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GOP Foreign Policy Official Eviscerates Romney
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/foreign-policy-hands-voice-disbelief-at-romney-cai
Romney losing lead among men
By Niall Stanage - 09/11/12 08:23 PM ET
Mitt Romney’s advantage among male voters has all but disappeared since the Democratic National Convention.
The pattern will likely spell doom for Romney unless it represents an entirely transient “bump” for President Obama — which it might.
Several polls released in recent days show Obama displaying new strength among male voters. Romney needs to win the male electorate by a wide margin to overcome the chronic disadvantage the GOP faces with respect to women.
A CNN poll released Monday showed Obama moving into a small lead among men, besting Romney 48 percent to 47. The finding was especially notable because CNN, in a poll conducted about a week prior, had shown Romney holding a 12-point lead among men (55 percent to 43).
On Tuesday, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found Obama enjoying a 3-point edge among men.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/248897-romney-losing-lead-among-men
I agree. That thought also crossed my mind....
Romney and Ryan do NOT represent any solution. More of the same that got us into this mess. Those liars have not provided a single specific to what they will do different than Bush. Just more tax cuts for the rich, wars and hyperbole BS and lies lies lies. Where are the specific?? And he better start with his 10 year tax return specific that liar POS
Religious extremists know no bounds in any religion. Christian fundamentalists, muslim fundamentalists, ultra-orthodox jews, all boil in the same pot. There is no reasoning with any of them.
BREAKING..Afghan Official: YouTube Banned To Prevent Access To Anti-Islam Film
Last update: 9/12/2012 9:20:28 AM
http://custom.fmg.dowjones.com/custom/tdameritrade-com/html-story.asp?guid={4aef80ef-10c9-4151-b3b2-069e465156a9}
KABUL (AFP)--The Afghan government on Wednesday banned YouTube to prevent people from watching an anti-Islam film that sparked a violent anti-American demonstration in Libya which killed the U.S. ambassador. "Following instructions by the ministry of information and culture, the ministry of communication has ordered all service providers to block YouTube access," communications ministry official Aimal Marjan told AFP. (END) Dow Jones NewswiresSeptember 12, 2012 09:20 ET (13:20 GMT)
Sam Bacile, Anti-Islam Filmmaker, In Hiding After Protests
AP | By SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER
Posted: 09/12/2012 12:29 am Updated: 09/12/2012 4:52 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/sam-bacile-in-hiding_n_1876044.html
September 11, 2012. (Photo by STR/AFP/GettyImages)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — An Israeli filmmaker based in California went into hiding Tuesday after his movie attacking Islam's prophet Muhammad sparked angry assaults by ultra-conservative Muslims on U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya, where one American was killed.
Speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, writer and director Sam Bacile remained defiant, saying Islam is a cancer and that the 56-year-old intended his film to be a provocative political statement condemning the religion.
Protesters angered over Bacile's film opened fire on and burned down the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, killing an American diplomat on Tuesday. In Egypt, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo and replaced an American flag with an Islamic banner.
"This is a political movie," said Bacile. "The U.S. lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're fighting with ideas."
Bacile, a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew, said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam's flaws to the world.
"Islam is a cancer, period," he said repeatedly, his solemn voice thickly accented.
The two-hour movie, "Innocence of Muslims," cost $5 million to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, said Bacile, who wrote and directed it.
The film claims Muhammad was a fraud. An English-language 13-minute trailer on YouTube shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons.
It depicts Muhammad as a feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse, among other overtly insulting claims that have caused outrage.
Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any manner, let alone insult the prophet. A Danish newspaper's 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet triggered riots in many Muslim countries.
Though Bacile was apologetic about the American who was killed as a result of the outrage over his film, he blamed lax embassy security and the perpetrators of the violence.
"I feel the security system (at the embassies) is no good," said Bacile. "America should do something to change it."
A consultant on the film, Steve Klein, said the filmmaker is concerned for family members who live in Egypt. Bacile declined to confirm.
Klein said he vowed to help Bacile make the movie but warned him that "you're going to be the next Theo van Gogh." Van Gogh was a Dutch filmmaker killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004 after making a film that was perceived as insulting to Islam.
"We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen," Klein said.
Bacile's film was dubbed into Egyptian Arabic by someone he doesn't know, but he speaks enough Arabic to confirm that the translation is accurate. It was made in three months in the summer of 2011, with 59 actors and about 45 people behind the camera.
The full film has been shown once, to a mostly empty theater in Hollywood earlier this year, said Bacile.
Paul Ryan Amazing Hypocrisy Watch
by Michael Tomasky Sep 6, 2012 8:50 AM EDT
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/06/in-non-charlotte-news-paul-ryan-amazing-hypocrisy-watch.html
Yesterday afternoon, The Nation's Lee Fang reported via a Freedom of Information Act request that in late 2010, Paul Ryan requested funds for a health-care clinic in his district under the Affordable Care Act. That's right. Paul Ryan, who then and now inveighs against Obamacare virtually every day of his life, wanted Obamacare funds.
