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News/Politics 8-31-12

This will also be a daily thread, for those of you who love news and politics like I do. Talk about whatever you want, leave a link to a story, or just check out what others are thinking about.

I’ll start it off.

Last night I watched the Romney speech. Not too bad. I thought he did pretty well. Then, just for laughs, we flipped over to listen to MSNBC.

Chris (yes I am a lapdog masquerading as a journalist) Matthews provided the comedy. It was like he watched a completely different speech than I did.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2012/08/31/chris-matthews-goes-anti-romney-bender-very-anti-scientific-know-noth

“MSNBC’s Chris Matthews didn’t even wait for the balloons and the confetti to  stop falling before laying into Mitt Romney. Moments after the former  Massachusetts governor finished his Thursday night speech at the Republican  National Convention, Matthews slammed the supposedly “very dark, very  jingoistic, very anti-scientific, and, really, Know-Nothing” elements  of the address.

The left-wing host concluded that “on science,  on war and peace…I personally think this was a bad address  for the American people.” Matthews later went on a tear on how Romney  was apparently “narrow-minded…small and insular and  piggish…to say, we don’t care about the planet we live on, which is  getting hotter.””

60 thoughts on “News/Politics 8-31-12”

  3. Ricky

    You mean unfunded? Not picking on a would be typo, but wondering if infunded is a term I’m unfamiliar with.

    On the topic: Mattews is a hack — hopefully most folks know that. For me Romney’s speech didn’t have a lot of there, there. He tells the American public he’ll create 12 million jobs in his four — something no President has ever done and that economists are skeptical about the plausibility of doing. He lays out no plan for how to create 12 million jobs — the pledge is as grandiose and achievable as Obama’s claim four years ago to fix global warming (meaning, no, not so much). On the whole, though, I think Romney did what he needed to do. Now let’s se if the etch-a sketch works.

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  5. Rolling Stone has an article out that starts like this:

    The federal records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Romney’s initial rescue attempt at Bain & Company was actually a disaster – leaving the firm so financially strapped that it had “no value as a going concern.” Even worse, the federal bailout ultimately engineered by Romney screwed the FDIC – the bank insurance system backed by taxpayers – out of at least $10 million. And in an added insult, Romney rewarded top executives at Bain with hefty bonuses at the very moment that he was demanding his handout from the feds.

    Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-federal-bailout-that-saved-mitt-romney-20120829#ixzz257eenPJG

    Whoa — this reporting could damage Romney’s chances.

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  6. I missed the Romney speech, but I did catch a few minutes of Clint Eastwood’s “talk” to Obama. “We own this country”, he declared. But I have to wonder about that when Congress listens about as well as that empty chair.

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  11. CB, Hopefully, only a small part. The hardest thing I plan on doing is teaching my Sunday School lesson. Tonight, one of my students is playing high school football. That’s worth a drive across D/FW to watch.

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  12. Best of luck to your student — hope they do well. I’ll be reading reports at home — will take the better part of at least one day, but at least I can work from home over the holiday.

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  14. CB I clicked on the link and read the article. Because I just had the “if so and so jumped off of a bridge would you do it too” conversation with Baby Girl I know the risk of what I am about to say.

    They dug this up from 1990? Those were different times. Yuppie’s were the thing to be. Wall Street was a hit movie. Romney didn’t do anything that anyone else wasn’t doing at the time. It is easy to sit here 22 years later and throw stones at him.

    One of my dearest (gay-back-slidden-Baptist) friends told me when I was deciding to make a move and find a different job, “the univeserve rewards action”. I tend to believe that it is God but I am fine to have him call it the Universe.

    Romney took action. In the beginning it looked to be a failure, in the end he received a government hand-out and eventually the company and he became successful. He rolled the dice so to speak. If we are going to judge people for decisions they made 20+ years ago we are going to have people afraid to do ANYthing because it could come back to bite them on the butt. I made a few decisions in 1990 that altered the course of my life and a few that given a do over armed with what I know now I wouldn’t have made.

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  15. Ricky, you live in Fort Worth? I lived there 4.5 years.
    I didn’t see the speech. I watched the football game, then switched to Fox, Rubio was talking, so I went to bed.

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  17. Chas, I lost my gravitar, too.

    Kim, wouldn’t it be nice if Mitt would admit the wrong that he did back then and dip into one of his off-shore accounts and pay the government back the millions that he owes? I realize that this comment will bring about a barrage of “Obama did this and that” comments, but this accusation is specifically about Mitt Romney and it would be nice to see if he has the character to correct his actions from the past.

