Republican Shocked To Find That An American Can Come From Mexico

There have already been a number of reports of racism coming from the Republican convention. I found this last one to be especially amusing/disgusting as I have frequently gone to Walt Disney World on vacations(with Disney World only trailing Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in number of  times I have visited). While I have also tried other resorts, I frequently stay at Beach Club, both due to its own amenities (such as Storm Along Bay) and because it is a short walk to the back entrance of Epcot. The back entrance takes guests directly into World Showcase, which features pavilions from several countries. Each country captures the look of its native country. To add to the realistic feel of each country, the employees (or in Disney lingo, cast members) come from the host countries.

It only makes sense that delegates to the Republican convention would travel to near-by Orlando to visit Epcot and the other theme parks. One Republican delegate saw foreigners as would be expected in the various pavilions but was offended when he found what appeared to be “a person from Mexico” working at the American pavilion. Screen shot below:

From his post:

Prior to National Republican Convention we visited Disney for three days.  During our time at Epcot we visited the different countries.  It was neat seeing each country and the employees were from that individual country.  Then we visited America . . . one would think you would find American employees.  We were offended to find a person from Mexico working in America.  Mark spoke up and told them he was highly offended after visiting the other countries and seeing employees from that country and then come to America and find a Mexican.  He was very civil but his point was well made.

Name tags at Epcot, going along with the international flavor of the park, include each cast member’s place of origin. Therefore a person from Mexico City, Mexico would have this on their name tag regardless of current citizenship. Apparently an American born in Mexico is not a concept consistent with this Republican’s world view. Even if it turns out that he is not an American citizen, is that really all that terrible? Does this Republican also go up to people elsewhere in this country who appear Mexican and question why they are working here?

As Think Progress pointed out, there were other episodes of racism at the convention. Certainly not all Republicans are racists and xenophobic but the party does find that it serves their purposes to appeal to such feelings. Earlier in the week National Journal explained Why (and How) Romney is Playing the Race Card.

 

GOP Convention Day Four: Lies, Damn Lies, and Romney-Ryan

Mitt Romney continues to campaign against the imaginary version of Barack Obama he created rather than the real Barack Obama. The only way he can keep from being humiliated in the debates is if he can speak to an empty chair like Clint Eastwood did. Unless the goal was to have someone come on to make Romney look good by comparison, the Clint Eastwood appearance was very odd. If they wanted to put on an old crackpot, why didn’t they just go with Ron Paul?

Romney came out by walking through the convention–the first candidate to do this since Michael Dukakis. Romney’s speech started out with his biography. When he got to his father, George Romney, why didn’t he point out how many years of tax returns his father released? He moved on to attack fictional Obama, such as repeating his false claims about Medicare, attacking Obama for an “apology tour” which only occurred in Romney’s mind. He attacked  Obama for raising taxes on small business and the middle class when Obama actually decreased them while Romney’s tax plan will increase taxes on the middle class. It was just bizarre to complain about jobs going to China from the man who was an out-sourcing pioneer. Romney announced a plan to create 12 million new jobs which reminds me of Richard Nixon’s secret war to end the Viet Nam war. Where’s the beef? His talk about Iran was scary, raising fears that he will get us into another war (while failing to pay for it).

Romney’s failure to address the big issues of the day can be seen in his outrageously ignorant attack: “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet.” As Craig Crawford tweeted: “Mitt not worried about rising seas , he’s got a car elevator.”

Paul Ryan’s speech has been called the most dishonest convention speech ever. Romney did have fewer lies in his speech, but only because it was so devoid of content. The Romney-Ryan ticket is shaping up as the most dishonest in history.

GOP Convention Day Three: The Lying Is Escalated

The Republican convention on Wednesday was fairly uneventful until Paul Ryan gave his speech. Prior to Ryan speaking the most exciting moment was the applause which Susana Martinez received for saying she carries a Smith & Wesson. Condi Rice joined the rest of the party in avoiding mention of the president she served under. I tweeted a suggestion for a drinking game earlier tonight: “GOP Convention Drinking Game For Teetotalers: Have a drink every time George Bush is mentioned.” Rice did have a hard time finding any actual fault in Obama’s foreign policy in an interview earlier in the day.

