (for all jobs).

Finally, the U.S. population keeps growing, meaning the economy has to keep creating more than 100,000 jobs each month just to keep pace. By that measure, Obama is in a hole no matter when you start counting.

“The Romney-Ryan budget doesn’t just cut public education, cut Medicare, cut transportation and cut job training. … It’s a choice between a nation that slashes funding for our schools and guts Pell grants.”
— Julian Castro

Castro here appears to be referring to the House GOP budget blueprint written by Paul Ryan. That document retains virtually the same reductions in Medicare spending — from anticipated levels — as the Obama budget. (Such details have not stopped the Republicans from referring to “cuts,” either.)

The Republican budget also seeks to reduce government spending in the coming decades. The Obama campaign has made a variety of assumptions — not detailed in the plan — to argue that key parts of the domestic spending budget would be cut 95 percent by the middle of the century.

As we have noted before, Obama’s long-term budget does not show such cuts, but it does show the national debt soaring to more than 140 percent of the gross domestic product. Of course, a lot of things could happen in the next 40 years, which is why such claims can be easily discounted.

The administration did the similar exercise for Pell grants, claiming 10 million students would face a cut of more than $1,000, by assuming across-the-board cuts in the next year that have not actually been specified. The Ryan plan would prevent a scheduled rise in the maximum Pell grant — from $5,550 to $5,635 — and curtail eligibility for the program. Ryan argues that it is necessary to focus the program on the most needy students because the current growth path is financially unsustainable.

“Instead of the Medicare guarantee, Republicans would give seniors a voucher that limits what’s covered, costing seniors as much as $6,400 more a year.”
— Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

The Democrats love to use the phrase “voucher” for a concept that is actually known as “premium support.” The government would still continue to pay much of the premiums for plans that meet government muster.

Moreover, note that Sebelius says the Ryan plan could cost “as much as” $6,400 more a year. Always watch out when a politician uses a term like “as much as” because that often means the real figure is much less. We gave President Obama Two Pinocchios when he used this figure in the past.

The problem is this dollar figure is an estimate for an earlier version of Ryan’s plan. He’s since changed it significantly to address some of the loudest complaints. The new version of the plan includes the option for traditional Medicare, as well as a commitment that at least one health-care option would be fully covered by the government.

Indeed, the new plan is much more generous than the original version. The old plan had capped growth at the rate of inflation. Many experts believed that was too low and pushed more costs on beneficiaries.

In the updated Ryan plan, Medicare spending would be permitted to grow slightly faster than the nation’s economy — in fact, at the same growth rate as Obama’s budget for Medicare.
Beneficiaries might still face higher costs, depending on how well the system worked. But that might also be the case if nothing more is done to improve Medicare’s finances.

“We learned that he [Mitt Romney] pays a lower tax rate than middle-class families.”
— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

Reid uses a variation of a line that once earned the Obama campaign Three Pinocchios.
Romney certainly made a lot of money in 2010 — $21.7 million, according to his tax return — and yet his tax rate was about 13.9 percent. As we have noted before, he achieves this rate because much of his income is treated as capital gains and dividends, which are taxed at a preferential rate of 15 percent, and because he donates about 14 percent of his income to charity.

But most of Romney’s taxes are federal income taxes. He pays relatively little in payroll taxes because the 6.2 percent Social Security tax maxes out once you earn a certain amount — $110,100 in 2012. Romney in effect earns that much by Jan. 3.

For most Americans, payroll taxes are the biggest tax item. (And that’s not even including the share paid by employers. Most economists say employers pay for payroll taxes by cutting their employees’ wages.)

People often confuse marginal tax rates with effective tax rates. Marginal rates are what you pay on each additional dollar of income, so that can be as high as 35 percent. The effective tax rate is the percentage of taxes you pay after deductions, adjustments and the like.
For all the rhetoric about high taxes in the United States, most Americans pay a relatively small percentage of their income in taxes. Romney had an effective rate of 13.9 percent in 2010 and 15.4 percent in 2011. That gives him a higher rate than 80 percent of taxpayers if only taxes on a tax return are counted and puts him just about in the middle of all taxpayers if payroll taxes paid by employers are included.

“In Massachusetts, we know Mitt Romney. By the time he left office, Massachusetts was 47th in the nation in job creation.”
— Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick
T
his is a common Obama campaign talking point, but Patrick’s phrasing (“by the time he left office”) makes it especially inaccurate. The 47th ranking is the average for Romney’s entire term, when in fact Massachusetts started out at 50th place and ended up at 28th by the end of Romney term.

We’ve previously looked at a list of such claims by the Obama campaign and found many equally suspect. Romney’s economic record is certainly mixed, but a governor — especially a one-term governor — is very much at the mercy of broader economic trends.

“For more than 200 years, our party has led the fight for civil rights, health care, Social Security, workers’ rights, and women’s rights.”
— from a history of the Democratic Party, on DNC Web site .

