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NYT Editorial: … From the beginning of his run for the Republican nomination, Mr. Romney has offered to transfigure himself into any shape desired by an audience in order to achieve power. In front of massed crowds or on television, he can sound sunny and inclusive, radiating a feel-good centrism. His “severely conservative” policies and disdain for much of the country are reserved for partisans, donors and the harsh ideologues who clutter his party’s base. This polarity is often described as “flip-flopping,” but the word is too mild to describe opposing positions that are simultaneously held.
…. He hasn’t abandoned or flip-flopped from the severe positions that won him the Republican nomination; they remain at the core of his campaign … All he’s doing is slapping whitewash on his platform. The immoderation of his policies, used to win favor with a hard-right party, cannot be disguised.
…. There isn’t really a Moderate Mitt; what is on display now is better described as Convenient Mitt. Anyone willing to advocate extremism to raise money and win primaries is likely to do the same to stay in office.
Full editorial here
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You can see VP Biden’s speech in Wisconsin yesterday at C-Span
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Read Steve Benen here
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USA Today: Bruce Springsteen once said he wouldn’t perform during the 2012 presidential campaign.
The Boss has changed his mind.
President Obama’s campaign said today that Springsteen will appear along with ex-President Bill Clinton at a pro-Obama rally Thursday in Parma, Ohio.
More here
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Happy Saturday everyone 😉
The Obama Diary 
Good morning all.
Morning Ceb, moooooooooooorning everyone 😉
The best team ever!
GM folks. Everyone cool ?
Morning amk! Cool? After Ireland lost 6-1 to Germany? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Morning Chips.
Mebbe time for Ireland to retire from soccer and concentrate on its national games aka the rounders ?
I’d give anything to be able to smack ya down ….. but you’re right 😥
teh wiki
Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a round wooden, plastic or metal bat. The players score by running around the four bases on the field.
The game is popular among Irish and British school children.
Sounds like fun. 🙂
We play it in Australia – when I was at school it was called “poor man’s baseball”. You could play with any type of bat – I remember playing it with a large stick from a tree and a tennis ball!
I used to play cricket with bundled up rubber bands. We had great time innovating shite like that.
luxury… 😉
We played rounders (informally) at school and at home in our neighborhood/backyards, and like 99ts, we would use tennis balls or random sticks as bats.
I used to play rounders in school in the summer term. Absolutely loved it!
Morning TOD…
Good morning, everyone!
I know others here are helping to push this story. The public needs to become aware of this reality. This is Romney’s America.
RT’ed.
thanks—–the fact that a Chinese flag flies in Freeport, Illinois should be breaking news. News media should not be allowed to ignore this story because it is Romney’s Bain—-and he’s still the largest shareholder—-which is the unpatriotic, destructive force here.
Yeah, Romney, take down the American flag. Sounds like “Freedom” to me.
Oh, well, we got this, TOD! #PressOn
Someone need to tweet this to Lindsay Lohan since she seems to think that mitt is the man…to create jobs!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. At least with Dick Cheney you know what you’re getting into.
Good Morning Everyone – CHIPS, TOD, lurker’s etc! Congratulations Ceb on # 1! 🙂
Chips I humbly come before to ask could you post the L O’Donnell (Last Word)’s Rewrite segment from last night (Friday) if you are able to do so? This segment is titled something to the effect of, “Rewriting the Debate Rules” It’s a MUST-SEE and I’m posting the link here, but you are able to embed. 🙂 🙂
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755883/ns/msnbc-the_last_word/
I watched the show last night and I loved when he looked into the camera and said “We are not electing a debater in chief. We are electing a Commander-In-Chief.” Chills.
I saw it too…great segment. His colleagues (Ed, Tweety, Chuckie, etc) should take a look at this …
+10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
What is the schedule lie for POTUS, VP Biden today. Any campaign events.
That suppose to be like, not lie.
Only Dr. Jill will be campaigning today at the OFA field offices. I think VP Biden is probably helping PBO with debate prep, etc (or just resting from his hectic schedule this week), and FLOTUS is probably attending to the girls this weekend. I pulled this schedule off Old Orange for all the campaigns on both sides.
