Good Morning. I hope you are enjoying this weekend with family and friends.
Asked by a friendly news outlet why he didn’t bother praising our troops in his speech, Romney responded:
When you give a speech you don’t go through a laundry list, you talk about the things you think are important.
Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
This Week in God
By Steve Benen
Sat Sep 8, 2012 10:45 AM EDT.
First up from the God Machine this week is Sister Simone Campbell, perhaps best known for her role in the Nuns on the Bus national tour, who this week became a Nun at the Podium when she addressed the Democratic National Convention.
http://youtu.be/ASmM2YHxsfs
Campbell’s opposition to the Republican budget plan, written by Paul Ryan and endorsed by Mitt Romney, is what motivated the Nuns on the Bus excursion in the first place, but at the Democrats’ convention, the audience heard Campbell explain her perspective in detail.
“…Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are correct when they say that each individual should be responsible. But their budget goes astray in not acknowledging that we are responsible not only for ourselves and our immediate families. Rather, our faith strongly affirms that we are all responsible for one another.
“I am my sister’s keeper. I am my brother’s keeper…. Looking out at you tonight, I feel your presence combined with that of the thousands of caring people we met on our journey. Together, we understand that an immoral budget that hurts already struggling families does not reflect our nation’s values. We are better than that…. This is what we nuns on the bus are all about: We care for the 100 percent, and that will secure the blessings of liberty for our nation.”
To put it mildly, Campbell, as you can probably tell from the clip, was well received by Democratic convention goers, who gave her an enthusiastic standing ovation.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/09/08/13747043-this-week-in-god?lite
Surrogates Admit Romney Will Cut Medicare Benefits For Current Seniors
Brian Beutler-August 21, 2012, 6:09 AM
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to neutralize Democratic attacks on their plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program for future seniors by replaying the GOP’s 2010 campaign against Democratic members of Congress: by attacking President Obama for Medicare cuts he signed into law.
As has been noted repeatedly, that strategy requires Romney and Ryan to disavow Medicare reforms the GOP recently endorsed overwhelmingly as a part of the party’s budget, which Ryan authored.
But the ticket also contends that a key difference between Obama and Romney is that Romney won’t change Medicare at all for existing beneficiaries — only future ones. Recent statements from his advisers and surrogates, suggest the claim is false.
As outlined in a memo the campaign released Saturday, Romney plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, and thus to spend over $700 billion more on the program in the coming decade than the government would spend if the health care law stands.
That commitment would leave Medicare poised for insolvency in 2016, years before he proposes to phase in the voucher system. Which means Romney would have two options: find new Medicare cuts or taxes to extend the life of the program, or preside over its demise.
On Fox News Sunday, Romney adviser Ed Gillespie tried to address the conundrum. “There are other reforms as well. As you know Governor Romney supports increasing over time bringing the Medicare eligibility age in line with the Social Security retirement age.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/surrogates-admit-romney-will-cut-medicare-benefits-for-current-seniors.php
http://twitter.com/jashsf/status/244447778531581952/photo/1
Email Of The Day
A reader adds her thoughts to these from earlier today:
You know, I’ve been scratching my head this morning about the pundits’ luke-warm (at best) response to Obama’s speech, and trying to figure out why I felt so differently last night. I agree it was a more cautious speech than he’s given in the past, more sober, more plain – but I thought all of that was appropriate. I felt like he was being square with me. But more than that, I felt not so much hopeful as proud. I’m a liberal, and mostly a cynic about politics and patriotism – but last night, I felt proud! I feel like what Obama accomplished last night was to co-opt all the best values and aspirations of the formerly moderate Republican party – hard work, self-reliance, frugality, the notion that change is best when it is slow and steady – and stitch them seamlessly into everything that is good about the values of the Democratic party – inclusiveness, shared sacrifice, community, generosity, fearless forward thinking. And it seems to me that’s quite an accomplishment.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/09/email-of-the-day.html
Yes Andy; hiding behind labels is not an attractive look for anyone, especially the current clowns in the Republican Party.
Asshole is always an asshole no matter what.
Romneys Rail Against A Hospice In The Neighborhood Where They Forced A Mormon Temple Through (VIDEO)
The Father, The Son and the Holy Dollar. An appropriate title for this play. A drama spanning two generations and 13 years set in the idyllic community of Belmont Hill in the town of Belmont, Massachusetts. A cast of characters including Mitt and Tagg Romney, Hospice, Death, Taxes, Property Value, the Belmont Board of Selectmen and a Mormon Temple. Property Value takes on Hospice with a backdrop of the dying and their needs, as they wait for Death to help them shuffle off their mortal coil in a tranquil setting dotted with Cape homes and McMansions, including Tagg Romney’s $3.9 million estate.
