Open Thread

freddiebrown 09.01.12 at 2:33 pm
Why Hillary Clinton Won’t Be at Democratic Convention:

As delegates gather next week for the Democratic National Convention, they will look in vain for one of the party’s biggest stars. Where in the world is Hillary Clinton?

The 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, frequently rated the most popular member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet, will be half a world away from the North Carolina convention center when Democrats gather September 4-6 to nominate Obama for a second term.

Clinton’s head-spinning itinerary for that week, which will take her from the South Pacific to Asia to Russia’s eastern port city of Vladivostok, is business as usual for the U.S. Secretary of State, who has broken numerous travel records since taking the job in 2009. Through it all, Clinton has studiously adhered to the rule that America’s top diplomat must remain above the partisan fray. When asked touchy domestic political questions, Clinton’s usual response is a wry, silent smile.
Read more at http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/08/29/Why-Hillary-Clinton-Wont-Be-at-Democratic-Convention.aspx#RwMvPbkzUyKkkbpw.99

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DancesWithPumas 09.01.12 at 4:35 pm

Whoa. I just read a personal account of someone who went through the ravishes and aftermath of Isaac. Sad account. Absence of services, exhaustion, constant noise, oblivious gay men, etc.
BUT then the account morphs into blaming Romney for what he’s going to do to make matters even worse. No mention, not a syllable about the current administration, the CURRENT President.

Look, if my house was burning down, and a bunch of fire personnel were standing around doing nothing to extinguish said fire, I’d be pissed, and blaming them and the authorities in office! the last thing you’d be hearing from me is how a possible candidate might possibly maybe in the future gut the fire force completely.

I recall someone on Twitter saying her daughter asked if Romney slicked down his hair for the convention with BP oil. Again, not a mention of Obama not lifting a finger about that man made disaster.

Im not a romney fan, as you probably realize by now, but, I mean, geez, c’mon now. Are these people so rabidly partisan that they’re that beyond the realm of reality?

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freddiebrown 09.01.12 at 5:07 pm

Dances, I agree with you. It is so sad that people are not against policy or issues (be it social or economic) but railing in anticipation beyond comprehension of reality.
It’s like Obama being given the Nobel Prize in anticipation and advance of the good work he will likely do. They are demonizing Romney ahead of time. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty or basic human decency but there are people are stuck in hatred without realizing it.

I think Romney is a decent man with believes that may not jell with everyone but I hope he closes the divide among parties and gender just a little. If nothing else, do not create further divide but agree to disagree.
I am not here to tout voting for Romney because I think we already know what we will do…but I watched his interview with CNN. He talked about how during the Olympics, he decided how to make a profit out the consessions – which wasn’t making a profit – a pizza stand. If one cost X and you cut it up and sell it for XYZ per slice, your profit is YZ. He impressed me with his ability to get down to the minute details in order to leave no stone un-turned and turned the Olympics around.

Anyway,

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DancesWithPumas 09.01.12 at 5:17 pm
Do you believe this guy??!
I’m thinking this is yet another subliminal message that yes indeedy we should deface another natural feature by carving it up to enshrine the first “Black” president.
(honestly, if it were up to me, Mt Rushmore never would have been created.)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/sep/1/rains-wash-away-mount-obama/

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DancesWithPumas 09.01.12 at 5:52 pm
Rains damaged #Obama sand sculpture, left his face alone but eroded his base. There’s an allegory there. #tcot #p2 #ocra #Obama2012

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Delle 09.01.12 at 6:12 pm

I’m very glad that Mt. Obama was washed away. See what it looked like before the rain began:

http://citizenjournalistdotorg.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/obama-sand-sculpture-mount-rushmore-imitation/

I find it creepy. It looks like one of the fun houses I used to go to at Coney Island when I was a child.

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DancesWithPumas 09.01.12 at 6:28 pm
Dells,
I remember that! And you’re right… The picture of the guy in front of the Fun ( so called) House does resemble mt Obama.

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freddiebrown 09.01.12 at 7:38 pm
They forgot the Greek columns this time ?

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DancesWithPumas 09.01.12 at 8:23 pm
Freddie,
This guy is waaaaaaaaaaay over the top.

I like the open thread photo above. So cheery and fun. Good idea DWP!

I get all sorts of emails from the DNC asking for as little as $3/-
Phooee. Smells like desperation. I am so glad to know that Hillary Clinton will be far away during the convention – so the rabid Biden will still be his side kick – who knows.