On the campaign trail today:
Jill Biden — Cary, Greensboro and Charlotte, NC
OFA field office (Cary)
11:30 AM EDT
OFA field office (Greensboro)
2:30 PM EDT
OFA field office (Charlotte)
5:30 PM EDT
Mitt Romney — Portsmouth and Lebanon, OH
Shawnee State University (Portsmouth)
2:05 PM EDT
The Golden Lamb (Lebanon)
5:45 PM EDT
Paul Ryan — Youngstown, OH
Youngstown State University
10:15 AM EDT
John Boehner — Raleigh, NC
Campaign field office
10:45 AM EDT
Pres. Obama is headed to Virginia for three days of debate prep. He has a town hall debate on Tuesday.
Yes, Dems allowed and participated in the “Romney win” messaging, should have fought back hard with some glaring truths—–the brand new debate Romney, opposite of the one who existed for the 6 years prior, all the distortions and lies. The Repubs/media are trying to do the same with the Biden debate. And as I’m typing Ron Mott is saying “it is debatable who won the Biden/Ryan debate”, earlier said Repubs feel good about their 2 out of 2 debate wins.
I agree with Rev. Al, but one thing we have learn it seem that lying doesn’t matter much to the media and cable pundits. They know Mitt lied his Mormon ass off, but it was more important to them to bash President Obama.
Completely agree with you Dotster3. The mantra of the so called left media types should have been clear and simple- Liars can’t,don’t and did not win any Presidential Debate. Liars don’t win debates.
That is the message that should have been blared out.
orning all. I just want to say that I have never felt as pessimistic as I have over the last few days. It is inconceivable to me that one debate performance has caused this apparent poll collapse for the President. I don’t believe in conspiracies but I have to say that all the new RW Pollsters, the weird change in voter screens and all the narratives being pushed (such as a pollster going on Fox and despite his own polling showing the contrary says PBO can’t win Fl,Oh or Va and the dropping of exit polling by networks) makes me think that this is to set the scene for some serious voter fraud e.g by use of hacked machines etc. Tally has been spot on about this and I think it is playing out before our eyes. The question is, what can be done about it?
These dangerous, power hungry, unprincipled Rethugs and crazies need to be stopped.
No exit polling by the networks? They used to live for that sh*t. I knew there was a giltch in the matrix, when I came here yesterday. I don’t watch or listen to the news, is something else happening beside the tightening of the polls?
Criquet, the recent slew of RW polls are designed to do just the very thing they are doing to you right now – which is to get you completely demoralized and pessimistic about the outcome – so much so that you lose motivation to GOTV (esp if you think they’re going to steal the election anyway).
Here’s a piece of advice: DON’T fall for it. This is what the MSM/GOP has resorted to, now that their efforts at voter suppression have failed miserably. They are not going to steal the election because they can’t. So instead, they are now trying to use polling to manipulate the electorate into giving up prematurely. I highly doubt the accuracy and validity of any of the polling data released since the debate and that includes Nate Silver’s so-called predictive models, which are largely based on the same garbage polling from Republican leaning outfits.
I would encourage you to read this piece from The People’s View which takes a detailed look at the possible agenda behind all these Right-leaning polls which have been released in the last 10 days.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/10/the-polling-industrial-complex-and.html
Thanks HF2. Going to read it now.
I did read it and noted the points about the polls and media feeding each other. I also noted the author’s comment in the comments section that said:
“nancy a heitzeg
Collapse
The President can only speak to his outstanding record and call Romney a serial liar in his charming way..
And Amen to this — “This election falls in the hands of our ground game and the almighty Lord himself. I pray for the future of our nation.” –
we need Ohio Keith — they are trying to steal this again
Best comment I have read in the last two weeks, thank you so much. They are using Psych Ops now, but it has the reverse effect on me.
good read HF2 thx!
Morgan Freeman’s voice in the ad. Kick ass. Really kick ass. The Boss going out on the stump for Pres. Obama? More kick assness.
You bet your assness! (Sorry – couldn’t resist!)
An SEIU member made it all the way to my house in the middle of the country – they’re fired up! Go, unions!
Good morning everyone. Missed you last night Chips hope that you are well. The baby pushing the box in the Nevada video just melted my heart…….