ACT ONE
In the late 1990′s, Mitt presented himself to the Board seeking the building of a 94,000 square foot Mormon Temple. Despite a packed room of those opposed to the Temple, letters inundating the newspapers in opposition to the Temple and lawsuits challenging the building of the Temple, Mitt Romney took to the floor and argued on behalf of building the Temple which was, in fact, approved and built. In August, 2000, at the time the Temple was opened, Mitt gave an interview with the Globe stating “It feels great to have a temple closer to home.”
ACT TWO
It is 2007 and the town of Belmont released for sale properties held by the town in order to raise needed revenue. Several groups presented bids, including a group organized and headed by Tagg Romney. Bids were accepted and Tagg’s group was not the highest bid. The sale of the property was given to another group and over the next months, the sale fell through and the property sat empty until 2012. Tagg Romney and his group made no attempt during this time to purchase, or to make any other bids, on the property.
In March, 2012:
“Integra Medical Properties, a nationwide commercial real estate and development firm focused on medical and health care facilities, sent Belmont’s Board of Selectmen a letter in March, saying the Woodfall Road property is a “desirable site” for a hospice facility.Integra stated in the letter the firm is representing a major hospice operator who is looking for a site in the Boston area.
The proposed hospice facility would be a 15,000-square-foot, one-story, residential-style building with approximately 16 to 20 private rooms.”
ACT THREE
Tagg Romney cut his road trip short stumping for his father’s presidential election campaign to come home to attend a meeting rescheduled and set for August 15, 2012. He had participated and helped organize the community in a united effort to thwart the purchase of the land by the hospice company, and to “Preserve Our Neighborhood.” Signs were everywhere and the room was once again packed for the hearing. At the time of the hearing, Tagg Romney, like his father a little over a decade before him, took to the floor and argued that the increased traffic, ambulances, coroner vehicles and excessive employee traffic would cause problems for the current homeowners (All these complaints were contradicted by the hospice company). Tagg spoke about the real issue bothering him: The reduction of his home’s property value.
“I certainly would not have built my house if I thought there was a possibility of a hospice going there. The value of all our homes will decrease dramatically.”
And then something interesting was said,an ever so subtle threat by Tagg Romney to the Board. He suggested that as their property values declined, they would be forced to seek property tax relief on all of their property. And then he added that he had tried to purchase the property 5 years earlier, that no rush was needed for this action by the Board and that it would be in the town’s best interest to limit the purchase to bids seeking to build residential properties.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/08/romneys-rail-against-a-hospice-in-the-neighborhood-where-they-forced-a-mormon-temple-through-video/
I LOATHE THE ROMNEYS ALL OF THEM
This month’s jobs numbers showed that the economy added 96,000 jobs in August, while the unemployment rate fell from 8.3% to 8.1%. Republicans continue to block the President’s American Jobs Act, which independent economists estimate would create between 1.9 and 2.6 million new jobs without adding a dime to the deficit.
· ThinkProgress breaks it down: http://bit.ly/U0OFtB
The President’s jobs plan would create two million more jobs next year than the Romney-Ryan plan.
· Moody’s analytics estimates that the President’s plan would add 1.9 million jobs, add 2 percentage points to GDP, and reduce unemployment by a percentage point next year if fully implemented: http://bit.ly/NZIsvw
· The nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute estimates that the Romney-Ryan budgetcould cost 1.3 million jobs in 2013: http://bit.ly/OghIMU
And in case you missed it, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm brought the house down with a scathing indictment of Romney Economics.
· “In Romney’s world,”she said, “the cars get the elevator, and the workers get the shaft!” http://bit.ly/RufFj4
Politico has two great pieces this morning on why President Obama and the Democrats are coming out of the conventions in a much better position than Mitt Romney and the Republicans:
· “Democratic enthusiasm — real fire-in-the-belly enthusiasm — is a killer for Romney”—Roger Simon:
http://politi.co/NgyCcO
· “Republicans should be particularly glum this weekend”—Joe Scarborough:
http://politi.co/P27Ql0
After offering high praise for President Obama’s exceptional foreign policy record, Senator John Kerry had some advice for Mitt Romney last night: “Before you debate Barack Obama on foreign policy, you better finish the debate with yourself!” Here are two other highlights from his impressive remarks:
· Mitt Romney Does Not Have A Position On Afghanistan, He Has Every Position:
http://bit.ly/RufwfC
· Ask Osama Bin Laden if He is Better Off than He was Four Years Ago:
http://bit.ly/NZIcwu
Happy Saturday, Ametia & Rikyrah!
