"...you don't shut the door behind you." DAYUM!!! FABULOUS!!!!!!

It's not so much about the money you make, it's about the difference you make in people's lives!!!"

She's knocking more than a few outta the ballpark tonight. Proud of my First Lady! She makes me proud to be an American woman!

Maybe they'll want to hedge their bets by sending money to Obama?

Frankly, I don't care. That's the name of the game, so Obama needs to get the most.

Full disclosure - I ARDENTLY support campaign finance reform, and the movement that's begun, state-by-state, for a Constitutional amendment to correct the horrendous Citizens United ruling.

Unfortunately, we're mired in the bad old ways. So if that's the state of affairs, then I want MY guy to have the biggest bucks.

ROFL!!!! This is great!

Great photos, and I LOVE what you did here, pinboy3niner! We also need the squirrel, the US gymnastics girl, and that cop with the pepper spray!

Love this photo chronicle of the road to the DNC!

Whatever you say, Pinocchio.

Not stupid so much as arrogant. Assuming that, because It's OK If You're A republi-CON,

he'd just get away with it. I think he assumed he'd just get a pass, yet again, because he's learned VERY well that he can go on Pox Noise and say anything he wants and they'll just fall to their knees say "Hosanna!" and start lighting incense to him and praising him as the Great White Wonky Hunky Hope. We never even saw the word "Lie" or "Liar" or "Lying" actually used in print before, or online, or on the lips of newspeople, anchors, reporters, segment producers, commentators, editorialists, bloggers, and more. Never. ALL THROUGH the miserable deceitful-to-the-bone-marrow dubya years. All Through Those Years, NOBODY except for us "radical lefties" and other assorted "Commie-types" here on DU and elsewhere in the progressive underground called it what it was - LIES. The "L" word. It was taboo. One simply did not say such things about "our" "President." The closest anyone dared come was "a prevaricating President?" Or "not completely true," or "less than honest," or "the President misspoke" or some other fig-leaf phrasing - ANY verbal contortions anyone could come up with to avoid having to say bush/cheney and that whole cabal - ALL were lying through their teeth, pores, and every imaginable secretion.

And now, look at the aftermath of Lyin' ryan's CONvention speech. Hard to count all the times we've heard and seen people on-camera and on radio, in print and on the internets, actually call his lies just that: LIES. I can't believe how many times I've seen the "L" word flung about so freely.

That's a welcome change. Surprising. But welcome. I'd just about lost hope that republi-CONS would ever be called out, widely and publicly. Not with Pox Noise and assholes like limbaugh always turning the volume up on high and outshouting any other viewpoint.

And that, alone, should tell us something: the lies are SO flagrant and SO ridiculous and SO embarrassing that they simply cannot be ignored or glossed over anymore.

That's a MOST welcome change.

Welcome to DU!

You make a good point. But there aren't millions of Richie Rich clones and Thurston Howell III clones for them to marry and have horses and mansions and all the high-priced health care that money can buy for their ailments without having to worry about bankrupting the family, and at least two Cadillacs to drive at a time.

In the same way, it's just not realistic to tell people that "all you have to do is Start A Business!!!!!" Hello? Not everybody in America is cut out to start a business. Not everybody in America is cut out to come up with an original idea or money-making plan or newly-invented better mousetrap, on which they can start and build a business. Is that really the answer? Just everybody go out and Start A Business!!! What? Sign up for Amway? Hey, that doesn't work either. That's no easy or magic quick-fix by ANY stretch of the imagination.

I know because for a few days, long ago, out of curiosity, my husband and I investigated Amway. A nice Mormon couple in that neighborhood at the time, with stars and dollar signs in their eyes and high hopes in their hearts, tried to recruit us. And they used the same well-researched and time-tested sales pitch that all the hopefuls use to try and snare more hopefuls with big dreams. All it is - is a legalized Ponzi scheme. The only people who work their way into that Promised Land of Pie-in-the-Sky are the guys who got in at the beginning and could find all kinds of people on whom they'd build their own pyramid - with them at the top. Everybody else who gets in after that - struggles to find their way to the top of ANY pyramid. My mind totally shut off to this crowd when one of their big shot "success stories" started talking about how they don't like regulations in business (Strike One), and then I heard one of our sponsors on the phone during an official organizer-sales pitch visit to our house, telling the person on the other end that she was with "new downline." Honey, we're HUMAN BEINGS here. Not some nameless, faceless, impersonal, "new downline." So I therefore spent about six or seven minutes in the rarified status of "new downline." Later on, learning that it was the dick devos people and CONservatives and knuckledraggers and fast-talkers and pie-in-the-sky'ers who make it sound SOOOOOOO easy to get rich by selling all this stuff.