I guess most people will respond to this with bemused cynical eye-rolling. David Frum noted to me yesterday that Phil Gramm used to say that he'd vote against every bloated appropriations bills, but if Congress passed them, by cracky he'd fight for Texas to get its share.
I, um, guess that's okay, or if not okay, at least the way of the world. But this is worse. This is Obamacare. This is the Big Evil, not just some run-of-the-mill approps bill. It's just astonishing. And Ryan's spokesman, when asked about the story by a Wisconsin paper, responded by...shocker here, but apparently by lying. He said that the particular program under which Ryan's office was requesting the funds was created by President Bush. But this HHS press release from August 2010, back when Obamacare was first bieng implemented, says pretty clearly what it says:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today the availability of up to $250 million in grants for New Access Points for the delivery of primary health care services for underserved and vulnerable populations under the Health Center Program. The funds, made available by the Affordable Care Act, will be awarded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).
A new access point is a new full-time service delivery site that provides comprehensive primary and preventive health care services. New access points improve the health status and decrease health disparities of the medically underserved populations to be served.
Ryan also finally acknowledged not long ago--after initially (guess what) lying about it--that he sought stimulus funds too. What a total fraud this fraudulent fraud is. And if conservatives had principles besides winning elections, they'd acknowledge that Ryan's erstwhile high reputation among them has just been shredded, and shredded quickly and easily, in a matter of three weeks. Clinton destroyed him last night on that $716 billion. Wanna guess how he'll respond? Hint: Rhymes with crying.
Newsweek/Daily Beast special correspondent Michael Tomasky is also editor ofDemocracy: A Journal of Ideas. Follow Michael Tomasky on Twitter at@mtomasky.
BLISTERING: Kerry Lacerates Romney
Posted: 09/06/2012 8:57 pm Updated: 09/07/2012 12:54 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/john-kerry-speech-_n_1852684.html
It has become the unofficial catchphrase of the Republicans' foreign policy critique of President Barack Obama: "American Exceptionalism." To the Republican nominees, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, it represents everything wrong with Obama's approach to international affairs -- he doesn't care for it, and they would finally restore it.
On Thursday night, in a speech that was widely perceived as an open audition for the job of secretary of state in a second Obama term, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) delivered the Democrats' official response: the Republicans have got it backwards.
"Our opponents like to talk about 'American Exceptionalism,' but all they do is talk," said Kerry, in the Democratic National Convention's featured address on foreign policy. "The only thing exceptional about today's Republicans is that -- almost without exception -- they oppose everything that has made America exceptional in the first place."
Drawing a parallel with the economic crises that Obama inherited when he came into office, Kerry argued that Obama also inherited a spate of foreign policy struggles, which were the inevitable consequence of eight years of Republican "exceptionalism."
"Just measure the disarray and disaster he inherited," Kerry said early in his speech. "A war of choice in Iraq had become a war without end, and a war of necessity in Afghanistan had become a war of neglect. Our alliances were shredded. Our moral authority was in tatters. America was isolated in the world."
Faced with these challenges, Kerry argued, it took Obama's distinctive approach to the world -- a more collective and deliberate style that came to be known, derisively to some, as "leading from behind" -- to restore true exceptionalism, and "make America lead like America again."
It was a strongly delivered and occasionally quippy speech, and Kerry devoted about as much time in it building up Obama's foreign policy credits as he did tearing down Romney's.
Describing Romney as "someone who just hasn't learned the lessons of the last decade," Kerry said that the Republican nominees were "the most inexperienced foreign policy twosome to run for president and vice president in decades."
"Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska," Kerry said in one of several colorful punchlines. "Mitt Romney talks like he's only seen Russia by watching Rocky IV."
In characterizing Romney as a wishy-washy figure on foreign policy -- "extreme and expedient," he called him at one point -- Kerry sought to portray the Republican nominee as a repeat of all the worst qualities of former President George W. Bush, as perceived by Democrats: simultaneously too ambitious and casually blundering.
"We've all learned Mitt Romney doesn't know much about foreign policy," Kerry said. "But he has all these 'neocon advisors' who know all the wrong things about foreign policy."
He later added, in a reference to Romney's gaffe-filled foreign policy tour this past July, "It wasn't a goodwill mission -- it was a blooper reel."
Not surprisingly, it didn't take Kerry long to turn his speech toward the main foreign policy bullet point of Obama's reelection campaign: the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
"After more than ten years without justice for thousands of Americans murdered on 9/11, after Mitt Romney said it would be 'naïve' to go into Pakistan to pursue the terrorists, it took President Obama, against the advice of many, to give that order and finally rid this earth of Osama bin Laden," Kerry said. "Ask Osama bin Laden if he's better off now than he was four years ago."
