NAACP Dir. Wash. DC Bureau – Hillary Shelton: teaching Legislative Advocacy Training at NAACP Region 6 in Shreveport, LA (The Hilton) on 3/8/2013. Discussion on Project 21 extreme right-wing blacks.

NAACP Dir Wash DC Bureau, Hillary Shelton identified “Project 21″ as a very right-wing extremist African American based organization.   He later inferred that these blacks in Project 21 (who are also in republican party) don’t make decisions in the GOP because they have weak and little representation.  They don’t have seat at the GOP table to represent a voice that reflects their values and black community.

He said that “Its all about the agenda. We don’t care what they look like”. Shelton informed the NAACP members assembled at the lecture that as NAACP has a diverse following, it also has a diverse opposition.

Shelton said that there is 1 thing that NAACP agrees with Project 21 on; and that is that NAACP want to see stronger black representation at the republican party level.  Shelton said that since he tracks representation of both parties at their conventions, he knows how many blacks were at Democrat convention and how many were at Republican convention.   He said he does this because he wants to know whose at the table making decisions.   Since the policy platform at these political conventions are voted on by the delegates, he looks to see the ethnic background of these delegates.

He noted the following:  There were 4600 delegates in democratic convention in 2012.  There were 2300 delegates to republican convention in 2012.   Now who was at the table at those convention, he asked (rhetorically).  Shelton said that he saw less than 2% of blacks at the table in republican party convention, even as the democratic convention delegation overall started off as a smaller number.   Whereas, blacks delegates at Democrat convention in 2012 represented 26%.  Blacks represents 13.4% of the American population.  Shelton pointed out that considering less than 2% of delegates at republican convention are black, one must look at the GOP platform which does not reflect blacks values nor their communities.   For instance, the GOP platform embraced stringent discriminatory voter IDs.

This lecture was held at the NAACP Region 6 conference / Medgar Evers civil rights training session, on March 8, 2013.  The location was at the Hilton in Shreveport, Louisiana.

29 Oct 12 – Lied about Jeep moving jobs to China.

12 Sep 12 – Lied about the President’s response to attacks on U.S. diplomats and embassies in Libya and Egypt.

31 Aug 12 – Continues to lie about President Obama’s record, spokes person said the campaign wouldn’t be influenced by fact checking – meaning they’ll lie about whatever and whenever they choose.

Lied during his acceptance speech about President Obama saying he went on an apology tour after being inaugurated, cut $716 billion dollars from Medicare, raised taxes on the middle class and had thrown Israel under the bus.

Allowed VP pick Paul Ryan to give a speech full of lies.

Allowed Clint Eastwood to stand up on stage at age 82 and make a fool out of himself turning a Hollywood icon into the Court Jester.

20 Aug 12 – Lied about President Obama ending welfare to work.

12 Jul 12 – Lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about his role at Bain Capital; possibly committed a felony.

12 Jul 12 - Lied about when he left Bain Capital

16 Jun 12 – Said he’d do opposite of everything President Obama’s done for Israel

14 Jun 12 – Said it was OK to fire public sector employees

12 Jun 12 – Claimed he wanted to serve in Vietnam although granted multiple deferments

09 Jun12 – Thinks we have too many teachers, fire fighters and police officers

05 Jun 12 –Confirmed earlier confirmation there’s a village missing him

30 May 12 –Has morons on his team –misspells America on campaign iPhone app

29 May 12 – Chose to chum around with Trump

18 May 12 –Confirmed there’s a village missing him

11 May 12 –Joked about bullying a fellow student in high school 

09 May 12 – Lied about saving the auto industry

19 Apr 12 – Refused to release Tax Returns and lied about John Kerry

17 Apr 12 – Failed to denounce Ted Nugent

14 Apr 12 – Thought “struggling” in college wass divesting some of your stock portfolio

11 Apr 12 – Willard didn’t know what the Lilly Ledbetter Act was

29 Mar 12 – Told a “humorous” story about firing people

29 Mar 12 – Accepted campaign money from Pink Slime producer

28 Mar 12 – Supported Scott Walker

27 Mar 12 – Thought the Soviet Union’s still our number one threat

19 Mar 12 – Said he’d push back against “evil” teachers unions

23 Feb 12 - Lied about requiring Massachusetts’ non-profit hospitals to provide emergency contraception

10 Feb 12 –Claimed only Americans place hand over heart to show how much we love our country

01 Feb 12 – Said he “Doesn’t Worry About the Poor“

27 Jan 12 - Failed to Report Interest Earned in His Off Shore Accounts

27 Jan 12 - Lied about his Fannie and Freddie investments being in a blind trust

18 Jan 12 - Stashed Millions in Offshore Accounts

17 Jan 12 - Said $362,000 in Speaking Fees is ‘Not Very Much’?

11 Jan 12 – Believes class warfare is about envy

09 Jan 12 - Vetoed contraception bill for rape victims as governor

09 Jan 12 – Claimed he “likes to fire people”

05 Jan 12 - He released tax plan, steal from the poor and give to the rich

04 Jan 12 – Said Big Bird would get the boot

13 Dec 11 – Bet Perry $10k during a debate

28 Nov 11 – Constantly flip-flops

23 Nov 11 – Said false ad’s ok

14 Nov 11 – Said he’d prepare for war with Iran

08 Oct 11 – Lied to cadets at the Citadel

22 Sep 11 – Claimed to be middle class

06 Sep 11 – He released economic plan favors the rich over everyone else

11 Aug 11 – Said “corporations are people”

05 Aug 11 – Pledged himself to evangelical group

01 Aug 11 – Opposed deal on debt ceiling

06 Jul 11 – Lied about the economy

woman came up w/some wild idea that Obama was going to split up Oklahoma in 6 different sections & have us on trial for treason

I was sitting next next to a woman at a GOP candidate meet & greet in May 2012. This woman came up w/some wild idea that Obama was going to split up Oklahoma in 6 different sections. I just looked at her for making these wild accusations. Maybe she watches Fox News too much. I was saying to myself “Oh lord Jesus is this woman on medication?”. Actually, I got kind of offended at her remark. But when I got in my truck I laughed my ass off.

You can tell from watching this video that the candidate was trying to avoid answering her because it was rather awkward. In fact, the candidate shut down the townhall meeting after she uttered this Obama boogyman theory.

This went down at Dustin Rowe town-hall meeting — recorded at the Holdenville Public Library in Holdenville, OK on May 29, 2012. Dustin Rowe, was running for US Congress 2nd district in Oklahoma for 2012, on the republican ticket. He did not win primary to be contender to take Dan Boren seat.

12 Sep 12 – Lied about the President’s response to attacks on U.S. diplomats and embassies in Libya and Egypt.

31 Aug 12 – Continues to lie about President Obama’s record, spokes person said the campaign wouldn’t be influenced by fact checking – meaning they’ll lie about whatever and whenever they choose.

Lied during his acceptance speech about President Obama saying he went on an apology tour after being inaugurated, cut $716 billion dollars from Medicare, raised taxes on the middle class and had thrown Israel under the bus.

Allowed VP pick Paul Ryan to give a speech full of lies.

Allowed Clint Eastwood to stand up on stage at age 82 and make a fool out of himself turning a Hollywood icon into the Court Jester.

20 Aug 12 – Lied about President Obama ending welfare to work.

12 Jul 12 – Lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about his role at Bain Capital; possibly committed a felony.

12 Jul 12 - Lied about when he left Bain Capital

16 Jun 12 – Said he’d do opposite of everything President Obama’s done for Israel

14 Jun 12 – Said it was OK to fire public sector employees

12 Jun 12 – Claimed he wanted to serve in Vietnam although granted multiple deferments

09 Jun12 – Thinks we have too many teachers, fire fighters and police officers

05 Jun 12 –Confirmed earlier confirmation there’s a village missing him

30 May 12 –Has morons on his team –misspells America on campaign iPhone app

29 May 12 – Chose to chum around with Trump

18 May 12 –Confirmed there’s a village missing him

11 May 12 –Joked about bullying a fellow student in high school 

09 May 12 – Lied about saving the auto industry

19 Apr 12 – Refused to release Tax Returns and lied about John Kerry

17 Apr 12 – Failed to denounce Ted Nugent

14 Apr 12 – Thought “struggling” in college wass divesting some of your stock portfolio

11 Apr 12 – Willard didn’t know what the Lilly Ledbetter Act was

29 Mar 12 – Told a “humorous” story about firing people

29 mar 12 – Accepted campaign money from Pink Slime producer

28 Mar 12 – Supported Scott Walker

27 Mar 12 – Thought the Soviet Union’s still our number one threat

19 Mar 12 – Said he’d push back against “evil” teachers unions

23 Feb 12 - Lied about requiring Massachusetts’ non-profit hospitals to provide emergency contraception

10 Feb 12 –Claimed only Americans place hand over heart to show how much we love our country

01 Feb 12 – Said he “Doesn’t Worry About the Poor“

27 Jan 12 - Failed to Report Interest Earned in His Off Shore Accounts

27 Jan 12 - Lied about his Fannie and Freddie investments being in a blind trust

18 Jan 12 - Stashed Millions in Offshore Accounts

17 Jan 12 - Said $362,000 in Speaking Fees is ‘Not Very Much’?

11 Jan 12 – Believes class warfare is about envy

09 Jan 12 - Vetoed contraception bill for rape victims as governor

09 Jan 12 – Claimed he “likes to fire people”

05 Jan 12 - He released tax plan, steal from the poor and give to the rich

04 Jan 12 – Said Big Bird would get the boot

13 Dec 11 – Bet Perry $10k during a debate

28 Nov 11 – Constantly flip-flops

23 Nov 11 – Said false ad’s ok

14 Nov 11 – Said he’d prepare for war with Iran

08 Oct 11 – Lied to cadets at the Citadel

22 Sep 11 – Claimed to be middle class

06 Sep 11 – He released economic plan favors the rich over everyone else

11 Aug 11 – Said “corporations are people”

05 Aug 11 – Pledged himself to evangelical group

01 Aug 11 – Opposed deal on debt ceiling

06 Jul 11 – Lied about the economy

I hand delivered the following open letter to OK GOP’s Chairman Matt Pinnell this morning and had an intense, but good 30 minute conversation with him. It started pretty rough with Matt, but he calmed down and it ended on a very positive note. It ended with Matt asking for a meeting with us to discuss how to go forward and what needs to be done to steer our Party in the right direction.