Mike Huckabee’s speech was much weaker than I expected. I did wonder how Huckabee knows what percentage of his income Mitt Romney gave to charity? Has he seen Romney’s tax returns? How much of Romney’s donations went to the Mormon Church as opposed to real charities?

The day brought more news of racism on the floor of the convention and in the Romney campaign. There have been new problems for Romney, between antagonizing the Paul supporters (which might make a difference in a very close election) and embarrassment from the yacht holding a party for this top supporters flying the flag of the Cayman Islands.

Until Paul Ryan came on, the most annoying thing I heard from Tampa was in radio interviews during the afternoon in which Republicans repeated their usual claims of superiority on family values. The difference between liberals and conservatives is not that liberals don’t practice family values. The difference is that Democrats do not use big government to impose their values on others as Republicans do. Democrats are also more inclusive, allowing gays to practice family values as married couples as opposed to defining what a marriage must be for others as many Republicans do. Numerous studies looking at who is more “moral” have shown the blue states to come out ahead of the red states and atheists to come out ahead over those are religious. Any measurement of such things is questionable, but it certainly does not support the Republican view of being superior on family values.

The convention ended the evening with a weird mashup–Eddie Munster giving John Galt’s speech. (Herman Munster was backstage fuming over all the lies Eddie was telling).

Paul Ryan showed he was an excellent choice by Mitt Romney. Ryan has all the Romney lies down well, and even added a few of his own.

Ryan attacked Obama for a plant which closed in his district. The decision to close the plant was made under George Bush,  and the plant stopped production under George Bush while Ryan opposed bailing out the auto industry. He attacked Obama for the stimulus, leaving out all the stimulus money he sought for his district, and ignoring the fact that the stimulus saved the economy which was in free fall when Obama took office. He blamed Obama for the deficit which was run up by George Bush, with the votes of Congressional Republicans including Paul Ryan. He blamed Obama for the drop in the credit rating which was caused by the irresponsibility of Congressional Republicans who threatened not to pay the bills they ran up. He repeated the big lie that Obama cut money from Medicare to pay for Obamacare. The fact is that the cuts are for matters such as reducing the subsidies to insurance companies from George Bush’s plan, not to cut benefits for seniors, and that these cuts are also in Ryan’s budget. Obama is increasing benefits for Medicare beneficiaries such as eliminating the donut hole for prescription medications and covering preventive care not previously covered. In contrast Ryan seeks to turn Medicare into a voucher program which would greatly increase out-of-pocket costs for seniors. He also wants to greatly reduce Medicaid spending–much of which assists seniors on Medicare who cannot afford Medicare premiums, deductibles, and co-pays.

Ryan also spoke of freedom, but it is the conservative version of freedom which has nothing to do with the actual freedoms this nation was founded upon. Ryan supports the freedom of religious fanatics to impose their views upon others. Ryan supports the freedom of the ultra-wealthy to plunder the wealth of the nation and destroy the middle class.

Tomorrow night pathological liar Mitt Romney will speak.

Obama’s Accomplishments

Those Republicans love to attack but offered no solutions. Here are 200 things which Barack Obama has done.

Posted in Barack Obama. Tags: . 2 Comments »

GOP Convention Day Two: They Built A Lying Narrative

It  is a real sign of the intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party that they have no ideas of their own to make their main theme. Their theme comes from Barack Obama. Of course they don’t have the courage to confront Obama’s actual ideas and are resorting to distorting a comment from Obama taken out of context. If Republicans were honest they would say: “Deficit, high unemployment, a weak economy, an a climate of bigotry–we built it.”

With so many lies coming from Mitt Romney, David Letterman began a new feature, Ann and Mitt Romney Lies:

The Republican convention got underway today and they managed to nominate a ticket to the right of Goldwater/Miller in 1964. Their new slogan might be: Extremism In Defense Of Wealthy Avoiding Taxes Is No Vice, Moderation in Pursuit of Anything is No Virtue.

We’ve heard a lot of bogus attacks on Barack Obama but the Republicans have no ideas of their own. They have nothing to offer. Republican economics is to real world economics what creationism and climate change denial are to science. It says a lot about the incompetence of Republicans at running government programs that they think that running a lemonade stand is the most important training for a president.