Anticipating a night of foreign policy critique, the Romney campaign on Thursday afternoon circulated a memo outlining ten "failures" of Obama's foreign policy, including charges that he had "failed to slow the progress of Iran's" nuclear program and "damaged the cherished relationship between the United States and Israel."
The campaign also said that Obama had made "numerous unwise and seemingly politically motivated decisions" in his plan to drawdown the war in Afghanistan.
"President Obama's failure on the economy has been so severe that it has overshadowed his manifold failures on foreign policy and national security," said the memo, authored by Lanhee Chen, the Romney campaign's policy director. "An inventory of his record shows that by nearly all measures, President Obama has diminished American influence abroad and compromised our interests and values."
Kerry sought to tackle some of these complaints, and in an extended section on Afghanistan, he commended Obama for keeping his promise "to end the war in Afghanistan responsibly." But, perhaps predictably, he opted to focus most of his remarks on Romney's lack of a strong message on the war.
"It isn't fair to say Mitt Romney doesn't have a position on Afghanistan," Kerry said. "He has every position."
He also took Romney to task for failing to mention Afghanistan -- or any other war -- during his Republican National Convention speech last week. "No nominee for president should ever fail in the midst of a war to pay tribute to our troops overseas in his acceptance speech," Kerry said. "Mitt Romney was talking about America. They are on the front lines every day defending America, and they deserve our thanks."
One region that got short shrift in Kerry's speech was Syria, where a prolonged revolutionary crisis has largely stymied the Obama administration, and has opened up Obama to criticism from the Republicans that he has not done enough to assist the uprising.
Kerry himself has a particularly uncomfortable history as a longtime booster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the role Kerry once believed Assad could play in keeping peace the Middle East.
Kerry has since said that he never saw Assad as a true "domestic reformer," but -- ever the pragmatist -- nevertheless defends his efforts to reach out and engage with the embattled Syrian leader at a time when it seemed possible.
"This was an external opportunity," Kerry told The New York Times' James Traub last year, speaking of the role that he once thought Assad might be compelled to play in the region. "Countries and people and leaders of countries act out of self-interest. ... Foreign policy is the art of finding those interests and seeing what serves your nation, and trying to marry them."
Jodi Smith, Kerry's Senate spokesman, told HuffPost in a statement that Kerry "doesn't regret testing Syria's intentions, but regrets that Assad squandered the opportunity. Senator Kerry has condemned the regime, urged Assad's departure, and pressed for a managed transition that would respect the aspirations of the Syrian people and help end the bloodshed."
BLISTERING: Kerry Lacerates Romney
Posted: 09/06/2012 8:57 pm Updated: 09/07/2012 12:54 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/john-kerry-speech-_n_1852684.html
It has become the unofficial catchphrase of the Republicans' foreign policy critique of President Barack Obama: "American Exceptionalism." To the Republican nominees, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, it represents everything wrong with Obama's approach to international affairs -- he doesn't care for it, and they would finally restore it.
On Thursday night, in a speech that was widely perceived as an open audition for the job of secretary of state in a second Obama term, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) delivered the Democrats' official response: the Republicans have got it backwards.
"Our opponents like to talk about 'American Exceptionalism,' but all they do is talk," said Kerry, in the Democratic National Convention's featured address on foreign policy. "The only thing exceptional about today's Republicans is that -- almost without exception -- they oppose everything that has made America exceptional in the first place."
Drawing a parallel with the economic crises that Obama inherited when he came into office, Kerry argued that Obama also inherited a spate of foreign policy struggles, which were the inevitable consequence of eight years of Republican "exceptionalism."
"Just measure the disarray and disaster he inherited," Kerry said early in his speech. "A war of choice in Iraq had become a war without end, and a war of necessity in Afghanistan had become a war of neglect. Our alliances were shredded. Our moral authority was in tatters. America was isolated in the world."
Faced with these challenges, Kerry argued, it took Obama's distinctive approach to the world -- a more collective and deliberate style that came to be known, derisively to some, as "leading from behind" -- to restore true exceptionalism, and "make America lead like America again."
It was a strongly delivered and occasionally quippy speech, and Kerry devoted about as much time in it building up Obama's foreign policy credits as he did tearing down Romney's.
Describing Romney as "someone who just hasn't learned the lessons of the last decade," Kerry said that the Republican nominees were "the most inexperienced foreign policy twosome to run for president and vice president in decades."
"Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska," Kerry said in one of several colorful punchlines. "Mitt Romney talks like he's only seen Russia by watching Rocky IV."
