Chicago, U.S.A — There are truisms, and then there are “really truisms.” And one of them is the notion that a person doesn’t have the right to complain, if he or she didn’t bother to vote. Democrat, Republican, or fiercely Independent – it is a rally cry that transcends political affiliations. And yet while the number of complainers continues to increase, those who express their feelings in the voting booth continues to decrease.

It is with this in mind that Chicago-based “Attention Agency” Third Street conceived the idea of launching a national, multimedia campaign entitled Real Complainers Vote – a non-partisan effort designed to encourage young registered voters to embrace two American privileges: Voting and Complaining. To achieve this goal, they teamed up with frequent collaborator, Foundation Content as well as acclaimed street artist Ray Noland and comedian TJ Miller.

Real Complainers Vote takes a “seriously humorous” look at how our nation isn’t just comprised of complainers; it was founded and built by them. Through a unique viral video, social media and street-level campaign materials, Real Complainers Vote seeks to motivate young voters to express themselves where it matters most – in the voting booth — on November 6.

Third Street Chief Creative Officer David T. Jones sums up the essence of the campaign: “We know that we don’t need to convince Americans to complain. We only need to convince them that complaining has a cover charge. And that cover charge is voting.”

Foundation Content’s Kyle Shoup, who served as Creative Director for the Real Complainers Vote project, said, “We wanted to take the opportunity to make something fun, but unique. The result was a piece that incorporated stop-motion, handmade, 2D & 3D design and animation. Mixed media is really what this piece became, and it gives the message an unusual and compelling look.”

To view the animated, viral video within this campaign, please see: http://realcomplainersvote.com/ and follow the Griping on twitter at: @complainersvote

Image Courtesy of  Mark Scott Spatny / Shutterstock.com

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Denver, U.S.A. — “Mitt Romney is the architect of Obamacare,” said Jefferson George, president of the conservative tax-exempt group American Right To Life Action. “Romney has already implemented what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton only dream of: homosexual marriage, tax-funded abortion on demand by health care reform with the individual mandate, robbing religious freedom from pro-life hospitals. The list is long. If anyone believed the ‘lesser of two evils’ con, they’d have to vote for Obama.”

“Strategists say that independents decide elections,” said Darrell Birkey, the ARTL research director overseeing the new RepublicansAgainstRomney.com website. “So the only way for pro-lifers to get candidates who won’t kill unborn children is to become independent enough to oppose liberal, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual politicians like Mitt Romney.”

Agreeing with ARTL is the longtime vice president of the nation’s first “right to life” group, Colorado Right To Life. “The Republicans Against Romney site documents that the excuses the campaign makes for Mitt’s anti-child, anti-free-market, anti-family actions are nothing but lies,” said Leslie Hanks. “Sadly, conservative talk show hosts lap it up and repeat the lies. This website even offers a$100 reward for corrections to errors of fact.”

According to the site, Romneycare is fundamentally a liberal, socialist program with its individual mandate that saps the federal treasury. Romney’s top consultants aided the development of Obamacare and put Planned Parenthood on the “health” committee that, from day one, offered $50 tax-subsidized abortion on demand. And still today Romney plans to nominate justices “like John Roberts,” who upheld Obamacare.

RepublicansAgainstRomney.com documents that Mitt Romney claimed to be pro-choice in 1994, pro-life in 2001, pro-choice in 2002, pro-life in 2004, pro-choice in 2005, pro-life in 2006 and then funded abortion in 2006. In 2012, he’s back to supporting abortion for “health reasons,” the loophole opened by the Supreme Court’s Doe v. Bolton opinion that allows all abortions, as in Colorado for example, throughout all nine months.

“And ironically,” adds Birkey, “the ’legitimate’ rape issue is Romney policy, not a Todd Akin policy. The congressman advocates protecting every child, but it’s Romney’s rape exception that requires determining whether or not there was a rape.”

Image Courtesy of   Gage Skidmore

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In the streets of downtown Tampa, dual preparations continue as the city braces for tropical Storm Issac and the Republican National Convention. Convention officials delayed the start of the events from Monday afternoon to Tuesday as a safety precaution. Issac is not projected to hit landfall in Tampa, but that will not stop massive amounts of rain and strong winds from shutting everything down for a day.

There is one thing, however, that will continue to work inside the Forum center and serves as a loud remainder of what this election is about. That item is a large clock keeping track of the amount of financial debt, added each second. Tampa may be worried about the impending storm of Issac, but the entire country is facing a debt storm that is bearing down on everyone like a category 5 hurricane.