I told Matt I felt that I could talk to him (and he wants us to talk to him!) and that’s why I was coming to him. I wasn’t sure what to expect, other than him getting mad at me. So, when we had a good conversation addressing these issues, I was very pleased. The outcome was different than I expected, so I am very glad with how it went. Thanks Matt for taking the time to talk.

Dear Matt,

I was at the RNC last week, as well as the week prior due to the contest committee. There are some major issues that I feel need to be addressed.

I know you said at our State Convention in May that you would go to bat for the Executive Committee slate 365 days a year.  If the slate had been elected by the Oklahoma State Party rules, I would have no problem with that. But, the slate was elected by breaking the rules of the Oklahoma Republican Party, as well as the Convention Rules.

As you know very well, I was present as a witness at the Contest Committee of the RNC, as well as the Credentials Committee. So much of what I heard come out of your mouth were complete lies, just to get this slate of wrongfully elected delegates seated. I won’t argue over all of that again, as we heard each other’s arguments multiple times in Tampa.

On the OK GOP website you wrote that we had “a successful RNC Convention” last week. What you call a “successful RNC Convention” was a complete sham. As we saw numerous times in the week leading up to the Convention, the Committee on Contests & the Credentials committee unseated duly elected delegates from Maine, Louisiana, Oregon & Massachusetts. The Rules Committee also rammed through rules that completely take away the power from the grassroots.

Once we were on the Convention floor on Tuesday, both Reince Priebus and Speaker Boehner could have cared less for what the delegates wanted. The delegates made their voice loudly heard when a large amount voted against the Credentials report. And then an even larger amount voted against the Rules report. Even our own National Committeewoman, Carolyn McClarty, was opposed to the changes that were shoved through the Rules Committee. There was division called for over and again & points of order raised, yet because it was not on the teleprompter, Chairman Priebus and Speaker Boehner didn’t acknowledge the voice of the people (the delegates).

I would hope this would disturb you, Matt.  But, when I see your complete disregard for rules to be followed at the State level, it doesn’t surprise me that you don’t seem to blink an eye at the railroad job that was our National Convention last week.

What happened last week was a complete embarrassment to the Republican Party.  How do we expect to change the terrible course our nation is on when our own Party can’t follow the rules? When our own Party won’t hear the voice of the people (delegates)? By supporting what happened last week, you are supporting shunning the voice of the people, breaking rules, & unseating rightfully elected delegates.  What the Oklahoma Republican Party should be doing right now, instead of supporting what happened last week, is standing up to the RNC and pointing out the disgusting tactics that were used at the Convention.

How can we say the Republican Party is for the people when our Party won’t even hear the voice of the people at the National Convention level? Or how can we say we’ll get this country back on track, when we do things just as bad as the Democrats at the Party level?  It’s time we stand up for what is right, even if it involves exposing our own Republican Party. People need to see the hypocrisy that the Republican Party has in it. If we don’t fix our own Party, how do we expect to fix the country?”

More..

5/22/2012 at about 5:10 pm: Oklahoma GOP chairman Matt Pinnell evicted me from HQ bldg shortly after I entered building.   This was after he told another republican that National non-delegates could enter building with video cameras.   Apparently Pinnell & others in the building were shocked that I showed up.   Pinnell indicated it was a private club, even though Im a card carrying republican since 1973 when I 1st joined Army during Vietnam War.   Pinnell went so far as to ask me if I needed help in leaving building.    I guess I was not moving fast enough.  I went back to parking lot & told Conservative slate delegates & Paul supporters what happened. They were shocked. After Ron Paul folks got their cameras & live feed gear charged up about 20 minutes later they all (about 70 of them) marched down to the GOP headquarters & Pinnell did not say a word about the cameras nor about non-executive member delegates. Everybody (including me) got inside building for conservative slate caucus in another meeting room in the building.

I dont know why Pinnell had the nerve to mess w/me.   But I’m not going to stand idly by & let him and any other personnel at Oklahoma GOP prejudice me as payback for me not prejudicing Ron Paul folks.  If he has a problem with me not prejudicing Ron Paul folks, then he better get over it real quick.

The address of the Oklahoma GOP Headquarters where all this occurred is:  4031 N Lincoln Blvd, Oklahoma City, OK

Related articles

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• Ron Paul Supporters Are Now Suing The Oklahoma State GOP (dailypaul.com)
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At Oklahoma GOP convention on May 12, 2012 I met up w/ Jimmy McMillan: “the rent is too damn high” man & asked him about his previously announced candidacy for president. He responded that he’s a registered republican but that he will run in the democrat party. The reasoning he gave was a bit confusing to me.

I asked if he’s registered republican in Oklahoma. He said he was not, but he didn’t say where. In corner of my eye, I noticed a man was touching him as though it was a que for him to stop talking. But I kept plugging in questions until I was nudged to move alone & I saw the deputy sheriff headed my way … and …… I moved along..

Location of this interview was at Embassy Suites in Norman, Oklahoma.

Newt Gingrich Who Demeans Blacks as Dead-Beats, Gets Caught passing Hot Check

Newt Gingrich, a GOP 2012 presidential candidate writes $500 hot check to the state of Utah, after he tells the world that black folks need to get off welfare.    This is a man who wants to head the Republican party and be President of the United States (leader of the free world).   BTW, Newt has a history of writing hot checks & stiffing creditors.  This is also the same man who broadcasted to the world that America’s first black president (Barack Obama) is a food stamp president.   However, Newt’s claim was proven to be false, as reports show that food stamp participation actually grew under Bush administration and decreased under Obama.  I can only speculate the reasons why Newt Gingrich continues to equate blacks with welfare and poor work ethics: (1) he truly feels that  blacks are the dregs of American society; and/or (2) he is appealing to a certain base within the republican party who wants to perpetuate this lie.

The irony self explanatory.  But in case the readers can’t figure it out, I’ll break it down like this –>

If blacks  (who in fact not majority on food stamps) had to depend on PAY CHECKS from the
likes of  Newt Gingrich, then how  far will a hot check take them?  If black workers’ employers paid them with hot checks,
would it be an excuse for them to get on welfare?

I’m blogging about this Newt hot check story because most republican conservatives’ blogs and their tweets are awfully quiet about it.   Im also doing this because I’m noticing that here recently, most republican conservative bloggers tend to be quick on the  key board when republican politicians serve up blacks as red meat.  This morning, HLN was the first televised news outlet that I’m aware of that reported this; and that’s where I first heard about it.   Moreso the reason why I  diversity my news media and online viewing.

In any case, had Obama or any black democrat candidate had written a hot check, what do you think the head lines would say?    What do you think Foxnews would report? What do you think the republican (conservative) bloggers would report or embellish?  To be sure, the right-wing conservative twitter timeline would had gone viral on the story.

BTW, just to be fair, here’s Newt’s side of the story about his bounced check  –> LINK.  Also, in interest of fairness, here’s video of Black republican J.C. Watts (Newt supporter) defending Newt Gingrich’s food stamp remark as not being racist.  However, in my opinion, Watts is in denial.

I’m just trying to keep it real and bring attention to the recent hypocrisy in my own party, particular when blacks are continuously being unfairly stereotyped and demeaned as dead-beats for political thunder by politicians of a political party in which the black are more likely less than 1% of its electorate.

The following are video clips relevant to this subject matter to jar the memory of Newt Gingrich’s racially coded remarks :

Whether you’re American or not, you can’t help but get suckered into all into the political antics of the upcoming U.S. election. Especially when all the crazy cards are put on the table. Clint Eastwood’s speech at the GOP Convention this past week makes me more afraid of this guy. Not only is he a legendary badass but clearly his marbles have shifted.

Owned by Bain Capital, Staples is supposed to show Romney’s business acumen. Although it’s difficult to know how little Staples employees actually make, Glassdoor.com, a website based on worker feedback, shows that the vast majority of these employees make $8-$9 an hour. The website calls Staples “one of the largest employers of workers earning under $10 per hour in the country.” Their CEO got $8.9 million last year, probably before bonuses. Domino’s Pizza, another Bain company, also pays under $10 an hour. Some of the thousands of Domino’s drivers who make deliveries in their own cars have sued the company because its reimbursement system for mileage violates wage and hour laws.

Obama campaign spokesman Danny Kanner explained that Romney’s “focus was never on strengthening companies or creating jobs, it was about getting a high return on his investment, no matter the cost to workers, companies or communities.” I agree with Kanner when he said that “these are the values he promises to bring as President by giving more budget-busting tax cuts to the wealthy on the middle class’ dime and letting Wall Street write its own rules–the same scheme that benefited a few, but devastated the middle class and crashed our economy.”

In his speech, Jeb Bush told President Obama to stop blaming his wonderful brother while blaming President Obama. He was the only Bush at the convention because looking at George W. Bush would remind people that tax cuts for the rich don’t create jobs.

Unfortunately for the Republicans, the day was overwhelmed by a strange performance by 82-year-old Clint Eastwood who carried on a sometimes rambling conversation with a chair that he pretended was occupied by President Obama and insinuated that the president was swearing back at him. Even Romney’s aides looked visibly upset and tried to blame anyone else for his presence and performance.

