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CHARLOTTE, NC -- Republicans gathered here to counter the Democratic National Convention seized Tuesday on President Barack Obama's self-grade of "incomplete" after his first term.
Picking up on the grade the president gave himself with a Colorado television affiliate, a series of Republicans pounced during a press conference at at the Nascar Hall of Fame, where Republicans have set up camp during the DNC.
"I have a 10-year-old and a 14-year-old. I know if on their report card they came home with an incomplete that means they failed," said South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
The Romney campaign, backed by the RNC, is holding its own counter-convention in Charlotte this week, primarily challenging the president's record on the economy. Andrea Saul discusses.
When asked to grade his time in the Oval Office, the president told a local Colorado television station on Monday: "You know I would say incomplete ... but what I would say is the steps that we have taken in saving the auto industry, in making sure that college is more affordable and investing in clean energy and science and technology and research, those are all the things that we are going to need to grow over the long term."
Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Rep. Tim Scott and former Deputy Administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration Jovita Carranza also spoke at the press conference and all used it as an opportunity to slam the president's self assessment.
"When the president was asked what grade he would give himself, he obviously had a quick look at his report card and saw a big 'I' on it. He thought the 'I' was for incomplete. The 'I' was for incompetent," said Sununu.
And tea party favorite Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC) was able to draw on some personal experience when giving his interpretation of the president's answer.
"I understand an incomplete is a way to avoid a failing grade. As a freshman in high school, I flunked out," he said. "When you're in that situation you really want something that looks like an incomplete grade, but unfortunately what you get from the people who are actually grading you is a failed grade. Our president was asked the question: Are we better off? It's a failed grade."
NBC's Savannah Guthrie and Meet The Press moderator David Gregory join Brian Williams to discuss this week's events at the Democratic National Convention.
Haley also addressed women's issues just hours before Democrats are set to kick off their convention. One of Tuesday night's most-watched speakers will be Michele Obama, who is expected to stress her husband's humble upbringing. The well-liked first lady has been one of the Obama campaign's strongest assets in appealing to women voters.
As Planned Parenthood held a rally just a block away, Haley attempted to downplay the notion that abortion rights issues have alienated women from the Republican party.
"Let me tell you about women. Women are extremely smart. Woman are extremely right. We don't only think about contraception. We think about a lot more then contraception. I know pro-life women that are in the Democratic Party. I know pro-choice women that are in the Republican Party. but I also know that all women care about their budgets, they care about their jobs, they care about the economy," she said.
David Goldman / AP
Democrats gather in Charlotte, N.C., to officially nominate President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as the party's candidates for the 2012 presidential election.
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Willard Romney told the press that he would not speak to them yesterday, Labor Day, then he asked his staff to call them back and they went back thinking they would be able to ask questions. Instead Mr. Privilidged Romney boarded his Million Dollar Yacht and drove off into the sunset. You just can't make this stuff up.
It must be nice to have all the toys half a billion dollars can buy.......all the while "you people" have seen all the tax returns you are going to get.
"The Democratic Convention is $27 million in debt. They had to cancel the kick-off event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. A speedway is the perfect place for the Democratic Convention. You go around in circles, turn left every few seconds, and you end up right where you started." –Jay Leno
Funny, but sad. If the Democrats can't even manage the finances of their own convention....why the hell would we want them managing the finances of OUR country??
OBAMA = FAILURE
At least the Democrats are going somewhere unlike the GOP who always just wants to stay still or go backwards.
I know you are but what am I? Nah nah nah. Please. Really?
As a professor, I KNOW that an "incomplete" simply means the student needs more time, often because of factors beyond their control. It does not, as Gov. Haley states, mean the student has failed! Usually with the additional time the student achieves a better grade than otherwise possible.
Mr. Obama could not make ALL of the changes needed in one term-- especially with the non-stop obstruction from the GOP. With a Dem House and another term, we will see an "A" that will benefit ALL Americans!
Since the DNCC had a record month in contributions it looks like we might get that change in the House.
I guess if we give him more time he will use it more wisely this time? Will he golf less? Will he actually work this time?
Dr Jes
You mean that with two thirds of the governing parts of Washington in his party? He had full controll of congress his first two years and now has two thirds. When will dems stop blaming and whining and take responsibility for their own failures?
I think the verdict may be out on Obama but it is in on Bush and supply side (trickle down) economics. Republicans want more of the same.
Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
By Matt Taibbi, August 29, 2012 7:00 AM ET
Four years ago, the Mitt Romneys of the world nearly destroyed the global economy with their greed, shortsightedness and – most notably – wildly irresponsible use of debt in pursuit of personal profit. The sight was so disgusting that people everywhere were ready to drop an H-bomb on Lower Manhattan and bayonet the survivors. But today that same insane greed ethos, that same belief in the lunatic pursuit of instant borrowed millions – it's dusted itself off, it's had a shave and a shoeshine, and it's back out there running for president.
http://Bruce-1628250.newsvine.com/_news/2012/09/04/13660654-greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital
O'dumbo giving himself an " I " for incomplete, (same as a " F ") was the first honest remark that he has given since becoming the the president. He is a liar, anti-American and a scocialist! He needs to get out of our White House! Get him out before he takes this country down any further! He is killing this country! He is an embarrassment to this country!
O'dumbo?
If I were you I would give yourself an F for intelligence.
The first sign of someone lacking intelligence of any type is when they use words like O'dumbo. Especially at the beginning of a sentence.
When most people see such words used they stopped at the insult and do not bother reading any further for the simple fact that if the first word that is used is an insult then most likely the rest of the sentence will result in insults being used and possibly directed towards the reader.
Readers do not like to be insulted.
"You know I would say incomplete ... but what I would say is the steps that we have taken in saving the auto industry, in making sure that college is more affordable and investing in clean energy and science and technology and research, those are all the things that we are going to need to grow over the long term."
The GOP once again trying to twist what the president said making something of nothing so those that they have taken education away from will listen to their message and believe them without question or answer - fascism.
President Obam is saying that his presidency is incomplete because of the GOP's constant blocking of bills meant to create new jobs and scientific research that will provide the following:\
1. Cheaper and better manufactured medicines that will help reduce the cost of health insurance.
2. Revamping of Medicare to distribute unused funds from Medicare, mostly from money set aside to perform cancer detection tests that go mostly unused, into a program where the uninsured in America can now afford health care, which in the long run will reduce the deficit from those who require medical treatment but cannot afford the hospital stay.
3.The War on Terror in the Middle East is incomplete becaue some of Osama Bin Laden's top commanders still remain and until they are killed the terrorist network remains a threat to America through countries like Syria and leaders like Assad.
Obama killed gave the to kill or was issued orders being involved with the killing of Bin Laden and Ghadaffi.
President Obam has some good things on the table for American's to decide for theirselves if the idea is good for America. Don't let the GOP tell you that such ideas are not good. They will only say that President Obama's ideas are not good because it takes away from their ability to saturate a political campaign with money that comes from Big Oil.
If the GOP didn't have money coming in from Big Oil they wouldn't be able to sponsor the campaigns in the manner that they do.
Green energies will take these campaign funds away from the GOP so that the GOP will actually have to work and not simply not through hundreds of millions of dollars into a campaign just to say "See I created jobs, what else do you want?"
Ok Carole here it goes again!!! The President has been fillibustered more then any President in the history of the United States and for many things that the Republican Party would have supported before but because the President suggested (and that's all him writing up a bill is a suggestion) it they would attach things that would make no-sense and have nothing to do with the natural up or down vote that needed to be done. Like the Small Business tax cut bill that he wanted implemented last month!!! Republican Senator Orrin Hatch instead of voting up or down on the bill tries to attach an amendment to it saying let the Bush tax cut's get extended for all Americans then we'll vote to help the small business people get one. Is that a good enough example for your Carole???!!!
Obama can't be filabustered.......he is not part of congress. He is the executive branch of the government. US history 101.
incomplete [ˌɪnkəmˈpliːt]adj
1. not complete or finished
2. not completely developed
Not the same as "fail".
Spin it how ever you want to make yourself feel good. It is a four year job. Maybe he thought he could slide by like he did in college and in the state senate. Let's take a look at those college transcripts that he has ordered sealed. Maybe he's ok with incompletes and failed grades.
Explain how the country is worse off than at the end of the Bush Administration including the hangover (remember budget year 2009 is still part of the Bush Administration.)
Maybe Obama should have given himself an F?
Don't pay attention to the Republicans. I am not hearing things that are true. They are bending things beyond belief.
Let's see, 8.3% unemployment and headed in the wrong direction. The CBO is predicting over 9% unemployment if we follow the President's tax policies. We just went over the $16 trillion in national debt. Democrats harp about 4.5 million new jobs but the Bureau of Labor Statistics says 5 million new jobs were needed just to keep up with people entering the jobs market. So what haven't we gotten right. Inform us?
I don't understand how some people can try an make sense out of the Rebubs latest stance, " Are you better off now than 4 years ago "? Insurance companies were failing, ban ks were closing, we had just lost 3.5 million jobs in the 5 month before January 20th, and were loosing jobs at the rate of 800,000 per month, we were engaged in 2 wars, that were not paid for, auto plants were shuting down, and we were headed for financial disaster, Romney had just declared the auto industry should file bankruptcy Is that what you want to go back too? Even an idiot would not want to retun to that time.
