Showing off a little "brass" of his own during his marathon DNC speech, Bill Clinton smacked down claims by the Romney-Ryan campaign that President Obama ended the work requirement for welfare.
"Bill Clinton laid out the truth last night" when it comes to welfare reform, The Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell told Martin Bashir on Thursday. The pair dissected Clinton's complete evisceration of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Lawrence slammed these "tricks" by the Romney campaign, saying they just "don’t work anymore."
Republicans "were moving along last week in Tampa, in a kind of uninterrupted soliloquy that was filled with lies about this sort of thing. And what’s happened now is we’ve seen what the Democratic Party, as a team, can do in responding to that sort of thing," he explained. "And there’s no more powerful responder to it than Bill Clinton, who signed that welfare bill into law and President Obama, who knows exactly how that law is operating now."
Lawrence said the former president was perfectly cast in that role given his "long history with this subject."





MR. PRESIDENT ,
You need to stand up against the lies the right is making on the National debt.
They are accusing you of spending $6 TRILLION during your term.
I know for a fact that they are all GOP policies that caused it.
Fixing the GOP screw ups is not your spending Mr. President it is theirs.
Stimulus to save the GOP screw ups are LOANS not spending.
INTEREST on the GOP TRILLIONS of debt is NOT yours to be responsible for.
MR. President,
They will say the Democrats had a “majority”.
But we all well know the filibustering, obstructing GOP has the “CONTROL”
The unfunded wars were GOP started wars based on deception.
Mr. President,
The $16 TRILLION National Debt is GOP Policies of the past 32 years.
Stand up for your record and denounce those accusations.
Use their debt clock against them.
Mr. President,
Use ARITHMETIC against them.
Democratic policies that added to the National Debt = ????
Deduct that from $16 TRILLION
The balance will equal GOP DEBT.
This is NOT blaming the GOP or BUSH.
This is ARITHMETIC Mr. President.
This is the best post. It is very intelligent.
The Republicans have abandoned the principles of our Founding Fathers. They are trying to establish a Fascist Theocracy. They are worst than Hitler and Stalin. They also have abandoned the principle of Eisenhower and Regan. Are we better off now than four years ago. Of course we are better off. The War in Iraq is over, Bin Laden is dead, GM is alive, Detroit is back on its feet and jobs are being produced instead of jobs going down the drain when Obama was elected. Thank God. The US has recovered. It is time to celebrate democracy. Repeal Republican hypocrisy. Republicans say contraception's now a sin and rape legitimate. To the Dark Side they've succumbed to establish a dictatorship. They are trying to put woman in a cage like a bird that flaps its wings, but cannot fly. Soon Election Day will dawn. We will make sure Obama is again elected at the ballot box of freedom. Now the battle lines are drawn, and will you take your place with me? We will fight to save the jobs of teachers, firemen & cops! We'll defeat those fetid nuts. We are fed up with pernicious. They want to take us back to the Jurassic Age! Healthcare is a right. Medicare's a must. Don't let Republicans betray that trust!
Bush, $4.5 Trillion in 8 years, Obama $5.5 Trillion in 3 years and 9 months, and counting. And the housing bubble and unregulated credit default derivative markets that blew up our financial system in 2007/2008 were equal political offenders issues, as that bubble grew from 1995-2005 unchecked. As to the Wars against terrorism after 9/11 sent our recovery out of the Clinton hold over recession reeling for its blow on our financial centers and transporation system and consumer sentiment, they were authorized and the appropriations approved by Democats in Congress as well as Republicans during the Bush Administration.
Grow up BO.
As to Augustus, you are totally off your meds again, aren't you! I could see it coming on with each one of your postings.
As to this Post Topic, the fiat from the President to have the Health and Human Services Secretary dismantle the provision of the requirement for education and job training or some work or combination of all of the above inorder to continue to receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (financial assistance) past the intial two years is directly an affront to the Welfare to Work legislation of 1996 (as revised and renewed). And the language that allows the granting of waivers to states not to persist in requiring that education and/or work or job training that could continue a year from now if the states could by some miracle show that there was a 20% increase in TANF recepients going to work is non binding in its restrictions, as it does not have the weight of law. The same Secretary of Health and Human Services that grants the waivers, can relax the restriction, give extensions on meeting the restrictions, ignore the restrictions. And you can bet with this Administration with its record of picking and choosing what laws they want to enforce and which to ignore (as in the waivers they are providing to a host of unions for the application of ObamaCare regulations, or the instituting of the "Dream" Act by Presidential fiat that has been extended to supplying Green Cards to all illegal immigrant under 30 years of age who can file an application stating that they have been in this country since before age 16, without proof being required, and no investigation of the facts of that claim accomplished) that there will be no effort to enforce that boiler plate 20% increase in Welfare recepients going to work restriction either.