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  18. Kim,

    Yes that was a different time in Romney’s life (resisting a cheap shot at his promise in the early 90s to be more pro gay than Ted Kennedy). To the main point – Romney uses Bain as exemplary of his business skill and acumen. He argues that the auto bailout was wrong and that managed bankruptcy was the answer. He uses Bain’s and other investment firm logic on creative destruction, I.e. restructuring an ailing company complete with firimgs and changes in pension structure is a positive benefit. But it seems that it may not be so positive when its personal.

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  19. We all live and learn. I am also more pro-gay than I was in 1990.
    I am sure I have cost someone somewhere along the line money. Photoguy, I’m not sure Romney owes the government any money and are we going to track down all the other guys who did the same thing and ask them to make restituiton or are we going to punish one man because he is running for president? I don’t know the answer to the question.

    All I know is that I don’t like Obama. I don’t care what he has and hasn’t done. I won’t vote for him. I will NOT split the vote and waste my vote on a third party candidate because in my mind that is the same as voting for Obama so that leaves me with the only choice of voting for Romney. In a perfect world I would have a better choice but I don’t.

    What I would really love to see on the 2016 ticket is Condoleeza Rice and Mia Love…wouldn’t that be a real kick in the pants? I do realize this is fantasy on my part.

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  20. We visited last weekend with a friend who specializes in business turn arounds. He said business for him the last several years has been poor; investors have been cutting their losses rather than try to resurrect potentially viable businesses.

    To me, our nation needs a robust private sector to have hope for the future. I feel we already are too heavily dependent on government jobs–who will pay the taxes to fund government? Am I missing something? Can we really just recycle the money round and round if we’re all receiving funds from the same source? Don’t we need “new” cash from an outside source?

    It makes me sad so many friends are hoping and praying for government jobs–because of pension dreams. My county is facing fiscal bankruptcy because of those same lavish pensions voted into place by the same foxes who now draw them. Meanwhile, those in office now block almost every private business–whether it be Chik-a-Fillet, Wal-Mart or any type of manufacturing jobs.

    And the young people, college graduates saddled with massive student debt, scramble for minimum wage jobs at Costco.

    Tell me if I’m wrong but if the whole economy is dependent on government jobs, haven’t we in essence implemented a form of Communism?

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  21. CB I thought I would give you a laugh at my expense. As most of you know I have shared way too much of my life on “the blog” but here goes again.

    I did not date a lot in high school. Boys did not like me and the few times I screwed up my courage and asked a guy to go to a dance (not associated with school but a sorority type thing) they turned me down. I ended up going with a semi cousin and a guy that we were just friends.

    I was very close to a family and their daughter is 12 years older than me. I was out with her one afternoon and we had to go by a friend of hers house. On the way she told me that the husband had a gay brother and that he was there visiting with a friend of his who was also gay but was a woman (oh my could it be a LESBIAN?????)

    Anyway we went in and I was quite shy in those days. The woman (the GAY woman) talked to me !!!!! She was very friendly and asked me a lot of questions. I mumbled answers and was quite relieved to get out of there.

    My conclusion was that a. boys didn’t like me. b. a gay woman talked to me. c. a gay woman talking to me might have been flirting with me???? d. I must be gay and too stupid to know!

    About a week later I had given this considerable thought and decided that no I was not gay. I still laugh at myself over this. But hey, it was the 80’s 90’s…

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  22. The speech was, as one commentator said, good — not great — but good. And convention speeches are not designed to hammer out a detailed program (Zzzzzz). But, yes, that needs to be done in more specifics during the campaign. On both sides.

    The visions and philosophy offered by each side are very distinct. And I was impressed by the GOP’s ability during the convention to lay out the party’s broad vision in a coherent fashion that I suspect will bring in many independents.

    Just as the ’08 election was the Democrats’ to lose, this one is the Republicans’ to lose. By all indications, they have the advantage.

    Dredging up 20+ year-old stories probably won’t have a lot of influence on the electorate unless it can be connected to an issue of character that is still evident.

    And from what I’ve seen of Romney’s temperament will service him well during the campaign. He rarely (never?) gets visibly flustered or agitated; he can level criticism without sounding nasty; and he doesn’t seem to take things personally. He comes off as stable, steady, calm and mature.

