Your morning jolt: David Koch favors gay marriage, says tax increases may be necessary
TAMPA – As the Republican presidential ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan jetted away, this bombshell was making the rounds, courtesy of Politico.com:
Billionaire industrialist David Koch, who is helping steer millions of dollars to elect Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans, on Thursday [said] he disagrees with the GOP’s stance on gay marriage and believes the U.S. needs to consider raising taxes to balance the budget….
Koch said he thinks the U.S. military should withdraw from the Middle East and said the government should consider defense spending cuts, as well as possible tax increases to get its fiscal house in order — a stance anathema to many in the Republican Party.
“I think it’s essential to be able to achieve spending reductions and maybe it’s going to require some tax increases,” he said. “We got to come close to balancing the budget; otherwise, we’re in a terrible deep problem.”
***
Whether you loved it or hated its message, cherish the fact of this Republican National Convention that just ended, because it may be the last of its kind that you see. The major TV broadcast networks, despite their waning power, have successfully dictated a new length to the major political parties – they’ll serve as unpaid venues for Democratic and Republican commercials for three days, and no longer.
And only one hour each day. It was the latter time restriction that got Republicans into trouble last night. Rather than lean on some very effective, very emotional testimony of Mitt Romney’s personal friends, the campaign leaned on Clint Eastwood, the “mystery guest” touted through the week by the campaign, to quickly create a large audience at the front of that hour – with the hope that viewers would hang on to see the presidential candidate accept his nomination.
In that sense, however bizarre Eastwood’s act was, the strategy may have succeeded.
***
Where GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan delivered angry attacks a night earlier, Mitt Romney on Thursday had the air of a father demanding the car keys from a teenaged Barack Obama who had broken curfew:
I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed. But his promises gave way to disappointment and division.
And if you didn’t choke up at the story of George Romney and the daily rose he gave his wife, you’re not human. But this may have been Romney’s most effective line for wooing independents:
You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.
According to my AJC colleague Daniel Malloy, Georgia delegates leaving the Tampa Bay Times Forum for the last time liked the approach:
“I think it really energized the base,” said Joseph Gullett, chairman of the Paulding County Republican Party. “Hopefully it energized people who weren’t Romney supporters before. It shows his direction about the issues.”
Perhaps the most striking aspects of the speech were personal ones, when Romney talked about raising his children and choked up when discussing his late parents.
Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens said the address showed “the real part of Romney that has not been displayed — the man that loves others that’s willing to give himself.”
Hudgens added: “I couldn’t have said what he said without choking up. It made me realize how real he is.”
Bill Knowles, of Macon, said that as compared with the 2008 Republican Convention, this event was crisp and focused on the economy. Yet he was impressed that Romney covered a wide range – both policy-wise and personally.
“There was some humor; there was emotion; it was a well-rounded speech,” Knowles said. “Romney is not the bombastic Chris Christie type. He’s more intellectual. He’s a passionate speaker, and that’s what came through.”
***
Here at the Tampa Bay Grand Hyatt, our difficult neighbor has just left.
Reporters covering the Georgia delegation, which is housed here, have been relegated to a cluster of cabanas that are on the Hyatt property, but are about a quarter-mile away from the huge hotel.
It would be rude to suppose that the distance was meant to allow Georgia Republicans to party without fear of observation.
But there was an advantage. The cabanas are apparently where the hotel prefers to house guests with pets, or guests who smoke. For the past five days, we have entertained U.S. House Speaker John Boehner as a neighbor. He didn’t have a dog.
The first tip-off was the Mini Cooper with the “Boehner for Speaker” bumper sticker. The second was the full-throated U.S. Secret Service protection.
But this must be said: There was no loud music, no empties left on the lawn. And except for the fact that, while fetching ice, one was required to keep hands in sight at all times, the neighborhood was a very safe place to stroll – any hour, day or night.
- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider
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137 comments Add your comment
Linda
August 31st, 2012
10:23 pm
homested@9:49, You must be kidding! Congress was browbeaten/intimidated into voting for the war in Iraqi? Democrats were pawns? My goodness! Democratic Senators & House of Representative members were stupid? They seemed so forceful on the videos on U-Tube.
cc
August 31st, 2012
10:28 pm
This is the very best speech I’ve ever heard obama give.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?feature=player_embedded&v=WH_a0cGVRmI
20/20
August 31st, 2012
10:58 pm
There is a deep psychological divide between Romney supporters and Obama supporters.
Romney supporters sign their checks on the front, and Obama supporters sign theirs on the back.
Going right
August 31st, 2012
11:20 pm
Geez, the economy has been so great these past 4 years I really have to think twice about voting Republican. With the absolute prosperity and the reduction in our debt, the Anointed One has done it.