The speakers haven’t even said much about Mitt Romney until Ann Romney came on. Ann Romney is an excellent speaker. It is a shame she is working for the dark side. I do feel sorry that her horse didn’t do better in the Olympics, but I sure don’t want to see her husband become president. Being a good speaker doesn’t mean she is honest. We heard about her father, but she left out how he was an atheist, and how Mitt converted him to Mormonism after his death. She repeated past fantasies about the two being poor in college when they were actually quite well off living off stock options.

Forget Ann Romney’s fantasy biography. If you want to read a better Mitt Romney fantasy biography, put aside any dislike you might have for David Brooks and read his column today. The biography begins:

Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Virginia and several other swing states. He emerged, hair first, believing in America, and especially its national parks. He was given the name Mitt, after the Roman god of mutual funds, and launched into the world with the lofty expectation that he would someday become the Arrow shirt man.

Romney was a precocious and gifted child. He uttered his first words (“I like to fire people”) at age 14 months, made his first gaffe at 15 months and purchased his first nursery school at 24 months. The school, highly leveraged, went under, but Romney made 24 million Jujubes on the deal.

Mitt grew up in a modest family. His father had an auto body shop called the American Motors Corporation, and his mother owned a small piece of land, Brazil. He had several boyhood friends, many of whom owned Nascar franchises, and excelled at school, where his fourth-grade project, “Inspiring Actuaries I Have Known,” was widely admired.

The Romneys had a special family tradition. The most cherished member got to spend road trips on the roof of the car. Mitt spent many happy hours up there, applying face lotion to combat windburn.

The teenage years were more turbulent. He was sent to a private school, where he was saddened to find there are people in America who summer where they winter. He developed a lifelong concern for the second homeless, and organized bake sales with proceeds going to the moderately rich.

Chris Christie came on next to give the keynote speech, after stepping outside to snack on Hurricane Isaac. He went off-topic and spoke of how his father went to a public university under the GI Bill. He did leave out a few facts about the New Jersey economy. He bragged far more about things he tore down than things he built, setting up his campaign for 2016 after Mitt Romney loses in 2012.

GOP Convention Day One: The Party Which Was Not There

The first day of the Republican convention was cancelled due to Tropical Storm Isaac. You know what one less day of the convention means–twenty-five percent fewer lies.  It also means there is no longer enough time to fit in John Galt’s speech. Mitt Romney is really upset that he doesn’t have an opportunity to remind everyone once again that he is the white candidate. Rush Limbaugh sees this all as an evil plot hatched by the Muslim socialist Barack Obama of Kenya. On the other hand, the Christian Broadcasting Network wonders if prayer moved the storm away from Tampa to protect the Republicans. Would this make Republican prayers responsible for whatever happens in New Orleans or where ever the storm does hit?

This afternoon I received an email from the Romney campaign saying it is my last chance to enter to join Romney in Tampa for the Convention. While this is comparable to the type of fund raiser Obama is also holding, it does seem to be in poor taste to offer to bring people to Tampa at the moment.

One might think that keeping the Republican convention from convening would spare them a day of embarrassment, but it didn’t work out that way. Mitt Romney gave delegates a copy of his book No Apology. His views flip-flopped between the hard cover and paperback editions, and delegates were given the hard cover with his former view that his Massachusetts health care plan could be a model for the nation–a view removed from the paperback.

The Republicans now claim that social issues are a distraction. They are not a distraction–they are fundamental issues of individual liberty. Mitt Romney, who has refused to answer questions about abortion the last few days, would prefer the issue did not come up. Unfortunately for Romney, another Republican candidate accidentally revealed how Republicans think of rape and abortion rights. Tom Smith, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, compared rape to out-of-wedlock pregnancy.  Quick, call Todd Akin. If sex outside of marriage is comparable to rape in the GOP world, does this mean that women have a way to shut down pregnancies from sex outside of marriage as they do for legitimate rape?

Can we shut down these ignorant Republicans?

Romney’s convention speech might be his best chance to portray himself as an acceptable candidate as Ronald Reagan once did. While I am skeptical as to how many will actually read the platform, a Pew Research Center survey found that more people are interested in the platforms than candidate speeches. This could be really bad news for the Republicans. As might be expected, the hard line platform opposes abortion and gay rights while adopting crackpot economic ideas from Ron Paul and the deceptively-named Tea Party. The platform goes beyond previous platforms which opposed child porn by also targeting adult pornography. How will this play in the red states, which consumes more porn than the blue states?