In characterizing Romney as a wishy-washy figure on foreign policy -- "extreme and expedient," he called him at one point -- Kerry sought to portray the Republican nominee as a repeat of all the worst qualities of former President George W. Bush, as perceived by Democrats: simultaneously too ambitious and casually blundering.
"We've all learned Mitt Romney doesn't know much about foreign policy," Kerry said. "But he has all these 'neocon advisors' who know all the wrong things about foreign policy."
He later added, in a reference to Romney's gaffe-filled foreign policy tour this past July, "It wasn't a goodwill mission -- it was a blooper reel."
Not surprisingly, it didn't take Kerry long to turn his speech toward the main foreign policy bullet point of Obama's reelection campaign: the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
"After more than ten years without justice for thousands of Americans murdered on 9/11, after Mitt Romney said it would be 'naïve' to go into Pakistan to pursue the terrorists, it took President Obama, against the advice of many, to give that order and finally rid this earth of Osama bin Laden," Kerry said. "Ask Osama bin Laden if he's better off now than he was four years ago."
Anticipating a night of foreign policy critique, the Romney campaign on Thursday afternoon circulated a memo outlining ten "failures" of Obama's foreign policy, including charges that he had "failed to slow the progress of Iran's" nuclear program and "damaged the cherished relationship between the United States and Israel."
The campaign also said that Obama had made "numerous unwise and seemingly politically motivated decisions" in his plan to drawdown the war in Afghanistan.
"President Obama's failure on the economy has been so severe that it has overshadowed his manifold failures on foreign policy and national security," said the memo, authored by Lanhee Chen, the Romney campaign's policy director. "An inventory of his record shows that by nearly all measures, President Obama has diminished American influence abroad and compromised our interests and values."
Kerry sought to tackle some of these complaints, and in an extended section on Afghanistan, he commended Obama for keeping his promise "to end the war in Afghanistan responsibly." But, perhaps predictably, he opted to focus most of his remarks on Romney's lack of a strong message on the war.
"It isn't fair to say Mitt Romney doesn't have a position on Afghanistan," Kerry said. "He has every position."
He also took Romney to task for failing to mention Afghanistan -- or any other war -- during his Republican National Convention speech last week. "No nominee for president should ever fail in the midst of a war to pay tribute to our troops overseas in his acceptance speech," Kerry said. "Mitt Romney was talking about America. They are on the front lines every day defending America, and they deserve our thanks."
One region that got short shrift in Kerry's speech was Syria, where a prolonged revolutionary crisis has largely stymied the Obama administration, and has opened up Obama to criticism from the Republicans that he has not done enough to assist the uprising.
Kerry himself has a particularly uncomfortable history as a longtime booster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the role Kerry once believed Assad could play in keeping peace the Middle East.
Kerry has since said that he never saw Assad as a true "domestic reformer," but -- ever the pragmatist -- nevertheless defends his efforts to reach out and engage with the embattled Syrian leader at a time when it seemed possible.
"This was an external opportunity," Kerry told The New York Times' James Traub last year, speaking of the role that he once thought Assad might be compelled to play in the region. "Countries and people and leaders of countries act out of self-interest. ... Foreign policy is the art of finding those interests and seeing what serves your nation, and trying to marry them."
Jodi Smith, Kerry's Senate spokesman, told HuffPost in a statement that Kerry "doesn't regret testing Syria's intentions, but regrets that Assad squandered the opportunity. Senator Kerry has condemned the regime, urged Assad's departure, and pressed for a managed transition that would respect the aspirations of the Syrian people and help end the bloodshed."
MUST READ..Elizabeth Warren Speech: 'We Build It Together'
Posted: 09/05/2012 10:17 pm Updated: 09/06/2012 12:45 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/elizabeth-warren-speech_n_1859741.html?ref=topbar
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- In the fall of 2008, two weeks after Election Day, Harry Reid picked up the phone and called Elizabeth Warren, a little-known law professor with a background in consumer advocacy. We want you to run the panel overseeing the Wall Street bailout, he told her.
"Are you sure?" Warren quizzed the Senate majority leader. She knew that, by Washington standards, she was an odd choice, someone not tucked squarely in the pocket of industry.
She took the job and broke every unwritten rule in Washington. Every time she did, her star rose with the progressive base. She publicly dressed down her own party's treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, in a series of exchanges that went viral. She articulated and defended an unashamedly progressive worldview in a way few Democrats had been capable of doing.
On Wednesday evening, just four short years after the call from Reid, Warren made that argument on a national stage, speaking just before former President Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention.
"The Republican vision is clear: 'I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own,'" Warren told a cheering convention crowd here. "Republicans say they don't believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends. After all, Mitt Romney's the guy who said corporations are people.
"No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don't run this country for corporations. We run it for people," she said.
Warren walked on stage to a thunderous greeting and chants of "Warren! Warren!" -- underscoring the passion the Democratic base has for her Senate candidacy. She delivered the first half of her speech more like a lecture than a barnburner.
