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Barack Obama Speech Text: Read The President’s Democratic Convention Remarks

Huff Post

Posted: 09/06/2012 10:26 pm

President Barack Obama delivered his Democratic National Convention speech at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, N.C. on Thursday night.

Below, his prepared remarks as prepared for delivery.

Michelle, I love you. The other night, I think the entire country saw just how lucky I am. Malia and Sasha, you make me so proud…but don’t get any ideas, you’re still going to class tomorrow.  And Joe Biden, thank you for being the best Vice President I could ever hope for.Madam Chairwoman, delegates, I accept your nomination for President of the United States.

The first time I addressed this convention in 2004, I was a younger man; a Senate candidate from Illinois who spoke about hope – not blind optimism or wishful thinking, but hope in the face of difficulty; hope in the face of uncertainty; that dogged faith in the future which has pushed this nation forward, even when the odds are great; even when the road is long.

Eight years later, that hope has been tested – by the cost of war; by one of the worst economic crises in history; and by political gridlock that’s left us wondering whether it’s still possible to tackle the challenges of our time.

I know that campaigns can seem small, and even silly.  Trivial things become big distractions.  Serious issues become sound bites.  And the truth gets buried under an avalanche of money and advertising.  If you’re sick of hearing me approve this message, believe me – so am I.

But when all is said and done – when you pick up that ballot to vote – you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation.  Over the next few years, big decisions will be made in Washington, on jobs and the economy; taxes and deficits; energy and education; war and peace – decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and our children’s lives for decades to come.

On every issue, the choice you face won’t be just between two candidates or two parties.

It will be a choice between two different paths for America.

A choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.

Ours is a fight to restore the values that built the largest middle class and the strongest economy the world has ever known; the values my grandfather defended as a soldier in Patton’s Army; the values that drove my grandmother to work on a bomber assembly line while he was gone.

They knew they were part of something larger – a nation that triumphed over fascism and depression; a nation where the most innovative businesses turned out the world’s best products, and everyone shared in the pride and success – from the corner office to the factory floor.  My grandparents were given the chance to go to college, buy their first home, and fulfill the basic bargain at the heart of America’s story:  the promise that hard work will pay off; that responsibility will be rewarded; that everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules – from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, DC.

I ran for President because I saw that basic bargain slipping away.  I began my career helping people in the shadow of a shuttered steel mill, at a time when too many good jobs were starting to move overseas.  And by 2008, we had seen nearly a decade in which families struggled with costs that kept rising but paychecks that didn’t; racking up more and more debt just to make the mortgage or pay tuition; to put gas in the car or food on the table.  And when the house of cards collapsed in the Great Recession, millions of innocent Americans lost their jobs, their homes, and their life savings – a tragedy from which we are still fighting to recover.

Now, our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right.  They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan.  And that’s because all they have to offer is the same prescription they’ve had for the last thirty years:

“Have a surplus? Try a tax cut.”

“Deficit too high? Try another.”

“Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!”

MORE HERE

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Bill Clinton’s 2012 DNC Speech – FULL TEXT & VIDEO

Being Liberal

9/5/12

Here is the  text of President Bill Clinton’s speech to the Democratic National Convention as prepared for delivery and released by the convention’s press office:

We’re here to nominate a President, and I’ve got one in mind.

I want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty. A man who ran for President to change the course of an already weak economy and then just six weeks before the election, saw it suffer the biggest collapse since the Great Depression. A man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how many jobs were created and saved, there were still millions more waiting, trying to feed their children and keep their hopes alive.

I want to nominate a man cool on the outside but burning for America on the inside.  A man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation. A man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama.

I want Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States and I proudly nominate him as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party.

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This Seat’s Taken…

This seat’s taken. OFA.BO/c2gbfi, twitter.com/BarackObama/st…

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 31, 2012

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Paul Ryan Address: Convention Speech Built On Demonstrably Misleading Assertions

Huff Post

Ryan Grim

Posted: 08/30/2012 12:29 am Updated: 08/30/2012 11:52 am

TAMPA, Fla. — Paul Ryan pledged Wednesday that if he and his running mate Mitt Romney were elected president, they would usher in an ethic of responsibility. The Wisconsin congressman and GOP vice presidential candidate repeatedly chided President Barack Obama for blaming the jobs and housing crises on his predecessor, saying that his habit of “forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost four years ago -– isn’t it about time he assumed responsibility?”

Ryan then noted that Obama, while campaigning for president, promised that a GM plant in Wisconsin would not shut down. “That plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight,” Ryan said.

Except Obama didn’t promise that. And the plant closed in December 2008 — while George W. Bush was president.