(dis)honested @ 8.54p;
The “delusions” you speak of are getting better. Most were brought on by nightmares that the Anointed One had been re-elected and it frightened me so much that I could not get cognitive dissonance on a 50/50 keel, but, thanks for asking.
The Anointed One? Because he is treated in the press and by his minions as the next best thing to indoor toilets (which most socialist/liberals have, by the way), ergo: The Anointed One.
The Reverend Wright was a reference to the Anointed One’s “church-going” days when he heard homilies that would have triple-X ratings if they were shown in a theater.
Worship what you wish dear fellow (or gal); it may help you cope better with reality, and:
Thanks for the mention of help. Please do ask you psychiatrist if he’s taking new patients. There are several on here that need help! Not me though as it is with cc, I am comfortably retired and spending my small fortune as fast as I can before a chance that the “progressive/socialist/leftist/Dimocrats” may be elected and POOF! there goes everything I worked for and saved during my military and civilian lives. Ain’t gonna happen.
honested
August 31st, 2012
11:54 pm
linda,
You didn’t just drink the wrong-wing kool-aid, you smeared the gooey stuff at the bottom all over youreslf. Nobody but extremist wrong wing nuts (on the wrong wing fringe of wrong wing nuts) still has any disagreement with what you fools demean as ‘global warming’, and here’s a hint, your imaginary god won’t protect you from your own stupidity. Get at least a hint of a clue.
20/20 (hindsight) ’signing the check’…..Really, ask my employees!
going wrong…Keep it up, you have given me months of material, and it is all so looney. I can’t believe people are so detached as to make this sh*t up!!!
honested
August 31st, 2012
11:56 pm
linda,
While you are ‘youtuibing’, find the discussions from the only honorable member of the shrub administration (Gen. Colin Powell) and get his take on the ‘Iraqi War of Choice’.
Jeez, you clowns are so wrong that you think night is day!!!
double
September 1st, 2012
12:04 am
Going right has more than one life.Must be going right.
Liz
September 1st, 2012
1:29 am
If the Republican platform was not so radical, the gender gap would not be so great. Republicans all over this country are trying to control women’s reproductive rights on a state or national level. It is a huge step backwards. Proposed regulations requiring women to go through certain procedures and “educational” consults, waiting periods, and even transvaginal ultrasounds is an insult to women’s intelligence. They are designed to harass and or humiliate women.
I would not go backwards.
Bernie
September 1st, 2012
1:49 am
Am I? The only one FOUND it STRANGE and Weird. That Mitt refused and with purposeful intent NOT to even mention OUR TROOPS? Not ONE TIME!…… in a time of 2.5 wars? defensive homeland footing, 10+years of fighting?, many still being killed weekly?
Looks like, We have the same ole MITT, from 1961-1973. The Time when America’s Boys were being killed at a much higher RATE and NUMBERS. VIETNAM! in the end it was some 55,000. Scores of Injuries that are STILL with US today.
Mitt DID “not” “care” THEN! ………………….Mitt DOES ” not” “care” NOW!
Not ONE TIME! not one time…..Not One..Not even a mention.
America….. SAYS its.. TIME…. To Do…. The ….RIGHT THING! …… Boot Mitt!
MESSAGE!!!!!!!!
Buckhead Boy
September 1st, 2012
4:08 am
Bernie, I’m affraid that I have to disagree. Mr. Romney did care then. He demonstrated in favor of that war — before heading off to convert souls along the Seine. One might say, his heart was on the right while his body was on the Left Bank. Or, as one of the less charitable old boys put it at the club the other night: “He was on a swift boat too. One to France.”
And, as far as caring now, he may not have mentioned it Thursday night, but in the past he’s never shied away from affording another generation of boys and girls a free trip to Afghanistan. In fact, from what he did say in that speech, one might deduce that he has in mind even more trips for them.
I do have a question for our Republican friends about Mr. Romney’s speech to the RNC. Was that addressed to Mr. Chairman or Mr. Chair Man?
Attack Dog
September 1st, 2012
5:45 am
1. $3 Trillion the debt added in the past fours years came as a result of tax cuts and wars in the Middle East. 2. We have the Bush tax cuts, and nothing but more tax cuts over the past four years, so where are the jobs Dixiecrats? Construction workers build Willard a new garage doesn’t quite get it.
Attack Dog
September 1st, 2012
5:54 am
1. Going from losing 750,000 jobs per month to adding 150,000. 2. The Dow going from 8,000 to 13,000. 3. One war down and one to go. 4. Health insurance coverage for viagra and now birth control pills. 5. A FEMA Director who knows what he is doing. I’d say that is pretty darn good. But hey, who is counting for those who can’t?