"People feel like the system is rigged against them," Warren said. "And here's the painful part: they're right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs -- the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs -- still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.
"Anyone here have a problem with that?"
In spring 2009, Warren began pushing Congress to adopt what she was then calling the Financial Product Safety Commission, based on the radical notion that banks and other companies should not be allowed to cheat and steal. When Democrats worked to water it down, she publicly said she'd rather have a strong agency or no agency at all.
She got one. In July, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Warren was named to establish, but not to run, announced its first major settlement, a $210 million claim against Capital One. In another break from tradition, Capital One acknowledged wrongdoing and promised to mend its ways.
Warren trumpeted the bureau in her speech. "After the financial crisis, President Obama knew that we had to clean up Wall Street. For years, families had been tricked by credit cards, fooled by student loans and cheated on mortgages. I had an idea for a consumer financial protection agency to stop the rip-offs. The big banks sure didn't like it, and they marshaled one of the biggest lobbying forces on earth to destroy the agency before it ever saw the light of day," she said. "American families didn't have an army of lobbyists on our side, but what we had was a president -- President Obama leading the way. And when the lobbyists were closing in for the kill, Barack Obama squared his shoulders, planted his feet, and stood firm. And that's how we won."
She also referenced the Capital One settlement. "By the way, just a few weeks ago, that little agency caught one of the biggest credit card companies cheating its customers and made it give people back every penny it took, plus millions of dollars in fines. That's what happens when you have a president on the side of the middle class," she said.
Warren, in a tough campaign against Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), trails Brown by four percentage points, according to an averaging of the latest polls. Earlier this week, in an interview with HuffPost, she signaled that she'll soon start focusing on Brown's voting record, despite Brown's odd admonition that she refrain from doing so.
Last week, the GOP based much of its convention on a misrepresentation of a refrain Warren popularized, arguing that those who are successful owe some of their success to their education, their safe community, infrastructure investments, and a system that encourages growth. When Obama said that successful business owners "didn't build that" system that fostered their success, the Republican Party claimed great offense.
"We build it together," Warren said Wednesday night.
UPDATE: 10:30 p.m. -- This article has been updated to include additional comments from Warren's speech.
MUST READ..Elizabeth Warren Speech: 'We Build It Together'
Posted: 09/05/2012 10:17 pm Updated: 09/06/2012 12:45 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/elizabeth-warren-speech_n_1859741.html?ref=topbar
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- In the fall of 2008, two weeks after Election Day, Harry Reid picked up the phone and called Elizabeth Warren, a little-known law professor with a background in consumer advocacy. We want you to run the panel overseeing the Wall Street bailout, he told her.
"Are you sure?" Warren quizzed the Senate majority leader. She knew that, by Washington standards, she was an odd choice, someone not tucked squarely in the pocket of industry.
She took the job and broke every unwritten rule in Washington. Every time she did, her star rose with the progressive base. She publicly dressed down her own party's treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, in a series of exchanges that went viral. She articulated and defended an unashamedly progressive worldview in a way few Democrats had been capable of doing.
On Wednesday evening, just four short years after the call from Reid, Warren made that argument on a national stage, speaking just before former President Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention.
"The Republican vision is clear: 'I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own,'" Warren told a cheering convention crowd here. "Republicans say they don't believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends. After all, Mitt Romney's the guy who said corporations are people.
"No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don't run this country for corporations. We run it for people," she said.
Warren walked on stage to a thunderous greeting and chants of "Warren! Warren!" -- underscoring the passion the Democratic base has for her Senate candidacy. She delivered the first half of her speech more like a lecture than a barnburner.
"People feel like the system is rigged against them," Warren said. "And here's the painful part: they're right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs -- the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs -- still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.
"Anyone here have a problem with that?"
In spring 2009, Warren began pushing Congress to adopt what she was then calling the Financial Product Safety Commission, based on the radical notion that banks and other companies should not be allowed to cheat and steal. When Democrats worked to water it down, she publicly said she'd rather have a strong agency or no agency at all.
She got one. In July, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Warren was named to establish, but not to run, announced its first major settlement, a $210 million claim against Capital One. In another break from tradition, Capital One acknowledged wrongdoing and promised to mend its ways.
Warren trumpeted the bureau in her speech. "After the financial crisis, President Obama knew that we had to clean up Wall Street. For years, families had been tricked by credit cards, fooled by student loans and cheated on mortgages. I had an idea for a consumer financial protection agency to stop the rip-offs. The big banks sure didn't like it, and they marshaled one of the biggest lobbying forces on earth to destroy the agency before it ever saw the light of day," she said. "American families didn't have an army of lobbyists on our side, but what we had was a president -- President Obama leading the way. And when the lobbyists were closing in for the kill, Barack Obama squared his shoulders, planted his feet, and stood firm. And that's how we won."