It was just one of several striking and demonstrably misleading elements of Ryan’s much-anticipated acceptance speech. And it comes just days after Romney pollster Neil Newhouse warned, defending the campaign’s demonstrably false ads claiming Obama removed work requirements from welfare, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

Ryan, for his part, slammed the president for not supporting a deficit commission report without mentioning that he himself had voted against it, helping to kill it.

He also made a cornerstone of his argument the claim that Obama “funneled” $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare. But he didn’t mention that his own budget plan relies on those very same savings.

Ryan also put responsibility for Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. government debt at Obama’s doorstep. But he didn’t mention that S&P itself, in explaining its downgrade, referred to the debt ceiling standoff. That process of raising the debt ceiling was only politicized in the last Congress, driven by House Republicans, led in the charge by Paul Ryan.

The credit rater also said it worried that Republicans would never agree to tax increases. “We have changed our assumption on [revenue] because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues,” S&P wrote.

Jodie Layton, a convention goer from Utah watching the Ryan speech, said she was blown away by the vice presidential candidate. But she said she was surprised to hear that after his speech about taking responsibility, he’d pinned a Bush-era plant closing on Obama.

“It closed in December 2008?” she asked, making sure she heard a HuffPost reporter’s question right. After a long pause, she said, “It’s happening a lot on both sides. It’s to be expected.”

Ryan has referenced the GM plant before, and his attack was debunked by the Detroit News, which called it inaccurate. “In fact, Obama made no such promise and the plant halted production in December 2008, when President George W. Bush was in office,” Detroit News reporter David Sherpardson wrote earlier this month. “Obama did speak at the plant in February 2008, and suggested that a government partnership with automakers could keep the plant open, but made no promises as Ryan suggested.”

After the speech, CNN’s political commentators focused mostly on Ryan’s misstatements, demonstrating the degree to which they were evident.

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Paul Ryan Fails — The Truth

The Washington Post

By Jonathan Bernstein

Posted at 11:56 PM ET, 08/29/2012

It was, by any reasonable standards, a staggering, staggering lie. Here’s Paul Ryan about Barack Obama:

He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report.  He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.

“They.” “Them.” “Them.” Those words are lies. Because Paul Ryan was on that commission. “Came back with an urgent report.” That is a lie. The commission never made any recommendations for Barack Obama to support or oppose. Why not? Because the commission voted down its own recommendations. Why? Because Paul Ryan, a member of the commission, voted it down and successfully convinced the other House Republicans on the commission to vote it down.

That wasn’t the only bit of mendacity – lazy mendacity, incredibly lazy mendacity – in Ryan’s speech. Twitter lit up as soon as he started telling the story of the Janesville auto plant that Barack Obama didn’t save – a plant that, it turns out, closed before Obama was president. And of course there’s the infamous cuts to Medicare that Ryan lambasted Obama for without happening to mention that those very same cuts were in Paul Ryan’s own budget. Yes: absolutely everything in Obamacare is an abomination, says Paul Ryan, except for (as he forgets to mention) the cuts to Medicare that he supports – and yet he still singles that part out to use as an attack.

It isn’t even true in some symbolic or abstract way. The real truth is that Paul Ryan completely rejects the approach of that commission – because it includes tax increases along with spending cuts – while Barack Obama has, while not endorsing the exact plan that Ryan shot down, basically endorsed the commission’s approach. Nor was this a side point; Ryan’s complaint about Obama on the deficit was absolutely central to his case against the president.

And then there’s the logic of the whole thing. As Seth Masket said, it all comes down to arguing “we must cut entitlements! Obama cutting entitlements is un-American.”  There’s also, as many were pointing out, the plain fact that until January 2009 Paul Ryan faithfully supported all the tax cuts and spending increases which created the deficit problem he’s been so concerned about since January 2009.

But really, the proper response to a speech like this isn’t to carefully analyze the logic, or to find instances of hypocracy; it’s to call the speaker out for telling flat-out lies to the American people. Paul Ryan has had what I’ve long thought was an undeserved good reputation among many in the press and in Washington. It shouldn’t survive tonight’s speech.

Follow Jonathan Bernstein on Twitter and at his blog.

SOURCE

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Why It’s So Important For Rape To Be ‘Legitimate’

Todd Akin (R-MO): Legitimately creepy

Daily Kos

by Dante Atkins

Sun Aug 26, 2012 at 06:00 AM PDT

Unless you’ve been spending the past week or so living under a rock—and given the political climate these days, it would be hard to blame you for doing so—you can’t have missed the fact that Republican Congressman and newly minted Senate nominee from Missouri, Todd Akin, went on a St. Louis television station and proceeded to stick his foot so far down his mouth that his toes tingled his duodenum.

