Mitt Romney Picks Paul Ryan For Running Mate

CNN.com:

Mitt Romney on Saturday announced U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate for the White House -- a bold and risky move that energized both conservatives and their opponents. 

Ryan is a rising Republican star and the party's leader on fiscal and budget issues. 

He is the architect of a Republican spending plan that would overhaul many entitlement programs, making him a favorite of conservatives, whose support for Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has been shaky. 

But the Romney camp was also quick to put some distance between Ryan's initial budget blueprint and his own. 

"Gov. Romney applauds Paul Ryan for going in the right direction with his budget," the campaign said, "and as president he will be putting together his own plan for cutting the deficit and putting the budget on a path to balance." 

His running mate choice draws some clear lines with Romney's Democratic opponents over the size of the cuts in Ryan's plan and his prior votes on taxes, which they say favor the wealthiest Americans -- a point of contention in an election in which both sides consider themselves champions of the middle class. 

"Congressman Paul Ryan is an outstanding choice as our country's next vice president, and today's announcement demonstrates Governor Romney's commitment to returning fiscal sanity back to Washington, DC.," said former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who mounted the strongest conservative challenge to Romney's campaign in the Republican primaries. 

"I have long supported Paul Ryan's fiscal and entitlement reforms to return our country back on a path of fiscal health." 

Ryan, 42, is considered a policy wonk and conservative Catholic likely to energize the GOP base and sharpen the campaign's focus on government spending and the economy. 

That could boost Romney's appeal among middle-of-the-road Catholic voters in battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, though Ryan offers little in the way of foreign policy experience. 

 The House Budget Committee chairman was chosen ahead of Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. A campaign aide told CNN that Romney decided on Ryan on August 1. GOP sources said Friday that the latter three had all been told that they wouldn't be getting the nod. 

Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden contacted Ryan, welcoming him to the race, saying that he "looked forward to engaging him on the clear choice voters face this November." And Democrats were quick to make Ryan's fiscal policies a target.

RELATED: Romney's Choice of Ryan Aimed at Winning Middle Class

CNN and Time Suspend Liberal Journalist Fareed Zakaria After Admission of Plagiarism

This guy is a noted Obama defender and apologist. Funny how it's almost always liberal writers who get caught plagiarizing:

Time magazine and CNN suspended Fareed Zakaria, the writer and television host, on Friday after he apologized for plagiarizing sections of his column on gun control in the Aug. 20 issue of Time.

Some passages in the column, “The Case for Gun Control,” closely tracked those in a longer article on guns in America by the historian Jill Lepore, which appeared in the April 23 issue of The New Yorker.

The similarities in the texts were spotted by the conservative Web site NewsBusters, and quickly spread across the Internet after appearing on the media blog JimRomenesko.com.

Mr. Zakaria issued a statement Friday afternoon saying: “Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 23 issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers.”

His admission is the second instance in less than two weeks of a prominent writer owning up to an ethical lapse. Last week, the science writer Jonah Lehrer admitted that he fabricated quotes from Bob Dylan for his best-selling book “Imagine: How Creativity Works.” Mr. Lehrer was forced to resign as a staff writer for The New Yorker, and his publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, said it would recall print copies of the book.

Time said it was suspending Mr. Zakaria’s column for a month, pending review. “Time accepts Fareed’s apology, but what he did violates our own standards for our columnists, which is that their work must not only be factual but original; their views must not only be their own but their words as well,” said Ali Zelenko, a spokeswoman for the magazine.

CNN, like Time magazine, is owned by Time Warner.

In a statement, CNN said: “We have reviewed Fareed Zakaria’s Time column, for which he has apologized. He wrote a shorter blog post on CNN.com on the same issue which included similar unattributed excerpts.

That blog post has been removed and CNN has suspended Fareed Zakaria while this matter is under review.”

Earlier this year, Mr. Zakaria was criticized for giving a commencement speech at Harvard that was very similar to the one he had earlier given at Duke.

Mr. Zakaria, 48, balances a demanding schedule, doing work for multiple media properties. He is a CNN host, an editor at large at Time, a Washington Post columnist and an author. He was born in India and graduated from Harvard and Yale.

Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post’s editorial page editor, said he also would start examining Mr. Zakaria’s work: “Fareed Zakaria is a valued contributor. We’ve never had any reason to doubt the integrity of his work for us. Given his acknowledgment today, we intend to review his work with him.”