She also referenced the Capital One settlement. "By the way, just a few weeks ago, that little agency caught one of the biggest credit card companies cheating its customers and made it give people back every penny it took, plus millions of dollars in fines. That's what happens when you have a president on the side of the middle class," she said.
Warren, in a tough campaign against Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), trails Brown by four percentage points, according to an averaging of the latest polls. Earlier this week, in an interview with HuffPost, she signaled that she'll soon start focusing on Brown's voting record, despite Brown's odd admonition that she refrain from doing so.
Last week, the GOP based much of its convention on a misrepresentation of a refrain Warren popularized, arguing that those who are successful owe some of their success to their education, their safe community, infrastructure investments, and a system that encourages growth. When Obama said that successful business owners "didn't build that" system that fostered their success, the Republican Party claimed great offense.
"We build it together," Warren said Wednesday night.
UPDATE: 10:30 p.m. -- This article has been updated to include additional comments from Warren's speech.
duplicate...
D is for Drive forward
R is for Reverse or backwards
LMFAO... too funny...
"who negotiated for workers that did work for the company"
If you say so... LMFAO... too funny...
No, just the haters... LMFAO... too funny...
Clearly you are the dense one... here it is again..."But it turns out one of those employees was"...."an organizer during his dealings with GST Steel"..."who negotiated for workers that did work for the company"
In other words he knew EXACTLY what was going on and what POS Bain was...
Better get used to four more years... in a land slide... GUARANTEED!
The joke is on you as he IS the president...
No, it means what I said. All the data is there... here, I'll help you with the main points...
"But it turns out one of those employees was"...."an organizer during his dealings with GST Steel"..."who negotiated for workers that did work for the company"
In other words he knew EXACTLY what was going on and what POS Bain was...
Unless you are NOT an AMerican, he is your president and he will be your president for the next four years... so get used to it...
Without a college education she couldn't have written a book or given a speech at the DNC so you can blog about it.... LMFAO... too funny...
Lying doesn't shoot you...The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.
-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, quoted in National Journal, November 4, 2010
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/96591/mcconnell-villain-who-me
GOP are the biggest American traitors...
"former employees of companies controlled by Bain Capital"
Even a 2 year old understand what that means.... but clearly not RepubliCONs.... LMFAO... too funny...
The first month of President's Obama, the Republican leadership was saying that their number one priority is NOT to help the country find a common ground but to make sure this is a one term president. Republicans are despicable and the biggest American traitors.
Alex Castellanos, GOP Strategist: Clinton Speech Was 'Moment That Probably Reelected Obama' (VIDEO)
Posted: 09/05/2012 11:58 pm Updated: 09/06/2012 10:31 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/alex-castellanos-obama-clinton_n_1859947.html?ir=Politics&ref=topbar
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Former President Bill Clinton's speech on Wednesday night was a tour de force that exhibited his best qualities as an easily relatable communicator and effective yet likeable attack dog. And in a telling nod toward its effectiveness, the one aspect that Republicans felt comfortable attacking was its length of nearly 50 mintues.
Some conservatives didn't bother with that. Appearing on CNN shortly after Clinton finished, Alex Castellanos, a longtime cable commentator and former aide to Mitt Romney, spoke in awe of the 42nd president's address.
"I would recommend to my friend Paul [Begala] here, tonight when everybody leaves, lock the doors. You don't have to come back tomorrow. This convention is done," Castellanos said. "This will be the moment that probably reelected Barack Obama. Bill Clinton saved the Democratic Party once, it was going too far left, he came in, the new Democrats took it to the center. He did it again tonight."
This is a classic cable news overstatement. Certainly a bit more time is needed before declaring the convention over, let alone the election. But the comment still underscores the advantage the Democrats have in being able to trot out a former president to help with the sell. While Clinton brought down the house at the Democratic convention, both former Presidents Bush addressed the Republican convention via a largely humorous, somewhat nostalgic video.
Better get used to four more years baby....
And Republican Bush leaving while the country was losing 800,000 jobs a month had nothing to do with it, eh?? And I also have a bridge to sell you....
OH MY GOD!!! NASDAQ at the highest level since 2000.... God Bless Obama!!!!
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EIXIC+Interactive#symbol=%5Eixic;range=20001225,20120906;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
Republican Convention Ratings Plummet From 2008
AP | By BETH FOUHY
Posted: 09/03/2012 4:06 pm Updated: 09/04/2012 11:30 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/republican-convention-ratings_n_1852535.html
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — When it comes to following political conventions, Twitter may soon trump television.
TV viewership for last week's Republican National Convention dropped sharply from 2008, suggesting interest in this presidential race falls short of some past contests. But the convention was a hit online and on social networks, the latest evidence of the political conversation's gradual migration from traditional media to the Web.