Swang-swang and I swang and I swang to the left
Pop-Pop my trunk yep, yep, yep, yep
(It’s a Texas thang :)
HOLA! 3 CHICS; I’M BACK!
Hi Ametia and SG2!!
How’s it going, rikyrah? You & SG2 held it down, woman!
I’mm dowloading and posting the rest of the photos from the convention, with a few more media personalities.
On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 7:28 PM, 3CHICSPOLITICO
New Kindles
By mistermix September 8th, 2012
Last year, Amazon introduced the Kindle Fire, which unlike previous Kindles, was a color 7” tablet that could run Android apps. They sold a lot of them mainly because they were priced at $199, but as a competitor for other tablets, they were still pretty “meh” – a little underpowered, with some not-quite-ready software.
This week, Amazon announced some hardware and software that make them a really impressive player in the personal hardware device market. I’ll give the details below, but as far as I can tell, these tablets are category beaters at the moment (though we’re still waiting for Apple’s play). I know this tech stuff isn’t interesting to everyone, so the rest is after the break.
Let’s start with the new Kindle software, which has some impressive integration with Amazon. For example, you can buy a new kind of audiobook. You can choose to read and listen, so the book is read to you and the text is highlighted at the same time. You can also choose to read or listen, and Amazon keeps track of your place in the book either way. So, for example, you can listen to a book on your smartphone on the way home from work, and seamlessly switch to reading it on a Kindle when you get home.
Amazon also introduced a new feature called X-Ray, which works in books and movies. In movies, if you tap on the screen on your Fire, each actor in the current scene is identified, and you can pull up their IMDB profile from within the movie viewer. In a book, if you tap on a character’s name, you can read the introductory paragraph that introduces the character, as well as look at a character index that shows all the characters. This also works with textbooks, which is a huge advance on traditional indexing.
Both the audio/book sync (which Amazon calls Whispersync) and X-Ray are probably limited to a few titles right now, but they looked useful and they’re something nobody else has.
This software runs on impressive hardware. There’s a new Kindle Fire at $159 that has a similar 7” screen as last year’s $199 Fire, but is 40% faster than the old Fire. Wait for the reviews, but this sounds like it might be a hell of a bargain. At $199, they have the Fire HD, which has a high-definition 7” screen, and an even faster processor. At $299, they have an 8.9” Fire HD, which is just a bit smaller than an iPad, with a HD screen, at a price $200 less than Apple’s. Finally they have a Fire 8.9” HD that has 4G LTE (fast) cellular networking and a $50/year data plan. The cost of ownership of that device is around $400 less for a year compared to an iPad with the same level of cell service. Again, wait for the reviews, but that’s also a bargain if the device lives up to its PR.
Finally, they also introduced an upgrade to the traditional ePaper Kindle, which has some kind of pure fucking magic screen they call Paperwhite. The text is the crispest and sharpest ever, on a device that already had fairly crisp text. And the screen has some kind of very even frontlighting that makes it just glow. This means they’ve solved the main issue with the traditional Kindle, which was that you needed a lamp to read in the dark. And, like the traditional Kindle, it works fine in daylight, and the battery lasts for an even longer than usual 8 weeks. The WiFi version costs $119.
Overall, I’m surprised at how far Amazon has come in a year. For the last couple of years, Kindle has been a great value. Amazon basically sells them at cost because they want you plugged into purchasing books, movies, TV and music from Amazon. Now Kindles are also competitive versus other tablet devices. Even if you don’t want to buy a Kindle, they’re injecting a huge amount of competition in the market that will keep Apple, Google and Microsoft’s margins thin
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/09/08/new-kindles/#comment-3695607
Mattison:
FACT: 96,000 Private Sector Jobs Is BEST August Jobs Number Since 2006 – Bureau of Labor Statistics http://data.bls.gov/timeseries… #p2 #tcot #lnyhbt
Trust, the jackals are predicting gloom & doom for POTUS.
Good Morning, Everyone :)