Why are we better off, The auto industry is back and exceding their own expectation, rather tham loosing 1 million jobs through bankruptcy, auto increased it's work force. The auto industry has paid back most of the bailout money and we made a profit on the investment. The unemployment has been reversed, and shown 29 straight months of posative growth. banks were stabilizesd, (by the way as Romney wanted a bankruptcy, the Obama administration searched for private investoes, no one would take on that financing incuding Bain, so had the auto industry filed for bankruptcy, we would be out of the auto mfg business. 4 years ago the stock market wae in a triple diget free fall, going from 12,000 to 6,000 shares prior to tje end of 2008
Are you sure you want to go back and live in that uncertainty, I think not. All be it, we are not progressing as fast as we want, but we are headed in the right direction, no continuing on a road to distruction as we were 4 years ago...The R&R candidates, are correctly identified, they are the railroad back to the south bound train to ruin
Those things happened because the country had a dem congress under Reed and Pelosi. This glaring fact is always conspicuously ignored when referring to the financial meltdown. Both senate and house were dems 2006 to 2010. Obama had ALL 3 branches of the government to do whatever he wanted to his first two years and still earned an incomplete. Pathetic and no excuse.
They got everything they could get in before the 2010 elections. That's the reason why the economy actually stabilized and is now recovering. The Republicans have been blocking everything else in the past 2 years, which is why the recovery is not as strong as it could be.
The unemployment numbers have never gone down. The deficit, the price of food, the price of gas, the unemployed.....there are no numbers to substantiate your claims. Just saying something is better does not make it better. Americans have lost 40% of their savings in the last 3 years of this administration........not any other, not Bush......THIS administration. Four more years will only be more of the same.
Maybe his dog ate his homework?
There will probably be a bunch of GOP malcontents standing around near the convention with bags of peanuts in thier hands.
Now that's a mature comment and so informative and helpful. What a great contribution to the forum.
How do you explain the peanut throwing incident and the language that was used by Republican delegates?
If the Republicans would get out of Obama's way, he would have an "Complete!" Took Bush 8 years to hurt this country worse then ever, so it takes Obama some time to recover. But the Republicans don't want that, so they try stop him! If you can't help, get the hell out of the way! But you can't even succeed at that, and I hope to god you don't succeed at the polls. Talk about a lying, loser, greedy party - that's our Republicans!
So show us any sign that anything President Obama and the Democrats have done for the economy has worked? Even the CBO tells us we are entering another recession. The President and Democrats had complete control for 2 years and passed their stimulus. It was supposed to end the recession. The best growth we show in the economy was 2% which by any economic measure was horrible. Now for almost three quarters we have been at 1.5% growth on the verge of a double dip recession just as economists have been predicting for 2 years. The President wants to do the same stimulus over again. So should we borrow another trillion dollars to pursue a stimulus which didn't work the first time.
Get out of his way? He had a dem majority in the senate and the house the first two years of his presidency and now he has two thirds majority. Do liberals even understand how the government works? From these comments they obviously only know how to whine, blame and give excuses as to how an incomplete is a good grade. No wonder we have been downgraded during this presidency.
Course it is incomplete, he needs another term and we aim to give it to him.....
We fired Jimmy Carter for doing a horrible job on the economy. But Carter's number were about the same as Obama. The President says he has a plan for the next 4 years. Where have these new ideas been for the last 4 years? So now he has ideas which he says will work. Just like all the ideas he has been telling us the last 4 years. Guess this is another summer of recovery. What is this the 4th summer of recovery. But look at the results, every metric for the economy shows things are getting worse. This is about RESULTS!!! So if President Obama goes to summer school, maybe he can raise his grade. Meanwhile the national debt hit $16 trillion today with $5.3 trillion under Obama.
So now Obama is working his new strategy for getting reelected. Play on emotions of the people. Get the American citizens feeling sorry for him. Play it up Barry! It ain't going to work with normal people. Keep working your liberals. They are already on your side due to the Entitlements you give them.
The President was honest about his feelings on what he has done. How is this President supposed to fight city hall(congress and the senate), when they have made their mission in life to stop all the ideas that actually came from congress, but since it's the President presenting it, Its always going to be always no. Crying lying Ryan has been leading the charge with Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor and so many others. Is this what the so called congress and senate promised the American people. They promised us that they would stand up for our rights and freedoms and instead they are filling up their pockets and invading womens rights for anything. We are not in the 1800's, we are in the 21st century. They are the problem and when their time is up, vote them out. They have been there way too long and have gotten way too comfortable.