A number of readers asked about this brief (20 paragraphs or so) history of the Democratic party, especially the first sentence. It certainly appears to ignore the party’s long and troubled history with race, literally leaping from the “200 years” phrase to 1920, when the women’s suffrage amendment was enacted.

The Web history mentions the leadership of President Woodrow Wilson in helping pass the 19th Amendment, without noting that he was a racist or that he repressed civil liberties — even to the point of jailing one of his rivals for the presidency in 1914 (socialist Eugene Debs).
The history also highlights the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Certainly President Lyndon Johnson, a Texas Democrat, played an essential role, but it is worth remembering that 80 percent of the “no” votes in the Senate came from Democrats, including the late Robert Byrd (W.Va.) and Albert Gore (Tenn.), father of the future vice president. Republican votes, in fact, were essential in winning final passage of the bill.

Of course, a quick little Web history does not give much space for such details. A more unvarnished perspective was presented in the 1992 book, “Of the People,” which Democrats distributed at the convention that nominated Bill Clinton. That book, written by real historians, obviously has a slant, but it found the space to mention such historical blemishes. For instance, it acknowledged that before the Civil War the party “played both sides of the slavery issue” and after the Civil War, the party “reached out a welcoming hand to returning Confederates, not to blacks.”

The highly sanitized Web version looks silly by failing to mention such unpleasant facts.

Kind of associated with the Convention, as this was because of the change in the Democratic platform.

The extremely annoying and grating head of the DNC called the reporter who quoted her a liar ...... but unfortunately for her, there was a recording of her statement.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s false accusation of a misquote - The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact...3ab91_blog.html


“That comment was reported by a conservative newspaper. It’s not surprising that they would deliberately misquote me.”
— Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz during Fox News interview, Sept. 4, 2012

Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Tuesday denied a report from Washington Examiner columnist Philip Klein, who quoted the Florida congresswoman as saying that Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren described Republican policies toward Israel as “dangerous” for the Jewish state.

Wasserman Schultz said the Examiner misquoted her, saying she never attributed the comments to Oren and that she really just said the GOP was treating the Middle East nation “like a political football, which is dangerous for Israel.” Klein defended his reporting, saying it was accurate and promising to post audio of the congresswoman’s comments.

Let’s see who was right on this one.

The Facts

The report from Klein quoted Wasserman Schultz saying, “We know, and I’ve heard no less than Ambassador Michael Oren say this, that what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel.”

The remarks came during a training session at the Democratic National Convention to instruct Jewish Democrats on how to persuade fellow Jewish Americans to vote for Obama, according to the Examiner.

Oren refuted the characterization that Wasserman Schultz attributed to him. He issued a statement Tuesday saying, “I categorically deny that I ever characterized Republican policies as harmful to Israel. Bipartisan support is a paramount national interest for Israel, and we have great friends on both sides of the aisle.”

In a Tuesday interview with Fox News, Wasserman Schultz argued that the Examiner had deliberately misquoted her. “I didn’t say [Oren] said that,” she said. “And unfortunately, that comment was reported by a conservative newspaper. It’s not surprising that they would deliberately misquote me. What I always say is that unfortunately the Republicans have made Israel a political football, which is dangerous for Israel. And Ambassador Oren has said that we can’t ever suggest that there is any daylight between the two parties on Israel because there isn’t. And that that’s harmful to Israel. That’s what I said, and that is accurate.
Klein later posted audio of Wasserman Schultz’s comments to prove that his quote was accurate.

Here are the excerpts he shared:

“We know, and I’ve heard no less than Ambassador Michael Oren say this, that what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel.”

“They’re undermining Israel’s security by suggesting that the United States and Israel don’t have anything other than a unique and close and special relationship. It undermines Israel’s security to its neighbors in the Arab world and to its enemies. And we need to make sure that the fact that there has never been and will never be daylight between the two parties or the support for Israel that we have in the United States, that that is conveyed to Jewish Americans across this country. That’s our responsibility. It’s the responsibility we’re asking all of you to take on.”

The Pinocchio Test

Klein’s quote was exactly accurate, meaning Wasserman Schultz falsely accused the Examiner of misquoting her. The DNC chair earns Four Pinocchios.

More facts:

CNN Fact Check: About those 4.5 million jobs ... - CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/05/politics/fact-check-obama-jobs/index.html

(CNN) -- Anyone watching the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night heard the number 4.5 million several times.

"Despite incredible odds and united Republican opposition, our president took action, and now we've seen 4.5 million new jobs," San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, the party's keynote speaker, said.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who served as President Barack Obama's chief of staff, and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who followed Obama's November rival Mitt Romney as governor of Massachusetts, both cited the same number.

It's a big-sounding number, given the still-sputtering job market. So we're giving it a close eyeballing.

The facts:

The number Castro cites is an accurate description of the growth of private-sector jobs since January 2010, when the long, steep slide in employment finally hit bottom. But while a total of 4.5 million jobs sounds great, it's not the whole picture.

Nonfarm private payrolls hit a post-recession low of 106.8 million that month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figure currently stands at 111.3 million as of July.