Akin’s comments, which have led panicked Republicans to call for him to drop out of the race lest his misogynist toxicity metastasize to infect the Romney/Ryan ticket and Republicans across the nation, centered around two atrocities: first, the absurd idea that female reproductive anatomy can shut down in response to rape and somehow prevent conception; and second, the use of the term “legitimate rape” to describe the circumstances under which a woman’s magic ovaries would somehow initiate the aforementioned shutdown of reproductive capacity. Taken together, the comments as a whole were designed to justify Akin’s opposition to any exemptions for abortion, even in cases of rape or incest: After all, per Akin’s logic, if a woman gets raped, she won’t get pregnant; so if she’s pregnant, well, no exemption is required.

The biological aspect of Akin’s comments seems to have drawn more scorn and outright mockery: After all, how can someone pretend to take a leading role in legislating women’s bodies without even knowing the basics of how they work? The comments about “legitimate rape,” however, were a different story, as seemingly every Democratic candidate and committee in existence sent an email to their lists seeking to raise money and respond to Akin’s outrageous implication that some rapes are okay.

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Obama Super PAC Waiting To Unload On Mitt Romney’s Embrace Of Paul Ryan Budget

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in Milwaukee, Wis., on March 30, 2012, with House Budget Committee Chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) looking on. (Steven Senne / AP)

Huff Post

Jon Ward

Posted: 08/07/2012 10:21 am Updated: 08/07/2012 10:54 am

Bill Kristol and Stephen Hayes caused a stir this week when they encouraged Mitt Romney to pick Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his running mate.

The conservative Weekly Standard authors based their argument for Ryan on the premise that Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has endorsed the House Budget Committee chairman’s budget anyway, and is going to be attacked for it by President Barack Obama’s campaign no matter what.

“If Ryan’s budget is going to be a central part of the debate over the next three months, who better to explain and defend it than Paul Ryan?” Kristol and Hayes wrote.

Yuval Levin, a former White House policy adviser for President George W. Bush who has been one of the most authoritative conservative voices arguing in favor of fundamental reform of entitlement programs like Medicare, told The Huffington Post that he agrees with Kristol and Hayes.

“The fact is that you can’t choose whether to run on this or not anymore,” Levin said of the Ryan budget and of his Medicare reforms. “Obama will make [Romney] run on this because Democrats continue to think that they have a huge advantage by pushing the issue. And I think there’s going to be a kind of Medicare chapter of the Obama campaign that is going to be coming soon.”

A phone conversation with Paul Begala, a veteran Democratic strategist who is now raising funds and consulting for Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC supporting Obama, confirmed that Levin’s conjecture was correct.

Asked whether Romney will have to campaign on the Ryan budget reforms or whether he should stick to his current jobs and the economy script, Begala told HuffPost, “they will because we’re going to require them to.”

“I promise you the Ryan-Romney budget is going to be central to this discussion,” Begala said. “This is not like some crackpot theory from some long dead Russian immigrant. It is now the official budget of the Republican party of the House of Representatives. This is not like just some kind of fringe deal.”

Begala declined to comment on when Priorities USA plans to unleash their criticisms of the Ryan budget. They are most likely waiting to see if Romney picks Ryan as his running mate, in which case those attacks could be coming sooner than later.

Super PACs like Priorities USA are forbidden by law from coordinating their activities with the Obama campaign. So far this year, the group has worked to reinforce the Obama campaign’s attacks on Romney’s private equity career at Bain Capital.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt declined to preview strategic planning for the rest of the campaign, but said as far as they are concerned, Romney already is running on the Ryan budget.

“Governor Romney has not only fully embraced the Ryan budget, but he has introduced a budget plan that is a carbon copy — it makes seniors pay thousands of dollars more each year for their health care and severe cuts to programs essential to the middle class in order to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” LaBolt said. “Mitt Romney is campaigning on the flawed assumption that we can just cut our way to prosperity.”

HERE

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Obama Camp Slams Romney’s Claim About Ohio Early-Voting Lawsuit

A woman in Ohio fills out a provisional ballot during the 2008 election. President Obama and Mitt Romney are trading charges over a lawsuit Democrats filed after the state’s early voting law was changed. (Chris Hondros, Getty Images / November 4, 2008)

Charges that the president aims to undermine service members’ rights are called ‘shameful.’

By Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times
August 6, 2012, 6:02 a.m.

CHICAGO — A top advisor to President Obama‘s campaign lashed out at Mitt Romney on Sunday, arguing that the presumptive GOP nominee is misrepresenting a lawsuit Democrats filed in Ohio to equalize voting rights for all Ohioans.