The next editions of dictionaries may contain the term “Eastwooding,” meaning “taking out frustration on inanimate objects.” One Republican pundit reported that no one would remember the speech for long. I think that he’s wrong. Photos of empty chairs are all over the Internet from people claiming to have had conversations with the Invisible President, and the president’s twitter account posted his photo with the tag line “This seat’s taken.”

Even odder about Eastwood’s speech is that it led into the introduction of Romney by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Scheduled to speak for about three minutes, Eastwood kept the stage for almost 15 minutes, throwing off the convention schedule. Romney has been called a stickler against tardiness.  Michael Moore summarized it best: “Clint Eastwood was able to drive home to tens of millions of viewers the central message of this year’s Republican National Convention: We Are Delusional and Detached from Reality. Vote for Us!”

Back to being serious, Rubio said that both Romney and Obama are both good people but that people should vote for Romney because he is a good person. There was a lot of that during the convention: with no specifics about Romney’s policies, people gave Romney’s “good person” description the primary reason for supporting him.

When Rubio finished, Romney tried to look presidential as he sauntered through the crowd toward the stage in the style of State of the Union speeches. When he talked about his love for his parents, he again moved into the position of privileged wealth through his story about how his father gave his mother a rose every day of their 64 years of married life. Trying to woo the women, he said that he had women in his Massachusetts administration and that women worked for him at Bain. He’s right there; 8 percent of the managing directors and executives are women.

Then he moved into the “fact-challenged” part of the speech.

Romney said that the president plans to raise taxes on small businesses: in fact, President Obama lowered taxes on small businesses 18 times.

Romney talked about the president’s assault on coal and oil; in fact, President Obama increased jobs in the coal industry, and oil production and drilling has increased during his presidency.

Romney repeated the lie about President Obama cutting Medicare.

Romney said that the president has weakened security and eliminated jobs through his cuts to the military; in fact, Romney’s own party caused these cuts when they finally made a budget deal to raise the debt ceiling to stop defaulting on the national debt after holding the country hostage.

Romney said that gas prices had doubled under this president: in fact, gas prices four years ago were $3.67, very close to the current price of $3.75.

Romney said, “[Obama] abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from our missile defense commitments, but is eager to give Russia’s President Putin the flexibility he desires, after the election.” In fact, the moment to which Romney referred was between the president and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. The missile shield has never worked despite trillions of dollars wasted in its development since President Truman’s administration. Romney was pushing to defend ourselves from our ally, Russia, instead of from China and North Korea. This was a speech that might have worked during the Cold War, but we are decades past that.

The Washington Post did a bit of fact checking on Romney’s few specific goals:

Romney said he has a plan to create 12 million new jobs: only two presidents, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, created more than 12 million jobs. And they both raised taxes. Romney’s pledge would be an average of 250,000 jobs a month; recently, the economy, as slow as it currently is because of Republican obstructionism, has averaged 150,000 jobs a month. If no budget deal is reached, the CBO figures that 9.6 million jobs would be created in the same period of time, and Moody’s Analytics predicted 12 million jobs created by 2016, no matter who gets elected president.

Romney said that the current economy has failed to find jobs for half the students who graduated from college; the 53.6 percent of college students that he cites also included the “underemployed” who actually have jobs.

Romney said he wouldn’t raise taxes on the middle class; in fact, the Ryan budget plan, which Romney has supported, will raise taxes on the middle class while decreasing taxes for the wealthy.

Romney’s biggest lie came at the end of the speech when he described his idea of his ideal America: “That united America will care for the poor and the sick, will honor and respect the elderly, and will give a helping hand to those in need.” There was no applause for this statement. Romney’s plans do not benefit anyone except the wealthy.

Despite a lengthy speech, Romney said “Americans” so many times that he omitted several subjects: financial reforms, climate change, immigration, Romneycare, Afghanistan or Syria, Social Security, and veterans. His purpose was to persuade voters not in his base who believe in reforming the country’s financial problems, trying to stop climate change, helping immigrants, getting health care, supporting the elderly, etc. These are not safe subjects for anyone except the far-right conservatives.

Even Republicans weren’t excited about the speech. Steve Schmidt, campaign adviser for John McCain’s 2008 run for president, said that it was the best speech that Romney has ever given but it wasn’t the best speech of the convention. Will Wilkinson (The Economist) said, “I don’t think he has it in him to do much better.” At The Washington Post, Johnathan Bernstein reported, ”A generic speech and a generic convention for a generic Republican candidate.”

Asides: At a fundraiser on the morning of Day three, Karl Rove said, “If [Todd Akin is] found mysteriously murdered, don’t look for my whereabouts!” (Rove’s apology to Akin included the statement that he would never have made that comment if he had known there was a reporter in the room.)

Romney thinks that the United States is actually a company. In a speech on the morning of Day Three he said, “Paul Ryan and I understand how the economy works, we understand how Washington works, we will reach across the aisle and find good people who like us, want to make sure this company deals with its challenges. We’ll get America on track again. As Annie-Rose Strasser wrote, “The goal of a company is to make money, whereas the goal of a government is to provide services that are not achievable in the private sector. Romney’s belief that the government is similar to a company explains his dedication to cutting programs that he perceives are “inefficient” because they cost money, even if they effectively help American citizens.”

Most jarring, however is this headline from politico.com: David Koch breaks from GOP on gay marriage, taxes, defense cuts. He said, “I believe in gay marriage.” Koch said he thinks the U.S. military should withdraw from the Middle East and the government should consider defense spending cuts, as well as possible tax increases to get its fiscal house in order.

It’s important to remember where we were a week ago.  With the aura of Hurricane Issac reigning over the RNC to the point where they had to actually scrap the entire first day, I think we can say that things went about as well as could be expected.  Unless you’re a fact-checker that is, in which case you’ve spent countless hours pulling your hair out and screaming obscenities at the Romney campaign and cursing the idiot staffers that even suggested the notion of Paul Ryan to Mitt Romney.  But, other than that things went fine, right?  Not exactly.  There are few words that could adequately describe the events of the last day, but I believe that “the Clintastrophe” fits the bill as well as anything else.  That is how it has become known on social media.  In the wake of whatever bizarre cat and mouse routine Clint Eastwood was trying to pull off people on both sides of the aisle are wondering whether he has an ounce of sanity left in him.  That’s not exactly the kind of word of mouth publicity you want to have coming out of your convention.

The final day was a mix of humanizing stories about Mitt Romney and elements that actually helped us get to know our potential outsourcer-in-chief a little better.  I have to admit that – even as a Democrat – I was moved by what appeared to be his sincere kindness to friends and neighbors.  You’d have to be inhuman not to be moved by their stories they made Mittens seems like a real likable guy.  Too bad he didn’t showcase any of that in his acceptance speech.  Marco Rubio (R-FL) also had a bit of a coming out party for those in the national audience unfamiliar with the Junior Senator’s striking speaking style and brash bravado.  Again, too bad that his speech was overshadowed by the bizarre events of the Clintastrophe because Rubio’s speech really was a very good story and one that clearly articulated the conservative values that Republicans hold dear to their hearts.  One Republican official, Steve Schmidt, the former aide to Sen. John McCain said that the speech reminded him of Reagan’s 1964 speech and I couldn’t agree more.  Rubio is likely to be the kind of lightening rod that Reagan was if he can clean up his act in the local media and actually come up with some legislative ideas to back up his rhetoric.  He could be the idea man that conservatives thought they were getting in Paul Ryan.

Speaking of Paul Ryan, he probably gave the most factually challenged speech I’ve ever seen a candidate for national office give.  When Ryan tries to pin the blame for a factory closing in his hometown of Janesville on President Obama, the fact checkers pointed out the absurdity and utter falsehood inherent in his claim.  That did not stop or even in any way impair the Romney campaign from insisting on the intellectual honesty of the question.  Ryan also tried to drive home the point that President Obama is “gutting” the work requirement in Medicare – a point that has been so disproven by fact checkers that they simply say: “see notes” to go through the history of the lie – this point was also reinforced by almost every other major Republican speaker throughout the convention as was the bizarre “we built that” theme.

The Romney campaign is proving to be one of the most factually dishonest campaigns in human history and one just has to wonder whether anyone will trust them on anything when it comes to the facts come November.  Ryan also claimed that President Obama was taking $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund to help fund the Affordable Care Act.  This again is untrue.  Ryan’s own budget does the exact same thing only rather than using the money from the beneficiaries side of the equation for lower health costs, Ryan uses the money for tax cuts.  Ryan also blamed President Obama for the S&P downgrade of our credit rating, which is also false.  The S&P noted in their statement that it was in fact the Republican Congress’s inability to come up with a balanced approach to solving our nation’s fiscal issues that led to the downgrade and that the perception that Washington cannot get anything done even when everything hangs in the balance had permeated many in the financial communities that gave credibility to the downgrade.  There are various other points on issues like the deficit where Ryan is wrong as well, but frankly there isn’t enough room in my column to debunk all of the lies that Mr. Ryan told on Wednesday night.  The simple truth is that Mr. Ryan lied up and down throughout his speech and regardless of how it was received by the political partisans in the room we should measure his speech based on it’s merits and not on it’s reception.  If Ryan were to look at the facts in this case he would not only find that his pants are on fire, but that he has become engulfed in flames.

