[jeffkrol]

Beat the pants off of Ryan..
Deval Patrick slammed Mitt Romney last night. But do his facts check out?

[boriscleto]

Michelle Obama was much more effective IMO. She was able to slam the lies of the right without ever directly mentioning them.

DNC Day 1: Now That's the America We Know:
Occasionally, every now and then, the Rude Pundit feels a sense of transcendent love for his fellow humans. While most days, he pretty much feels like going on a stabbing spree and then getting rid of the bodies through the cleansing power of fire, sweet fire, there are times when he is in a group of mostly strangers, on the subway or at some event, some place where there's a diversity of races and classes, and everyone is just so tragically human and interwoven by circumstance, by space and time, that a warm feeling of love shoves aside the misanthropy and he thinks, "Yes, this is how we're supposed to be." And he feels uplifted, in a very real and physical sense, as if he's floating for just a moment. Then, usually, some ******* yells at a kid or some jerk gets too loud on a cell phone, and he hits the ground again.

When the Rude Pundit first turned on C-Span's coverage of the DNC (because **** MSNBCCNNFox; he can think for himself), no one was speaking and the cameras just kept cutting to various parts of the crowd. "Jesus," he thought, "this is the America I know." See, unlike the incredibly white Republican National Convention, with the uncomfortably wedged in token people of color, here was the United States that most of us experience on a daily basis, including all those white idiots at the RNC. It is a constant stream of difference, of engaging with difference, of looking beyond difference in order to accomplish everything that needs to get done, whether at the workplace or the school or the grocery store when you just need to pay for your Pop-Tarts.

The RNC's narrative was based on a fantasy, that the country is made up of entrepreneurs and entrepreneur-wannabes, a bunch of gun-toting freedom loving men whose wives proudly give birth to whatever children are ejaculated into their wild, untamed ******s, a white rural fantasia where all anyone needs is to be left alone in order to fulfill one's destiny, the chimera of rugged individualism never so seemingly at odds with the true day-to-day lives of Americans.

The truth is something so very different and so very messy compared with the neat, white fictions the RNC laid out. The truth is that most people don't want to start businesses. They want jobs or better lives and if they get it through the government, then at least it's a ****in' paycheck. The truth is that most people won't ever need a gun, even if they pretend they do. The truth is that this is a messy country, and stories move forward, into a hard-fought and unsure future, even if the GOP is stuck in a flashback to a nation that not only never existed, but could only exist in the most extreme dictatorial state. The RNC portrayed the citizens of the country as being in a locked battle with an evil government, as if the Obama administration was the Assad regime in Syria and they were just meagerly armed rebels, the better to appeal to the knuckle-dragging Tea Party, who were barely mentioned but whose neanderthal gruntings echoed constantly in the speeches. The Democrats, last night, at least, called "Bullshit" on their war.

And no one did it more beautifully, succinctly, and devastatingly than First Lady Michelle Obama. Speaking directly to the image of her husband as a brutal socialist totalitarian, she not only called out the lies of the right without mentioning them (always a more brutal tactic), but she laid out how a president, and a government, can affect the everyday lives of all Americans, embracing Obamacare by saying the President "did it because he believes that here in America, our grandparents should be able to afford their medicine...our kids should be able to see a doctor when they’re sick...and no one in this country should ever go broke because of an accident or illness." It's that last one that Republicans have no answer for at all.

She said, "[I]f our parents and grandparents could toil and struggle for us...if they could raise beams of steel to the sky, send a man to the moon, and connect the world with the touch of a button...then surely we can keep on sacrificing and building for our own kids and grandkids." At least two out of three of those occurred only because of government investment in research, science, and industry. Michelle Obama rebuked the notion that the greatest good is making money, that financial comfort and material accumulation is the only measure of success. There is more, she said, there is family and love and community, and, goddamn, isn't that worth more than another ten million? When Republicans tried to say such things, they came across as winking jokes.

People keep comparing Obama's speech to Ann Romney's, and, yes, they both played the role of supportive spouse. But a better comparison would be to Mitt Romney's attempts to humanize himself in his speech. Michelle Obama's emotions throughout her speech, and especially towards the end, her stutters, her repetitions came across as so very real, as if she was one of us talking to us. Mitt Romney attempted to appear dewy-eyed and sincere, but mostly he just looked as if he was patronizing an audience that thinks such patronization is identification; he was talking to a fake nation. Michelle Obama talked to a real America.

To bottom line it: At a jury trial, the Rude Pundit would want Michelle Obama as his attorney. And he'd love it if she'd face off against Romney.

Michelle Obama brought the soul. Tonight, Bill Clinton will bring the funk (and, frankly, you can bet that Mitt Romney is shitting himself over what Clinton is gonna say, no matter what the GOP says).