The optic of the clock is a perfect anchor for one of the foundational fights that will be played out this presidential election. President Obama will fight to make this election about Romney’s taxes, women’s rights, and Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan. The President’s surrogates and spokespeople will attempt to distract voters away from the economy.

Thus far, they have done an excellent job of doing so. But, the fiscal cliff that the spending of the Obama administration has enacted is a problem that Romney must keep front and center in the campaign. Nothing does that better than the backdrop of a debt calculator displaying the massive bill the country is racking up.

This is a message that the republicans must take to heart as well. The last two weeks have seen the Romney camp get bogged down over Medicare and the comments of Senate candidate Todd Akin regarding rape and abortion. The economy and the debt are problems one and two. They cannot afford to get caught in the Obama trap of defending themselves and talking about things that have nothing to do with those issues.

Many in the media will play along with President Obama and will be all too willing to cover other issues. Optics is one way around this obstacle. Do not just talk, show. Judging by the large and ominous clock clicking up every second of the convention speakers’ speeches, the Romney campaign may be on their way to making this election about what it needs to be about.

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Miami, U.S.A. — By rethinking the conventional wisdom about core voting issues, Hispanic Catholics can transform American politics.

That is the message that Supreme Knight Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus will deliver to more than 100 Hispanic business and civic leaders meeting in Miami for the annual conference of the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders (CALL).

The speech is scheduled Friday, August 24, at 7:00 PM at the Family Center of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church 7377 SW 64th Street, Miami.

Anderson will make the case that voters must consider a candidates position on issues that affect core values if we want to build a country where the Catholic values of Hispanic immigrants are respected. Anderson will note that voting for those who say they support immigration reform is not enough, if those same politicians also advocate policies at odds with the core Catholic beliefs shared by the vast majority of Hispanic immigrants.

His speech notes that “we should work to ensure that future generations of immigrants find a country that supports their values and not one that asks them to surrender their religious values at the border as the price of their admission.”

It adds that “being forced to surrender values at the border is not multiculturalism, it is the opposite of multiculturalism.”

Anderson will also point out that “we all want and deserve a real solution” on immigration. However, despite many promises from individuals on both sides of the political aisle, no comprehensive immigration solution has been forthcoming and conditions in the United States are now such that as many or more Mexican immigrants are returning to Mexico as are coming in the United States according to the Pew Foundation.

The speech comes on the heels of the enormous Guadalupe Celebration in Los Angeles earlier this month sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles – the largest Catholic event in that city since the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1987.

A strong advocate for Catholics voting in a way consistent with their conscience, Anderson will tell the assembled Latino Leaders that Hispanic voters should consider many issues in voting, and ought to draw a line they will not cross in voting if a politician supports policies at odds with core Catholic beliefs.

Such policies include support for abortion or the limitation of First Amendment freedom of religion – which have come under increasing assault from federal policies including the unpopular HHS Mandate that forces religious employers to pay for abortion inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception. The mandate and other federal actions have also sought to redefine the very nature of religion, something that has drawn condemnation from many religious leaders of many faiths.

Earlier this month, Pope Benedict XVI conveyed his support for the Knights of Columbus work in support of religious liberty. The letter addressed to Carl Anderson from the Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, stated “His Holiness is confident that the (Knights of Columbus) Supreme Convention will carry on this distinguished legacy by providing sound inspiration, guidance and direction to a new generation of faithful and dedicated Catholic laymen.As he stated to the Bishops of the United States earlier this year, the demands of the new evangelization and the defense of the Church’s freedom in our day call for ‘an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about issues which are determining the future of American society’ (Ad LiminaAddress, 19 January 2012).”

Anderson leads an organization of 1.8 million members founded by immigrants and the sons of immigrants in 1882 and dedicated to the principles of charity, unity, fraternity and patriotism. The Knights of Columbus has long been a “pan-American” organization, having established councils in Mexico in 1905 and in Cuba in 1909 and in Canada in 1897.

Anderson is coauthor of the New York Times bestselling book Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love, and serves as CEO of the Knights of Columbus.

Image Courtesy of   Mikhail Zahranichny / Shutterstock.com

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Priorities USA Action has been one of the Obama campaign’s most important supporters. Priorities USA is an independent expenditure Political Action Committee (PAC) that believes “the stakes for protecting our country’s core values have never been higher as Republicans pursue an agenda that rewards only the wealthiest few at the expense of middle class families.”