And - HELLO!!!! - some people just aren't cut out for that kind of thing. Frankly, A LOT of people just aren't cut out for that kind of thing. That's neither good nor bad. That's just how it is in REALITY-LAND. Not everybody is a salesman or saleswoman. And of those who are salesmen or saleswomen, not everybody's all that great at it, or successful. Certainly not successful enough to get within miles of the kind of life and lifestyle that mitt romney enjoys. Not everybody can try selling Amway at home or Mary Kay or Arbonne or Avon or Tupperware and make a big success out of it, and build that big pyramid organization underneath them from which they can take cuts of everybody else's sales activity. Not everybody can make even a MODEST success out of it. DAMN! I saw that Mormon couple recruit an elderly black gent - a true war hero, who was actually one of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. And he got into it with both feet - with VERY little money to buy in. And they told him, as they told us and everybody else at those meetings and house parties - just give 'em this tape - of one of our big-ass successful Amway leaders - and let 'em listen. WE do the work FOR YOU! And all you have to do is write up all the orders and rake in the cash! It's EASY!

And. It. Is. NOT. Easy!!!!!!!!!!!

It broke my heart to see this old gentleman, who lives in V.A. housing in West L.A., struggling week after week to try to make those pie-in-the-sky dreams come true for himself, and hustle up his own "downline." He couldn't. There aren't that many gullible, easy marks, available for prospecting. It's Just. NOT. There. And my husband is wonderful but he's no salesman, either, so I knew it wasn't for us. I was busy trying to raise kids and juggle the rest of my career before I finally gave up on it and retired so I could focus 100% on the kids while they were still young. Fortunately, we got out REEEEEEAAAALLY early. Actually didn't even get all the way in before we ran for the hills.

We gave it a try. One of my favorite one-liners is "like they say on NPR - 'All Things Considered'!" Well, we considered it for a few days. Got just inside the door. Looked around. Turned around and got back out in a hurry.

Lyin' ryan, the CouponCare Kid.

SO glad this whole concept is gaining traction!

Yeah, dude, YOU're the guy who lies all the time whenever he makes a speech! Why should we listen to you?

Indeed. Sometimes it's the only comparison that's accurate.

There honestly is NO other concise, or accurate, or truthful way to explain why romney and ryan and their entire campaign and SuperPAC pals relentlessly stick to talking points that have been repeatedly and publicly PROVEN to be false.

I mean, it's even gotten so bad that the "L" word (Lie) and its many versions are now, frequently being utterly openly, in the media, on camera, certainly online (where we've called 'em "liars" for years already). The words "Lie," "Liar," "Lying," and "Lies" are actually being used. How many times have you seen collections of those four terms used in columns and commentaries in major newspapers and on the air, on cable - EVERYWHERE people were talking about and analyzing paul ryan's CONvention speech?

I remember during the dubya years when lies flowed like tap water from that White House and Pentagon, and the BEST any newspaper or commentator or editorialist would dare try would be some wussy weasel wording like "the President prevaricates..." Or some other fancy-ass word that few people use in ordinary day-to-day conversation so that's the only way you can get away with saying bush LIED without pissing off a few hundred thousand CONs, especially the ones with the microphones. Besides, who knew what "prevaricates" means, anyway?

That was a HORRIBLE time. SHAMEFUL!!!!!! History won't be kind - and shouldn't. How fitting, then, that accurate historical references like Goebbels, be hauled out again now, to apply - correctly and QUITE fairly - to the lies of the GOP.

Welcome to DU! Maybe they just like rolling those 50-dollar words off their tongues all the time?

Perhaps they believe it makes 'em sound smarter. Could they do anything more than rattle off the few usual suspects and buzzwords? Probably not. That would require independent thinking without tip-sheets, talking points blast-faxes, and their own personal home TelePrompTer set - Pox Noise.

Unfortunately, the comparison is completely reasonable and accurate. How long has it been since we, just even here at DU, started noticing the "1984-speak" emanating from the other side of the aisle? How war really was peace. How giving more to the rich actually helped the poor. How economic enslavement was freedom. How foxes could skillfully, nobly, and selflessly guard hen-houses. How CONservatives were somehow compassionate. Now we're getting more versions of all that baloney plus restricting women's choices is actually helping them, and rolling back voting rights yields true liberty and justice for all.

Glad you're here, and it's good that you pointed it out, yet again. Sometimes those Nazi references actually do apply, they're not cheap tabloidy scare tactics or exaggeration for the sake of stirring up the base. Sometimes they're just plain freakin' TRUE.

True that.

Tired, Old, Imaginary, and Empty.

Very good, SleeplessinSoCal!