I imagine that tomorrow we might hear Mitt Romney blame those in the path of the storm for their suffering. In Romney’s mind they should have borrowed money from their parents to build mansions in safer areas.

SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who; Sherlock (Rat, Wedding, Bow); Merlin; Blake’s 7; Person of Interest; New Show From JMS; Neil Armstrong; Batman Played By Cookie Monster

Doctor Who returns with Asylum of the Daleks on September 1, trailer above. While waiting there will be a daily web series starting on Monday showing what the Ponds have been up to between seasons.

The Guardian discussed the new season with Steven Moffat:

Moffat, the BBC1 show’s executive producer and head writer, said the new series which returns on Saturday 3 September with Asylum of the Daleks, would be a season of “blockbuster” episodes.

Asked about his budget for the Saturday teatime show, Moffat said: “I”m never going to say I’ve got enough. That’s like asking would you like to be more happy, of course I’m going to say yes I want more money.

“They don’t starve us, Doctor Who is incredibly well looked after by the BBC. I truly believe it could be a show that outlives everybody in this room, it doesn’t just make money now it could make money forever,” Moffat told the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival on Saturday morning.

He said the new series would be a “blockbuster every single week, let’s not have a cheap episode, let’s make them all huge”.

“Last year we did an arc [storyline] next year we will do something else, every year we have to go in a particular direction. It shouldn’t feel like good old cosy Doctor Who.”

On the long-mooted possibility of a film version of Doctor Who, Moffat said: “There’s often been talk about a movie, I’m sure we should do one. What I keep saying is it can’t ever be allowed to interfere with the television show, that’s the mothership, that’s the thing that will go on forever.

Moffat also kept open the possibility of a female Doctor:

“It is a part of Time Lord lore, it can happen. I don’t know, who knows? The more often it’s talked about, the more likely it’s going to happen.”

Moffat answers more questions here.


Steven Moffat is again teasing the upcoming season of Sherlock. Woman/Hound/Fall were the keywords for Season 2, and their meaning is now obvious. The keywords for the upcoming season are revealed in the above video–an interview with Steven Moffat,  Mark Gatiss, and Moriarty actor Andrew Scott. The keywords for the third series are:  Rat/Wedding/Bow. The season is filming in January but will not air until fall 2013. There is speculation as to the meaning of these three words at Den of Geek and Screen Rant.  They speculate that Bow refers to His Last Bow, after which Sherlock Holmes retired. Considering that Sherlock was only shown as dead for two minutes after the Fall, there is no reason that Moffat might not make Sherlock’s retirement very brief. Reportedly Moriarty is really dead, but I’m not convinced he will remain dead.

More information on Merlin Season 5 here. In a show centered around magic, it is not all that surprising that Uther will return for one episode:

“Uther returns in a very unexpected way.  He returns at a point in Arthur’s life where he’s absolutely missing his father — at a moment when Arthur is having a wobble as king and needs some advice – and at a moment of weakness is some how able to contact Uther.”

There are now negotiation in progress to both add a sixth season and to have a movie trilogy filling in gaps from earlier in the story.

There is speculation that SyFy’s planned rebooting of Blake’s 7 will be darker than the original. The rights were initially purchased with plans to do a continuation of the original. Now that so much time has passed it does make more sense to start over with a reboot, but I sure would have like to see how they would have continued the original after the main characters were killed in the original series finale.

Trailer for Person of Interest above.

ABC is working on a show produced J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5 about a pandemic. “The untitled project is described as a high-octane pandemic thriller that combines closed-ended procedural and serialized elements.”

Neil Armstrong died yesterday. Above is a BBC interview with Armstrong from 1970 months after he landed on the moon.

What if Batman was played by Cookie Monster? See the video above.

Trailer For The Romney Ryan Do-Over Convention Reinvention

This is the exclusive online trailer premiere of the Romney-Ryan campaign’s GOP convention reinvention of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan: “The Do-Over.”

