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Just caught a typo in that last post. It should have read …

I wish Kaine had been more forceful. He could have and should have swatted away, with hard facts, so much more of what Pence said.

Did you watch the GOP bash in Tampa? I did. And the lies were coming down harder than the rain from Hurricane Isaac.

Repubs stood there on the podium and bashed Obama. That’s O.K. That’s their job. That’s politics in a democracy.

But what is new to the Formerly Grand Old Party is its ability to look into the camera and lie. We’ll get to specific lies in a moment.

First, let’s recall what Obama faced from the moment he won the election.

Republican leaders huddled together in January 2009, before Obama was sworn in. As quoted in the Sept. 3, 2012 issue of Time magazine, Republicans got their marching orders directly from party leaders.

“Ohio Senator George Voinovich summarized the strategy: ‘If Obama was for it, we had to be against it.’”

And they followed those orders like good little soldiers. To hell with what was good for the country; for the GOP it was Party First, Country Second.

Obama angered those of us on the left who watched him bend over backwards, trying to be a bi-partisan president. But again and again he was stopped by a wall of NO!

And now they have the gall to stand up and say, “See…his policies didn’t work!”

But the tempest in Tampa did provide Democrats with a moral victory of a sort. The lies from Veep nominee Paul Ryan were so incredibly blatant that you can find them listed in an article on the Fox News web site!

Of course, the biggest lie of all is directly from a Mitt Romney “I approved this message” political ad. His team took Obama’s words and maliciously edited them to make it seem as if he said to business owners “you didn’t build” your own business.  If fact, Obama was speaking off the cuff, talking about roads and bridges and the whole American system that allows businesses to grow. His phrasing was inelegant, but anyone watching the whole video clip clearly knew what he was saying. And Mitt had to know it. (Click here to see the clip, along with Jon Stewart’s recap of the twisted GOP spin.)

But since he’s not running on his record as a governor (it’s a poor one), and being that he has released scant details about how he can make the U.S. a better place, he approved the lie and then had the whole GOP Convention repeat the lie again and again to America.

How disgusting.

The Republican party of Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay was a party guided by rational thinkers. No longer. The GOP of the 21^st century is overflowing with wackos. Not just Tea Party wackos. No, today the leaders are nuts.

Watch their presidential candidates as they crisscross the country, throwing red meat to the radical right. They tell the faithful, “the president” or “the Democrats” or “Liberals” want to … fill in the blank with some awful thing. But I have been a liberal Democrat for decades, and I watch them and wonder, Who the hell are they talking about? They just make shit up.

Remember Bill Ayers? Four years ago Sarah Palin kept bringing up the name of this “terrorist” that Obama “pals around with.” No one brings up his name anymore because it was a bad joke then, and now everyone knows it.

For a trip down memory lane of the 2008 race for the White House, check out this segment from The Daily Show. The horror-predictions Jon Stewart’s staff dug up are just the tiniest tip of the iceberg. There were thousands of other clips they could have shown.

And in part two of that segment, he gives you a few of the nutty things being said, in total seriousness, in the current campaign. While all are weird, the well-publicized speech by the head of the NRA is so bizarre that you have to wonder if even he believes it. The sound-bite doesn’t do justice to the strangeness of what he said in that speech, and elsewhere. In a nutshell, he’s been telling his robotic followers that Obama signed pro-gun legislation – which I wasn’t happy about – as part of a brilliantly clever ruse to lull guns owners into a false sense of security, and then in his second term, wham!, he will take away all your guns!

For the radical right, paranoia runs deep.

Ken

P.S. To my mind this segment has one of Jon Stewart’s best lines: “Barack Obama has failed to keep many of the campaign promises that his opponents made for him.”

The post below, about the success of the auto industry bailout, was sent out 8/5/10.

Today we learned that Chrysler is paying off its loan years ahead of schedule.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=13676213

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Republicans love to make dire predictions about every economic proposal put forth by the Democrats. If you follow politics at all, you know that our president is a “socialist” whose policies are leading us down a path to totalitarian communistic hell. Except, of course, he’s not. When newly-elected President Obama had to make the intensely difficult decision about whether or not to bail out the rapidly sinking US auto industry, the GOP, with virtually one voice, shouted their favorite word, NO! This video was broadcast last week, on August 3, 2010. It reminds you, with video clips, of what the GOP was saying about a year and a half ago. Where are they now, when all three US auto companies are showing healthy profits, and tens of thousands (at least) of American jobs have been saved? Try to watch at least the first 7 minutes or so – up until Gov. Granholm comes on.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#38497026

The hypocrisy of our Republican friends is mind boggling. They refuse increase taxes ever so slightly for millionaires (Democrats merely wanted to go back to the rates under Clinton) but they are happy to go after teachers – who should be paid more, not less!

As happens so often, Jon Stewart makes it all painfully clear.

I could literally stop this video every ten seconds or so and expand on what you just saw, but I’ll just say that if anything is not clear, ask me.

Crisis in Dairyland – For Richer and Poorer – Teachers and Wall Street

When will America’s teachers follow the lead of Wall Street and start making some sacrifices for the children?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-3-2011/crisis-in-the-dairyland—for-richer-and-poorer—teachers-and-wall-street

This is one of the most powerful “political” videos you are likely to see. It deals with the upcoming intense debates about fiscal responsibility, an issue that affects every part of  our society. If your blood isn’t roiled by the time you get to the end, check for a pulse.  I was angry at the stunning hypocrisy of the GOP, but angry too that the Democrats – and the press – allow the GOP to continually say one thing and do the complete opposite.

It’s long – around 14 minutes. And it begins with a silly skit (in which, inexplicably, the sound effects are different from what was heard on TV). But once Rachel sits down, she dramatically builds a case that smashes most Americans’ perceptions about which party does what. Her final point, a look at benefits for the unemployed, is the perfect exclamation point to her controlled anger.

Important: Notice how all her facts are facts, backed up either by in-context video clips or statistics from unimpeachable sources.

I would love to hear a Republican response to this video.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/40225485#40225485