While that is indeed a gain of 4.5 million, it's only a net gain of 300,000 over the course of the Obama administration to date. The private jobs figure stood at 111 million in January 2009, the month Obama took office.

And total nonfarm payrolls, including government workers, are down from 133.6 million workers at the beginning of 2009 to 133.2 million in July 2012. There's been a net loss of nearly 1 million public-sector jobs since Obama took office, despite a surge in temporary hiring for the 2010 census.

Meanwhile, the jobs that have come back aren't the same ones that were lost.

Are you better off?

According to a study released last week by the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project, low-wage fields such as retail sales and food service are adding jobs nearly three times as fast as higher-paid occupations.

Conclusion:

The figure of 4.5 million jobs is accurate if you look at the most favorable period and category for the administration. But overall, there are still fewer people working now than when Obama took office at the height of the recession.

All of the jobs lost were Bush's fault... Obama isn't considered until bottom is hit and things start to get better.

From the American Conservative this morning:


The Clinton Speech and the “Campaign of Ideas”

By Daniel Larison • September 6, 2012, 1:33 AM

Scott Galupo identifies the main strength of Bill Clinton’s convention speech:


But the case he made against Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan was devastating.

It was, and it was all the more devastating because Romney and Ryan made no concerted effort to make the case for their ticket and their agenda last week. If Clinton’s speech seemed extremely long to many of us watching it, I suspect it was partly because most of the specific arguments that Clinton made were already old news to a lot of us. The speech was very long, but it also covered familiar ground for a lot of us. Many of the pundits and journalists watching the speech had talked these things to death over the last week, and here Clinton was rehearsing all of the same objections to the misleading or hypocritical claims in Romney and Ryan’s arguments. Part of what made Clinton’s speech so devastating is that he compiled all of these objections, linked them together, and presented them to a large television audience all at once in a way that was easily digestible.

Another reason the speech was so devastating to them was that he gave the sort of speech that Ryanmaniacs might have once imagined that Ryan would deliver and the sort that some Romney supporters still imagine Romney is capable of giving. Romney-Ryan was supposed to be the presidential ticket of the “data-driven” manager and his budget wonk sidekick, and between the absence of any significant policy discussion last week and what happened tonight that has lost all credibility. Clinton outperformed both of them in terms of discussing policy details, and underscored just how meaningless the “campaign of ideas” phrase has been. Ryan fans had been convinced for over a year that the election had to be a contest over “big ideas,” and when it came time to engage in that contest their party leaders didn’t even try.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-clinton-speech-and-the-campaign-of-ideas/

And you do need to point out that This graph shows total state and government payroll employment since January 2007. State and local governments lost 129,000 jobs in 2009, 262,000 in 2010, and 230,000 in 2011. The numbers have slowed on the state and local level in 2012 but the federal government is still shedding some workers.

Read more at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/0...Z33c5SGUrrmI.99

And frankly, that's what we want.

The federal government, in prior years, has given block grants to state and local governments to hire "free" civil servants, from teachers, to police and firemen, and on down the line. Unfortunately, those grants run out, and the funds to pay for those new employees disappear. Unless cities, counties, and other municipalities then raise taxes, they can no longer afford those "free" employees.

In states and cities where there are reform minded leaders, who are committed to balancing the books, there are bound to be some cuts, but many have instead worked out changes to benefits plans to allow as many people as possible to keep their jobs. However, when there simply is not enough money, they simply is not enough money.


If I'm not mistaken, Obama has not shed federal workers overall, but rather has added federal workers, Obamacare will add layers upon layers of bureaucracy, and layers of federal employees.

As of 2010, the last recorded year from the US Office of Personnel Management, there were more federal employees in 2010 than in any year since 1995. ("The era of big government is over") In fact, in 2009, Obama added federal employees.

http://www.opm.gov/feddata/historicaltables/totalgovernmentsince1962.asp

Huh... so BOTH parties skew facts, stretch the truth and, at times, flat-out fabricate stuff. Go figure...

I just figured that I should balance the fact checks of last week.

This is classy.

3 Nazi references? Really?

What amazes me most of all is that I cannot find a single story about this on CNN, CBS, ABC, or any of the newspapers except USA Today. NBC, to their credit, did cover the story on air.

Amazing, but really not surprising.


http://content.usatoday.com/communities/.../1#.UEjrVtn4-JM


CHARLOTTE -- Yet another Nazi reference at the Democratic convention.

The chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party today compared Nikki Haley, the state's Republican governor, to Hitler mistress Eva Braun.

Noting that Republicans are holding opposition press briefings in a basement studio at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Dick Harpootlian told a South Carolina delegation breakfast today: "She was down in the bunker a la Eva Braun."

Haley responded by calling Harpootlian "an angry, hateful man" who "embarrasses South Carolina every time he opens his mouth."