This.
I note the TOD Train is barreling up to the 14,000,000 hits, a fabulous benchmark, Chipsticks, fabulous! Like YOU! 🙂 G’day y’all! 🙂
I need your help people. Hand wringing never gave a man a pot to piss in so I could use help reminding folks what is at stake. I started a hashtag #ReasonstoVoteObama help me fill it with positive tangible measurements about PO’s accomplishments. Polls don’t mean dick until Nov 6 and after the votes are counted. Thanks in advance.
or you could provide a look at what would happen in a non Obama administration i.e. #ReasonstoVoteObama making sure my job stays in the USA and is not shipped to China #Sensata or something like that.
Am I ready to vote? Hell yes I am. October 18th early voting.
Me too, I will be taking advantage of in office absentee ballot voting. We have so many propsals to overturn RWNJ legislation, we will have two ballots.18 darn proposals.
Here’s a great list in this LTE in the hometown newspaper of the Bain shutdown and China outsourcing of jobs——-great for phonebanking also.
http://www.journalstandard.com/newsnow/x2051148330/J-S-Letter-Obama-governing-The-rest-of-the-story
Love that Dotster, excellent – all great points, especially liked the last one:
16. Of our $16 trillion debt, 10% of it was accumulated by President Obama’s administration. The other 90% came from funding two wars, tax breaks and a prescription drug plan, all of which were inherited by his administration. As Paul Harvey use to say, “Good day.”
thanks dotster3. this approach is working. The meme on twitter shifted from pre-debate worries to a more combative stance defending PO and refocusing on Romney.
Great photo of adorable Bo Obama, suitable for framing and above the fireplace hanging.
Totally agree. He’s just as good-lookin’ as the rest of his family that resides there!
That’s right JO’B. We want four more years of this (among other things) please 🙂
Yes, please. Four more years of the goodness!
This campaign ad is as good as it gets. Pass it along. A MUST-SEE.
We’re all such political junkies, we already know what Newtie-boy is gonna say in the video. This is great to pass on to those who don’t, I agree!
There is Way more than just Newt in that this video. Did you watch it?
I opened it for later viewing. I will watch it, I promise! Too busy shoving a banana in my mouth for breakfast now. Ha!
I remember this now. It’s long (for an ad) but it’s really a good reminder of what others said about Mittens. Very good reminder.
Guys, the polls from Friday that showed Romney with a slight lead were national polls (which I could care less about since who cares if a red state is now going to go 55-45 for Romney instead of 51-49) and a few swing state polls. However, the swing state polls were from ARG and Rasmussen. ARG is actually more volatile/ less reliable than Rasmussen. If you remember just a few weeks ago ARG had POTUS up by 10 in a swing state (can’t remember which one) where all other pollsters had him up by just 2 or 3. So volatile means unreliable. Nate Silver in 2008 threatened to stop including ARG in his averages so now of course this year he not only includes them but doesn’t explain how unreliable they are. We all know Rasmussen is run by an acknowledged GOP operative, Scott Rasmussen. Frankly, even his polls don’t give Romney much of a lead other than in Florida by 4.
If you want to see what I’m talking about to understand these are the only polls that came out on Friday click on this:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/oct-12-romney-debate-gains-show-staying-power/
The Obama campaign knows what it is doing. I will be doing my part in spending it in Iowa canvassing next weekend and making calls tomorrow and any other time that I’m not working.
FOUR MORE YEARS FOR BARACK OBAMA!
Hope with all my mighty might that this trend continues
If the left behaves and supports PBO the way the Repubs supported Ryan, we’ll be fine.
Even if the whiny left doesn’t get the ‘style’ they want from PBO, his substance, his heart, his intelligence, his record and his passion for the welfare and success of ALL Americans will be on display in Tuesday’s debate. THAT is what everyone MUST champion from now until the election. He is our President. He is a great President who has accomplished amazing things against the worst obstruction America has ever seen. If the left supports him, has his back, and celebrates the kind of communicator that he is, we’ll be fine.
