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Actress Aisha Tyler: Romney Does Not Love Women

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Photo credit: jnissa

At a Planned Parenthood rally in front of the NASCAR Hall of Fame Tuesday, actress and Planned Parenthood board member Aisha Tyler told a crowd of supporters that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney‘s positions shows he does not actually love women.

Tyler pointed out the importance of Planned Parenthood for general health services through her own personal story and explained that the organization is not just about abortion.

“Planned Parenthood is not just about abortion. That is just what the other side wants to tell you. It’s not just about abortion. It is about women’s lives and our health and about women being able to be the architects of their own destiny because when you choose when to become a mother, when you choose when to make a family, you don’t let somebody else make that choice for you, It’s your choice and we are going to fight to make sure no one ever, ever takes it away.”

“That is why I take it incredibly personally when someone like Mitt Romney says that he wants to defund Planned Parenthood,” she said.

The actress explained that while people like Romney may say they love women, their actions should fit the rhetoric.

Read more from this story HERE.

Romney Says if He’s Elected, God Will Stay

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Making reference for the first time to the Democrats’ about-face on having the word “God” in their party’s platform, Mitt Romney said here today that if he is elected, God will not be removed from the Republican platform.

“I will not take God out of the name of our platform,” said Romney to thunderous applause. “I will not take God off our coins and I will not take God out of my heart. We’re a nation that’s bestowed by God.”

It was Romney’s first reference to last week’s awkward proceedings during the Democratic National Convention, in which after one day the platform was amended to include the word “God” and name Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reportedly under the instruction of President Obama.

Romney debuted a new stump speech here today, one that hinged on the candidate leading the crowd of thousands in the Pledge of Allegiance.

“I remember as a boy, I was in the fourth grade, somehow in my mind I remember being there in the fourth grade in front of the blackboard, we had an American flag that was pinned in front of the blackboard. And every day we stood, lined up in front of that blackboard and we recited the pledge of allegiance. Do you remember?” asked Romney, launching into the pledge.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Widens Lead over Romney; 48% of US Give Obama Good or Excellent Marks

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Obama Widens Lead

By Alina Selyukh. President Barack Obama, picking up support following the Democratic National Convention, widened his narrow lead over Republican U.S. presidential challenger Mitt Romney in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Saturday.

The latest daily tracking poll showed Obama, a Democrat, with a lead of 4 percentage points over Romney. Forty-seven percent of 1,457 likely voters surveyed online over the previous four days said they would vote for Obama if the November 6 elections were held today, compared with 43 percent for Romney.

“The bump is actually happening. I know there was some debate whether it would happen… but it’s here,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark, referring to the “bounce” in support that many presidential candidates enjoy after nominating conventions.

Obama had leapfrogged Romney in the daily tracking poll on Friday with a lead of 46 percent to 44 percent.

The president’s lead comes despite a mixed reaction to his convention speech on Thursday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Friday’s government data showing that jobs growth slowed sharply last month. [Read more from this story HERE].

48% Give Obama Good or Excellent Marks

By Rasmussen Reports. President Obama continues to earn positive marks for leadership from nearly half the nation’s voters, but there’s a wide partisan difference of opinion on this question.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters rate the president’s leadership as good or excellent. [Read more from this story HERE].

Eastwood Says His Convention Appearance was ‘Mission Accomplished’

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AFTER A week as topic No. 1 in American politics, former Carmel Mayor Clint Eastwood said the outpouring of criticism from left-wing reporters and liberal politicians after his appearance at the Republican National Convention last Thursday night, followed by an avalanche of support on Twitter and in the blogosphere, is all the proof anybody needs that his 12-minute discourse achieved exactly what he intended it to.

“President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” Eastwood told The Pine Cone this week. “Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that’s what everybody needs to know. I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle.”

For five days after he thrilled or horrified the nation by talking to an empty chair representing Obama on the night Mitt Romney accepted the Republican nomination for president, Eastwood remained silent while pundits and critics debated whether his remarks, and the rambling way he made them, had helped or hurt Romney’s chances of winning in November.

But in a wide-ranging interview with The Pine Cone Tuesday from his home in Pebble Beach, he said he had conveyed the messages he wanted to convey, and that the spontaneous nature of his presentation was intentional, too.

“I had three points I wanted to make,” Eastwood said. “That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: What the RNC Would Prefer that You Not See from the Tampa Convention

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This video gives an insider’s perspective, from the Ron Paul camp, of some of the shenanigans that went on at the GOP Tampa Convention. It’s a fairly long video, but you should stay with it until about the eight minute mark:

Here’s what Ron Paul said about the convention and Romney’s speech:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio sees an ally in Mitt Romney

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Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told Arizona delegates at a luncheon Thursday that he’s confident Mitt Romney would work with Arizona to increase border enforcement—something he said President Barack Obama has failed to do.

“Something has to be done, and I’m very well convinced that Mitt Romney, when he gets to the White House, will look at the problem,” he said. “I fully believe that he’s not just talking. I’m convinced that in the first year at the White House, he will bring this issue up.”