Earlier this week, John Burton, the chairman of the California Democratic Party, accused Republican running mate Paul Ryan of using the "big lie" technique of Hitler propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

And Pat Lehman, the dean of the Kansas Democratic delegation, referred to Hitler himself when protesting Republican claims that they want voter identification laws to prevent voter fraud.

"It's like Hitler said, if you're going to tell a lie, tell a big lie," Lehman said. "And if you tell it often enough and say it in a loud enough voice, some people are going to believe you."


Third Democratic official reportedly likens Republicans to Nazis | Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/...ns-to-nazis-at/

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Another Democratic official on Wednesday invoked Nazis while describing Republicans, in the third such incident this week as Democratic leaders gathered in Charlotte for their national convention.

South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian compared the state’s Republican female governor, Nikki Haley, to Adolf Hitler’s mistress and eventual wife, while speaking Wednesday at a delegation breakfast in Charlotte, according to The State newspaper.

“She was down in the bunker a la Eva Braun,” Harpootlian reportedly said, referring to Haley’s daily news briefings inside a basement studio at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Reached by FoxNews.com, Harpootlian disputed any suggestion he was making a comparison to Nazis.

"I wasn't saying she is Eva Braun or is like Eva Braun. I was saying she is hiding out. ... She is reclusive. She is not transparent," he said. "I wasn't comparing her to Eva Braun other than she was in a bunker. I don't even know much about Eva Braun, just that she hung out in a bunker."

Amanda Loveday, the state party’s executive director, also told FoxNews.com, “I don’t think it was a comparison,” and said Harpootlian is “misrepresented a lot.”

The reported remark was the third case this week of a Democrat seeking to draw comparisons between Republicans or Republicans tactics and Nazis.

Pat Lehman, the dean of the Kansas Democratic delegation, likened the talking points of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign to the “big lie” strategy used by the Nazis, according to a report by the Wichita Eagle.

“It’s like Hitler said, if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big lie, and if you tell it often enough and say it in a loud enough voice, some people are going to believe you,” Lehman reportedly said this week.

Lehman was speaking about the Republican push for tougher voter-identifications laws when she made the comment, according to the newspaper. Republicans say the laws are needed to combat voter fraud, but Lehman and other Democrats argue voter fraud isn't a serious threat and claim the Republican effort is nothing but a drive to suppress votes among Democratic-leaning constituencies.

A spokeswoman with the Kansas Democratic Party was not immediately available for comment when contacted Wednesday.

Similarly, the chairman of the California Democratic Party earlier this week compared Republican tactics -- and specifically Paul Ryan's convention remarks -- to the tactics of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

California Democratic chief John Burton made the remarks Monday in an interview with San Francisco station KCBS while in Charlotte, N.C.

"They lie and they don't care if people think they lie ... Joseph Goebbels -- the big lie, you keep repeating it," Burton said. "That was Goebbels, the big lie."

Republicans quickly condemned the language. The California GOP called it "desperate, deranged rhetoric" that Democrats were using to "distract" voters from their "failed record."

Burton later issued a statement claiming he didn't actually call Republicans Nazis and noting he didn't actually use the word "Nazi" -- though he made repeated references to Goebbels.

"If Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan or the Republicans are insulted by my describing their campaign tactic as the big lie -- I most humbly apologize to them or anyone who might have been offended by that comment," he said.

Harpootlian is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel's various shows. I can tell you that he is a bomb thrower but not in a hateful way. i did just see him on Megyn Kelly and he was honestly embarrassed to me. Megyn asked if this was a calculated strategy since there has been three references this week. He said there wasn't and I believe him.

We have seen some of the same type of comments from the right, and I do think they are not covered in the same way. I have no doubt if this happened at the Republican Convention it would be huge news. I want to say that Megyn was very polite in the conversation. She is not one do gotcha politics, even when she is attacked to be just another lying Fox News employee.

Do you really think these conventions make a bit of difference? I've not talked to a single person who is on the fence about who they are voting for. Not a one. It's Romney, Obama, or neither - and the neither voters, at least the people I associate with, lean conservative but dislike Romney so much that they won't vote for him. There is not a single person that I know that has said "I'm going to listen to what both have to say and make my decision then". These dog and pony shows are a gargantuan waste of money for both sides.

I for one will vote for Romney on the simple fact that Obama is a complete disaster. Not sure he is any better but he certainly cannot be worse. The continual blaming of others drives me absolutely insane. I tell my son all of the time take personal responsibility - but then a majority of people in this country will not do that, right down to the president.

We need a cleansing of Washington as a whole. I cannot wait for this election to be over regardless of the results. The divide that politicians are wedging between classes is ruining this country. I don't know if the country will melt down in my lifetime, but if we keep on this track it will within my sons and that saddens me immensely. People need to wake up.

I'm willing to bet that it conservatives could forget what a horrible husband and liar Bill was he would have beat Romney. After the Republicans took over Congress Clinton moved to the center and worked with Republicans (Newt in particular) to get things done. He is charismatic and unlike Obama, he has a full grasp of the issues.

