So now we don't have to "love" you or your Party's nominee for the Presidency apparently, just respect your courage in being willing to make the "hard choices" our country must face.
That's a relief as I have to confess that I wasn't feeling the love anyway. Just to reassure you, I'm not in "love" with President Obama or any Democrat either. I tend to reserve those emotions for family and friends, not someone I'm thinking about hiring.
It's helpful to try to keep the emotions out of important decisions, don't you think? Facts and critical thinking strike me as being far more important, emotions being those wishy washy things after all. Though compassion, you know - the thing that Jesus called upon us to have for one another - does strike me as crucially important, especially during difficult times. After all, what hurts one of us could hurt any of us. Job loss, Illness. The death of a loved one. A company closing it's door and going overseas. Food carried diseases. Violent storms, drought, flooding, wild fires. Wall Street's rigged crap shoot that crashed the economy and broke the American Dream.
Oh, I know there are the fortunate few who will never have to worry about losing a home, or if there's enough food for dinner, or how to pay for a beloved child's life saving medical treatment. But far too many Americans do, or are only a pay check or two from doing so. Life can turn on a dime and break our hearts even faster.
Want to talk about the hard choices? Try choosing between heat and food in January. Try having to forgo medications to pay the light bill. Try wondering if your child will live.
But back to the "respect" thing that you called upon us all to have.
Public policies that I have determined as good for our Nation and people have my support. The public servants who fight for those policies have my respect. It's what we all do to one degree or another and it's good to know that you support my respectful approach to the vital concerns of our country.
You do, don't you?
You see I can't help but wonder if you and your Party actually do. And frankly Mr. Christie, in my book, respect is earned - not demanded. Respect is also a two way street.
It's difficult to find your treatment of your own Party's nominee anything but disrespectful when you didn't even bother to mention his name until you were over 1,800 words into your speech. A speech which was supposed to be about him - not you.
Your display of naked ambition was, shall we say, distasteful.
It probably shouldn't have come as such a surprise, not after you showed so little respect for Mrs. Romney. It was as if she'd never spoken.
And that leaves me wondering about a few things Mr. Christie.
Do you even notice anyone or anything that is not of use to you, including the truth?
Far better writers than I have listed the falsehoods in your speech last night. The list is long and telling. But then you were far from alone.
Among others was Bev Gray's convenient lapse in memory. Not mentioning that she's a spokesperson for the Small Business Administration's contributions in helping grow the economy, especially hers, while bashing our government, was the rule last night, not the exception.
And it's one you continued.
So riddle me this, Governor. Why should I respect you and your party when you show no respect for the truth?
Why should I respect you, your candidate, and your Party when you deny our common history, including your Party's role in it?
You spoke about us all having to make the hard choices, Governor.
These are some of the choices your Party has made:
1. Filibustering the American Jobs Act. Last October, Senate Republicans killed a jobs bill proposed by President Obama that would have pumped $447 billion into the economy. Multiple economic analysts predicted the bill would add around two million jobs and hailed it as defense against a double-dip recession. The Congressional Budget Office also scored it as a net deficit reducer over ten years, and the American public supported the bill.
2. Stonewalling monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve can do enormous good for a depressed economy through more aggressive monetary stimulus, and by tolerating a temporarily higher level of inflation. But with everything from Ron Paul’s anti-inflationary crusade to Rick Perry threatening to lynch Chairman Ben Bernanke, Republicans have browbeaten the Fed into not going down this path. Most damagingly, the GOP repeatedly held up President Obama’s nominations to the Federal Reserve Board during the critical months of the recession, leaving the board without the institutional clout it needed to help the economy.
3. Threatening a debt default. Even though the country didn’t actually hit its debt ceiling last summer, the Republican threat to default on the United States’ outstanding obligations was sufficient to spook financial markets and do real damage to the economy.
4. Cutting discretionary spending in the debt ceiling deal. The deal the GOP extracted as the price for avoiding default imposed around $900 billion in cuts over ten years. It included $30.5 billion in discretionary cuts in 2012 alone, costing the country 0.3 percent in economic growth and 323,000 jobs, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute. Starting in 2013, the deal will trigger another $1.2 trillion in cuts over ten years.
http://thinkprogress.org/...
It didn't matter who you hurt. What damage was done or who paid the price. And millions have, including far too many of American's children and the most vulnerable.
The children didn't matter. Nor our Veterans, First Responders, our Grandparents, those we love who struggle with life threatening medical conditions, or our people desperately looking for work.
None of them mattered.
Only this -
Because of your Party's choice to obstruct, if not down right kill, every bill that would have helped millions of Americans, we were the ones left making all the hard choices.
Not you. Certainly not your nominee. And hardly the monied supporters who helped write your party platform giving them even more rights to continue to buy our Nation.
You speak about having to make hard choices, about accountability, while your party does neither.
I should thank you for at least one thing though. Up until 2008 I was always a registered Independent. Our Nation always came first, not any political party.
Not anymore. I will never vote for what was the Grand Old Party.
As I said earlier, what happens to our Nation matters to me. I spend a great deal of time reading, thinking about policy and how it will affect us. And yes, how those policies will affect my children and grandchildren.
You see, I'm a grand mother - one of those Seniors you and your party think are so stupid and selfish that we'd vote, not only against our own best interests, but those of our children and grandchildren.
Your Party has worked diligently to try to make us do so. Misinformation about the Affordable Care Act, Welfare Waivers, and of course Medicare Coupons immediately spring to mind.
Welfare, formally known as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, is administered by states within federal rules. Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services invited states to apply for waivers from some rules in order to run "demonstration projects" so that states could "consider new, more effective ways to meet the goals of TANF, particularly helping parents successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment."
Romney's ad doesn't mention that Republican states sought the waiver policy. In a release defending its waiver request from conservative backlash last month, the office of Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) said, "Utah's request for a waiver stems from a desire for increased customization of the program to maximize employment among Utah’s welfare recipients."
The ad also doesn't mention that the Republican Governors Association asked Congress for even broader welfare waivers in 2005, in a letter signed by 29 Republican governors, including Romney.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
But it doesn't matter how many times the facts are pointed out. You, your candidate, and your Party keep right on lying to the American people.
I have a problem with that.
Like other parents and grandparents, I've tried to teach my children and grandchildren to treat facts with respect, to examine situations, and how their decisions could impact others.
We don't deal well with falsehoods in my household. They have a tendency to break things - hearts, lives and even countries.
So I'm afraid that after much thought you, your party, and your nominee have not earned my respect, Governor Christie.
You have shown the American People none.