Note: "It's okay," the Rude Pundit told himself this morning. "It's okay to every now and again put aside the cynicism and the rancor and the doubts and just enjoy a good patriotic boner."

[dadipentak]

Michelle was awesome!

[ihasa]

Michelle's speech was legendary.

[graphicgr8s]

Clinton is now talking about how he got 4 balanced budgets. Answer? Arithmetic. Sure. Keep telling yourself that. Might have been the Republican congress that curtailed his spending.

Would have been nice if Patrick was telling the truth though. Sure he didn't create many jobs. Pretty hard to do when unemployment is 4.6% It is impossible to have 0% unemployment and 4.6% is about a statistical zero.

The O'Reilly Factor - Bill O'Reilly - Fox News

Yeah I know you libs don't like Fox.But like you say facts are facts. Or does that only apply if the "facts" come from the left wing lame stream media?

[graphicgr8s]

Michelle's speech was legendary.

Yeah she's a legend too.

In her own mind.

In her spare time.

Come on. Obama came from a fairly well off family.

Madelyn Dunham, who took university classes but to her chagrin never earned a degree, nonetheless rose from a secretarial job at the Bank of Hawaii to become one of the state's first female bank vice presidents.

Interesting. Toot was part of the establishment he rallies against.

[jeffkrol]

Clinton is now talking about how he got 4 balanced budgets. Answer? Arithmetic. Sure. Keep telling yourself that. Might have been the Republican congress that curtailed his spending.

Would have been nice if Patrick was telling the truth though. Sure he didn't create many jobs. Pretty hard to do when unemployment is 4.6% It is impossible to have 0% unemployment and 4.6% is about a statistical zero.

The O'Reilly Factor - Bill O'Reilly - Fox News

Yeah I know you libs don't like Fox.But like you say facts are facts. Or does that only apply if the "facts" come from the left wing lame stream media?

i wouldn't like facts from a blow hard communist or a the likes of O'reality-checkout O'reilly..Put them in writing.. not spit.........

[JohnInIndy]

Facts facts. Since when do libs believe in facts?

During Romney’s four years in office, Massachusetts added a net 49,100 jobs (an increase of about 1.5 percent). In the next four years under Romney’s successor, Democrat Deval Patrick, Massachusetts lost a net 66,400 jobs (a decrease of 2.03 percent).

An Obama ad claimed Massachusetts “fell” to 47th under Romney, in the 12 months before he took office, the state ranked 50th in job creation. That ranking remained 50th during Romney’s first year in office, but by his final year, it had improved to 28th.

Massachusetts “fell” to 47th under Romney. That’s a bit misleading. Massachusetts’ state ranking for job growth went from 50th the year before he took office, to 28th in his final year. It was 47th for the whole of his four-year tenure, but it was improving, not declining, when he left.

Romney raised taxes on the middle class. It’s true that Romney imposed a number of fees, but none of them targeted middle-income persons. Also, Romney proposed cutting the state income tax three times — a measure that would have resulted in tax cuts for all taxpayers — but he was rebuffed every time by the state’s Democratic Legislature

“Massachusetts lost 40,000 manufacturing jobs, a rate twice the national average.” That’s close to true, but the state lost a greater number of manufacturing jobs in the four years before Romney took office, and more in the four years after he left. In fact, the rate of job loss in manufacturing slowed during Romney’s time as governor.

The state wasn’t outsourcing contracts. Rather, in some cases, state contractors were subcontracting work to companies overseas. Romney vetoed a bill that would have prevented the state from doing business with companies that outsourced any state work to other countries. The Democratic Legislature did not override Romney’s veto, as it did with most of his vetoes.

Massachusetts lacks a strong system of regional governments that typically pay for their own capital investments. A 2009 state report noted that “many of the capital needs of the entire state are borne by the Commonwealth itself,” which is rather unique.

It’s ironic that the Obama campaign would criticize Romney for adding state debt when under his presidency the national debt has reached the greatest level as a percentage of the gross domestic product since World War II.

[jeffkrol]

Facts facts. Since when do libs believe in facts?

It’s ironic that the Obama campaign would criticize Romney for adding state debt when under his presidency the national debt has reached the greatest level as a percentage of the gross domestic product since World War II.

and since you like taxes soo much..........

TRUE – Business taxes were up…

According to the Tax Foundation, the Massachusetts corporate income tax rate stayed at 9.5 percent throughout Romney’s term. But Romney enacted a 14 percent surtax in 2004, in keeping with a broader trend of raising taxes on businesses. So Patrick is right on here.

Deval Patrick slammed Mitt Romney last night. But do his facts check out?