Okay, that's a slight exaggeration.

imo Romney has no chance of winning unless Biden sinks Obama with one of his idiotic statements. I don't think he can get out the conservative vote. I will be voting but I am leaving the top line blank. If enough people do this it will show how many conservative voters dislike him. If the presidential votes is less than most others on the ballot it would be telling.

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While the GOP convention was much about the rhetoric,

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I believe the intent of the GOP convention was to humanize Romney.. since had been cast by the left as this elitest, uber-rich, destroyer of people... they set out to show a different side of him. In the end it might have been a mistake because I doubt many on the left were watching... I think they did a decent job of doing what they set out to do, the question is, is that what they should have set out to do?

Clinton on the other hand, is a great speaker. He always has been. I haven't watched his speech yet, I have it taped. But I can imagine the job he did...

Hopefully now that the pomp and circumstance is over, we can get down to talking about issues.... and not who killed whose wife and when exactly a steel plant shut down.... though I reckon I will be disappointed in that regard again.

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Again, I'm not debating whether it SHOULD affect the election, but I am argued that it DOES in fact, make a difference.

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it should in the sense that it is a chance for each party to take center stage for a few days and get out whatever message it is they choose to get out.... I would argue that everything these candidates do or say from a couple months ago right up until the election should be considered and the convention is part of that.... and their records going back should also be considered of course.

The fact checkers have pretty much taken apart Clinton's speech ...... at least the unbiased ones have. He had numerous mistakes, misused facts, and outright lies.

Unfortunately, many will just go "OMG! It's Bill Clinton, and he would never lie to us!!!" and take his words as fact, despite the fact that they were anything but.

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Unfortunately, many will just go "OMG! It's Bill Clinton, and he would never lie to us!!!" and take his words as fact, despite the fact that they were anything but.

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People will hear what they want to hear.

If somebody stood on the stage, at either convention, and told the truth about where we are, how we got here, where we are likely to be 10 years from now, and what it would take to fix it...... it would be THE single most depressing speech in the history of politics and whoever was associated with it would lose any chance of ever being elected to anything again.

I would love to give that speech .... but frankly I am finding it harder and harder and harder to care much.

As I have said before, I don't have kids, so I don't have to worry about the mess we leave to other people's' kids. Who cares anymore. Gimme mine and let someone else pay for it. If no one else cares about the disaster we are about to pass on, why should I?

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Unfortunately, many will just go "OMG! It's Bill Clinton, and he would never lie to us!!!"

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Lol. God help them.

I also don't think that Romney can win...just because of the electoral vote. If it were popular vote only, the election would be within the margin of error. But in the electoral vote there seems to be too many stars aligning against Romney.
About a month ago, someone I think on Morning Joe was going over Romney's path to 270. They said that Romney had to hold the states he was up in or leaning his way, Missouri and Iowa, take a couple of small states like Colorado, Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin or Nevada but he also had to take 2 out of the big 3 (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania) and not lose the state that the dems were having their convention in (North Carolina). Right now Obama is leading in every state but North Carolina and Missouri.

To give a sense of Mr. Romney’s challenge: he could win Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Virginia — all carried by Mr. Obama in 2008 — and still fall short without Ohio and its 18 electoral votes. And with Florida and all of the elderly, I think that the medicare issue is going to be the decider, even over immigration. But I think that the bigger issue is Ohio. Over 800k jobs and 1 in 8 Ohioians have ties to the auto industry and Romney said that he would let Detroit go bankrupt. Nobody was going to loan the auto industry money and nobody was going to buy their assets and keep these folks working. This is going to be a huge factor to overcome.

Nate Silver - perhaps the most celebrated electoral statistician - agrees with you.

There’s one advantage that President Obama has that Mitt Romney probably doesn’t. If he can get a good turnout from his base, he’ll be the heavy favorite to win in November — even if Mr. Romney gets a strong turnout as well.

On average over the last five public surveys, 35 percent of registered voters identify themselves as Democrats and 30 percent as Republicans. That advantage is down somewhat for Democrats since 2008, but it is an advantage nevertheless.

In essentially every recent presidential election, however, the Democratic candidate has performed worse among actual Election Day voters than among the broader pool of registered voters. There is no reason to think that this year will be an exception. Recent surveys that compare likely-voter with registered-voter results suggest that there could be a turnout gap of around three percentage points favoring Mr. Romney. That’s larger than the historical average, when it’s been in the range of one or two points.

Our election forecasts build in a likely voter adjustment for this reason. If a pollster publishes both registered-voter and likely-voter results, we use the likely-voter version of their numbers. And if only a registered-voter version is available, we shift the numbers by two or three points toward Mr. Romney in order to make it equivalent to a likely-voter poll.

But what would happen if all those registered voters really did turn out?

I decided to run a version of our “now-cast” — our estimate of what would happen if the election were held today — on a registered-voter rather than likely-voter basis. (The “now-cast” is a little simpler than our Nov. 6 forecast, which also incorporates a convention bounce adjustment and measures of economic performance, and so the now-cast is a little simpler to interpret for purposes of measuring the effects of the likely-voter adjustment.)