OMG – I was flipping through this HUGE September issue of Vogue and there was this 6 page article and lots of gorgeous pic of Chelsea Clinton. It was titled
“Waiting in the Wings”.. I have not read it yet but I can scan it to DWP in case anyone wants to read it – let me know if anyone wants me to do that. The issue is so heavy – you need a forklift to take it home.

She is beautiful.

Obama has plenty of time for the golf course and basketball stars. He’s scared to meet the politicians without a teleprompter.

“A temporary sand sculpture was slated to be the “ultimate welcome mat” for visitors during the Democratic National Convention has been scrapped for security reasons.

The sculpture was in the process of being built in front of the Ritz-Carlton and was slated to be unveiled to the public on Friday.

The sculpture was slated to be a one-of-a-kind 12-ton “Welcome to Charlotte” sand sculpture in the hotel’s front drive area.

But now the sculpture is being taken down.

“The sand sculpture initially planned for the front of the hotel will not be created in order to ensure optimal security at that location,” the hotel said in a news release on Wednesday.

The massive sculpture has been under construction for several weeks.”

http://www.wbtv.com/story/19417349/giant-dnc-sand-sculpture-taken-down-for-security-reasons-hotel-says

Security my ass! The weather forecast for the week of the D convention is for rain. The didn’t want their illusion to be pelted by rain and turned into one big mud puddle. We all know everything the obama’s touch turns to sh*t.

Everyone enjoy the break?

I hope Bill does a Biden and puts in a zinger for Hillary

Well Bill started out great, a real politician, talking about cooperation and handing out kudos all around. Just buttered up ol’ Moochell, who was showing a dour face at the start. (Show her, huh.) And Hillary got her BIG Kudo. So now he is serving the Bobots their Koolaid and making excuses for BO. Oh well, I hope he is wearing Orange underwear.

I love it… as soon as Bill finishes and is waving to the crowd, Obama comes out to claim the accolades with him. Oh what a snake..He knows how the crowd loves Bill and cannot stand to have Bill take the applause himself.

Freddie
The crowd LOVES Bill!!!
Obama came out waaaay to soon. Couldn’t bear to allow Bill to have his due.

Ugh ! Tomorrow…not sure if I can stomach watching his speech.

All this talk from Bill Clinton about things getting better but Friday’s job report is not good according to CNN.com money.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The stakes are high and the forecast is gloomy, ahead of the August jobs report scheduled to be released Friday by the Labor Department.

A month ago, that report showed businesses added 163,000 jobs in July. Job gains at that level were the strongest in five months, but still were not robust enough to keep up with population growth. The unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3%.

Unfortunately, August doesn’t look like it fared much better.

Employers probably added about 120,000 jobs, keeping the unemployment rate at its current level, according to economists surveyed by CNNMoney.

The August jobs report is a critical one, given the Federal Reserve meets less than a week later.

The balance seems tipped in favor of doing more to stimulate the economy, after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that the job market remains a “grave concern” causing “enormous suffering and waste of human talent.”
http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/05/news/economy/august-jobs-report-expectation/index.html?source=cnn_bin

notfollowingthepiedpiper
Hello so good to see you here, miss the true, dear Pumas.
Sorry you have lost your husband, 2 and 1/2 years now for me, I still wake up crying. Precious time indeed, I have shut most of the politics out, it robs us all in many ways.
I can never leave my Puma friends they give me comfort and a keen sense of sisterhood.
Thanks for the break Dances but I checked every day looking for my Pumas.

Sorry, this is off topic..Headclunker or anyone..My hard drive is making “whirring” noises like it “running” but amplified sound. It comes on a few times a day for a long time. It has done it before on my old computer. I wonder if it is because I leave it on all day and night (cos I have too many designs in the works I don’t want to file everything away only to open them up tomorrow).

I wonder if my hard drive is going to die on me soon ? I have a lot of stuff crucial to my work stored.
Thanks in advance if anyone has a clue.

Thanks Dances.
I am doing it today. I do have a separate hard drive but I will get a new computer today or take it to Fry’s
Appreciate it v. much.