The PAC says it advocates for candidates who support economic policies that would create and generate investment in the country, and for candidates who promote fairness and health care access to everyone. Priorities USA Action clearly stated their support for Barack Obama: “We are committed to the reelection of President Obama and setting the record straight when there are misleading attacks against him and other progressive leaders.”

Their sympathy for Obama has traduced a lot of support; they have released several videos criticizing Mitt Romney. The hardest one is called ‘Understands.’  It tells the story of a former worker, Jose Soptic, of a steel plant controlled by Bain Capital in Kansas. Soptic explains how when the plant was closed he lost his health insurance. Then, his wife got sick with cancer and couldn’t be treated on time without insurance, so she died.

Although Soptic is a lifelong Democrat and a union member, Obama’s campaign has tried to distance itself from his story. Spokesman Jen Psaki stated “We don’t have any knowledge of the story of the family.” But the Obama campaign had already used him to tell his story in a conference call with reporters in May.

Another Priorities USA Action ad called ‘Briefcase’ criticizes Romney’s business record, saying that he bought companies and drowned them in debt. Many of them went bankrupt, which consequently led to thousands of jobs lost. The ad claims that for every company that went into bankruptcy, Romney made millionaire profits.  The ad ends stating: “If Romney wins the middle class loses.”

Priorities  USA Action is also against the “Romney Rule,” which would make millionaires pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. For them, it would be a tax plan that would burden the middle class.

Priorities USA Action has been, and will continue being, one of Obama’s major supporters. According to Open Secrets, Center for Responsible Politics, during 2012 PAC has raised nearly $21 million and has spent almost $18 million supporting Obama.

Image Courtesy of   Rena Schild / Shutterstock.com

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Mitt Romney’s campaign, in the beginning, was focused on criticizing President Obama for the way he handled the economy during his entire presidency, which Republicans consider to be a complete disaster. However, in recent weeks Romney’s campaign has changed, and has started to criticize Obama in various other aspects. Freedom of religion and the welfare reform are some of the new topics that have appeared in Romney’s campaign.

Many members of the Republican Party have been complaining that economic criticism won’t be enough to take Obama out of the White House. These Republicans think Romney should press Obama in more controversial areas, and that’s what Romney’s latest ads are doing.

The ad called ‘Be not afraid’ accuses President Obama of declaring “war on religion, forcing religious institutions to go against their faith.” An example is that catholic sponsored entities like schools have to cover contraceptive methods in their employees’ insurances. The ad says that Mitt Romney is the one who truly “shares your values.” This is an ad dedicated to some of the Republican Party loyalists. The ad’s final statement is very suggestive: “When religious freedom is threatened, who do you want to stand with?”

Republican consultant Keith Appell stated “I understand the economy is the top issue, but you don’t want to be so maniacally focused that you ignore everything else.”

He added that “”there’s always a risk of becoming too focused — a horse with blinders — and not seeing some of the other things around you. Campaigns need focus. But there’s something to be said for peripheral vision when you’re trying to hold a coalition together.”

Romney needs to raise the  social conservatives’ enthusiasm and religious voters that preferred a figure like Rick Santorum and have been skeptical with Romney. But, in the end they will vote for him, because they are not willing to vote for Obama. Ads like the religious freedom one are the type of things that will definitely excite the Republican’s conservative base, which has been very quiet during the campaign so far.

Also, a recent Mitt Romney ad called ‘Right choice’ recently accused Obama of trying to gut Clinton’s welfare reform, which required recipients to work to receive welfare. The ad claims that Obama is intending to drop the work requirements. The Obama campaign has defended the accusations with another ad called ‘Blatant.’ ‘Blatant‘ quotes the New York Times and the Washington Post, saying that Romney’s ad accusations are false.

The ad continues saying that what Obama is in fact doing is “getting states to move 20% more people from welfare to work” requirements. The Obama ad quotes Bill Clinton, saying Romney’s ad is “just not true.” Obama’s ad is being shown in seven key-state battlegrounds.

Obama’s campaign counterattack against Romney hasn’t taken long to be seen. An ad called ‘Son of boss,’ which criticizes Romney’s tax record, has been released.  The ad narrator questions how much Mitt Romney has really paid in taxes, whether that be 10%, 5% or 0%. The answer of the narrator is: “We don’t know.”