The following passages provide an example of the repetition of Ms. Lepore’s work in Mr. Zakaria’s column:

Mr. Zakaria:

Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history in Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. Guns were regulated in the U.S. from the earliest years of the Republic. Laws that banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. Other states soon followed: Indiana in 1820, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839 and Ohio in 1859. Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas (Texas!) explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.”

Ms. Lepore:

As Adam Winkler, a constitutional-law scholar at U.C.L.A., demonstrates in a remarkably nuanced new book, “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” firearms have been regulated in the United States from the start. Laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, and other states soon followed: Indiana (1820), Tennessee and Virginia (1838), Alabama (1839), and Ohio (1859). Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.”

Two New Jersey Towns Reject Morally Bankrupt MTV Reality Star Snooki

You may've heard of Nicole Elizabeth "Snooki" Polizzi, a morally bankrupt, bisexual, no-talent from New Jersey whose made a name for herself by literally acting a fool on the MTV hit series "Jersey Shore". Needless to say in the 4 or so years Snooki's been on TV liberals have come love her cesspool antics which have included endlessly getting drunk, constant partying, urinating in public, getting arrested for being a public nuisance, making out with other women, saying stupid things and having sex with a variety of men she barely knows. Indeed, the kind of stuff that the mainstream loves....thank goodness some people in this country have had enough:

Not everyone is a fan of Jersey Shore, as MTV tried to get permission to film the second season of Snooki & JWoww in a couple of towns that flat-out told them "no."

MTV tried to get Point Pleasant Beach on board with the Jersey Shore spinoff, but their city council unanimously voted against the request.

You can't argue with the votes on that one. And, really, can ya blame the townsfolk? Hasn't the Jersey Shore crew (along with those tacktastic "Real Housewives") done enough to further sully the Garden State's reputation?

Even though the production company that submitted the request said that Snooki (Nicole Polizzi) and JWoww (Jennifer Farley) would be living outside their town, the council had no interest in the reality series.
Good for them.

Councilman William Mayer explained the decision, noting, "It's not what we need at this point," USA Today reports.

Case in point, Point Pleasant Beach has been looking to close their bars early and restrict overnight parking, no doubt trying to reduce the amount of riff-raff.

You can see how a Jersey Shore spinoff wouldn't fit too nicely into their plan.

Point Pleasant Beach wasn't the only town to turn Snooki and JWoww away -- the town of Toms River also passed on the MTV reality series filming there.

RELATED: 10 Worst TV Role Models

Barack Obama: ‘I’m Not The President Of Black America’

Barack Obama really loves gay people and illegal immigrants. So much so that he has gone out of his way, using his executive order privilege, to time and time again expand or create "rights" for his two favorite minority groups. This fact unnerves many black liberals who not thought they were Obama's favorite voting bloc (after all they did overwhelmingly support and greatly assist in Obama's upset win over John McCain in the 2008 election) because they share the same skin tone, but by constantly going out of his way to assist gays and illegal immigrants in a horrible economy, Obama has made it harder for blacks to compete for jobs and thus better themselves overall.

In fact, the statistics show that as a collective blacks in this country did way better economically under former President George W. Bush (a man they detested) than under the first Gay President, Barack Obama. That said, with many pundits predicting that, despite Obama doing absolutely nothing for them during his first 3 1/2 years as POTUS, stupid and naive black liberals will STILL come out in force to support Obama over Mitt Romney in the upcoming Presidential election. Thus, one can imagine Obama and his angry, black wife Michelle having a good laugh night after night at just how dimwitted and ass-backwards black folks are in this country. And as if that's enough, leave it to the narcissistic Obama to openly declare that despite their upcoming support in November he doesn't give a rat's ass about Black people's wants and needs:

In an interview with Black Enterprise magazine, President Obama addressed criticisms that he hass not done enough during his first term to support black businesses. Obama explained he was more interested in promoting all business instead of singling out any particular group, saying “I’m not the president of black America. I’m the president of the United States of America.” 

Obama noted in the interview that African-American unemployment is higher than overall national unemployment, and that the black community is “hurt during recessionary times more than the population at large.” When asked about criticism that his administration has not done enough for black businesses, Obama rebutted the claim. 