All of this is due just to a desparate President and Party trying to garner just a few more thousand votes, here and there, whereever thay can, simply to stay in power! And note that Clinton vetoed the original legislation passed by Congress on Welfare to Work three times, before he finally had to sign it. He was never a fan, just as he wasn't a fan of the balanced budget required of that Congress of him...although he's had no difficulty taking credit for these accomplishments.
Time to get real, Dems! The truth talkers are out amongst you to keep you honest!
Now Bush was given 8 yrs and you all knew he was taking the US to the dump within that first term, but you give Obama extra time and he has more than proven through his actions that he wants to keep us safe and put policies and laws into effect that will help ALL Americans?!
He has done a Herculean job while fighting uphill all the way against those who should have been fighting alongside him to help this country--imagine what one signed job bill would have done...
There are times that I want Romney/Ryan to win just so I can say 'told you so' , but then I remember what this election is really about: preexisting illnesses not recognized, elderly trying to find insurance using vouchers, disable just thrown away, environment trashed, kids kicked off parents insurances, food and air regulations done away with, threatening countries with war, etc. This election is a LIFE or DEATH choice.
If R/R are elected and this stuff happens and it will, don't claim you didn't know, because R/R straight up told everyone what they were planning.
George Bush, 8 years, inherited the clinton financial asset bubble burst recession, and had to steel the cournty to the International War on Islamic Terrorism after the 9/11 terrorist attack on our finance center and air transporations, and consumer sentiment. Had the bi-partisn Housing Bubble of 1995-2005 burst, ushering in another recession in late 2007, and complicated by the financial meltdown due to unregulated by the Federal Reserve derivative markets and bundling of unsound mortgages and loans (as per the policy of Fed Chief Alan Greenspan announced during the Clinton Administration), which Burst in 2007 and ushered in a deep recession that ended in 2009 thanks to the TARP funds passed by Congress under George Bush's initiative which recapatilized the banks.
George Bush 8 years, avg. Unemployment rate 5.6%, never higher than 7,6%. Barrack Obama 4 years, avg. Unemployment rate 8.7%, and never under 8%.
You do the math emj. You have to be able to afford those much higher premiums under the ObamaCare health system of this country, and other than anectodal evidence of some limited cases of discrimination in the past, the huge majority of people in this country were quite satisfied with their health insurance policies and health care prior to the power grab by Obama and the Democrats in 2009. The new President and the Congress would have done well to put their nose to the grindstone and get busy with legislation that focused on strengtheing the private sector business and industry, and hence jobs, including the health sector, fully 20% of the economy. But they didn't, so here we are today, emj.
This just in: Employment for August down to below 100,000 new jobs (takes 160,000 a month just to meet the rise in population of work age adults in this country). The figures for June and July were also both revised downward. 365,000 more people dropped out or the workforce, sitting out the summer as there just aren't any jobs available, and that 0.2% decrease in the number of people looking for work (to the lowest number in 31 years) showed up as a 8.1% Unemployment rate, a decrease by default from last months 8.3% rate. But that is a false note to crow over, as the employment situation in this courntry for the 23,000,000 unemployed and underemployed is dismal, and getting worse each month for the past 5 months now.
Something has to change, and its is evident it isn't going to come from the Obama camp and the Democrat Party that are locked into their extreme anti-business and anti-fiance attutudes and actions. The new mantra of Obama is "Yes We Can, BUT", and its a Hard Path we have to walk. Sounding more like Jimmy Carter every day.
But we have another Party, headed by a successful businessman, a proved govenment leader in Gov. Mitt Romney, who together with his Vice President, Congressional Budget hawk and Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan, are saying "WE CAN DO THIS". Time to pay attention to what they are saying and the direction they are showing we should go in. Two months of campaign ahead of us, one more Job report in October, time to pay attention folks. The way we are headed now just isn't cutting it! We are losing more and more people from the middle class to below the poverty line every day, and the Party of big deficit spending for Big Brother social programs is content with that as long as they get to stay in power.
Just viewed & thank you for posting the video on this site as due to my schedule I am not able to see Martin's program. Excellent segment with my two favorite MSNBC Hosts. Loved Lawrence's comments that the political world changed after President Clinton's speech & his "Home Run" reference!!!