The final act of the night was Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech which was marred as much by his bizarre entrance to the arena as it was by his complete inability to articulate a speech with structure or a cohesive story.  It was striking in that way, the way that it didn’t talk about overarching values or simple, honest themes from his life, but that it was more of a mish-mash of memories from his childhood, observations about his career and complaints about the world around him.  It was like listening to that Uncle at the Thanksgiving table who isn’t entirely happy with where he finds himself in life and feels the need to take it out not only on the world around him, but the people around him.  No one feels inspired by listening to their Uncle’s sorrow towards the world, it doesn’t make us feel confident in his abilities nor does it give us a case for what really went wrong in his life.  His soliloquy gives us an opportunity to think about whether we’re really full or not or perhaps what we’d like to have for desert, it does not on the other hand make us think: “gee, this guy should be President.”  No one ever thinks that and it really fits into the whole convention narrative of not really understanding what’s wrong with America and only thinking that surely there must be someone to blame.  It is no wonder that Republicans spent the entire convention imagining how great 2016 could be.

The one thing that I kept thinking as I watched the day’s events was: “what a missed opportunity.”  At every turn in the day they had an opportunity to make inroads with independent voters and rather than do that they chose to double down on their own party rhetoric and intrinsic beliefs.  They have every right to do that after all this is their convention, but I do think if we look back on this as a point where the momentum could have turned we will look at it as one of missed opportunities.

Rick Santorum went out and made the false accusation that President Obama is gutting Welfare’s work requirement – an attack that has been called out as a lie by every independent fact-checking organization in existence – and made the case that we should want to have big hands like his grandfather.  I thought during the primaries that Rick Santorum was much better at connecting with suburban white and middle class voters than anyone else in the race.  The smart thing to do would have been to use Santorum to talk about values because that’s what he cares the most deeply about and when you’re writing a speech you want to write to the person’s strength.  The Romney people thought otherwise and I think that was a mistake.

Ann Romney gave one of the more interesting speeches of the night.  I’m not sure how effective it was, but I do think it was interesting.  Two themes were repeated over and over in the speech, one was love the other was pride.  I thought those were good themes to talk about to the Republican audience, but perhaps not the best themes to use when talking to a broad national audience.  The area that I think most women who saw her speak or heard her remarks will take away from it is that she knows what it is like to be a mother.  That is certainly how it came across to me.  But what was missing was really the piece that was missing from all the night’s commentary and it’s the piece that Republicans are missing across the board in this election and that is compassion for people whose experiences they do have not shared.  If you are not a mother or a wife you were probably left wondering why all of her experiences were told from those two perspectives.  I kept thinking: “my god, has she ever thought for herself?”  All of her experiences were told through the eyes of a giddy schoolgirl and if you listened to the other speakers, aren’t those the feelings they don’t want us to have?

Ann Romney’s speech was a stunning display of maternalism and I think it embodied the Republican’s complete lack of compassion for people who are not like them that has becoming the defining issue of today’s Republican party.  When she talked about things like finances they were always talked about in a manner that showed she was thinking about the family, which is what you want in at a Republican convention, but not necessarily what you want if you’re trying to appeal to a broader coalition of people.  She talked about Mitt setting up a scholarship fund, which is a fine thing to do, but it is not something that most middle class people have done.  Setting up a scholarship fund is something you do when you’re rich, applying for scholarship funds is something you do when you’re a struggling member of the middle class.  It probably seemed like a moment to show Mr. Romney’s human side to her since she is a member of the rich aristocracy, but those of us who are not in the same social class as her have a hard time relating to that.

The one thing that Ann Romney could have done that would have been an absolutely brilliant moment of humanism would have been to talk about her Multiple Sclerosis as she does on the campaign trail and talk about how she was unable to get out of bed for days at a time and talk about Mitt’s reaction which was to say: “that’s alright.”  That’s an incredibly human moment and it’s one that does show a human side to Romney that most of us don’t get to see.  My best guess is that the campaign thought that those kind of moments showed Romney to be too vulnerable, but those are precisely the kinds of moments that independent voters are looking for at this point in the race.  When you look at Ann Romney’s speech it was one that really embodied a lot of the Romney campaign.  It was withdrawn and came across as condescending at many points.  Other moments were forced such as the spontaneous shout of: “I love you women!”  Is that like “you people?”  That was distancing language that was infused into those remarks and if you look at her body language; specifically her raised cheek bones and high shoulders, you can tell that it is a moment of very sincere condescension.

Chris Christie gave a great speech for Chris Christie, but if you were to look at this in the context of the fact that he is not the Republican nominee for President I think it comes across as extremely arrogant.  It almost seemed dismissive of Mitt Romney because of his over-reliance on polls.  I don’t know where his speechwriters were coming from and I really don’t know why he asked the audience to “stand up” during the speech.  That was probably the most awkward part of the speech and it was probably one of those moments that sounds better in your head than it actually looks in practice.  All in all, Christie’s speech seemed to give Republicans hope in the sense that he said they didn’t need to apologize for their beliefs.  This was without a doubt a reference to Todd Akin, a man who has had to spend the better part of a week apologizing for his “legitimate rape” comments and I suspect that we will hear some of that same language adopted by Mike Huckabee tonight.

I want to address one moment that hasn’t been talked about a lot and that is John Boehner’s speech opening up the convention.  Speaker Boehner engaged in some of the most vicious race-baiting that I’ve seen in the modern political era.  The idea that we should throw an African-American man out of an establishment such as a bar because he doesn’t understand “how America works” is not only offensive, but brings back the scars of our nation’s awful history on the issue of civil rights.  It was particularly offensive given that it occurred in the wake of the anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the Speaker of the House needs to issue an apology to the American people for engaging in such vitriolic and divisive rhetoric.  There is no doubt in my mind that you can beat your chest without beating the images of the Jim Crow era back into our heads and it is absolutely shameful that a man third in line to the Presidency would reduce our political discourse to such a level.

Mitt Romney’s opening act – the walk in – was supposed to be some sort of bizarre “State of the Union” moment that didn’t really hit home.  My guess is that the Romney team thought it made him look Presidential, but that’s only a guess.  He took his time making his way down the red carpet (and yes it was a real red carpet!) shaking hands with various figures and walking by members of the media as if he had never met them.  It was an odd mix of cultural faux pas and old man forget-me-nots.  Whatever humanization effort was begun that evening surely ended when Romney entered the room.  The “applause” sign must have been left on for the audience because no group of people (outside of his former board of directors) has ever stood so long to applaud Mitt Romney.  When Mr. Romney actually got to his speech it was very businesslike.  He seemed most excited (as always) when talking about his bromance with Paul Ryan.  Romney described himself as “a classic baby-boomer,” which demonstrates that he either doesn’t know what the normal definition of “classic” is or he is so disillusioned with himself that he doesn’t care.  The one thing that really summed up Romney’s speech were the empty applause lines.  It seemed like the audience was prepared to clap no matter what and that was probably good for Mr. Romney because they certainly didn’t like a lot of the substance that was in his speech.  The moments where Romney moved from the prepared text were to invoke names like Neil Armstrong and he put in a controversial remark saying that we “need an American” to lead America to greatness, whether that was implying that President Obama is not an American or not is apparently something that Romney wants left up in the air.

Romney did try to address the Obama Presidency in a manner that many Americans could relate to.  Romney started by saying that: “four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president…but today, four years from the excitement of the last election, for the first time, the majority of Americans now doubt that our children will have a better future.”  Those are strong lines that are very true and ring very true to many Americans.  But were you to ask Mr. Romney’s children whether they felt they had the same opportunities that their father had – and if you did so outside of an election cycle – the answer would be a resounding ‘yes!’  It’s not because Mr. Romney’s previous statement is untrue, rather that it is only true for those who want to believe it.  If you believe in the unbridled American spirit and if you truly believe in the promise of America you’re not going to let a politician dictate to you whether you can make a better life for yourself.  The whole theme of the convention seemed to be that individual change will always beat out societal and collective change.  To that point, Romney said: “every small business wanted these to be their best years ever, when they could hire more, do more for those who had stuck with them through the hard times, open a new store or sponsor that Little League team.”  That makes a nice sound bite but it doesn’t match up with what most small businesses do.  Most small businesses don’t look to hand out charity and most businesses that Romney managed as head of Bain Capital didn’t do that.  It’s a misnomer about small business that they are always wanting to help people, wanting to provide jobs to all who are able to work and are somehow removed from their bottom line.

The one bit of red meat that was thrown out to the GOP delegates was a line that he delivered in the beginning almost exclusively for them and he said: “this is when our nation was supposed to start paying down the national debt and rolling back those massive deficits.  This was the hope and change America voted for.”  We voted for an austerity package in the middle of the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression?  NO.  That is the biggest bit of revisionist garbage I’ve heard this side of Paul Ryan’s speech at the convention.  We voted for stimulus, we voted for a change FROM austerity policy and AWAY from wars in Central Asia.  Suggesting otherwise does a serious disservice to all of us who voted for President Obama.  You couldn’t possibly understand why we voted for President Obama because there would never be a moment in your life where you would have stood by someone like President Obama.  This was a moment in the speech where you could tell that Mr. Romney was indeed talking down to us.  He was telling us what we believed in 2008 and what we should believe in 2012.  It was just insulting language and seemed to suggest that the American people have amnesia and couldn’t possibly recall why we voted for President Obama.  It was derogatory to the American voter and implied a cynicism about electoral politics that should make many wonder why he is running at all if he doesn’t understand why people vote the way that they do.

Mr. Romney went on to try and sell us on his story which told by him doesn’t sound in any way improbable or even unlikely.  We would be left wondering what went wrong if Mr. Romney hadn’t wound up being the prodigal son of Governor George Romney of Michigan.  All of the language in the middle of his speech was about his parents and his wife, this was supposed to show us who the “real” Mitt Romney is, but instead it left many with a few good moments like the story of how his father always got his mother a rose every day to show her that she cared and that she knew something was wrong when the rose wasn’t there.  That was beautiful imagery and that’s what should have defined the speech, but it didn’t.  Romney tried to define “American moments” using little cuplets of broad images to drive home his message of what it meant to be an American.  Romney mentioned that: “it’s when our son or daughter calls from college to talk about which job offer they should take….and you try not to choke up when you hear that the one they like is not far from home.”  That’s a relatable moment, so play it up!