This special, registered-voter version of the “now-cast” applies just the opposite of our usual process. If both registered-voter and likely-voter versions of a poll are available, I instruct the model to use the registered-voter numbers. And if there’s only a likely-voter survey, the model shifts the numbers toward Mr. Obama by a couple of points as a proxy for a registered voter poll.

In the regular, likely-voter version of our “now-cast,” Mr. Obama is estimated to have a 68 percent chance of winning the Electoral College in an election held today. But on the basis of registered voters, he would be a 91 percent favorite. Instead of being ahead in the popular vote by a hair over one point, he’d be expected to win by around four. And he’d be projected to win 322 electoral votes, rather than 291.


It’s very unlikely, of course, that Democrats will turn out as high a percentage of their voters as Republicans do. The demographic groups that favor Democrats are just harder to get to the polls.

But if Mr. Obama can narrow Republicans’ advantage in this area — reducing the gap between registered-voter and likely-voter polls to one or two points rather than three, he can get halfway there, and make Mr. Romney’s task much harder.

That’s why, with the exception of the prime-time speeches by Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton, nearly every other speech a Democrat has given at the party’s convention in Charlotte, N.C., has been aimed at firing up different parts of the Democratic base, often with strident rhetoric. And it is why Mr. Obama may serve up a fair amount of “blue meat” in his speech on Thursday night. It will be worth watching the polls after Charlotte to see whether he can narrow the enthusiasm gap.

link

Medicare and Social Security have been changed numerous times. The eligibility for both programs have changed numerous times, with the age changed from 65, to 67, to 70 ,,,,,,, and 72? what's next 75? 78? 100?

When Social Security was first introduced, the average life expectancy was right around the program inception age. People survived on the program for a few months, to maybe a few years, on average. It was also an axillary program as opposed to actually being a retirement program.

Medicare is underfunded for its future liabilities. Most younger people today do not expect that either it, or Social Security, will be here when they need them. They are probably right.

The changes Ryan has proposed do not affect anyone over the age of 55, and are not mandatory for those under 55. It's much like Medicare Advantage today. (which Obamacare also takes away) Further, Obamacare cuts reimbursements to providers. As providers reimbursements are cut, their ability to take new patients, or even continue seeing current patients, will be severely impaired. My own doctors have confirmed this to me, and I have great doctors. My one doctor charges a song for patients without insurance, and will sometimes even skip an office visit payment for those without insurance. He does all he can to help his patients, but he's not sure how he's going to be able to continue with Medicare if reimbursements continue to plummet.

One thing that hasn't changed over all of the years, and all of the changes and age eligibility, is that people on these programs have always been protected. Even people within a certain number of years have been protected. For the rest of us, it's been "Too bad, you'll get what we say you'll get when we say you'll get it". I have seen my eligibility go from 65, to 67, to 70 ......... and what's next? We need to figure out a way to get these programs under control.

Right now, what's been the Obama administration's solution? They cut the Medicare payroll tax percentage by 2%. How the hell does that help the program survive short or long term?

Answer, it doesn't.

It is my opinion that both programs need to be overhauled in a major way. People were so freaked out about privatizing Social Security when the markets tanked, but today almost everyone invested in the markets would be just fine if they stayed in. The markets went down, and within 3 years went all the way back up, and more. They shook the amateurs out of the market, and those with experience and money made a killing. Imagine if everyone had stayed in the market, instead of jumping out when trouble hit.

For every issue, there are 2 sides that deserve to be looked at.

I was on my way home, and listening to the wrap up of tonight's Convention activities on the radio, and I heard what might be the line of the Convention:

"The night opened with Eva Longoria, so we saw tonight go from a Desperate Housewife to a Desperate President". lol

As opposed to the embarrassment of Clint Eastwood rambling to a chair?

I thought Obama's speech was weak.

He had one killer line - "Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations and call us in the morning."

Otherwise ... meh. Clinton gave a better speech than he did.

Politics aside, who really cares? Obama or Romney doesn't change our course.

Eastwood is an 82 year old actor.

Obama wa .... err .... is President of the United States. (Sorry, got ahead of myself with wishful thinking)

I watched Obama's speech again, and it was flat. Really flat. He picked it up near the end, but much of it was really pretty boring. Even DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman-Shultz was yawning.

It really was a pretty awful speech. Nothing new .... nothing really inspiring ...... just kinda "keep me in office so I can finish what I started" .....

I see what he's started and I say "No thanks".

I heard a comparison of his speech with Jimmy Carter's Convention speech back in 1980, and there were definite similarities. I have no idea if Romney can be a Reagan type President, but I think that Obama is Jimmy Carter. He is weak, and ineffective ... unable to work with members of the opposing Party. (as Reagan had to do) Reagan had a Democrat House for his entire Presidency. He still managed to get things done. Bill Clinton had a Republican House, and he managed to get big things done. This President has failed absolutely in getting things done, and hasn't worked across the aisle on anything that I can think of. he has blamed, and demagogued, but he hasn't been effective in compromising to get his agenda through. This is a vital skill for a President. You either have to do as Reagan did, and talk directly to the American people to put pressure on Congress, or you have to develop personal relationships with those in the opposition as other President have done ..... or co-opt the opposition's own agenda, as Clinton did.