Charlie Crist Endorses Barack Obama

Former Republican Governor Charlie Crist of Florida has endorsed Barack Obama in an article in the Tampa Bay Times. He described Obama’s successes and, in the final paragraph in this excerpt, debunked  Mitt Romney’s dishonest attempts to claim that Obama is cutting Medicare when it is the Republicans who are backing cuts in Medicare benefits:

We often remind ourselves to learn the lessons of the past, lest we risk repeating its mistakes. Yet nearly as often, our short-term memory fails us. Many have already forgotten how deep and daunting our shared crisis was in the winter of 2009, as President Obama was inaugurated. It was no ordinary challenge, and the president served as the nation’s calm through a historically turbulent storm.

The president’s response was swift, smart and farsighted. He kept his compass pointed due north and relentlessly focused on saving jobs, creating more and helping the many who felt trapped beneath the house of cards that had collapsed upon them.

He knew we had to get people back to work as quickly as possible — but he also knew that the value of a recovery lies in its durability. Short-term healing had to be paired with an economy that would stay healthy over the long run. And he knew that happens best by investing in the right places.

President Obama invested in our children’s schools because he believes a good education is a necessity, not a luxury, if we’re going to create an economy built to last. He supported more than 400,000 K-12 teachers’ jobs, and he is making college more affordable and making student loans, like the ones he took out, easier to pay back.

He invested in our runways, railways and roads. President Obama knows a reliable infrastructure that helps move people to work and helps businesses move goods to market is a foundation of growth.

And the president invested in our retirement security by strengthening Medicare. The $716 billion in savings his opponents decry today extended the life of the program by nearly a decade and are making sure taxpayer dollars aren’t wasted in excessive payments to insurance companies or fraud and abuse. His opponents would end the Medicare guarantee by creating a voucher that would raise seniors’ costs by thousands of dollars and bankrupt the program.

Crist has abandoned the GOP for the same reason that any sane Republican would,  pointing out the fact that “an element of their party has pitched so far to the extreme right on issues important to women, immigrants, seniors and students that they’ve proven incapable of governing for the people.” Crist concluded:

President Obama has a strong record of doing what is best for America and Florida, and he built it by spending more time worrying about what his decisions would mean for the people than for his political fortunes. That’s what makes him the right leader for our times, and that’s why I’m proud to stand with him today.

Things are not going well so far for the Republican in Tampa. Before the publication of Crist’s endorsement, God also weighed in, sending a storm towards Tampa to punish the Republicans for their evil ways. At least that might be the explanation if you accept conservative arguments regarding previous storms being God’s wrath. Regardless of source, Tropical Storm Isaac has led the Republicans to postpone the opening of their convention. Four years ago the Republican convention was disrupted by Hurricane Gustav.

The Economist Warns That “A Businessman Without A Credible Plan to Fix A Problem Stops Being A Credible Businessman”

Mitt Romney just can’t find conservatives to like him. Sure, most current American conservatives will vote for him because they absolutely will not consider anyone who doesn’t hold a number of views which are totally bat-shit crazy, but they would prefer that he wasn’t on the top of this ticket. Even more sane conservatives, such as those at The Economist, are wary of Romney. The pointed out that “All politicians flip-flop from time to time; but Mr Romney could win an Olympic medal in it (see article). They warn that

…competence is worthless without direction and, frankly, character. Would that Candidate Romney had indeed presented himself as a solid chief executive who got things done. Instead he has appeared as a fawning PR man, apparently willing to do or say just about anything to get elected. In some areas, notably social policy and foreign affairs, the result is that he is now committed to needlessly extreme or dangerous courses that he may not actually believe in but will find hard to drop; in others, especially to do with the economy, the lack of details means that some attractive-sounding headline policies prove meaningless (and possibly dangerous) on closer inspection. Behind all this sits the worrying idea of a man who does not really know his own mind. America won’t vote for that man; nor would this newspaper.

After looking at the problems with Romney’s policies, they conclusion remains the same:

A businessman without a credible plan to fix a problem stops being a credible businessman. So does a businessman who tells you one thing at breakfast and the opposite at supper. Indeed, all this underlines the main doubt: nobody knows who this strange man really is. It is half a decade since he ran something. Why won’t he talk about his business career openly? Why has he been so reluctant to disclose his tax returns? How can a leader change tack so often? Where does he really want to take the world’s most powerful country?