Romney mentioned things like being a “mentor,” which coincidentally is exactly what I thought about when he picked Paul Ryan as his running mate.  I thought that he was picking his Vice President like he would pick a Vice President of his company.  It seemed like a shrewd business move and one that made sense for him.  But one of the strangest things about Mr. Romney’s candidacy and one of the strangest things about the convention was that they spent time praising things in society that they don’t support in policy.  Mr. Romney talked about how proud he was to hire lots of women, he talked about Neil Armstrong and the great pride that he got from watching us land on the moon, but these are things that his policies are dead set against.  Romney is against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which seeks to end discrimination against women in the workplace.  Romney is in favor of slashing spending for NASA, he is in favor of Voter ID laws that make it incredibly difficult for people like Gov. Suzanne Martinez and her constituents to get out and vote.  Overall, Mr. Romney payed tribute to a lot of things, but didn’t talk in detail about any of these things.  He made no mention of Iraq and Afghanistan, but did talk about “standing with Israel” which seems to be the extent of the intellectual development of his foreign policy.

All in all, this was a very careful and meticulous, but was inartful and downright upsetting when it comes to “climate” references, success, and seemed to minimize the importance of what ordinary workers do.  There were many times where Romney delivered the lines that Republicans wanted to hear, but failed to strike at the frustration and underwhelmed feelings that many independent voters feel.  Romney’s best line of the night was: “many of you felt that way on Election Day four years ago. Hope and Change had a powerful appeal. But tonight I’d ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.”  That whole idea is very long and difficult to put into an ad or deliver as a piece of partisan messaging, so I have to question why the speechwriters didn’t try and clean it up a little more.  That line should be the final pitch to independent voters, but instead he left us with this: “America has been patient.  Americans have supported this president in good faith.  But today, the time has come to turn the page.  Today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us.  To put aside the divisiveness and the recriminations.  To forget about what might have been and to look ahead to what can be.”  That last part there is simply misleading.  The Americans that will be voting for Mitt Romney have not been patient, they never supported this President in good faith and the divisiveness of the last four years was brought on by Mr. Romney’s party and later on it was brought on by Mr. Romney himself.

This speech was a speech that didn’t have a structure to it and to many Americans it felt like that.  Many don’t really know what Mr. Romney aspires to do as President of the United States and that was one of the things he needed to do in that speech.  If he was going to be this Reagan-esque, transformational figure then he needed to lay out a vision.  Instead he chose to tell us what the CBO has told us and that is that regardless of who is President, we will create 12 million new jobs.  Great!  But, Mr. Romney did not provide a case for why he should be the one in charge of administering his budget and policy priorities from the White House.

Mitt Romney, in the end, provided a loose case for why he is a good guy.  Mr. Romney talked very broadly about stories, but didn’t really tell one and that is the disappointment that many American voters feel with his candidacy.  Many feel that a President is more than a person who presides over a series of job reports, but someone who is in charge of delivering a better tomorrow to the American people.  It’s difficult to do that when you don’t have an aspirational vision of where you want to take America in the future, but rather Romney said: “If I am elected President of these United States, I will work with all my energy and soul to restore that America, to lift our eyes to a better future. That future is our destiny. That future is out there. It is waiting for us. Our children deserve it, our nation depends upon it, the peace and freedom of the world require it.”  Well, does anyone really believe that President Obama wakes up in the morning and says: “aw, screw it?”  If they do then Mitt Romney might have a chance, but if you’re going to stick to your message that Mr. Obama is someone who meant well but doesn’t understand how to create jobs then shouldn’t you provide some sort of evidence to back that up?

Let there be no doubt: Mitt Romney didn’t fail last night at telling America a story, but the problem that he had at the end of the night was the same problem that he faced at the beginning of the night.  People simply don’t know who Mitt Romney is, what drives him, why that is important and what he would do differently as President of the United States.  He did not say in unabashed terms how he would get the economy rolling again.  He did not tell us why companies would simply start hiring en masse after his election.  He did not tell us anything about his foreign policy other than the fact that he really likes Israel (something that can be said about all recent U.S. Presidents.)  He did not tell us by what rubric we should measure his Presidency.  He did not tell us why we should vote for him.  All of this is extremely problematic for the Romney folks if they do indeed want to win this election because when you’re running against an incumbent you need to tell us not only why he’s wrong, but why you’re right.  Mr. Romney may convince people at the end of the day that Mr. Obama is wrong on the economy, but if that is the only case he makes it will not be nearly enough to become President.  In order to become President you need to lay out a vision like Reagan did, like Clinton did, like George W. Bush did and like Barack Obama did.  Mr. Romney has been reluctant to do this because it doesn’t seem as if Mr. Romney knows what he would do as President or what America would look like after becoming President.  It has been and will continue to be very difficult for Americans to picture America with Mr. Romney as President since he can’t explain to the American people what America would look like with him as our President and so long as that remains the case, Mr. Romney will not be President of the United States.

31 Aug 12 – Continues to lie about President Obama’s record, spokes person said the campaign won’t be influenced by fact checking – meaning they’ll lie about whatever and whenever they choose.

Lied during his acceptance speech about President Obama saying he went on an apology tour after being inaugurated, cut $716 billion dollars from Medicare, raised taxes on the middle class and had thrown Israel under the bus.

Allowed VP pick Paul Ryan to give a speech full of lies.

Allowed Clint Eastwood to stand up on stage at age 82 and make a fool out of himself turning a Hollywood icon into the Court Jester.

20 Aug 12 – Lied about President Obama ending welfare to work.

12 Jul 12 – Lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about his role at Bain Capital; possibly committed a felony.

12 Jul 12 - Lied about when he left Bain Capital

16 Jun 12 – Said he’d do opposite of everything President Obama’s done for Israel

14 Jun 12 – Said it was OK to fire public sector employees

12 Jun 12 – Claimed he wanted to serve in Vietnam although granted multiple deferments

09 Jun12 – Thinks we have too many teachers, fire fighters and police officers

05 Jun 12 –Confirmed earlier confirmation there’s a village missing him

30 May 12 –Has morons on his team –misspells America on campaign iPhone app

29 May 12 – Chose to chum around with Trump

18 May 12 –Confirmed there’s a village missing him

11 May 12 –Joked about bullying a fellow student in high school 

09 May 12 – Lied about saving the auto industry

19 Apr 12 – Refused to release Tax Returns and lied about John Kerry

17 Apr 12 – Failed to denounce Ted Nugent

14 Apr 12 – Thought “struggling” in college wass divesting some of your stock portfolio

11 Apr 12 – Willard didn’t know what the Lilly Ledbetter Act was

29 Mar 12 – Told a “humorous” story about firing people

29 mar 12 – Accepted campaign money from Pink Slime producer

28 Mar 12 – Supported Scott Walker

27 Mar 12 – Thought the Soviet Union’s still our number one threat

19 Mar 12 – Said he’d push back against “evil” teachers unions

23 Feb 12 - Lied about requiring Massachusetts’ non-profit hospitals to provide emergency contraception

10 Feb 12 –Claimed only Americans place hand over heart to show how much we love our country

01 Feb 12 – Said he “Doesn’t Worry About the Poor“

27 Jan 12 - Failed to Report Interest Earned in His Off Shore Accounts

27 Jan 12 - Lied about his Fannie and Freddie investments being in a blind trust

18 Jan 12 - Stashed Millions in Offshore Accounts

17 Jan 12 - Said $362,000 in Speaking Fees is ‘Not Very Much’?

11 Jan 12 – Believes class warfare is about envy

09 Jan 12 - Vetoed contraception bill for rape victims as governor

09 Jan 12 – Claimed he “likes to fire people”

05 Jan 12 - He released tax plan, steal from the poor and give to the rich

04 Jan 12 – Said Big Bird would get the boot

13 Dec 11 – Bet Perry $10k during a debate

28 Nov 11 – Constantly flip-flops

23 Nov 11 – Said false ad’s ok

14 Nov 11 – Said he’d prepare for war with Iran

08 Oct 11 – Lied to cadets at the Citadel

22 Sep 11 – Claimed to be middle class

06 Sep 11 – He released economic plan favors the rich over everyone else

11 Aug 11 – Said “corporations are people”

05 Aug 11 – Pledged himself to evangelical group

01 Aug 11 – Opposed deal on debt ceiling

06 Jul 11 – Lied about the economy

Mitt Romney gave the speech of his life last night. It was like “Dancing with the Stars” in a field of IEDs, glancing away from substance, lies barely touching the floor, until he had “the moments” with foreign politics and the military.

BOOM.

Here’s why his Dukakis moment leaves him missing a leg to stand on this morning…

This speech will get dissected a million times today, but since the mainstream media is perniciously lazy where it isn’t outright corrupt, this should be clear. Beyond Mitt’s many mendacities in the speech last night came his IED moment on foreign policy.  Perhaps Neocon hawk John Bolton or Iran architect Paul Wolfowitz helped him craft this line.  Misspellings courtesy Fox News (And you wonder why their viewers can’t spell)….

“On another front, every American is less secure today
because he has failed to slow Iran’s nuclear threat.  In his
first TV interview as president, he said we should talk to Iran.
We are still talking, and Iran’s centrifuges are still
spinning.”

If we’re not talking, then logic dictates we’re fighting. Mr. Romney has been saber rattling Iran for some time.  It’s an empty threat, not only because of the complete lack of appetite by the Libertarian faction of the GOP that now controls the party for running up trillions more in debt, but also because, like most of Mr. Romney’s fantasy world, it’s as odds with reality.  In March, Reuters reported:

“The United States, European allies and even Israel generally agree on three things about Iran’s nuclear program: Tehran does not have a bomb, has not decided to build one, and is probably years away from having a deliverable nuclear warhead.”