I think we have to bombard Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews with tweets, emails warning them to stay focused on the big picture and to remember what’s at stake. Maybe send them Lawrence O’Donnell’s rewrite from yesterday where he told the country “we’re not voting for a debater-in-chief; we’re voting for a Commander-in-Chief”. Ed and Chris need to remember that.
Yes, this election is different from 2008, but I remember the negative press and constant bad news for our side then, too. The press was IN LOVE with Sarah Palin. They followed her avidly, reporting every time she said “palling around with terrorists” I remember the ugly groups at her rallies, the hatred, the anger on their side, and the calm presence of President Obama urging us to work harder. Granted, we didn’t have to fight Citizens United four years ago, but the President does have enough money, and continues to bring in plenty of money. Notice the Romneys have not revealed their Septembr numers yet.
SO……like someone above said, get out and work, and don’t let the liars get to you. We are NOT going to lose this thing. The President always fights like it’s close, that is good. We need to keep on the so-called Democratic leaning media to be fair, and not go ballistic over little things.
Nancy Pelosi is a constant beacon, and is realistic. She is convinced we can turn the house too. That is very important. So……get a grip, and don’t let the nervous nellies demoralize you. That Chinese flag business is very important, and needs to be spread, which it is.
That’s my mini-rant this morning…….
yes, carolyn!!! times 1,000! every single word.
GOOD Morning/ Afternoon /Night TOD WORLD! 😆 😆
Are the voices tuned? The time is now, the VOTE is near! Eyes on the conductor! Let’s go……3-2-1..
http://www.onetermmore.com/video_subtitles.html
Hellllllloooooooooooooooo VC. Excuse me, have you only just got up?
😳 Shush! Speak softly. /don’t be drawing amk’s attention to my tardy arrival/ We wimmin ought to stick together.
AMK? DID YOU SEE THIS? VC ONLY GOT UP. 🙄
She has an alibi, she was up chasing me…all over TODville
till very late last night
Thanks, OMF. Nice to see I have some true friends willing to stand up for me. 😛 Did I catch you after the first time? I can’t remember. 😉
Ah, okay OMF! 😆 I hope she didn’t do you any damage?
Tch, tch, tch. wimmin/smh
(Now you both decide whom I am dinging).
See what you’ve done amk, you’ve divided the wimmin /smh
/frown/ Did you not learn anything in friendship school, CC? Or is it me refusing to accept you are more like Mitt than previously thought? What’s Amk offered that I can match? I can’t match the million dollar cheque or the car elevator or the dresses! What’s left? /sigh/
/grin/ Hi, Amk. I’ve been up for ages but was attending to other matters**, so I didn’t notice you there. How are you?
**actually I was waiting for Chips to leave for the day before signing in, then got impatient
I ajopolize VC, from here on in us wimmin will unite to put amk in his place, promise. min/smh
Yeah right. Blare out in public that you’re gonna tag team me. That’s the ticket to ‘surprise’ me.
Tch, tch, tch
/indignant/ Hellooo, and why are you reading our personal correspondence? In a family, you should be able to leave your mail on the table without other people being nosy. Didn’t you see from the salutation it wasn’t meant for you? Geez louise, do we have to lock everything up now? 😯
Yes.
Oh. 😕
We men. !!!!!
..are annoyingly nosy vis-a-vis personal correspondence which is not for our eyes.
Admitting your weaknesses is a step towards change and progress….I hope.
Nope.
GM vc. Hope you liked the dress.
GN, Amk! Mother’s training says I should say ‘yes, thank you’, but I’m going to go with truth ‘That’s not the one you and I agreed on. I was supposed to get the one with my favourite colours, remember? /grudgingly/ Anyways, i supposed I’m grateful you remembered to spare me a thought. 🙄
This has likely been posted but needs to be posted again
Absolutely dotster!! This article should go viral.
great article. a while back here i called nate silver’s “model” a computerized weather sock. he collects polls and runs them through a secret formula only he knows, and spits out basically an average with some adjustments he’s deemed worthwhile. when the data going in is biased, and it is since he includes so many republican companies (there’s no counter balance of democratic-leaning companies), then the model is flawed right off the bat, and simply helps push the same propaganda. he’s says he adjusts for that….just trust him!