Attack Dog
September 1st, 2012
5:59 am
Any woman smart enough to vote Dixiecratic (Southern Conservative), is scared enough not to believe the truth.
hiram
September 1st, 2012
7:18 am
Some objective reality:
How Romney Made His Fortune — It Ain’t Pretty, and He Shouldn’t Be Proud of It
“Earned” is a very generous way to put it.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/matt-taibbi-reveals-how-romney-made-his-fortune-it-aint-pretty-and-he-shouldnt-be
DeborahinAthens
September 1st, 2012
7:23 am
The Republicans are master manipulators. Using Rovian tactics which got our worst president ever (GW Bush) elected and re-elected, the Repugs repeat lies over and over and their constituents are so stupid, they begin to believe them…or else, they just don give a damn. Listening toPaul Ryan telling one lie after another –all easily checked out, made me ill. These people are not your friends and I wouldn’t believe a word someone like Koch would say. They would all (forcibly, legitimately) rape their grandmothers to get elected.
Going right
September 1st, 2012
7:57 am
What promises made by bin Obama were broken? No fewer than 83 and counting:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-broken/
BTW: PolitiFact is the holy bible of the left for disparaging the Republican Party and conservatives.
If you think thes “broken promises” are made up and false, write them a letter and let them give you the PROOF
hiram
September 1st, 2012
8:09 am
@deb
“…it’s almost like he has a kind of a religious conviction about being able to lie to people outside of the tent, so to speak. You know, there’s that tenet of some forms of extreme Muslim religions where it’s OK to lie to the infidel.” MattTaibbi
I think Taibbi is correct – it’s part of Romney’s extreme religiosity. If you’re not a member of his cult, you don’t matter…
Going right
September 1st, 2012
8:09 am
(dis)honested: “..going wrong…Keep it up, you have given me months of material, and it is all so looney. I can’t believe people are so detached as to make this sh*t up!!!”
At least we have something else in common: I, too, have months of material from you. Make this sh*t up? The standard answer from someone who try to wish away facts and distortions. won’t work. Go on Google, for instance and check out Michele Obama’s statement from a campaign rally (for the Anointed One made in North Carolina:
“The truth is, in order get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of the pie so that someone else can have more.” She made the remarks on the campaign trail in North Carolina on April 8, 2008.” (Quoted right off the PolitiFact page).
Ain’t I good at making things up? I forgot to ask, what pie woul like to throw in to be divvied up?
D man
September 1st, 2012
8:23 am
Gay marriage is not something that our political leaders should be worrying about when our economy is in shambles. Focus on the problems and not the things that don’t really matter to the majority. Have you noticed gas prices lately or did you know that your taxes are about to sky rocket too next year after several bills are inacted if not repealed. Focus people, stop looking away from the real issues…
hiram
September 1st, 2012
8:26 am
This is how Romney and his partners in crime became filfthy rich.
‘Dividend Recapitalization’
The dividend recap has seen explosive growth, primarily as an avenue for private investment firms to recoup some or all of the money they used to purchase their stake in a business. It is generally not looked upon favorably by creditors or common shareholders because it reduces the credit quality of the company while only benefiting a select few.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dividendrecap.asp#axzz25Dg1lxSf
hiram
September 1st, 2012
8:40 am
@ D man
It’s a lost leader – like when the grocery store lowers their price on bread to get you to shop there, but doubles their price on milk – knowing that you will probably buy both. Bundling irrelevant issues that excite the “unwashed” is part of the Republican rob-you-blind while you’re not looking strategy.
They know their “ditto head” market well, and exploit it at will.
cc
September 1st, 2012
8:52 am
Going Right:
I didn’t realize until a few days ago the extent to which these libs are parroting the ‘talking heads’ who pass themselves off as journalists of the ‘mainstream media’. I can watch/listen to these ‘journalists’ and then find their words repeated here by the libs. For all the bravado expressed by some of these libs, it would be difficult to find a few good men frequenting this blog. Even Chesty himself would have a difficult time squaring them away.
hiram
September 1st, 2012
9:05 am
@cc
You are the perfect of example of Johnny Isackson’s “unwashed voter” – the Republican pied pipers feed you very simple and easy to remember terms, like “lib”, which becomes a major component of your limited vocabulary – you used it three times in one paragraph.
cc
September 1st, 2012
9:32 am
hiram @ 9:05 am:
My use of the term ‘lib’ was simply an attempt to be nice. Your post is duly noted and I will refrain from being nice in the future.
cc
September 1st, 2012
10:07 am
DeborahinAthens:
“the Repugs repeat lies over and over and their constituents are so stupid, they begin to believe them”
There isn’t anyone so stupid as an obama supporter . . .