This would be why Mr. Obama is still “talking.”  We don’t have the resources to take on Iran, and Iran knows it.  That’s why they are in no hurry to build a bomb. Doubling down on the Neocon wet dream, though, Mr. Romney pressed on:

“President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus
even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castor’s Cuba.  He abandoned
our friends in Poland by walking away from missile defense
commitments
(AUDIENCE MEMBERS):  Boo.

This is a “Florida” line, where Mr. Romney is looking at numbers with American Jewish voters that aren’t too appealing. CBS News reports:

“A study of American Jewish voters indicates the opposite of initial fears with Obama at least maintaining his 2008 Jewish voter numbers, signaling a similar run at the Jewish electorate that he had in his win against Sen. John McCain. Though recent polling numbers from the Public Religion Research Institute found that Obama was on pace to receive 62 percent of the Jewish vote in November, a considerable drop from the 78 percent he garnered in 2008, Wald told CBSDC that new numbers he analyzed suggest that Obama should expect the votes of almost 75 percent of Jewish voters in the general election.”

Mr. Romney’s stands on the Christian nation ring worse with American Jews, and his support of anti-abortion extremists on things like contraception particularly trouble Jewish women.

The Cuba canard is likewise false. According to the radical newspaper USA Today:

“Obama’s decision to relax the ban on Americans traveling to Cuba is an act of political courage and good sense. Under the new rules, it will be easier for academics, students, religious groups and journalists to travel to Cuba. Also, when this change takes effect in a couple of weeks, Americans can send up to $2,000 a year to someone in Cuba as long as that person is not a senior member of the Cuban government or the Communist Party.

Under the old rules, Cuban Americans had unlimited freedom to travel to Cuba and send money to people there. Other Americans were prohibited from sending money and severely restricted from visiting.”

In other words, Cuban-American Republicans, who had the only viaduct to unlimited funding, ostensibly of agitation, now have to play by the rules, and we have gone back to the more sensible plan to open up the country to dialogue and communication between academics under the Clinton and Reagan administrations that were ratcheted up by George W. Bush as a cynical ploy to make re-election in 2004.

It is the last part of Mr. Romney’s foreign rant, though, that is where the verbal IED blew up. (Again spelling by Fox News):

  “ROMNEY:  But he’s eager to give Russia’s president Putin
the flexibility he desires after the election.
(AUDIENCE MEMBERS):  Boo.
ROMNEY:  Under my presidency our friends will see more
loyalty and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and
more backbone.” [1]

This is a crowd pleaser for both the NeoCon faction of the GOP and the John Bircher Libertarians (Tea Party) alike, as they began their self-centered march to political power as a rabid anti-Communist front. Here’s the problem.

Russia is still a formidable world power. The prior presidential nominee, Senator McCain, leveled the criticism of Mr. Obama that one does not “telegraph their punches” at a debate in October, 2008.

Mr. Romney has become too accustomed to his American television box. In that world, he can lie with abandon, say whatever he wants one year, and completely contradict it the next, and nothing sticks.  The line was a gift to the hawks of his party who are still rabid Russia haters, and haven’t gotten over winning the Cold War.

The problem is that little snippets like that filter out into the real world outside of the American media bubble. Russia may not enjoy the power that it once held, but to count out a country with deep resources in oil and natural gas, major problems with literacy outside of its major cities, which still are centuries behind the urban areas, and their government’s proclivities towards totalitarianism, is stepping on the toe of a very big giant.

Do we really need to give the Russians the impetus to fear us enough to take to their old ways, and revive a Soviet Union?  Over the last few decades the leadership of those countries has become more adept at their new brand of politics.  A future Russia may not be Stalinist, but if those states, feeling pressure from the United States under a hawkish president Romney, decided to federate in even the European Union’s model, it could dramatically change the balance of power in the world, and put an even greater strain on our economy as we have to contend with a nuclear enemy without the trillions that Reagan-Bush-W blew over the last 35+ years.

Reagan ramped up our military to break the Soviet Union because we had the resources, and they didn’t. It put us into the high-debt world that we still live with today.  The Russians did not exploit the resources of their ground as well back in the day. Now they have money and increasing power collected in a few hands.

The shoe is increasingly on the other foot. Mr. Romney seems to want to aim his gun at Uncle Sam’s boot and pull the trigger.

Can we really afford a president so lost in Neocon flag-waving that he would be irresponsible enough to unleash Soviet Union – The Sequel with domestic-intended “say anything” remarks to get himself elected?  Someone who could easily break an America already strained by a Cold War and two multi-trillion dollar Republican-launched misadventures in the Middle East?

Romney gave no thought to our soldiers in the armed forces, many of whom are on their fourth, fifth, or even sixth tour in Afghanistan.  No idea why we should put them in harm’s way.  To protect Israel?  To protect us? He gave no consideration to our generals who are still trying to develop a full exit in Afghanistan. What about the families of our volunteer armed forces? Veterans.  Nothing.

The danger of Mitt’s “say anything” approach are its many unintended consequences that only come to fruition if he can get enough tuned-out people to cheer and rant without thinking about them.

My shiny two.

You cannot imagine how upset I was to have missed all of the Republican convention this week, traveling through the Great (55 Electoral Votes!) State of California, blissfully removed from televisions. I did get back last night, so I could have watched Mitt Romney unveil his “I am a warm human being” programming, but UCLA was beating up on Rice in a game that probably had more policy specifics than the entire GOP shindig.

I do recommend two pieces of Daily Show genius. first, John Oliver’s riff on “We can Change That“, and Samantha Bee’s quadrennial exercise where she gets GOP delegates to laud the primacy of personal freedom, except, of course, in uterine-based matters.  Other than that, well, there’s not much that stands out.

Except…

Clint Eastwood, bless his apparently slightly addled soul, stole the show. By scolding an empty chair that Eastwood, um, pretended was Barack Obama.

Sure it sounds a little weird. Check the video above. It was VERY weird.

First, Clint seemed a little baked, but, God bless him, he’s 82 years old, he can do whatever he wants.

Second, Eastwood apparently thinks Barack Obama should have thought twice before going into Afghanistan seven years before he became president:

I know, in the, you were against the war in Iraq and that’s OK. But you thought the war in Afghanistan was OK.

You know, I mean — you thought that was something worth doing. We didn’t check with the Russians to see how they did there for 10 years….I think you’ve mentioned something about having a target date for bringing everybody home and you give that target date, and I think Mr. Romney asked the only sensible question. He says, “Why are you giving the date out now? Why don’t you just bring them home tomorrow morning?”

A quote, in fairness, I don’t remember from Romney, and, if he said it, one that betrays a basic understanding of how one withdraws from a war zone.

Eastwood also said he thought it was a bad idea for attorneys to be President – forgetting, of course, that Mitt Romney has a law degree from the exact same school as Barack Obama, but I digress. It went downhill from there.

The whole thing reminded me of Hunter S. Thompson: When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Clint Eastwood is a pro.

Eastwood spawned a twitter account and a meme – #Eastwooding – and a thousand comedians now believe there is a God.

Anyway, if ever there was a perfect metaphor for this campaign, this was it.  Arguing against an Obama who isn’t there and doesn’t exist in, you know, reality, because you’ve got nothing of your own you really want to share with people.

(Well, in fairness, Mitt Romney did promise to create 12 million jobs in four years, although he hasn’t explained how much tax relief he and his fellow job-creators require before they start opening those job-creatin’ floodgates.)

My sense is that when the convention night dedicated to the candidate is all about saying “no, really – he’s a human being”, you’re playing catchup in a bad area.

It’s still a close election, and Michael Moore notwithstanding, I still think Obama is going to win, but it’s clear that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have decided that an honest argument over the future of this country isn’t in their best interests. Now, I like to imagine that Mitt & Paul know their Jerome K. Jerome (“It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.”), and have decided that, by golly, they’re just going to be the best liars they can be.

We have 66 days of this left. Don’t expect Mitt Romney to run against reality.  His plan is to create his own straw Obama and burn him to the ground.

If it wasn’t Mitt Romney, I’d say he had a good chance of pulling it off.  Because it is Mitt Romney, with his likeability and trust deficits, I’d say the odds are against him.

In a pre-convention speech, Condoleezza Rice was heckled by protesters when she talked about her conversations with George W. Bush when they pondered “what could be done to show that America was compassionate about the poorest people.” People have wondered what would happen when the GOP finally brought up the joint specters of Bush 43 and the ill-conceived wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rice also couldn’t remember one specific foreign policy in the past three years.

When Ann Romney spoke at a luncheon to persuade women and Latinos/as to vote for her husband, she said that Hispanics should get past their biases because her husband is better for them than President Obama. She didn’t mention that her husband said that he would get undocumented people to “self-deport,” veto the Dream Act that would provide a path to citizenship to young people brought to the country illegally as children, and use the virulent Arizona anti-immigrant laws as a model for the nation.

After the hoopla around Mike Huckabee’s support for Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) following his comment about “legitimate rape,” Huckabee’s speech was pretty pro forma: he grew up poor without government help, Romney gave 16 percent of his money to the church, etc. His reason for supporting Romney hit a new low bar; people should support Romney because he has been faithful to his wife and his religion. And how does Huckabee know how much Romney gave his church? Has Huckabee seen Romney’s tax returns?

The most tepid endorsement of Romney—and that’s saying a lot!—came from John McCain who moved back to basic Republican orthodoxy, using his speech to lie about President’s foreign policies and call for war in the Middle East. He wants a more aggressive stance against Iran, a more aggressive defense of Israel, a more aggressive whatever in Syria. He didn’t talk about Iraq or Osama bin Laden, two huge failures for the GOP. His recommendation is that the United States save all the oppressed people in the world, and he trusts Romney to do all these things without any funding. There’s a lot of trust of Romney going around the conservative world these days.