i read he was a baseball stats guy before he magically became a political expert while still in his 20s, and then the news declred him a great predictor. as far as i can tell, that reputation came from him getting close on some election results…THE NIGHT BEFORE THE ELECTIONS. it just makes sense that as an election approaches the voting day, all the variables are more know and polls will likely be closer to the end result. and what good does that do anyway!?! doesn’t help campaigns. true political experts can predict what’s likely to happen months and years before an election, since they’ve been on the ground for years and been through many election battles. last week his “model” had president obama about 90% chance of winning, now someone wrote here it’s saying 56% or so. see, wind sock. means nothing other than to help push the media’s manufactured narratives.
so i’ll add that his gig is not just being a computerized wind sock, he’s actually up on the roof pointing and holding that wind sock in the direction he wants, regardless of which way the wind is really blowing.
Here’s the problem I see with this analysis…he was dead on right in 2008 *and* 2010. We might not like his methods, and he’s lost all sense of context writing from behind the pay-wall, but how do we argue with his results? I say we wait until the week before the election, take a snapshot of his predictions and see how they pan out once the dust settles.
I now stand corrected…I was wrong…see Deaniac’s wonderful post blasting the Nate Silver myth to bits: http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/10/nate-silver-just-isnt-that-good-at.html
whoops! see you’re already on it. glad you found value in deaniac’s post.
so three days ago he was “predicting” a 90% chance of president obama winning. now it’s under 60% three days later. what’ll it be next week? this isn’t predicting anything. that why i call it a computerized wind sock. and appears deaniac was on the same wavelength with me, and he goes into much more detail here
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/10/nate-silver-just-isnt-that-good-at.html
Reading Nate Silver got me through the 2008 election with my sanity in tact. I believe his predictions came well before election night. It was his own site and he was free to express his partisanship in commentary, even as he reported the polls whatever they were. He explained them to us and kept us on track. When he went to work for the NYT, a lot of that opinion commentary went away. Now he seems to aim for ‘objective’ in his comments as well as his polling. I think I have noticed changes in the way he reports and he is certainly not the person I go to now for reassurance. However, I still look at the graphs in the sidebar and find reassurance there. He explained a lot about his model in ’08. I am not mathematically literate enough to understand it, but there were many on his site who were and it was discussed constantly, it wasn’t a secret. All of the people who analyze polls have their statistical models. These days he doesn’t seem to do that as much, but many of the people on the old site, at least at first, were statistics nerds who followed him from the baseball site. Now I am sure writes for a wider audience of people who don’t care that much about the technical aspects and couldn’t follow it anyway. I never thought before that he skewed his analysis model pro-Obama, even though it was obvious from the commentary that he supported him. I don’t think he skews his anaylsis model now toward Romney. The polls are the polls and we may not like them but that is what is being reported. I don’t think he can throw out every poll that doesn’t show support for PBO. I don’t know if he has suddenly become Republican, or if it’s just that his commentary sounds so much different because he is not now showing overt partisanship for PBO. It disturbs me too, but I will not throw the baby (his good work) out with the bathwater.
tweeted it and now RT’ing you betsy – I agree! it should go viral!
The man told his doctor that he wasn’t able to do all the things around the house that he used to do. When the examination was complete, he said: “Now, Doc, I can take it. Tell me in plain English what is wrong with me.”
“Well, in plain English,” the doctor replied, “you’re just lazy.”
“Okay,” said the man. “Now give me the medical term so that I can tell my wife.”
Hospital regulations require a wheel chair for patients being discharged. However, while working as a student nurse, I found one elderly gentleman already dressed and sitting on the bed with a suitcase at his feet, who insisted he didn’t need my help to leave the hospital.
After a chat about rules being rules, he reluctantly let me wheel him to the elevator.
On the way down I asked him if his wife was meeting him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s still upstairs in the bathroom changing out of her hospital gown.”
😆 😆 See? Min!
That student nurse was a hawtie. See ? 🙂
LOL!
Look how talking points memo justifies the alleged Robney surge-
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/what-does-a-winning-romney-majority-look-like.php?m=1
That’s just spin. I went to OFA office this morning and we are all focused on GOTV.
Focus on getting our voters to the polls and we win. And the pollsters know it.