Gov. Jan Brewer was also present but did not speak at the luncheon that took place at Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo. At least five protesters attempted to make their way into the event, which was in connection to the Republican National Convention, but were asked to leave.

The Sheriff , Brewer and other Republicans from Arizona have long criticized Obama, saying the president has failed to secure the United States-Mexico border. Their criticism comes even after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has repeatedly said that the border has never been more secure.

Though Arpaio endorsed Rick Perry for president over Romney, the Sheriff said he still supports Romney’s stance on immigration, saying it is in line with his. They both favor ramping up enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border, implementing an employment verification system and they are both against in-state tuition for undocumented youth.

Read more from this story HERE.

The words “Tea Party” banned from GOP Convention?

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Tuesday’s theme at the Republican National Convention was “We Built It,” but the night’s speakers did not reference or mention the Tea Party movement that built the current Republican majority in the House during the 2010 midterm elections and infused a party that seemed all but moribund after the 2008 elections and the latter part of George W. Bush’s presidency with enthusiasm, life, confidence, money, manpower, purpose, and a little swagger.

On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who, like his father, Ron, is one of the most prominent symbols of the Tea Party movement that revolted in part against the spending habits of Republicans and Democrats during the last decade, addressed the RNC.

But even Paul did not explicitly mention or make note, by name, of the Tea Party movement.

This has left many Tea Partiers to wonder if the Romney campaign and the RNC are deliberately trying to disassociate the Republican and Romney brands on the national stage from the Tea Party brand that has given them momentum against Obama. Tea Party members were also perturbed, to say the least, that the RNC passed rules concerning delegate selection and convention rules that stripped power away from the grassroots on Tuesday.
“Their words and their actions speak for themselves,” Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the influential Tea Party Patriots wrote. “The term ‘tea party’ appears to have been banned from the convention.”

The strategy is risky for Romney and Republicans . . .

Read more from this story HERE.

Romney working toward a landslide?

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Photo Credit: davelawrence8 Creative Commons

At time of writing, polls show the race for the presidency to be tight. General consensus seems to be that whoever wins, the 2012 election will be won by a bat squeak.

Yet to many, especially those of us on the right, it seems peculiar that Obama is still remotely in the race. With high unemployment, minimal GDP growth, a 100% increase in food stamp costs, and out-of-control spending, many conservatives are asking how just under half of the American population can possibly want more of the same.

While it is not possible now to get into the many reasons certain people will vote Democrat in November, I propose that all polls, not just left-leaning polls, may be being strongly misled by their data, and Romney/Ryan may actually have a huge lead not seen in polls.

It is my contention that this is due to a mix of the infamous Bradley effect and what is known in Britain as “the Shy Tory Factor,” with both coming together to exaggerate just how popular Obama is in America.

The Bradley effect is a much-debated polling distortion that is easy to demonstrate but difficult to prove. The idea that when a black or minority candidate is on the ticket against a white candidate, certain voters may lie under pressure from a pollster, worried about being seen as a racist for choosing the white candidate over the minority, sounds highly plausible. The consequence, should the Bradley effect be in play, would be a skewed poll indicating that the minority candidate is in better political shape than his or her opponent.

Read more from this story HERE.

Clint Eastwood makes Mitt’s Day (+video)

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Transcript of Clint Eastwood’s speech to GOP Convention in Tampa:

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what’s a movie tradesman doing out here? You know they are all left wingers out there, left of Lenin. At least that is what people think. 

That is not really the case. There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood. It is just that the conservative people by the nature of the word itself play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot dogging it.

But they are there, believe me, they are there. I just think, in fact, some of them around town, I saw Jon Voight, a lot of people around.

Jon’s here, an academy award winner. A terrific guy. These people are all like-minded, like all of us.

So I’ve got Mr. Obama sitting here. I was going to ask him a couple of questions.  I remember three and a half years ago, when Mr. Obama won the election. And though I was not a big supporter, I was watching that night when he was having that thing and they were talking about hope and change and they were talking about, yes we can, and it was dark outdoors, and it was nice, and people were lighting candles.

They were saying, I just thought, this was great. Everybody is trying, Oprah was crying.

I was even crying. And then finally — and I haven’t cried that hard since I found out that there is 23 million unemployed people in this country.

Now that is something to cry for because that is a disgrace, a national disgrace, and we haven’t done enough, obviously. This administration hasn’t done enough to cure that. Whenever interest they have is not strong enough, and I think possibly now it may be time for somebody else to come along and solve the problem.

So, Mr. President, how do you handle promises that you have made when you were running for election, and how do you handle them?

I mean, what do you say to people? Do you just – you know – I know, people were wondering, you don’t handle that OK. Well, I know even people in your own party were very disappointed when you didn’t close Gitmo. And I thought, well closing Gitmo, why close that, we spent so much money on it? But, I thought maybe as an excuse.

What do you mean shut up?

Read more and see the video HERE.

Video: Clint Eastwood makes Mitt’s Day

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Politico called it “unscripted,” a “disaster,” “sad,” and “crazy,” the Washington Post, “rambling.”

But that was not the assessment of the GOP faithful at the Tampa Convention:

Click HERE for a transcript of the speech.