    Obama personally comes off (to me) as testy & prickly, he seems to anger easily and take offense quickly. Those qualities surface frequently, actually, even in better times.

    And he has that “tone” (did Ryan call it sanctimonious? good description) that can quickly grate on listeners if they’re not part of the loyal Democrat army.

    It’s one of the reasons I think Obama’s “likability” numbers will go down (and Romney’s will go up) once the campaign and the debates get underway in ernest.

    George W, like Romney, was unflappable — good natured and not overly sensitive. He didn’t have to answer every critic. He seemed to be able to let things roll off his back. He was able to laugh at himself.

    I’ve never seen those qualities in Obama. In fact, quite the opposite.

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  23. Chas, Technically, I am in Tarrant County, But I can hit a 3-iron to Fort Worth from my back yard. Except for school and 2 years in DC in the early 80s, I’ve been here since ’69. I think you would like what Cowtown has become. SWBTS is doing well and the people here are still friendly, even to Dallasites.

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  26. I see that Michael Moore says the country needs to get used to saying “President Romney.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/michael-moore-mitt-romney_n_1843824.html

    The reason? He’ll raise more money than Obama.

    Well, yes and no.

    The question one needs to ask is WHY he’ll raise more money than Obama.

    But the mantra is always “we’re being outspent” by the mean, horrible rich people. It’s all so unfair.

    Ironic since the Dems have no shortage of very rich supporters. I’d say they equally rival whatever the Repubs have to offer. The Democratic party also has unions that heavily contribute to their candidates, ponying up millions of dollars in campaigns.

    So saying you’re candidate was outspent has to always come back to the question of why one candidate is able to raise more money than his or her opponent.

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  27. For many of us, Romney isn’t our first choice, but when the other option is Obama, he becomes our first choice by far. I loved the speeches by the people who achieved great success from humble beginnings.

    BTW thanks, Michelle for the directions over here.

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  29. Kim

    Lol — that is a great story.

    Michelle

    Who exactly do you consider a government worker? Part of the distress about sequestration and the autmatic cut to the defense budget is the effect that will also have on the defense industry and resultant loss of thousands of jobs via contracting.

    Would it surprise you to know that the fed govt roles are smaller today than when Reagan was in office? Would it surprise you to know that there have been 600,000 job losses in the public sector over the past two years?

    There was a day in America when folks worked for a corporation or manuacture and had a deal — loyalty begets a decent pension. That ended when corporate number crunchers discovered that the 401k was a cheaper alternative. Manufactureing in the US has dropped off because of cheaper labor abroad. How else do you think American companies have had their second most profitable year ever, this past year? Outsourcing and cutting jobs in America has made corporations pretty well to do.

    Communism is the state control and planning of an economy. The State owns all industry in this economic scheme — and no we aren’t close to that in America.

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  35. “very dark, very jingoistic, very anti-scientific, and, really, Know-Nothing”

    I must say, it sounds very much like the dishonerable Chris Matthews was describing himself…

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  37. Previously I have put forward the hypothesis that it is not possible for liberals to detect their own bias or be objective. Well, that might not always be true. Here is a rare admission from Kirstie Alley who tweeted, “I just saw Clint Eastwood’s speech and I LOVED it!! Funny as hell & on point!!..& I’m a Democrat..US media is SO biased in favor of Dems.”

    This tiny hint of objectivity from the left might mean there could be hope for rational objective dialog about actual objective problems in the actual world. Nah, that’s probably too optimistic. Kirstie probably just thought the irreverence was funny and different.

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  38. Ajisuun! Welcome. Glad to see you made it.

    Also, the Something New thread should be to your liking. You can post prayer request and keep us updated on your work on that thread. I always love your reminders to Pray for Gambia. That’s the thread for the Prayer Warriors like yourself. Hope you like it. It will run for a week, then go to archives when the new week’s posted.

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  41. Been watching a lot of the other speeches that I didn’t get to watch, on Youtube. Nikki Haley gave an awesome speech. She and Rubio are very charismatic speakers. Also I really liked Santorum’s speech, and Rob Portman was very good as well, not nearly as boring as I expected him to be.

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  42. So who is who now Chas? I haven’t followed this transition like I would have if I hadn’t had a major project at work, and an injury in the middle of it.

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  43. MIM. Coyote Blue is CB, Caught onto the avitar first.