The Nielsen Co. estimates that about 30.3 million viewers across 11 television networks watched convention coverage Thursday night when Mitt Romney delivered his prime-time speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination. That's a 23 percent plunge from the same night four years ago when nearly 39 million people tuned in to watch then-GOP nominee John McCain address the convention and the nation.
The erosion of TV viewership from 2008 was sharper still on Wednesday night when Romney running mate Paul Ryan drew about 22 million viewers for his acceptance speech. That's a 41 percent drop from 2008 when some 37 million tuned in for vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin's debut on the national stage.
The Republican convention drew an older audience on TV. Of the 22 million who watched Ann Romney speak on Tuesday night, Nielsen found that nearly 15 million were 55 or older. Only 1.5 million were age 18-34.
The 2008 election was an outlier from an otherwise consistent decline in viewership for political conventions over the past 20 years.
The last year conventions drew ratings similar to 2008 was 1992, when Democrats nominated Bill Clinton and Republicans re-nominated President George H.W. Bush. The highest ratings of the television era came at the 1976 Republican convention, when incumbent President Gerald Ford fought back a serious delegate challenge from Ronald Reagan.
There are many reasons the 2012 conventions may be less must-see TV than in 2008 — an historic election in which Democrat Barack Obama became the first African-American presidential nominee and Palin emerged as a Republican star.
Hurricane Isaac drew at least some attention from last week's GOP gathering in Tampa, Fla., a highly scripted affair which offered little in the way of news or surprises. Little news is expected at this week's Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., where Obama will be nominated for a second term.
But even as conventions lose viewers on television, they are thriving online and in social media where many younger voters get their news.
"It's not always easy to sit in front of a TV and watch a convention unfold when you can watch it online, on demand or whenever you care to do so," said Costas Panagopoulos, a Fordham University political science professor who has studied political conventions. "The changing media landscape has given people a chance to gather convention information relevant to them through social networks and other nontraditional sources."
There's no question that television remains the dominant force in political communication. Both campaigns have spent millions to beam picture-perfect TV images from their conventions, not to mention the $240 million the campaigns and outside groups have spent so far on televised ads.
Now, thanks to technology, those images are finding their way onto screens other than just the TV set.
Both parties have offered live streaming feeds of the conventions online, and the RNC's convention YouTube channel received 2.8 million video views. Several TV and print news organizations are also providing streaming video and opportunities for online engagement around the convention through their websites and Facebook pages. Search giant Google also has created dedicated convention pages.
The GOP convention was one of the most talked about news events of the year on Facebook, according to data analysis provided by the company. But even there, the average audience was older — the speeches by Mitt Romney, Ann Romney and actor Clinton Eastwood drew the most buzz among people over 55. Only Ryan's speech drew a younger discussion on Facebook.
Twitter, the social networking hub where information is shared through 140-character microbursts known as tweets, has become an influential media force in the convention after being little more than a blip in 2008. That year, the two conventions together drew just 365,000 tweets. This year's Republican convention alone drew 5 million tweets.
Romney's acceptance speech peaked at 14,300 tweets per minute to make it the most tweeted political event of 2012. The speech eclipsed Obama's State of the Union address in January, which drew about 14,100 tweets a minute.
Adam Sharp, Twitter's director of government and news, said people are flocking to Twitter and other online avenues for the conventions because it allows them to consume news where they are.
"You are no longer tethered to that screen in your living room or anywhere else — you can actively participate in these events while you're in line at the supermarket or waiting for the bus. It's incredibly transforming and freeing," Sharp said.
Obama oddly got the last laugh on Twitter as the Republican convention wound down. On Thursday, after Eastwood conducted his rambling monologue with an empty chair intended to be Obama, the president's campaign tweeted a photo showing the president seated in the Cabinet room with a caption that read, "this seat's taken." It was the most retweeted item of the GOP gathering.
What a racist republican POS he is.... he should be removed from his job that POS...
Republican Convention Ratings Plummet From 2008
AP | By BETH FOUHY
Posted: 09/03/2012 4:06 pm Updated: 09/04/2012 11:30 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/republican-convention-ratings_n_1852535.html
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — When it comes to following political conventions, Twitter may soon trump television.
TV viewership for last week's Republican National Convention dropped sharply from 2008, suggesting interest in this presidential race falls short of some past contests. But the convention was a hit online and on social networks, the latest evidence of the political conversation's gradual migration from traditional media to the Web.
The Nielsen Co. estimates that about 30.3 million viewers across 11 television networks watched convention coverage Thursday night when Mitt Romney delivered his prime-time speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination. That's a 23 percent plunge from the same night four years ago when nearly 39 million people tuned in to watch then-GOP nominee John McCain address the convention and the nation.
