Month: August 2012

Like for the first two days of the GOP convention I was trying to find a fact check article that had some substance but was pretty much unsuccessful.  It seems that Clint Eastwood’s rambling rants to an empty chair was the highlight of the night.

Of course, Mr. Romney pulled out the “Obama Medicare $716 billion cut which has been already thoroughly discounted.  The other big announcement was that he plans to create 12 million new jobs. The only jobs a president can actually create is in the federal government  and I don’t think that is what he has in mind. Here is what one expert said about that

If Mitt Romney were elected president in November, he is likely to oversee an economy that gains 12 million new jobs in the next four years. But, as Mark Hopkins, a senior analyst at Moody’s told the Washington Post, “the baseline forecast is for payroll employment to increase by 12 million jobs from the start of 2013 to the end of 2016.”

So I guess what he is saying is that he will take credit for the jobs if they actually occur 🙂 It would be interesting to compare what Mr. Romney said last night to what Mr. Obama said four years ago. As I remember they have a lot of similarities. A bunch of promises and little substance to go along with them. But that just seems to be the way of politics now.

To me the crowning words of the night were these from Mr. Romney:

“I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed. But his promises gave way to disappointment and division,” Romney said. “This isn’t something we have to accept. Now is the moment when we can do something. With your help we will do something.”

If only those words were actually true. If Mr. Romney really wanted President Obama to succeed he would have urged his fellow Republican to come together with the Democrats in doing what they can agree is good for America and not filibuster everything that could have actually accomplished something. It is a fact that the last two congresses have been the least productive in the last one hundred years.  But then again since the new radical base of the GOP just doesn’t trust Romney they likely would not have listened to him anyway.

If President Obama had succeeded it would be very unlikely that Mr. Romney would be elected. So five years and millions of dollars of his personal payments would be for naught. I kind of doubt the sincerity of his words above. In order to get to where he is today Mr. Romney had to basically deny almost all of his life’s crowning achievements to appease the now radical base of his party. He had to say that all the work he did to get almost universal healthcare for his State was a big mistake! This alone make me doubt that he has any foundational beliefs that he is not willing to deny in order to gain the Presidency.

The final observation that I want to make before personally putting politics back on the shelf for a while is that the last three nights have firmed up my belief that without some very substantial change the GOP is bound for oblivion. The reason I say that is that when you look at the convention crowd all you see is primarily white faces and old white faces at that.  Our country is become a more diverse nation as the years go by. If the GOP can’t find some way to stop alienating those who are not WASPs they are doomed.

But what do I know….

Source: FACT CHECK: Ryan Takes Factual Shortcuts in Speech – ABC News.

Laying out the first plans for his party’s presidential ticket, GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took some factual shortcuts Wednesday night when he attacked President Barack Obama’s policies on Medicare, the economic stimulus and the budget deficit.

I must admit that Mr. Ryan really knows how to give a speech. He got the crowd worked up to a fever pitch last night. He is almost as good at it as Mr. Obama in that regard. I must also admit that the media sure does have creative ways for evaluating political rhetoric. I am just a simple guy but to me “factual shortcuts” sure do sound like just telling lies.  I am a wordsmith by nature. I look for just the right word to add to many of my posts but I try not to call things “untruths” or “factual shortcuts” when there is actually a more appropriate word readily available.  Here are some of the fact check discussions from this article.

RYAN: “And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. … So they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.”

THE FACTS: Ryan’s claim ignores the fact that Ryan himself incorporated the same cuts into budgets he steered through the House in the past two years as chairman of its Budget Committee, using the money for deficit reduction. And the cuts do not affect Medicare recipients directly, but rather reduce payments to hospitals, health insurance plans and other service providers.

In addition, Ryan’s own plan to remake Medicare would squeeze the program’s spending even more than the changes Obama made, shifting future retirees into a system in which they would get a fixed payment to shop for coverage among private insurance plans. Critics charge that would expose the elderly to more out-of-pocket costs.

So here is the VP candidate railing against what he is actually for with even more cuts! Being a wordsmith I look for just the right words to describe this and to me it is being two-faced which of course means deceitful or hypocritical. Pick whichever one you like; they  both apply here. If you can tolerate more go to the source article and see the other gross fabrications of the truth by Mr. Ryan.  The differences between reality and his speech are totally amazing to me.  I’m sure Mr. Ryan thinks he is only playing a game here by grossly distorting the facts but some of us think it is much more than that. It puts your integrity on the line.  I really hope he is a better and more truthful person than the rhetoric from his speech shows him to be….

But what do I know….

Source:  Fact check: Christie’s keynote address – USATODAY.com.

Christie: Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debacle of putting the world’s greatest health care system in the hands of federal bureaucrats and putting those bureaucrats between an American citizen and her doctor.

Fact Check comment:  As we just said in our first item on the convention, the Affordable Care Act doesn’t create a government-run system, like that of Britain or Canada, nor does it regulate the work of doctors. Republicans often call the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which would recommend ways to slow the growth of Medicare spending, “bureaucrats” that would ration care. But the IPAB, made up of health care professionals, economists and others, wouldn’t have the power to do that, according to the law.

I just came across this fact-check article about Mr. Christy’s keynote speech last night. As usual it was filled with mostly half-truths or half-lies, whichever you prefer.  I guess that makes him a good lawyer. But as the quote above indicates there were also some outright lies.

I don’t expect much better than this from the politicians especially during their conventions/infomercials but I hope others are like me and can see through this kind of rhetoric for what it is. Don’t base your vote by what they say. Base it on their actions or at the very least what their solutions to the problems are. Talk is cheap and ranting without solutions is even worse…..