If Barack Hussein Obama had kept his campaign
promises, he would have closed the Guantanamo
Bay detention center. Two thousand of the worst
terrorists in the world would be eating
American food on American tables in air conditioned
comfort on Rykers Island in NY City. If left to
Biden and Obama, they would be watching cable
television and waiting twenty years for their
lawyers' motions and objections to clear the
American judicial system, before they ever saw a day
in court.
If left to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, District
Attorneys wouldn't be able to interview Sheik Khalid
Mohammed and the terrorists without their lawyers
present, to say nothing of FBI and CIA
interrogation. If left to Biden and Obama, Mohammed
would never have given the CIA the name of the
Kuwaiti who lead them to bin Laden. Over the
strident objections of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and
the entire Democratic Party, Guantanamo remains
open, Mohammed was interrogated and did give up the
Kuwaiti, and the Navy Seals, despite the objections
of Biden, Obama and all the Democrats, took out
Osama bin Laden.
If Barack Obama had been President of the United
States on 9/11, Saddam Hussein would still be
running Iraq, the Taliban would still be running
Afghanistan, and the United States would still be
running from Osama bin Laden.
Surely you are correct since it took GW Bush to kill bin Laden :):):):):) Who will believe you Jerry?
You don't have to be Nobel Prize economist to know we are better off today than 4 years ago when the stock market crashed and we were on the verge of panic in this country. Obama's steady hand got us through that , he is one cool dude.
Liberals are all about him being a cool dude. Cool dudes don't make very good leaders of the free world.
The Nobel prize usually deals with peace.....thus it is called the Nobel Peace Prize. Thought you might want to know so you don't embarrass yourself again.
WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT??!!
Lyin Ryan and Mitt is a snit came up with nothing at their convention Except of course with a draconian "take us back to past" platform. A platform that insults men, women, the middle class and any other thinking persons.... and it starred an empty chair along with an idiot named Clint. How wonderful!!!!!!!
No post convention bump and his speech was rated really horrible. His wife and her love for women went over like a lead balloon too.
That's because we can do without her love, what we need is respect. They insist on denying respect, we insist on voting against them.
Mitch McConnell should be in jail for sedition.
Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
By Matt Taibbi, August 29, 2012 7:00 AM ET
A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place. That same man then runs for president riding an image of children roasting on flames of debt, choosing as his running mate perhaps the only politician in America more pompous and self-righteous on the subject of the evils of borrowed money than the candidate himself. If Romney pulls off this whopper, you'll have to tip your hat to him: No one in history has ever successfully run for president riding this big of a lie.
http://Bruce-1628250.newsvine.com/_news/2012/09/04/13660654-greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital
hey jerry i gave you a check only for stupidity.Bin laden was a kuwati?You have no clue nor a mere inkling what has been going on and who is who.You should read instead listening and drinking the kool-aid.You just show that you definitely don't come from missouri.
To all the Obama haters, Romney has been trying for the last 5-6 years to become president and since he has no experience of ever being a president, tell the people what he has done for you, what jobs has he created, what taxes has he cut for you, what health care has he given you. All he has given is speeches that he is going to change this and that - but has not one time come out with a plan that we can even discuss.
Oh really.....anyone with a brain who watched the Repubs last week could rightly accuse them of exclusionary tactics aimed at minorities, gays, women especially, college students, the poor, underprivileged, those on Medicare and Medicaid and all those on Social Security! Who is left that they expect to vote for them?!! The Republicans and their bigotted, racist and sexist platform have pushed out anyone who does not fit their mold. It's 1920 again for them! Their stonewalling Congress presented NO plan FOR anything, just lots of plans to exclude, eliminate, curtail, cut and oppress. Please remember this when you vote!!
Dear Republican brothers and sisters:
(Yes, we are). It has come to my attention that you are giving President Obama an incomplete grade and you are right. It will take more time to get our house in order after eight years of chaos. After all, he is fighting alone because the kids in Congress refuse to help. Once he is done, his grade will change from "I" to "A+".
Too bad that it's too late for little George. His abysmal grade stands: "F" it is. He doesn't show any progress, even now. I should know, I have been teaching kids like him for over 30 years. Anyway, students like Obama are rare, few people understand outstanding minds and responsible leadership. That's why I"m telling you here and now: R/R is a bad, bad idea. I wish you'd reconsider.
About Republicans in Congress: you kids deserve to stay after school. Congress did nothing but got paid for a job not done. That's unethical, its members have no business taking summer vacation. There should be "summer congress" so they can finish the work not done. Do it now and they will not stray again, they will learn the lesson. Read and be smart!
Yours truly,
Maria1119 - Teacher
Subject: Common Sense 101