“telling one lie after another –all easily checked out”
Yes, the Kenyan’s lies are easily “checked out”, but I can almost guarantee that you haven’t done so. I can post link after link where you can see and hear obama lies but you wouldn’t view/listen to them anyway.
hiram
September 1st, 2012
10:25 am
Obama is no more a Kenyan than Romney is a Mexican – the difference is, Romney’s father, who was born in a polygamous cult’s Mexican hideout, entered the U.S. illegally.
cc
September 1st, 2012
10:28 am
“The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.
A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.
A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama’s transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: “Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation.”
Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504383_162-5314040-504383.html
“Too many Americans are out of work or need better-paying jobs. While Congress and the president have been distracted on other issues, our nation’s unemployment remains too high and prospects for recovery too dim. We must return to a real jobs agenda that neither raises taxes nor kills existing jobs.
When the administration or its supporters do mention jobs, it is usually sheep’s clothing hiding a wolf. I am talking about cap-and-trade bill proponents trying to hide the pain of their proposals behind a green jobs curtain. But the American people are duly skeptical of the potential for green jobs to overcome the burden of new energy taxes or the existing jobs that will be lost.”
Source: http://www.rollcall.com/features/Energy-Environment_2010/energy_environment/-44980-1.html
cc
September 1st, 2012
10:31 am
hiram @ 10:25 am:
If you believe the words of the Kenyan himself, his wife and his paternal grandmother, he is a Kenyan . . .
hiram
September 1st, 2012
10:40 am
@cc
So, you are a birther, a disclosure that automatically disqualifies you from any serious discussion.
hiram
September 1st, 2012
10:52 am
cc @ 10:28
“A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama’s transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: “Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation.”
So, you also deny climate change. The foreign owned oil and coal companies have to be pinching themselves – who would have thunk that so many Americans could be so uninformed and gullible.
cc
September 1st, 2012
10:55 am
hiram @ 10:40 am:
No discussion with you is ’serious’; you parrot, others discuss.
cc
September 1st, 2012
11:16 am
hiram @ 10:52 am:
I do NOT deny climate change. Earth has experienced heating and cooling throughout its existence as geologists have proven. I do deny that man has caused it. The ‘Little Ice Age’ lasted 300 years and only ended in 1850. Although it was not a true ‘ice age’, the temperatures were such that the resulting famine caused by shorter and much wetter growing seasons and diseases enabled by malnutrition killed millions of people. There is at least one school of thought which expects the approach of yet another period of cooling.
There is one ‘plus’ to the global warming scam; it has served to enrich one the dims brightest stars – Al Gore.
newt schmoot
September 1st, 2012
12:21 pm
Interesting comments from Koch – guess it goes to show that Republicans are not all in lock step, actually hold a variety of opinions on the issues. And thanks for your description of things in Tampa, especially reporting on our trusty Georgia delegation.
I found the RNC convention’s overall organization and Romney’s adult-in-the-room personae reassuring, after the last several years of childish I-want-all-the-candy behavior in the White House. (that would be both Bush and Obama administrations)
It will be interesting to see what the DNC trots out next week in Charlotte, where folks proudly proclaim they don’t belong to any organized party.
Going Right
September 1st, 2012
12:29 pm
cc: You may have had the good sense to go forward to a more enlightening endeavor and left me to fend off the Dumbo! OK, however, and you are forgiven. I just had to comment on you post (above). That is exactly my sentiment down to the last letter. I would only ask that those who fret over “Global Warming” please tell us how the Ice Age of 10,000 years ago happened. Man has absolutely nothing, I repeat, nothing to do with the perceived (and alleged) “Global Warming.” Anyone with even a modicum of brain cells can think outside the box and look up into our universe. They must think we live on a small sound stage and the fumes coming from any car engine’s exhaust will ruin our air. There are incalculable trillions and trillions of cubic feet of space within just 1,000 miles of Earth, let alone in our planetary system. You could turn on every pollution-inducing mechanism on earth and let them run for 10,000 years and the “polluted” air still would not reach the moon’s atmosphere. Poor Al Gore; he exemplifies the phrase, “A waste is a terrible thing to mind.”
Truth-O-Meter
September 1st, 2012
12:35 pm
1) We know Republicans were not wishing that Obama would succeed. They are the ones who cheered when the Obama-led US delegation lost its bid for the Olympics to be held in Chicago. I knew then that this would be a very difficult presidency.
2) This week they RNC paraded one woman after another about how they rose from adversity to realizing the American dream, yet still consider the President to be un-American. Mitt said that we need an American leading; like who the heck he think this president is.
Until their actions match their rhetoric, they could never get my vote.
cc
September 1st, 2012
12:39 pm
Going Right:
“Poor Al Gore; he exemplifies the phrase, “A waste is a terrible thing to mind.”
Al Gore is laughing . . . all the way to the bank.
cc
September 1st, 2012
12:43 pm
Truth-O-Meter @ 12:35 pm:
Republicans have less chance of ever getting your vote than a civil rights protest without money has of getting Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.