My general view has been consistent throughout, which is that I want all businesses to succeed. I want all Americans to have opportunity. I’m not the president of black America. I’m the president of the United States of America, but the programs that we have put in place have been directed at those folks who are least able to get financing through conventional means, who have been in the past locked out of opportunities that were available to everybody. So, I’ll put my track record up against anybody in terms of us putting in place broad-based programs that ultimately had a huge benefit for African American businesses.

RELATED:  Obama must do more to end 'black recession'

CNN Fact Checks Despicable Obama Super Pac Ad Blaming Mitt Romney For Steelworkers Wife's Death

HotAir.com:

They won’t attack him for being Mormon (I hope), so calling him a murderer will have to do:

The pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action lobbed a heavy-duty attack at Mitt Romney this morning, airing an ad that links the closure of a GST Steel plant in Kansas City to the loss of a family’s health insurance — and the death of a woman some time later…
In the case of this particularly jarring super PAC ad, it may also be relevant that Soptic’s wife died in 2006, years after the GST factory closed down…

I asked Priorities USA strategist Bill Burton to explain the connection between Romney, Bain and a cancer fatality that happened near the end of Romney’s tenure as governor of Massachusetts. The lapse in time between the plant closing and Soptic’s death doesn’t mean the ad is invalid, but it raises questions about the cause and effect relationship here.

“We’re illustrating how long it took for communities and individuals to recover from the closing of these businesses,” Burton responded. “Families and individuals had to find new jobs, new sources of health insurance and a way to make up for the pensions they lost. Mitt Romney has had an enduring impact on the lives of thousands of men and women and for many of them, that impact has been devastating.”

Romney stopped doing work for Bain in 1999; the steel plant in question here closed down in 2001; Soptic’s wife passed away in 2006; and yet, Romney’s somehow culpable. Perfection. You know what’s really interesting about this spot? It’s not even a health-care ad. It’d be sleazy under any circumstances, but there’d at least be a concrete policy angle if Burton was selling it as an argument for, say, single-payer, to decouple insurance from employment. He’s not. There appears to be no actual policy argument here at all, unless The One now opposes layoffs on principle, for fear that someone somewhere might be left without insurance. Is that where our very pro-business president — seriously, just ask him — is now at? As John Sexton says, does this mean O himself is on the hook until 2014 for any deaths that resulted from GM dealerships being closed in 2009? I thought workers bore some responsibility to find a new job with insurance after they’re laid off, but if he wants to take the blame for human tragedies at Government Motors, fine by me.

I have to say, though, it’s a comfort to me to know that Hopenchange will be well and truly shattered come November, no matter what happens on election day. Even if he pulls it out, after a campaign like this the idea that he and his team represent some sort of new, more exalted form of politics will be fully exposed for the joke that it is. His second term won’t be better, but at least people won’t be kidding themselves anymore, if any still are. There’s some small consolation in that.

RELATED: Risky Obama PAC Ad Linking Romney To Steelworker’s Wife’s Death Highly Likely To Backfire

Liberal Writer Richard Cohen: Harry Reid is Exactly What’s Wrong with Washington

WaPo.com:

In “The Godfather Part II,” a senator from Nevada is portrayed as corrupt. His name is Pat Geary. In real life, a senator from Nevada is a jerk. His name is Harry Reid.

Reid is where he loves to be: the center of controversy. He has accused Mitt Romney of paying no taxes for 10 years. Romney denies the accusation and challenged Reid to put up or shut up. In an apparent response, Reid repeated the charges on the Senate floor. Countless aides have echoed their boss. They and he attribute their information to a source they will not name.

Whether such a source exists, really, is beside the point. It could be that someone did indeed tell Reid that Romney paid no taxes for 10 years. Journalists get that sort of tip all the time, and their responsibility is (1) to check it out and (2) identify the source. Reid has not done the latter and apparently has not done the former, either. The truth is that Reid doesn’t really care if the charge is true or not. He would prefer the former, but he’ll settle for the latter.

 For Reid, this is yet another brazen and tasteless partisan attack. As majority leader, he has managed to sink the public image of the Senate even lower than it would otherwise be. He contributes to bad feelings, gridlock and the sense — nay, the reality — that everything is done for political advantage. Reid is a crass man, the very personification of the gaudy and kitschy Las Vegas Strip.

Still, he is not some backbencher, but the Senate majority leader. He is the face of the Democratic Party in the Senate and the ally of President Obama. Yet, not a single Democrat has had the spine to rebuke Reid. 