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Obama for America Campaign Manager, Jim Messina, has released a statement criticizing Paul Ryan selection as Romney’s running mate:

“In naming Congressman Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney has chosen a leader of the House Republicans who shares his commitment to the flawed theory that new budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy, while placing greater burdens on the middle class and seniors, will somehow deliver a stronger economy.

The architect of the radical Republican House budget, Ryan, like Romney, proposed an additional $250,000 tax cut for millionaires, and deep cuts in education from Head Start to college aid. His plan also would end Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher system, shifting thousands of dollars in health care costs to seniors.

As a member of Congress, Ryan rubber-stamped the reckless Bush economic policies that exploded our deficit and crashed our economy. Now the Romney-Ryan ticket would take us back by repeating the same, catastrophic mistakes.”

Messina wants to convince the voters that if the Republican ticket gets back to the White House they would repeat the same mistakes that led to the economic crisis.

He also recently posted the Des Moines Register’s editorial in Twitter, which he thinks shows that most Romney plans are unrealistic. The editorial says that is obvious that the welfare check should require work, and that President Obama is not against it. The editorial adds that Mitt Romney is trying to convince the voters that Obama would end work requirements from the welfare check, which is not practical.

The editorial also talks about Iowa, a key state battleground, and how only about 15,000 Iowans receive a monthly check from the government, which only gives them about $334.  The editorial adds that the requirements to qualify for the check have become harder, because in the past almost 12 million people received their welfare check and now only 4 million are beneficiaries.

The editorial also explains that the idea that people are relying on the government just waiting for the state to send them the check is benefiting Romney, that’s why he continues using it.

Messina also tweeted the Denver Post editorial, which is in his same line of thinking, that says that Romney chose a radical candidate. The editorial considers that Ryan’s budget plan is radical.

The main ideas expressed in the editorial are that Ryan’s budget plan would lower Bush tax cuts for the wealthier Americans. The editorial also adds that Ryan intends to transform Medicare into a voucher system.

The Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, has defended Romney and Ryan against the different accusations they have received, Priebus wrote on his Twitter account: “Obama campaign about small things – accusing Romney of being a felon & murderer. Next thing you know, they’ll accuse Romney of eating a dog.”

Image Courtesy of  White House (Pete Souza) / Maison Blanche (Pete Souza) (The Official White House Photostream [1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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Vice president Joe Biden has two main things in common with Paul Ryan, the person who is trying to substitute him. Both are Catholics and both suffered terrible loses when they were young. Ryan lost his father and Biden lost his wife and daughter in a crash in 1972. Also, both men have clear differences in the way they plan to run the country and Biden recently called Ryan’s policies “irresponsible.”

In a political rally in Durham, N.C. Biden said that Romney and Ryan are decent men, but they have very different values from him and Obama. He said their main differences are in education policies, tax issues and government spending. Both Republican and Democrat tickets have very different points of view on how these issues should be handled.

Also, Biden referred to Ryan’s plan to privatize social security as irresponsible. The vice president criticized that Ryan wants to end Medicare and give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

Obama, who has been campaigning in the swing state of Iowa, criticized Ryan for blocking a farm bill that could help the farmers get the resources they need. President Obama during a rally in Iowa stated: “If you happen to see Congressman Ryan, tell him how important this farm bill is to Iowa and our rural communities,” Obama added “we’ve got to put politics aside when it comes to doing the right thing for rural America and for Iowa.” The Democrats are trying to deflect all the positive attention Ryan could get by making hard accusations on him and trying to prove his budget plan would only favor the wealthy.

On the Medicare issue Romney has defended his running mate, saying that what he intends to do is to preserve Medicare. Romney added that Ryan has different ideas than Obama, and added that “the president’s idea, for example, for Medicare, was to cut it by $700 billion. That’s not the right answer.”

Ryan has also defended the accusations that he would turn Medicare into a voucher system. He said that his mother is a Medicare senior in Florida, and criticized the government by saying that the government made promises to the elderly community, promises with which they have organized their retirement. He added that if the government wants to fulfill those promises it needs to reform Medicare for the younger generation, and that is what he intends to do in order to guarantee a secure future for the elderly.

Romney said that the only president in the nation’s history that has robbed Medicare is Obama. He stated:  ”There’s only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare,” and added that it was going to cost $716 billion to implement his own risky program commonly called Obamacare.

Image Courtesy of  Jason and Bonnie Grower / Shutterstock.com

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