The erosion of TV viewership from 2008 was sharper still on Wednesday night when Romney running mate Paul Ryan drew about 22 million viewers for his acceptance speech. That's a 41 percent drop from 2008 when some 37 million tuned in for vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin's debut on the national stage.
The Republican convention drew an older audience on TV. Of the 22 million who watched Ann Romney speak on Tuesday night, Nielsen found that nearly 15 million were 55 or older. Only 1.5 million were age 18-34.
The 2008 election was an outlier from an otherwise consistent decline in viewership for political conventions over the past 20 years.
The last year conventions drew ratings similar to 2008 was 1992, when Democrats nominated Bill Clinton and Republicans re-nominated President George H.W. Bush. The highest ratings of the television era came at the 1976 Republican convention, when incumbent President Gerald Ford fought back a serious delegate challenge from Ronald Reagan.
There are many reasons the 2012 conventions may be less must-see TV than in 2008 — an historic election in which Democrat Barack Obama became the first African-American presidential nominee and Palin emerged as a Republican star.
Hurricane Isaac drew at least some attention from last week's GOP gathering in Tampa, Fla., a highly scripted affair which offered little in the way of news or surprises. Little news is expected at this week's Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., where Obama will be nominated for a second term.
But even as conventions lose viewers on television, they are thriving online and in social media where many younger voters get their news.
"It's not always easy to sit in front of a TV and watch a convention unfold when you can watch it online, on demand or whenever you care to do so," said Costas Panagopoulos, a Fordham University political science professor who has studied political conventions. "The changing media landscape has given people a chance to gather convention information relevant to them through social networks and other nontraditional sources."
There's no question that television remains the dominant force in political communication. Both campaigns have spent millions to beam picture-perfect TV images from their conventions, not to mention the $240 million the campaigns and outside groups have spent so far on televised ads.
Now, thanks to technology, those images are finding their way onto screens other than just the TV set.
Both parties have offered live streaming feeds of the conventions online, and the RNC's convention YouTube channel received 2.8 million video views. Several TV and print news organizations are also providing streaming video and opportunities for online engagement around the convention through their websites and Facebook pages. Search giant Google also has created dedicated convention pages.
The GOP convention was one of the most talked about news events of the year on Facebook, according to data analysis provided by the company. But even there, the average audience was older — the speeches by Mitt Romney, Ann Romney and actor Clinton Eastwood drew the most buzz among people over 55. Only Ryan's speech drew a younger discussion on Facebook.
Twitter, the social networking hub where information is shared through 140-character microbursts known as tweets, has become an influential media force in the convention after being little more than a blip in 2008. That year, the two conventions together drew just 365,000 tweets. This year's Republican convention alone drew 5 million tweets.
Romney's acceptance speech peaked at 14,300 tweets per minute to make it the most tweeted political event of 2012. The speech eclipsed Obama's State of the Union address in January, which drew about 14,100 tweets a minute.
Adam Sharp, Twitter's director of government and news, said people are flocking to Twitter and other online avenues for the conventions because it allows them to consume news where they are.
"You are no longer tethered to that screen in your living room or anywhere else — you can actively participate in these events while you're in line at the supermarket or waiting for the bus. It's incredibly transforming and freeing," Sharp said.
Obama oddly got the last laugh on Twitter as the Republican convention wound down. On Thursday, after Eastwood conducted his rambling monologue with an empty chair intended to be Obama, the president's campaign tweeted a photo showing the president seated in the Cabinet room with a caption that read, "this seat's taken." It was the most retweeted item of the GOP gathering.
In 8 years POS Republicans more than doubled the debt yet they raised the ceiling every time Bush asked. But you are right on one thing... you can't argue with Republican hypocrites... any more trillion dollar wars??? Romney has one... with Iran... just like Bush had... HYPOCRITES!!!!
Well said. BTW, the last month POS Bush handed over to Obama, we were losing 800,000-900,000 jobs a month.
He inheritated a depression from POS Bush Republicans. Unless you were asleep or living in a cave somwhere you know that very well. The fact that we are no longer in a depression (but Europe is in a depression, because they followed similar to the Republican ideas that they wanted to also implement here) it is testament to Obama's policies. He is awesome. Barack Obama is the man and you better get used to 4 more years.
...and that exactly is your problem...
We spend more money on defense that almost the rest of the whole planet combined. And we hugely wasteful doing it. The defense budget is nothing more but a wasteful handout to the big gun and big oil lobby. We are wasting massive American tax payer money and American blood for the super rich. So the defense bullshit no longer flies. Time to change the movie. Is gotten way too old and too used up.
I read your post. Did you read mine? And you are right. Romney SUCKS!
Go ahead and vote for another moron Bush failure.
Do you remember the last debt ceiling?? The one that caused the credit houses to downgrade the U.S.??? You can thank the traitor Republican hypocrites. You think they would have done that if Bush was president??