The highlight of the evening was actually Condoleezza Rice in a speech that some more liberal pundits declared as “presidential” and made up for problems earlier in the day. The beginning was what one might expect: 9/11, foreign policy, trade, energy independence—all standard Republican speech topics. It was when she moved to discussing civil rights, beginning her own experiences of racism as a child, that she sounded like a moderate. She supported compassion for immigrants who wish to come to the United States. Once again Romney’s name got short shrift. A question is whether her speech is a precursor to plans for 2016; she certainly made up for earlier disasters during the day.

The purpose of Day Two was to “introduce” Paul Ryan as the VP candidate. The nicest thing that a journalist said about his speech is that Ryan was “factually challenged.” Another asked the question about what word could be used when he went beyond lying. A Fox News column described him as dazzling, deceiving, and distracting with the statement: “Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was  Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.”

Even the right-leaning Washington Post referred to the speech as “a misleading indictment of President Obama” and lambasted Ryan for not spelling out some of the “tough choices” that Romney’s administration will require from the people.

Ryan’s speech dismissed the Obama $831 billion stimulus as “wasted money” while he failed to mention that his home town of Janesville (WI) is far better off because of what they received from the stimulus. He repeated his lie that Barack Obama didn’t help the GM auto plant that closed in Janesville in 2008 when he was a candidate. George W. Bush was president in 2008, and the plant may reopen if GM decides to do this.

Ryan blamed the president for not adopting the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles Commission. After Ryan voted no on the commission’s conclusions and walked out, Congress could not take action. Ryan also voted against job creation when he opposed the president’s 2011 American Jobs Act that would have created 1.5-2 million jobs.

One of the biggest lies from Ryan and the Romney campaign is that the president has stripped Medicare while the Republicans will keep it intact. Both parts of this statement are false: the president will save the country $716 while retaining Medicare because of the Affordable Care Act, and the Republicans will destroy the entire program the minute that they have any control.

Ryan blamed the president for the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating instead of explaining that the Republicans’ games brought the country close to defaulting on its foreign debt. He gave Romney credit for raising the credit rating in Massachusetts when Romney raised taxes (that he called fees) and had the support of a Democratic legislature. Another Ryan lie in the speech was that the president is totally responsible for $5 trillion of the national debt while the bulk of this was caused by the Bush recession, the Bush wars, and the Bush tax cuts—all of which Ryan supported.

Ryan said, “College grads shouldn’t have to live out their 20s in childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters.” Ryan opposed legislation to keep student loan rates from doubling.

Close to the finish, Ryan addressed what Romney brought up Romney’s role in saving the 2002 Olympics in Utah but failed to point out that the U.S. government poured $1.5 into this event after Romney went to the public trough to be bailed out. Even McCain called Romney’s move, “federal porkbarrelling.”

Ryan said, “We have a plan to create 12 million jobs in four years” and that their administration would reduce the Federal Budget to 20% of GDP “because that is enough.” There was absolutely not one specific about how they would accomplish this, including how they could create 12 million jobs when every government program would be cut except for defense. “We will not duck the tough issues,” he said while failing to describe what these are. His position was identical to Romney’s “trust me, I paid lots of taxes.”

Ryan’s biggest lies came at the end when he talked about “protecting the weak.” It is “the responsibility of the strong to protect the weak,” and “the mark of a society is how it treats people who cannot help themselves.” Etc., etc., etc.:

“We have responsibilities, one to another–we do not each face the world alone. And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.”

As Jamison Foser wrote, “The man who utters these pretty words is, in fact, a stone-cold [Ayn] Randian.”   Ryan wants to slash the safety net for everyone in the country to give to the wealthy. Sixty-two percent of Ryan cuts are directed at programs for the low-income. Loser continued, “These aren’t just lies. These are the pronouncements of a sociopath, someone who knows what he stands for and knows precisely why it shocks the senses, and persuades you that he believes the exact opposite, and maybe even persuades himself.”

Ryan concluded with the statement, “Our rights come from nature and God and not from government.” Ryan will wait for God to take care of all of us. If he doesn’t, then we will have less of a population problem.

Comedian Andy Borowitz was on target when he said the only truth that Ryan told in his speech was the names of his wife and children. My descriptions provide just the tip of the iceberg of the media pushback to Ryan’s speech. DailyKos has a long list, including “hypocritical,” “new Nixon,” “Ryan and the post truth convention,” “stunning for its dishonesty,” “brazen lies” complete with links.

A conservative on last Sunday’s Meet the Press said that both conventions, Republican and Democratic, would be about Romney because the Democratic convention would concentrate on bashing Romney. Thus far, most of the GOP convention has bashed Obama either directly or through all the personal stories of how hard politicians worked to get to the GOP convention.

Asides: Fox canceled Sarah Palin’s interviews last night; evidently they didn’t want her to talk about the media attacking John McCain in 2008.  And, to quote Rachel Maddow, the best new thing? Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer endorsed President Obama, hoping that he would secure the borders. Of course, he has worked on that already, but Brewer has not given him any credit for doing this. Her office explained later that she misspoke, but it’s lovely watching her honor the name of President Obama!

U.S. small-business-owner satisfaction is up sharply to 39 percent in the third quarter of 2012 from 26 percent in the third quarter of 2010. Even small businesses know that things are getting better for them.

Romney flew to Indianapolis yesterday to speak at the American Legion convention. Ari Shapiro of NPR interviewed some of the people who attended. Bobbie Lucifer of Virginia said, “I don’t like [Obama’s] wife. She’s far from the first lady. It’s about time we get a first lady in there that acts like a first lady and looks like a first lady.” Ms. Lucifer, what does a first lady “look” like? White and blonde?

Huff Post

Ryan Grim

Posted: 08/30/2012 12:29 am Updated: 08/30/2012 11:52 am

TAMPA, Fla. — Paul Ryan pledged Wednesday that if he and his running mate Mitt Romney were elected president, they would usher in an ethic of responsibility. The Wisconsin congressman and GOP vice presidential candidate repeatedly chided President Barack Obama for blaming the jobs and housing crises on his predecessor, saying that his habit of “forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost four years ago -– isn’t it about time he assumed responsibility?”

Ryan then noted that Obama, while campaigning for president, promised that a GM plant in Wisconsin would not shut down. “That plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight,” Ryan said.

Except Obama didn’t promise that. And the plant closed in December 2008 — while George W. Bush was president.

It was just one of several striking and demonstrably misleading elements of Ryan’s much-anticipated acceptance speech. And it comes just days after Romney pollster Neil Newhouse warned, defending the campaign’s demonstrably false ads claiming Obama removed work requirements from welfare, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

Ryan, for his part, slammed the president for not supporting a deficit commission report without mentioning that he himself had voted against it, helping to kill it.

He also made a cornerstone of his argument the claim that Obama “funneled” $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare. But he didn’t mention that his own budget plan relies on those very same savings.

Ryan also put responsibility for Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. government debt at Obama’s doorstep. But he didn’t mention that S&P itself, in explaining its downgrade, referred to the debt ceiling standoff. That process of raising the debt ceiling was only politicized in the last Congress, driven by House Republicans, led in the charge by Paul Ryan.

The credit rater also said it worried that Republicans would never agree to tax increases. “We have changed our assumption on [revenue] because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues,” S&P wrote.

Jodie Layton, a convention goer from Utah watching the Ryan speech, said she was blown away by the vice presidential candidate. But she said she was surprised to hear that after his speech about taking responsibility, he’d pinned a Bush-era plant closing on Obama.

“It closed in December 2008?” she asked, making sure she heard a HuffPost reporter’s question right. After a long pause, she said, “It’s happening a lot on both sides. It’s to be expected.”

Ryan has referenced the GM plant before, and his attack was debunked by the Detroit News, which called it inaccurate. “In fact, Obama made no such promise and the plant halted production in December 2008, when President George W. Bush was in office,” Detroit News reporter David Sherpardson wrote earlier this month. “Obama did speak at the plant in February 2008, and suggested that a government partnership with automakers could keep the plant open, but made no promises as Ryan suggested.”

After the speech, CNN’s political commentators focused mostly on Ryan’s misstatements, demonstrating the degree to which they were evident.

MORE HERE

By Jonathan Bernstein

Posted at 11:56 PM ET, 08/29/2012

It was, by any reasonable standards, a staggering, staggering lie. Here’s Paul Ryan about Barack Obama:

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

“They.” “Them.” “Them.” Those words are lies. Because Paul Ryan was on that commission. “Came back with an urgent report.” That is a lie. The commission never made any recommendations for Barack Obama to support or oppose. Why not? Because the commission voted down its own recommendations. Why? Because Paul Ryan, a member of the commission, voted it down and successfully convinced the other House Republicans on the commission to vote it down.

That wasn’t the only bit of mendacity – lazy mendacity, incredibly lazy mendacity – in Ryan’s speech. Twitter lit up as soon as he started telling the story of the Janesville auto plant that Barack Obama didn’t save – a plant that, it turns out, closed before Obama was president. And of course there’s the infamous cuts to Medicare that Ryan lambasted Obama for without happening to mention that those very same cuts were in Paul Ryan’s own budget. Yes: absolutely everything in Obamacare is an abomination, says Paul Ryan, except for (as he forgets to mention) the cuts to Medicare that he supports – and yet he still singles that part out to use as an attack.

It isn’t even true in some symbolic or abstract way. The real truth is that Paul Ryan completely rejects the approach of that commission – because it includes tax increases along with spending cuts – while Barack Obama has, while not endorsing the exact plan that Ryan shot down, basically endorsed the commission’s approach. Nor was this a side point; Ryan’s complaint about Obama on the deficit was absolutely central to his case against the president.