Barack sure looks short on stage yesterday…and he probably felt it when he came out to share Bill’s applause and ushered him back behind the curtains. The empty suit in the empty chair is so thinly veiled, it is embarrassing.
****
Below also from CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/06/opinion/rothkopf-clinton-convention/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
On some level, Barack Obama must have wondered, “have I unleashed the reverse Clint Eastwood? A guy who will upstage me not with ill-conceived clownishness but with genius?” But eventually, after running on for even longer than his 1988 convention address, one almost universally panned for its verbosity, Clinton’s speech came to a close. And when Obama walked out to embrace him and then usher him off into the wings, the younger man set the stage for perhaps his last chance to change the Clinton-centric narrative that has been Democratic politics since 1992.

notfollowingthepiedpiper, welcome back to the PUMA family ! I am sorry for your loss ! I can imagine how hard is to lose someone loved to you ! Hope you can find comfort through time ! My best wishes to you and your loved ones !

Oscarp – I was a bit dissappointed at his speech as well – all policy buzz. A lot of pundits at CNN said what a brilliant job he did but I didn’t feel the Clintoness in it. He did mention Hillary in this way : “she’s EVEN working for him.”

I did notice Chelsea was not beaming at him and mostly had a dead pan face past the first several minutes. She may be a Clinton but I think she is her own person.

Did anyone read the Chelsea interview in September Vogue ? She had a reporter embedded for the interview so it is not just someone sitting with her for an hour. It is a very insightful article and I would say, watch out for her, She is 32 now. In 8 years, she will be 40. Madame President in waiting.
I will scan it into a pdf if anyone wants to read it. email me at fred08puma@gmail.com… subject matter: Chelsea article. I will attach it – it is quite lengthy.

Fox News is giving alot of air time to the God and Jerusalem. And it does sound like the Nays had it. The anti-Democratic Party of Obama.

Convention insiders: ‘It’s Hillary’s if she wants it’ in 2016

After former President Clinton’s bravura performance at the Time Warner Cable Arena on Wednesday night, Democrats in Charlotte are increasingly upbeat about the prospects that President Obama will be reelected in the fall. But what about four years from now? Who do they think will be carrying the party’s standard then?

At this point, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is the clear front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, according to a National Journal Convention Insiders Poll, an anonymous survey of Democratic and Republican elected and party officials, grassroots activists, consultants, fundraisers, lobbyists, and allied interest-group leaders. The poll was conducted on Sept. 4 and 5.

Among the 151 Democrats who responded to the poll, 69 percent said that if Obama wins reelection, Clinton will be front-runner for the 2016 presidential nod. Clinton was a tireless presence at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston in the run-up to her 2008 bid for the Democratic nomination. Ironically, while her husband was center stage in Charlotte this year, Clinton was wrapping up an 11-day Asian trip with stops in Brunei and East Timor.

Clinton’s tenure as Obama’s secretary of State is one of many reasons that Democratic Insiders give her a big edge over the rest of the party’s field of potential 2016 contenders. “Hillary’s time on the world stage gives her a leg up on VP [Joe] Biden,” said one Democratic Convention Insider. Another said, “She’s already a star, her reputation for tenacity and hard work has only been solidified, and now it’s hard to make the argument that the Clintons aren’t ‘team players.’ ”

But the more common mantra from Democrats regarding their 2016 nomination is simply, “It’s Hillary’s if she wants it.” There is a sense among Democratic operatives that she may be better positioned to run in four years than she was in 2008—when she was also anointed front-runner by Democratic Insiders—and that some in the party are having “buyer’s remorse” that they didn’t nominate her four years ago.

But many Democrats are not convinced that she’ll mount another campaign for the White House, and if she does, she could wait to signal her intentions. “It is not at all clear that she will choose to run,” maintained a Democratic Convention Insider. “Look for frustration to build among the rest [of the field] as she contemplates,” added another.

Continues here:
http://www.govexec.com/management/2012/09/convention-insiders-its-hillarys-if-she-wants-it-2016/57919/?oref=river

I think the below extract is Bullshit. Compared to OBama, Hillary is 100% more qualified then he is back in 2008. But I get that people think that Obama has Fairy Stardust sprinkled on him and he can walk on water because people wanted some one drastically different to pin their hopes on. Now they are trotting out this hispanic mayor of San Antonio or whatthe Fruck he’s from that no one has heard of him prior to this and say’s “Yes, by Golly Gee, he is the Young Obama !”. Shit never cease to amaze me.
****
There is a sense among Democratic operatives that she may be better positioned to run in four years than she was in 2008.