Thanks, again, jovie for everything you are doing on the ground to get this President and Vice President re-elected!
I concur jovie – that is what we are doing today as well. I’m going out for a quick canvass after lunch and then manning a hub staging location for GOTV late this afternoon/evening
The Jewish progressive super PAC behind wake the phuck up-
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/jcer-sarah-silverman-samuel-jackson-wake-the-f-up.php?m=1
oh interesting! I signed up for emails the super PAC’s website “Actually.org” as they will have many different people fact checking mitt romney’s lies and make them into little video’s to tweet not unlike “wake the hjuck up”
Here’s their teaser vid. it’s an intro for things to come:
Excellent Alice, retweeted, thank you!
Here’s a tweet from the proud owners of the Restaurant that PBO went with the winners of the OFA contest 🙂
Respect!
I like it.
Which suggests the likely voter model is trash!
This. Thanks criquet.
Just saw this in my old hometown newspaper in Iowa—–noticing similar stories on the sites I check across the country. Dems lead in early voting.
http://globegazette.com/news/local/democrats-still-lead-in-cerro-gordo-county-early-voting/article_b008f1c6-14eb-11e2-a6a1-001a4bcf887a.html
nice! thx criquet. RT’d
R&R is cross crossing Ohio- are any of you concerned that we are not in there more?
Just asking?
PBO has been there a lot Jovie, back again after the debate –
President announces post-debate schedule: Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, New York over two days.
Nice! Thanks chips, just curious.
See chips post in the thread. Clinton and The Boss are there. PBO is there.
Jovie, they got this. It’s too little too late for Mittens and his sidekick in Ohio.
I think She should be in a second term for the Obama Administration.
She is a good surrogate, obviously cares a lot.
She is a great fighter like her beloved mother who is no longer with us. I feel that she has her mother’s fight to carry the fight to the very end with grace especially giving the ‘good ole boys’ a run for their money.
I would love to see her to continue moving in a direction that will give the president’s administration a great boost for women rights. Love you.HZ
So happy to hear The Boss changed his mind. His new “We take care of our own” is a terrific anthem for the President. Bruce knows that only one team is truly working for the working class and that is the President and Joe Biden. Can’t wait to see Bruce in concert in December. Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce!
Bye everyone, back soon! Keep on!
http://americablog.com/2012/10/did-paul-ryan-borrow-story-about-his-daughter-from-kurt-cobain.html
Did Paul Ryan “borrow” story about his daughter from Kurt Cobain?
Here’s Paul Ryan during last night’s debate on how he became pro-life, and how his daughter got the nickname “Bean”:
You know, I think about 10 1/2 years ago, my wife Janna and I went to Mercy Hospital in Janesville where I was born, for our seven week ultrasound for our firstborn child, and we saw that heartbeat. A little baby was in the shape of a bean. And to this day, we have nicknamed our firstborn child Liza, “Bean.” Now I believe that life begins at conception.
And here’s Kurt Cobain’s and Courtney Love’s daughter Frances Bean Cobain on how she got the name “Bean” twenty years ago:
Frances Bean Cobain was born at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and was immediately anointed the world’s newest rock princess. Her parents were two of the biggest rock stars on the planet and her godfather is R.E.M frontman Michael Stipe. Kurt Cobain named his daughter after Frances McKee, the guitarist for The Vaselines, and gave her the middle named Bean because he thought she resembled a kidney bean on the ultrasound. Unfortunately, Frances never really got to know her father; he shot himself to death when she was just 20 months old.
Ryan is reportedly a Nirvana fan, the band that Kurt Cobain started and starred in. We’re to believe this is just a coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe Paul Ryan plagiarized the story about his daughter?
The story that lying Ryan told din’t sound real to me when I heard it on Thursday for Ryan by then was already against-choice as a staffer in the 1990s. And by the time he was elected to congress in 1998, Ryan was already against choice.
Also, too, who gets ultrasounds at 7 weeks? Most women don’t even know they are pregnant at that point?
New post everyone:
http://theobamadiary.com/2012/10/13/the-week-ahead-4/
I thought it was awesome when VP Biden told the moderator that “facts matter”. He wasn’t only talking to her, he was talking to all the pundits as well as his fellow Americans.