That hasbeen? The political world changed? 1st of all, most people in the country were watching either the MLB games heading into the big playoffs, or the Coyboys-Giants game. As per usual, the Democrats were running behind schedule, their evening had been pretty flat up to then, the country had been treated to the news shows at dinner time displaying that incredible video footage of the Democrat Delegates Booing GOD, for heavens sake, and Clinton wandered off his prepared remarks and adlibbed and wnet on so long that most who were still watching at 11:00 PM and not interested in the sports action tuned in The Daly Show with John Stewart for some much needed comic relief. Interesting that there wasn't a lot of interest in the liberal media, including this network of course, in fact checking Clinton's speech, but CNN's Blitzer and Burnett were on it like dogs on an old bone showing the discrepancies between the garbage statistics he was talking up, and the truth. 80% of Clinton's time spent at the podium was spent beating his own chest about his accomplishments (made as a hostage of the Republican Revolution of 1994 when he was dragged screaming to the center), and Hillary's achievements. Th impression he left, which was obviously what he wanted to leave his audience with, it the task at hand is really, really hard for Obama, and what you need is a Clinton in the job! LOL!
Why Keith... it was just a few days ago that you were belching, whining and crying about the fact check people and about how you'd seen about all of their work that you wanted to see. You gave the distinct impression that you didn't trust them.
Oh wait! You did! And now you make a positive reference their work?
Serious mental impairment with memory that you have there, soprano-boy.
Note that when Grandpa can't accommodate the facts he resorts to fabricated smears and practiced put-downs (considering the source, I wear his shots at me as badges of honor).
Worse for him, Clinton's claim that job creation has fared far better under Democrats has been verified. I realized that myself after struggling during the Bush I era (while back in grad school). My friend questioned my "knee jerk conservatism" and wondered why I was supporting the right when I was having trouble landing a job that paid a living wage.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/09/06/bill_clinton_s_jobs_score_from_his_dnc_speech_fact_checked_.html
When Bill Clinton Pointed to the "Jobs" Scoreboard, He was Right
"Democrats hold the edge though they occupied the Oval Office for 23 years since Kennedy's inauguration, compared with 28 for the Republicans. Through April, Democratic presidents accounted for an average of 150,000 additional private-sector paychecks per month over that period, more than double the 71,000 average for Republicans."
Excuse me? I just provided you a boatfull of facts and figure above, Cab Driver.
I suggest if you can refute them with some of your own, you try to do so. Otherwise, as usual, you are just here breaking wind with you inane say nothing comments.
And the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not the liberal blog "slate.com" is where I do my fact checking, Cab Driver. You can't supported propoganda with unsupported propoganda, and expect converts, you know?
In both the active participation rate of people in the nation's Labor Rate being at its lowest level since the Carter years of a stagflation economy, and the number of new startup up business formation also being the same as in that terrible economy of the late 1970s, we have seen the Democrat Party's mantra of "Forward" acutually bedome "back to the future" of the failed Jimmy Carter Presidency. And if you begin with his years of office, the Democrats have now been in contol of the White House for 16 years, and the Republican's for 20 years, and it is crystal clear that we can't as a nation afford 4 more years of Obamanomics to even us out at 20 years apiece for the last 40, that's what the facts and figures show!
In a day to day match up, more people of voting age watched the Democratic Convention than the Republic Convention, more households were tuned in, and averages of all age categories were greater for the Democrats for all individual days and as total averages.
Republicans
2012 average viewing for 2+ audience was 24,831,333
2008 32,568,333
Democrats
2012 average viewing for 2+ audience was 29,027,333
2008 (4 days) 27,669,750
There is no way to know how many watched all 3 days, only 2 days, or only 1 day for both or only one party . It’s possible that 85% of the eligible voters found reruns of Friends more interesting than either party’s convention.
Voting age population (legally eligible to vote) should be approaching 220,000,000. Plan on about a 60-65% turnout.
http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2008G.html
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/politics/final-night-of-republican-national-convention-draws-30-million-viewers/
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/closing-night-of-democratic-national-convention-draws-35-7-million-viewers/
Plan on considerably less enthusiasm for voting from the young voters, the Hispanic voters, and the black voters, and women voter communities for Obama in 2012 than what he received in 2008 too, Adam. Seems failed promises, the tarnishing of his halo and clipped wings has taken the shine of this candidate this time around, and the voters will look not to the campaign of divisive issues raised, but the dismal economy, the unemployment rate (sure to be still over 8%, as in every month of his term of office), and the dangerous national debt level, and Obama's inability to present a sensible plan to deal with those very serious problems, especially for those groups.