LIVE: Teary Biden gets VP nomination -
I cannot even attempt to watch this.

DWP re#36,

I was not commenting on the issue, just the way it was handled. I mean, the party said nay and BO said yea and so it goes to…BO. It stinks. The democracy of the Democratic Party is gone.

Thanks for the kind words, HP Boston, RememberNovember and oscarp. I have been able to find peace. The sad moments will never completely go away. I’ve finally learned to live with them, and have been able to move on to a place where life is good. I probably won’t be adding much here, since I’ve lived under a rock (politically speaking) for the last 4 years. I’ll just listen and catch up.

It was an Obama love fest. The koolaid flows freely.

4 more years…did you see the audience. They all look almost orgasmic in their rapture. I was asking myself when I was watching: What if these orgasmic people are right and we are the ones that got it wrong? Is it possible that people can look at someone (that they are not family or romantically involved) that adoringly? WTF. I guess that was two questions.

And I am also sick of all the sob stories everyone is dragging out and making up. Not just the Dems..mind you. Biden’s was just impossible to watch. I had to turn off the TV. What a rabid animal. (dog would be insulting to Fred).

“A Hillary win is not dependent on an Obama win.”

Actually, I think if Obama is re-elected, Hillary won’t win in 2016, in fact she probably won’t even run. Four more years of Obama would leave such a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, that it will take years before people even consider electing another Dem.

So much for the 4.5 million jobs created that every one keeps throwing out there. This is the Jobs report from CNN.com today :
http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/07/news/economy/young-adults-jobs/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The drop in the unemployment rate in August isn’t particularly good news for the economy — it’s driven mostly by nearly 400,000 people dropping out of the labor force, rather than more people finding jobs.

But those dropping out aren’t so much the discouraged 30-, 40- or 50-year olds. In fact, the Labor Department said there was a modest decline in the overall number of discouraged job seekers.

The drop is because so many young adults, aged 16 to 24, are no longer looking for work.

Clint Eastwood is nowhere near senile. His mind is as sharp as a tack. His little skit was brilliant and will be remembered long after the words of all the windbags have disappeared into the air. Not only that, but Clint has turned a simple little empty chair into a political symbol for all time.

As far as Hillary – I doubt she will be treated any better when she is 70 than she is today.

You know, I have been hearing the words ‘foreign policy’ a lot lately. Obama claims that Romney has no experience in foreign policy; while the Romney camp replies that Obama had no experience when he ran 4 years ago. On and on. And all this time we have 2 people who are undoubtedly experienced and knowledgeable in foreign policy – Hillary as a democrat and Condi Rice as a republican. And yet neither of them are being seriously considered.

Go figure!

I did not watch Oblabla’s speech, although I did catch parts of the clown convention and did enjoy hearing from the Big Dawg. I was too busy struggling, financially.

Paycheck to paycheck, with some help from Mom to make ends meet to help take care of my daughter, I am also trying to fund my back yard solar power lab. This week I have been testing some solar panels made by “employees of the Chinese Government”. This is some novel technology that is not yet available in this country because UL is holding up approval. And they do seem to have some quality control problems. But, unlike Solyndra, at least they are a real company with a real product. The multinational company is not overly anxious to do business in the USA.

I understand BO was a little restrained, in his oratory, with his Hopium after getting the latest jobs numbers. O is for Over.

Surprise! Obama lies.

“Obama More Flexible on Medicare Than Rhetoric Suggests

In his convention speech in Charlotte, President Obama vowed to block the Republican Medicare reform plan because “no American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies.”

But back in Washington, his Health and Human Services Department is launching a pilot program that would shift up to 2 million of the poorest and most-vulnerable seniors out of the federal Medicare program and into private health insurance plans overseen by the states.”

http://nationaljournal.com/healthcare/obama-more-flexible-on-medicare-than-rhetoric-suggests-20120908?page=1

I found this very interesting this morning, and wonder just for how much longer the CLINTON’s will put up with the fraud’s continued abuse, without getting even…..

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/obama-gives-bill-clinton-a-new-title-secretary-of

I did not find this amusing at all….just another passive/aggressive act of narcissistic meanness.

Obama is sounding more and more like the sleazy snake oil salesman he is. Where did he get that accent? Is he emulating the country boy from Arkansas? Is there any part of him that is real? They are posting Big Dawgs speech all over and I cannot find a single post where BO slopped out the “splainer-in-chief” appointment.