Obama lacks this skill, probably because he's never had to develop them. He's never really been an executive who had to work with people with opposing views.

This is where I do have some hope for Romney. He has worked with Democrats. He has worked to get things done, even with people opposed to him. He has run a business, and understands the needs and concerns of business.

I think back to the Jimmy Carter days, and how the country seemed to be completely stuck in its malaise. We were in horrible shape. Reagan, like him or hate him, turned things around. People said that we were doomed to remain stuck where we were no matter which candidate won, and in fact, many said that Reagan's policies would make things worse.

The economy boomed instead.

I do not believe that we will experience any kind of boom with the current President's policies in place, especially when he seems willing to rule more by executive fiat than by working with the Congress.

I see no reason to expect that anything Obama has done in his 1st term will change in a 2nd term. By the end of Clinton's 1st term, he had started moving to the middle, and successfully positioned himself as being on the side of middle America. I see no way that this President has come close to that. He is incredibly ineffective by every single measure that a President can be judged on. I see no rational way that he even can be considered for a 2nd term. Romney may, or may not be a huge improvement, but we know what we'll get with Obama, and that's more of the ineffective same.

web page

Mitt Romney or Mr. Burns

WHO SAID IT?

1. "Its time for another old-fashioned tax revolt"
2. "i've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will."
3. "So, what shall we do tomorrow? Go Grousing?"
4. "I'm not concerned about the very poor."
5. "Why do I need another penny? I have Billions."
6. "Corporations are people, my friend!"
7. "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me."
8. "I'm really enjoying this so-called 'iced cream.'"
9. "I tasted a beer and tried a cigarette once, as a wayward teenager, and never did it again."
10. "I grew up drinking Vernors and watching ballgames at Michigan & Trumbull."
11. "A blue Collar bar! Let's go slumming!"
12. "i have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners."
13. "i'm running for office, for Pete's sake -- I can't have illegals!"
14. "This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election."

Romney: 1,2,4,6,7,9,10,12,13 Burns: 3,5,8,11,14

OK, I have to really tackle this idiotic auto industry crap.

I could "stabilize" ANY industry if I dump $60 or more BILLION dollars into a POST BANKRUPTCY company.

Think about this for a minute.

GM went bankrupt. They eliminated all of their bad debts, they eliminated every one their unnecessary facilities and spun them off into a separate company that could be liquidated. They did the same with their bad debts. The eliminated a huge portion of their dealer network.

The government also paid the union to take over the retirement plan.

So ..... what was left? A company that should be wildly successful, because they basically started over with no bad debts, no bad contracts, no nothing except a huge amount of inventory, and all of their best factories running. They also got an additional $50 billion or so.

How the hell could they fail? How could they be anything except wildly successful? They not only dumped every debt they had, screwed their shareholders, who went to the back of the line, even behind the union, and then got a massive cash infusion of taxpayer dollars.

GM should be insanely successful right now. They had everything needed to succeed.

GM now needs to pay back the taxpayers .... except that they can't. Why? Because the way this whole deal was structured, we, the taxpayers, will only be paid back by sale of the government's stock in GM. That stock is worth about half what the government gave GM. (Not counting the money lost forever in bailing out GMAC so they could be spun off to become Ally Bank)

Obama did get bin Laden, and he deserves credit for approving that mission.

As far as stopping job loss, I am of the opinion that job losses go so far, and then hit a fairly firm floor. Unless businesses close up shop, they will still have to employ a certain number of people. Many companies do have money in the bank. They also have overseas operations that help provide revenue flow. Right now, companies are running lean. They cut to the bone. They are also sitting on cash.

Many businesses did close. Many others cut employees so they could stay in business. Those in business today are running very efficiently. They cut every job they could to save money and create liquidity.

Name me a policy that Obama put in place that helped stem job losses. (outside of a very minimal number of auto employees, compared to the larger 23 million unemployed)

Tell me the policies that Obama put in place that "set economic recovery in motion".

He threw taxpayer money into companies owned by his bundlers, wasting money when they went under. Then he allowed the taxpayers to be moved to last place in the bankruptcy proceedings. Yea.

As far as oil, we are sitting on so much more oil than we ever though we had. We could be 100% free from dependence on any other nation for oil, if we wanted to be. We could also pursue extended mileage for vehicles, alternative energies, and so on, but we would be doing so on our own terms. I like that idea much better than being reliant upon other countries to provide for our energy needs.

This oil could provide much needed jobs, and a downstream of jobs as well. However, if we refuse to take advantage of our gifts, then we deserve the suffering we get. Hell, look at North Dakota right now. They have an energy boom, entirely on private land. However, there are other areas that require off-shore drilling. We should take every precaution, but also exploit our energy reserves to the best advantage of our country and her people.