The suit, which Romney has seized upon to argue that Obama is trying to undermine service members’ voting rights, calls for all Ohioans to be able to cast early votes up until the Monday before election day.

“What that lawsuit calls for is not to deprive the military of the right to vote in the final weekend of the campaign. Of course they should have that right. What that suit is about is whether the rest of Ohio should have the same right, and I think it’s shameful that Gov. Romney would hide behind our servicemen and women,” Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Until 2011, all Ohioans could cast early ballots as late as the Monday before election day. Last year, the Legislature instituted a Friday cutoff for all voters except members of the military and their families.

In mid-July, the Obama campaign and state and national Democratic groups filed suit, arguing that a two-tier voting system was unconstitutional and calling for all voters to be allowed to cast ballots until the day before election day. The suit does not call for reducing early voting access for service members.

On Saturday, Romney accused Obama of trying to undermine service members’ voting rights, and he argued that Ohio was within its rights to give service members special privileges.

“President Obama’s lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges during the state’s early voting period is an outrage,” Romney said in a statement Saturday. ” …. If I’m entrusted to be the commander in chief, I’ll work to protect the voting rights of our military, not undermine them.”

The disagreement between the two camps hinges on the Constitution: Obama argues that all citizens must be afforded equal voting access, while Romney maintains that it is legal for active members of the military and their families to receive extra privileges.

“Making it easier for service men and women and their families to vote early is not only constitutional but commendable,” said Katie Biber, general counsel for the Romney campaign. “It is not a violation of the equal protection clause to give military voters special flexibility in early voting.”

A spokesman for the Obama campaign said Romney was trying to restrict access to the polls and was fabricating the notion that Democrats sought to restrict voting rights.

MORE HERE

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Las Vegas Sands Target Of U.S. Money-Laundering Probe, WSJ Says

Chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation Sheldon Adelson. AFP PHOTO / AARON TAM

Reuters | Posted: 08/04/2012  1:25 pm Updated: 08/04/2012  2:55 pm

CHICAGO, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Las Vegas Sands Corp,  controlled by billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, is  the target of a federal investigation into possible violations  of U.S. money-laundering laws, the Wall Street Journal reported  on Saturday.

The Los Angeles U.S. attorney’s office is looking into the  casino company’s handling of the receipt of millions of dollars  from a Mexican businessman, later indicted in the United States  for drug trafficking, and a former California businessman, later  convicted of taking illegal kickbacks, the Journal said, citing  lawyers and others involved in the matter.

The transactions date from the mid-2000s.

The Journal said there are no indications that actions by  Adelson, who is the company’s chief executive officer and  largest shareholder, are being investigated.

The Los Angeles U.S. attorney could not be reached for  comment by Reuters on Saturday. A Sands spokesman was not  immediately available to comment to Reuters, but spokesman Ron  Reese told the Journal, “The company believes it has acted  properly and has not committed any wrongdoing.”

Reese said the company was cooperating with federal  investigators.

The timing of the investigation could open the Justice  Department to criticism that it is politically motivated, the  Journal said. Adelson is a major donor to the super PAC  supporting presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney  against President Barack Obama and plans to spend $100 million  on Republican candidates in November’s elections.

Adelson, who owns casinos in Las Vegas, Macau and Singapore,  began this campaign season as a major donor to Newt Gingrich  before Gingrich dropped out of the Republican presidential race.  He has since switched his support to Romney and last month was  in Jerusalem with the candidate when Romney met Israeli Prime  Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Adelson also strongly supports.

The Journal said the Las Vegas money-laundering  investigation focused on two “whales” – as big-money gamblers  are known – and whether Sands officials ignored warning signs  and did not alert federal authorities about millions of dollars  the gamblers had deposited.

The Journal identified one of the “whales” as Zhenli Ye Gon,  a Chinese-born Mexican national who was indicted in 2007 in the  United States on charges of dealing in materials used to make  methamphetamine.

The drug case was dismissed in 2009 but Ye Gon is still in  U.S. custody awaiting extradition to Mexico, where authorities  want to try him on drug trafficking and money laundering  charges, the Journal said, citing court records.

The Journal said Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, a former executive  with the Fry’s Electronics retail chain, also was under  scrutiny. Court filings in another case showed Siddiqui sent  more than $100 million to the Sands. Siddiqui was charged with  taking kickbacks from Fry’s vendors, pleaded guilty and is now  in prison.

U.S. authorities also are investigating the Sands to see if  there were breaches of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA),  which prohibits bribes to foreign officials by U.S. companies,  in its Macau operation.

HERE

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