And then there’s the logic of the whole thing. As Seth Masket said, it all comes down to arguing “we must cut entitlements! Obama cutting entitlements is un-American.”  There’s also, as many were pointing out, the plain fact that until January 2009 Paul Ryan faithfully supported all the tax cuts and spending increases which created the deficit problem he’s been so concerned about since January 2009.

But really, the proper response to a speech like this isn’t to carefully analyze the logic, or to find instances of hypocracy; it’s to call the speaker out for telling flat-out lies to the American people. Paul Ryan has had what I’ve long thought was an undeserved good reputation among many in the press and in Washington. It shouldn’t survive tonight’s speech.

Follow Jonathan Bernstein on Twitter and at his blog.

SOURCE

Ryan Grim

TAMPA, Fla. — Paul Ryan pledged Wednesday that if he and his running mate Mitt Romney were elected president, they would usher in an ethic of responsibility. The Wisconsin congressman and GOP vice presidential candidate repeatedly chided President Barack Obama for blaming the jobs and housing crises on his predecessor, saying that his habit of “forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost four years ago -– isn’t it about time he assumed responsibility?”

Ryan then noted that Obama, while campaigning for president, promised that a GM plant in Wisconsin would not shut down. “That plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight,” Ryan said.

Except Obama didn’t promise that. And the plant closed in December 2008 — while George W. Bush was president.

It was just one of several striking and demonstrably misleading elements of Ryan’s much-anticipated acceptance speech. And it comes just days after Romney pollster Neil Newhouse warned, defending the campaign’s demonstrably false ads claiming Obama removed work requirements from welfare, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

Ryan, for his part, slammed the president for not supporting a deficit commission report without mentioning that he himself had voted against it, helping to kill it.

He also made a cornerstone of his argument the claim that Obama “funneled” $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare. But he didn’t mention that his own budget plan relies on those very same savings.

Ryan also put responsibility for Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. government debt at Obama’s doorstep. But he didn’t mention that S&P itself, in explaining its downgrade, referred to the debt ceiling standoff. That process of raising the debt ceiling was only politicized in the last Congress, driven by House Republicans, led in the charge by Paul Ryan.

The credit rater also said it worried that Republicans would never agree to tax increases. “We have changed our assumption on [revenue] because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues,” S&P wrote.

Jodie Layton, a convention goer from Utah watching the Ryan speech, said she was blown away by the vice presidential candidate. But she said she was surprised to hear that after his speech about taking responsibility, he’d pinned a Bush-era plant closing on Obama.

“It closed in December 2008?” she asked, making sure she heard a HuffPost reporter’s question right. After a long pause, she said, “It’s happening a lot on both sides. It’s to be expected.”

Ryan has referenced the GM plant before, and his attack was debunked by the Detroit News, which called it inaccurate. “In fact, Obama made no such promise and the plant halted production in December 2008, when President George W. Bush was in office,” Detroit News reporter David Sherpardson wrote earlier this month. “Obama did speak at the plant in February 2008, and suggested that a government partnership with automakers could keep the plant open, but made no promises as Ryan suggested.”

After the speech, CNN’s political commentators focused mostly on Ryan’s misstatements, demonstrating the degree to which they were evident.

Top Obama adviser David Axelrod jumped on the GM factory claim. “Again, Ryan blames Obama for a GM plant that closed under Bush. But then, they did say they wouldn’t ‘let fact checkers get in the way.’”

Ryan, however, appears to have made the calculation that the misleading won’t hurt him with voters. He might be right. CNN’s David Gergen, while acknowledging some “misstatements” in Ryan’s address, suggested that pundits focus elsewhere. “But let’s not forget that this was a speech about big ideas,” he told his audience.

Updated: Palin: “direct attack on the grass-roots;” RNC power grab showdown; Rules Cmte votes 78-14 for deal; dissidents gather signatures for floor fight; Boehner/Sununu declare”no objections” over massive boos on the floor.

(ht/Michelle Malkin
Last night:
8/28… Rules Committee adopts compromises, floor fight squashed as Boehner/Sununu approve rules report over massive boos on convention floor.

Drew McKissick is a longtime conservative activist and blogger who is in attendance at the Republican National Convention’s Rules Committee meetings. He and others on the ground are sounding the alarm over rules changes that he and many other attendees believe will hurt grass-roots movement conservatives.

The battle is being cast by some observers as a narrow fight between Ron Paul advocates and the rest of the party. Drew says that’s NOT TRUE.

And many other state delegations who oppose top-down delegate choices are chiming in.

First, here’s Drew’s call to arms (my emphasis added in bold):

Fellow conservatives,

Those who are in Tampa working to maintain the influence of grassroots conservatives in the Republican Party need your help!

This past Friday, the RNC’s Convention Rules Committee voted – after several contentious votes – to change the party’s rules to allow future presidential candidates to have veto power over who can be delegates from any state – in other words, take power away from the grassroots and their ability to elect fellow conservatives as delegates.

This represents a brazen move by several Washington Beltway consultants and party insiders to diminish the power and influence of conservatives over the party.

At least 29 members of this committee are filing Minority Reports to the full convention to try and make sure that these changes are NOT adopted into the final changes the full convention will approve on Tuesday. But we need your help to spread the word. 28 members are required to issue a minority report for the convention to even consider…and you can be sure others are working behind the scenes to peel some of them off before the meeting…so we need to create pressure for others to join!

Let me stop here and say that this is NOT…REPEAT NOT a move by a bunch of disgruntled Ron Paul supporters. This is a group of long-time conservative activists, even “party regulars” and lots of Romney supporters, many who go back to the Goldwater days.

We need to generate enough PUBLIC PRESSURE from grassroots conservatives that they will back off before Tusday’s meeting and withdraw their changes so that we can avoid the need for a minority report and floor fight [altogether].

Here’s what we need before Tuesday’s session of the convention:
1) We need all conservative Republican grassroots supporters to contact their state GOP and let them know that they OPPOSE the rules change that will give future presidential campaigns control over who gets to be a delegate (current RULE 15, but is being renumbered to 16)…and OPPOSE the new RULE 12 which allows the RNC to change the rules at any time between conventions.

2) We need them to contact any DELEGATES to the convention they may know and tell them they OPPOSE the rules change and want them to support a move on the floor to amend this change via the MINORITY REPORTS – and support a demand for a ROLL CALL VOTE if necessary.

3) We need them to contact the CONVENTION RULES COMMITTEE members for their state (each state has two) and tell them they want them to SIGN THE MINORITY REPORTS before Tuesday’s session at 2:00PM. You can find a copy of the list here.

4) Finally, we would like them to help us spread the word that this is an insider power grab by a bunch of DC Beltway types who want consultants to be able to pick who the delegates are from their respective states in the future – AS WELL AS FUTURE PLATFORM COMMITTEE MEMBERS. Post a link to this page on Facebook and Twitter…spread the word on the media…COMPLAIN. Let everyone know this is wrong, and that it is ANTI-GRASSROOTS!

Here’s a piece on the Texas GOP delegation revolting against the proposed changes:

Texans bristle at proposed change in selecting delegates

By Tim Eaton | Monday, August 27, 2012

TAMPA, Fla. — Republican convention-goers have a light first day today thanks to an earlier threat from Hurricane Isaac that changed the schedule. As the storm took a track away from this Gulf coast town, one issue was causing concern among the Texas delegation.

It sounds pretty technical, but the national party leaders are trying to change a convention rule that would alter that way delegates are chosen. If approved in the coming days, the change would allow the presumptive presidential nominee to have the final say over each state’s delegates, said Steve Munisteri, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas.

The Texas delegation is livid. At a morning meeting of Texas delegates, Munisteri and a boisterous crowd discussed how the proposed change would affect the way Texans might send delegates to future conventions.

We will be “told how to select our delegates,” Munisteri said.

Texas prides itself on being a state party whose members choose who will go the national convention. It’s a grassroots — versus top-town — approach, said James Dickey, an at-large alternate from Bee Cave.

Dickey said the result of the change, if it is approved, could be drastic.

“It would dampen enthusiasm a lot,” Dickey said. “It would dampen excitement about running to be a delegate.”

With the support of Texas’ delegates, Munisteri said he’s ready to take the fight to the floor of the convention.

In a letter to the national rules committee, the Texas delegation said: “The only way a floor fight can be avoided is if the rule is stricken.”

An email to the party was not returned, but Munisteri said the thinking behind the proposal was to ensure delegates vote for the candidate they are supposed to support in the nomination process.

The national party has been trying to dissuade states from objecting to what some people see as a power-grab by the national party, Munisteri said.

He added that it is ironic that a party that is supposed to be opposed to heavy-handed oversight would try to employ such a tactic.

“Somebody needs to wake up, and it’s not Texas,” said Butch Davis, a Texas representative to the national rules committee.

Supporters of the failed candidacy of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul are equally upset about the proposed rule change.

Tobey Pedford, an alternate from Oklahoma City, said after a Paul rally on Sunday that he too would fight the proposal by the national leaders.

“They’re trying to go back to the smoke-filled room,” he said. “We can’t allow it.”

Statesman link
The publication:

FREEDOM WORKSis on the scene. Many Romney supporters are now coming forward to disavow the Romney campaign-led effort:

“We’re asking activists to talk to every state party leader. The worry here is that you’re flipping the whole process on its head. It used to be that the grassroots chose the delegates, and the delegates choose the candidates. They’re essentially creating a rule where the candidate can disavow any delegate that doesn’t tow the line,” Kibbe said.”

Michelle Malkin has the rest of the story @ link

All of the above is a recount of what happened last night in Tampa that has gone Under-reported by mainstream media- Or should I say, covered up by MSM?