    I’m the same person I was. Ajisuun is someone else, but I will recognize her.
    JoeB is someone else, but I recognize tha avatar. The rest, I think are the samepeople. But I don’t recognize roynr.
    Nor do I know anonymous.

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  44. Sometimes I have an avatar, sometimes not. Maybe I’ll settle on this. But on this blog, it’s easier to recognize avitars before names. Not so true on WV.

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  48. Met a new neighbor tonight (generally speaking, I guess he lives around here as he was walking by my house as I drove up and he was very curious about Annie since she ran out to greet me; he and his wife have 2 black-and-white cats).

    Anyway, turns out he’s involved in the community so I mentioned that I covered the area for the paper, we chatted a while about some of the issues and common acquaintances, then he went off (out of the blue!) on what a “liar” Ryan was.

    Huh?

    It always amazes and even amuses me when people make statements like that, having no clue what the person they’re talking to might think politically. 🙂 Awkward.

    So I guess Clint Eastwood has ’em all talking today, eh? Good old Clint. Well, I’m guessing he won’t be asked to speak again at a convention. It was rather odd. But he’s an actor. That’s what actors do. Crazy people. They way weird stuff and travel way off script without warning.

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  49. Yes, I am surprised to hear that, CB. It’s not my observation about life in CA.

    I may be using the wrong term–socialism when the government controls the economy? Serfdom when so many young people are drastically in debt for their education with little hope for solid, life-supporting jobs?

    I am the daughter, wife and sister of businessmen. I own some stock. The US needs profitable businesses for people to flourish. Companies need to profit to expand and employ people. They also need consistency with government regulations and contracts need to be kept.

    Costs are rising in Asia. It would take only a little for companies to bring work back to the US. Unfortunately my zero-growth state would rather bet on Facebook than do anything to encourage manufacturing in CA. 😦

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  50. Hi Michelle

    Socialism also calls for public ownership — here’s a link to the Britannica definition:

    http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551569/socialism

    There is no question that the US needs profitable businesses and consistent state and federal regulations that are streamlined and minimally onerous. To me there is also no question that regulations are needed — we learned as a nation in the late 1800’s that businesses will work to the bottom line, particularly large businesses. I think the question is one of balance. Companies will pollute if they are allowed to, will employ children if allowed to and will fire people just before retirement age, companies will replace long time employees with part time temps so they can cut benefits — companies will do what they can to maximize their bottom line that’s what companies do.

    Costs are rising in Asia, a good thing. I read that some call centers are now being relocated to Texas. I do think there is a chance to reinvigorate our manufacturing base. To do that we will also have to reinvigorate our infrastructure, roads, electrical grids, waterways, rails.

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  52. Cali’s gov’t is well and truly messed up. The referendum process doesn’t really help. Many years ago when I lived in Cali I remember the set to on insurance — two contradictory referenda passed. It was a mess.

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  53. On another note did anyone see Alan Colmes have a conniption because Lars Larson used the word “watermelon”. Apparently that is now a racist word.

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  54. CB, agree with you about regulations. I’ve always believed that both big business and big government need careful watching.

    But regulations have a tendency to grow and encroach, then grow some more — and the process for fulfilling environmental safeguards in California have too often now become a burden and a delay on just about everything, requiring massive and costly studies. We love regulations. We love 1,000-page+ environmental “studies” (even when the findings conclude “no impact”).

    And L.A. has been particularly hard on small businesses, with high fees and cumbersome and lengthy approval processes (though there seems to be more agreement now on trying to strike a better balance that favors making things a bit easier on businesses). Still, many family businesses choose (or are forced) to leave the city boundaries for neighboring municipalities that offer a friendlier environment and much lower costs of doing business.

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  55. Oh, and how we love our ballot propositions! More, please.

    Sometimes there are more than a dozen lengthy propositions to wade through — often cleverly worded to do the opposite of what they sound like they might do, of course.

    They just want to make sure we voters are paying attention!

    And more and more often these days, once any of them are passed, they immediately winds up then in a court battle. 🙂

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  57. Coyote Blue? Some of the old gang is back. My daughter wants to marry her partner. They have been a couple for 20 years. They want to make honest lesbian women of each other. If you live in Washington (the virtuous state, not the evil national capital) don’t vote to roll back homosexual marriage. It’s easier to not bother to vote than to take the trouble to vote for something that might send you to an imaginary Hell. Just say, “I’m too lazy to vote.” Got to put the chickens to bed. They will vote however I tell them to vote. They are Chicago/Florida chickens.

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