Video and transcripts of one of the best speeches of the night are here.

“TAMPA, Fla.—Mitt Romney was never the first choice for conservative Republicans such as Jason Zier, a 43-year-old resident here who jumped on the Herman Cain bandwagon last summer before voting in the primary for Newt Gingrich.

But that hasn’t diminished his enthusiasm for supporting Mr. Romney in November. “This is the guy, so let’s go,” Mr. Zier said.

Self-described conservatives have rallied around Mr. Romney to oust the target of their disdain, President Barack Obama, a turnabout of sorts from the Republican primary campaign, when Mr. Romney struggled to generate enthusiasm from evangelicals and tea-party activists.”

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H/T The Other McCain

Extending them could cost uncle Sam $1 trillion…

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Pew Research conducted an exhaustive survey monitoring how favorably or unfavorably President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were being portrayed in all media outlets. Pew discovered that during morning and evening network news, Obama was portrayed much more favorably than Romney, even in the midst of a slumping economy.

Read the rest here.

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO1F7EcGFAc 450 300]

In addition to trying to shut down bridges to prevent delegates from reaching the convention center next week, Brandon has learned that a subgroup of Occupy is looking to shut down EMS communications throughout the city.

Read the rest here.

It is indeud worth the wait for the interactive chart.

I have been digging into the details of President Obama’s budget plan vs. Paul Ryan’s budget plan. What I found was so sickening that I asked my friend Ross Perez at Tableau Software for a display.

The interactive map below may take a few seconds. It will be worth your wait.

Read the rest here.

“The gold standard has returned to mainstream U.S. politics for the first time in 30 years, with a “gold commission” set to become part of official Republican party policy.”

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The Obama administration paid a PR firm nearly $500,000 in stimulus funds to run a barrage of ads on White House-friendly cable programs promoting its green job training program.

According to government records, the Labor Department paid the money in late 2009 to a company that negotiated a media buy on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” and “The Rachel Maddow Show.” The ad was set to run more than 100 times — 14 times a week for two months.

It’s unclear how many people might have gotten involved in the green job training program because of the ads. But in terms of direct economic impact, the official online entry on the contract listed zero jobs created as a result of the payment.

“On the surface, this doesn’t pass the basic sniff test,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who sits on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told FoxNews.com.

Chaffetz, who said he’s writing a letter to the Labor Department seeking more information about the contract, complained that the federal government already spends “way too much” on advertising as it is.

He said the targeting of these ads also raises questions about “political motivations.”

Read more:

“Russia became the 156th member of the World Trade Organization after completing almost two decades of negotiations, bolstering President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to gain greater influence in global affairs.

Putin returned to the Kremlin in May for a third term, seeking annual growth of about 6 percent to turn the $1.9 trillion economy into one of the world’s five largest by purchasing power. He is also championing a bigger role for Russia and other leading emerging-market nations in navigating the global economy, saying richer countries failed to contain the debt crisis.”

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GENEVA/BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – The United States and Japan assailed Argentina’s import rules as protectionist at the World Trade Organization on Tuesday, putting more pressure on the country to revamp policies that many trading partners say violate global norms.

The two complaints mirrored litigation brought by the European Union in May and triggered a swift reaction from Argentina’s center-left government, which vowed to challenge U.S. rules on lemon and beef imports.

Argentina is seen by many fellow Group of 20 nations as a chronic rule-breaker since it staged the world’s biggest sovereign debt default in 2002. It remains locked out of global credit markets and relies on export revenue for hard currency.

Read here:

“Don’t worry, the ‘fiscal cliff’ will all be taken care of; have no fear, the market AAPL will hold up into the election to sustain Obama’s hope-and-change; and, as The Heritage Foundry blog reports, in that change, there are 18 new tax hikes on their way via Obamacare.

Not only did the President and his partners in Congress take $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare, but they also raise taxes by $836.3 billion to pay for it, with $36.3 billion hitting Americans in 2013 alone. Here’s the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation‘s (JCT) updated cost of the Obamacare tax hikes and penalties.”

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Russell Wasendorf of Peregrine Financial was indicted last week on 31 counts of lying to regulators and robbing his firm’s clients of about $200 million.

Wasendorf, who plead “not guilty” to the charges, faces up to 155 years in jail.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reports NO charges are likely against Jon Corzine or other senior execs of MF Global — where $1.6 billion of customer funds remain missing nearly a year after the futures brokers filed for bankruptcy.

Which brings us back to a segment we call Taken to Task.

Look, I get that proving a crime is tough, but when the guy accused of stealing $200 Million goes to jail and the guy who can’t account for $1.6 Billion is likely to get off scott free, something is very wrong.

In case you didn’t know, Jon Corzine is a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, a former Senator and Governor of New Jersey and a former major fundraiser for President Obama. It’s really hard to be more “high-powered” and “connected” in American society.

To be sure, Wasendorf essentially confessed to how he stole customer funds in what was supposed to have been a suicide note while Corzine has denied any wrongdoing and MF Global’s bookkeeper, Edith O’Brien, has plead the fifth.

Still, I’d like to take the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to Task for not either finding the missing money at MF Global or turning up the heat on the head of the ill-fated firm.

I mean, is it really possible to be unable to account for $1.6 BILLION of customer fund without breaking rules that compel brokerage firms to keep customer funds segregated (and safe)?

The lesson here: If you’re going to blow up the firm, go BIG!

Read here:

Fantastic piece…

President Obama was back in Iowa for several days this past week. He has winning memories there. But the fact that an incumbent president feels it necessary to invest three of only 79 precious remaining days there says how close the presidential race now is.

Obama’s experienced advance team had a bunch of flubs. That farm family with all the windmills that President Quixote loves to laud turns out to be Republicans and informed reporters after Obama’s visit that he sure wasn’t getting their votes this time.

There was the state fair beer tent where Obama bought a round of Bud Lights for everyone, except the guy with the Mitt Romney sign. Great summertime photo op. Except it turns out the Secret Service closed down the guy’s tent long before Obama’s arrival and the small business owner lost thousands in sales.

Then there was the caterer who wore a “Government Didn’t Build My Business” T-shirt to work the president’s event. Our friend Tom Bevan at the must-read RealClearPolitics has all the details here.

But the moment that sticks out in our mind was something that didn’t happen during the president’s Iowa trip.

Read the rest here.

The indomitable Mark Steyn is out with another must-read: The Man with No Plan. In my opinion, there is no better writer right now than Steyn.

Get your tea party on…..

Politics as usual….

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“If lawmakers on Capitol Hill wanted to encapsulate the current session of Congress in a t-shirt slogan, they could go with: Support your party and don’t compromise.