As far as "lessening the cost of education", well, I have seen an alternative line of thinking, that all of the "free money" given out by the government actually drives up the cost of education. An "all in" public education in 1990-1991 cost roughly $12,000. Today that cost is roughly $21,600 on average.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76

The cost of education continues to rise rapidly. Why? Because the government stared giving people "free' money, and institutions raised prices almost correspondingly.

Plus, kids are going to college and graduating without jobs that use their degrees ..... or without any possibility of jobs using their degrees. If someone goes to college and gets a "free" education in South American Painters ..... have they really gained a marketable skill that will help them in life? I know machinists who are burying college graduates as far as making a living goes.

As far as Afghanistan, yeah, he has a plan, which has given the Taliban a "If we can just hang on till then" mentality. That's frightening.

As far as "helping repair our image worldwide", can you give me an example of how that has helped us?

I'm also kinda surprised that you didn't mention allowing kids to stay on their parents insurance until they are 26. I read something recently that a number of those kids are not taking their own employer sponsored plans, because they can get their parents' plan for free. Other kids just can't find jobs when they graduate. I bet that most would trade their parents' insurance for a job in their field.

I don't point these things our, or ask these things out of a malicious intent, but merely because many seem to me to be more talking points than anything else. They are not real accomplishments. You might disagree, an dI welcome your response to my questions and comments.

I also want to add that we have somewhere in the range of 100,000 people entering the workforce for the first time each and every month.

That means that we need to add 1.2 million jobs per year just to employ those coming into the job market.

This doesn't even touch those sitting on the sidelines, wishing that they could find a job. There are what ..... 23 million such people, not counting those who have given up.

A President promising to so all he can to add 1 million jobs per year isn't any help at all. It doesn't even keep pace with those entering the job market.

We need to do all we can to create jobs. We need to do all we can to create the environment that allows for jobs to be created. I don't see that in this President's platform, and I don't see it coming even close to keeping pace with new entrants into the workforce, let alone those currently suffering at home.

I really don't understand the fantasy that Obama has been unable to work with Republicans ... he's pretty much been a Republican president. His presidency has been nothing but GOP ideals.

His supporters tend to think he capitulates or is weak/spineless ... but what's closer to the truth is that his ideology is aligned with traditional GOP values.

Whatever.

He shoved his policies through, on a straight party line basis.

Name me one Republican policy that he signed, with the exception of the last second extension of the Bush tax cuts.

He created this monstrosity that is Obamacare, and frankly I don't care whose idea it was. It was his proposal, and it is a disaster. He has raised taxes across the entire spectrum of the US with his healthcare law. He shoved this law through without any Republican input, and no basic and simple cost saving ideas, like standardizing paperwork, and allowing competition across state lines. He also didn't touch tort reform, which was a big part of a long ago compromise idea.

This President hasn't even had a budget passed in the last 3+ years. The Republicans passed one, but the Senate won't even take one up. This is a leadership issue. If he was running right of center, as you say, then he would embrace the Republican budget that cuts increases in spending, and push it through the Senate.

He's right of center compared to Communist Russia, or Venezuela, but not compared to the US political spectrum. You keep trumpeting this idea that he is the same as Bush, but that's not true. He wants an entirely different tax structure. He treats businesses completely differently than the Bush administration did. He has pumped out regulations after regulations that have stifled business growth.

You want to make them twins, but frankly, they aren't. They have very different philosophies regarding business, and taxes, and so on. These are important issues, and important differences. He has maintained some of Bush's policies, like keeping Guantanamo open, but this was more a matter of reality hitting him in the face. That doesn't mean that he doesn't want it closed ..... just that he has no better solution, and now that he has more information, he knows it.

YT your one funny uniformed dude.

I'm not gonna go point counterpoint with you. Like so many others have attempted. About the only thing I can say that I semi agree on is that we are sitting on a lot of oil and I believe Obama should have curbed the gas prices with oil reserves and be harsher on oil companies.... but we dont have enough to sustain 100% self sufficiency without compromising our military's future capabilities.

And BTW Romney wants to give further tax cuts to oil companies... they already having 10's of billions of dollar profit per fiscal QUARTER.

If you would improve your comprehension skills and do half of the homework on Romney that you do Obama... and learn to fact check. I think you would reverse some of your present thoughts about Obama and seriously question Romney's position. Or whatever his position is this week.

The content of your responses in your debate with YTown clearly shows who is informed and providing support of their position vs. who is blowing wind and toeing a party line

Your final salvo - typical of many liberals - is to tell the other person how uninformed they are and to insult their intelligence.

All while not going "point to counter-point" with them.

Do you have a response to YTowns very detailed critique of the "auto industry bailout"?

He nailed it...absolutely nailed it. With paragraph after paragraph of detailed info behind his point. Yet your answer is that he is "uninformed"?

So typical.