The White House has been given the chance and explicitly ducked its duty. Other members of the Senate have run for cover. They fear Reid and, if truth be told, sort of like what he’s doing — constantly needling Romney, keeping him on the defensive about taxes and his insistence on releasing only two years of his returns.

The politics of this squabble are delightful. But Reid has managed to draw both his party and his president into the gutter with him. When Reid accuses the Republicans of being overly partisan, he now lacks all credibility. For a long time it’s been difficult to believe anything he says. Now, it’s impossible.

As for Obama, he is tarnished by this episode. The fresh new face that promised us all a different kind of politics is suddenly looking cheesy. The soaring rhetoric that Obama used in his first campaign has come to ground in the mud of Harry Reid’s latter-day McCarthyism.

Channeled anger and staying on connecting Reid's smear to Obama (who hasn't shown any interest in denouncing Reid) is how conservatives and the Romney campaign should respond here. Yet, it still says a lot when a prominent liberal writer comes out and not only says he doesn't have Harry Reid's back, but that the Senate Majority leader is a lying prick as well.

RELATED: John Sununu: Barack Obama behind Harry Reid’s claim

Politiks As Usual: In The News 8/6/12

Sikh Temple Shooting To Be Probed As 'Domestic Terror'

Rice, Haley, McCain To Speak At GOP Convention

Polygamist Children Grow Up: Will They Have Polygamist Families Too?

Democrat Party Disavows Senate Nominee

175,000 Fewer Women Held Jobs in July; 94,000 Dropped Out of Labor Force

Priebus, Graham: Harry Reid 'Dirty Liar' for Romney Tax Smear; NYTimes On Reid

What Unemployment Rate Increase? Three Headline Writers Avoid Friday's Reported Uptick; AP Scrubs Original Rate Reference

Global Warming Debunked by Intelligent Design

How the Obama Campaign/Media Alliance Works

The Failed Policies That Got Us Into This Mess: By The Numbers

How Obama Grew to Dislike Romney

86 Percent of ABC, CBS, NBC Evening News Stories on Romney's Overseas Trip Emphasized His 'Missteps'

Townhall.com:

I get that Mitt Romney's overseas trip may or may not have been the most well-executed presidential campaign booster, but it appears the networks are determined to forego any flowery rhetoric they reserved for 2008 Obama and emphasize Romney's failures. According to the Media Research Center,

"Mitt Romney's week-long international trip resulted in unrelentingly negative coverage from the big three broadcast networks, a stark change from the glowing press awarded to then-candidate Barack Obama's world tour in 2008. While Obama was treated like a rock star (from the Associated Press: "It's not only Obama's youth, eloquence and energy that have stolen hearts across the Atlantic...."), Romney endured a focus on gaffes and the trivial. 

MRC analysts examined all 21 ABC, CBS and NBC evening news stories about Romney's trip to London, Israel and Poland between July 25 and July 31. Virtually all of these stories (18, or 86%) emphasized Romney's "diplomatic blunders," from his "golden gaffe" at the Olympic games to "missteps" that offended the Palestinians."

Honestly, the best part, though, is when MRC puts this side by side with coverage Obama received on his overseas tour before getting elected president:

In July of 2008, Barack Obama's international tour took him to Israel where, in an attempt to show toughness over Iran, the then-senator incorrectly told reporters that he was a member of the Senate Banking committee. (Obama erroneously referred to "his" committee's calls for divestment from Iran.) There was no outcry and no reporting of "errors" or "gaffes," at least on the three broadcast evening newscasts.

Obama's 2008 foreign tour, unlike Romney's 2012 version, received glowing coverage.

When the Democrat arrived in Berlin to speak, Brian Williams could hardly contain himself. On the July 24, 2008 Nightly News, he trumpeted, "...The man from Chicago, Illinois, the first ever African-American running as presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, brought throngs of people into the center of Berlin, streaming into this city, surging to get close to him, to hear his message."

On the same program, Andrea Mitchell was beside herself, marveling at the large crowds: "It's hard to figure out what the comparison is. What do you compare this with?"

Then-CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric couched the visit in the most favorable terms, hyping, "Barack Obama extends the hand of friendship to Europe."

RELATED: Sen. Obama supported layoff warnings; now sees no need