McCain's calls for Obama to join him back in Washington, DC, to postpone their scheduled Friday debate, and to withdraw campaign ads, supposedly to demonstrate the seriousness of the financial crisis, is just opportunistic political bunkem.

AFAIK, neither McCain nor Obama is a member of any of the Senate committees that are involved in examining financial-crisis legislation, so neither has any actual need to be there until the bill reaches the floor for vote by all Senators. As has been pointed out, it would be sufficient for them to send their respective economic advisory teams to talk with other Senators prior to the floor vote.

Postponing Friday's debate? Why wouldn't McCain want to show us all that he can competently discuss other governmental subjects while other people more directly-involved take care of the nitty-gritty of crafting financial-crisis legislation? Isn't that the sort of thing a President needs to do -- delegate authority to handle details of crises of various types while keeping view of the big picture lest he miss something important elsewhere?

Oh, wait ... McCain's proposing to change the date to next week, when the only vice-presidential debate is scheduled, and postpone the vice-presidential debate until "a little later". ([URL]http://dyn.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/index.cfm/category/Debate[/URL]) Gives GOP advisors more time to prepare Palin.

Withdrawing all campaign ads? Did Obama propose that, too, or just McCain? Such a move would ... reduce the sort of spending that keeps the economy going (though campaign ads represent only a miniscule slice of the GNP, so this would have little effect, I think). Oh, wait ... McCain's campaign has been running short of money for months, hasn't it? So maybe there's a more practical reason?

[QUOTE=cheesehead;143705]Oh, wait ... McCain's proposing to change the date to next week, when the only vice-presidential debate is scheduled, and postpone the vice-presidential debate until "a little later". ([URL]http://dyn.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/index.cfm/category/Debate[/URL]) Gives GOP advisors more time to prepare Palin.[/QUOTE]

...or more time for them to drill McCain with sound-bite-sized definitions of "credit", "finance", "fractional reserve banking" [oh wait, better scratch that, too technical], "leverage", and "speculative asset bubble".

Sounds like someone's trying to weasel out, and at the same time use the whole "crisis demands our full attention - sorry, must suspend campaigning" as a stealth form of ... campaigning. Very cute.

"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Palin said.

- - -

[B]"Flip! Flop!"[/B] -- one of the televised chants of delegates on the floor of the 2004 Republican national convention, referring to Democratic then-nominee Sen. John Kerry.

- - -

Here's some of an August 31 story from the Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News:

[URL]http://www.adn.com/sarahpalin/story/511471.html[/URL]

[quote][B][SIZE=4]Palin touts stance on 'Bridge to Nowhere,' doesn't note flip-flop[/SIZE][/B]

[FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF][SIZE=-1]By TOM KIZZIA[/SIZE][/FONT]
[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF][EMAIL="tkizzia@adn.com"]tkizzia@adn.com[/EMAIL][/FONT][/SIZE]

[FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF][SIZE=-1][I](08/31/08 02:29:08)[/I] [/SIZE][/FONT]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]When John McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday, her reputation as a tough-minded budget-cutter was front and center. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Palin told the cheering McCain crowd, referring to Ketchikan's Gravina Island bridge. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]But Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]The Alaska governor campaigned in 2006 on a build-the-bridge platform, telling Ketchikan residents she felt their pain when politicians called them "nowhere." They're still feeling pain today in Ketchikan, over Palin's subsequent decision to use the bridge funds for other projects -- and over the timing of her announcement, which they say came in a pre-dawn press release that seemed aimed at national news deadlines. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]"I think that's when the campaign for national office began," said Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein on Saturday. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]. . . [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]BRIDGE TO NOWHERE [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]But it is the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere in Ketchikan that seems destined to make or break Palin's national reputation as a cost-cutting conservative. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]The bridge was intended to provide access to Ketchikan's airport on lightly populated Gravina Island, opening up new territory for expansion at the same time. Alaska's congressional delegation endured withering criticism for earmarking $223 million for Ketchikan and a similar amount for a crossing of Knik Arm at Anchorage. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Congress eventually removed the earmark language but the money still went to Alaska, leaving it up to the administration of then-Gov. Frank Murkowski to decide whether to go ahead with the bridges or spend the money on something else. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]In September, 2006, Palin showed up in Ketchikan on her gubernatorial campaign and said the bridge was essential for the town's prosperity. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]She said she could feel the town's pain at being derided as a "nowhere" by prominent politicians, noting that her home town, Wasilla, had recently been insulted by the state Senate president, Ben Stevens. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]"OK, you've got Valley trash standing here in the middle of nowhere," Palin said, according to an account in the Ketchikan Daily News. "I think we're going to make a good team as we progress that bridge project." [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]One year later, Ketchikan's Republican leaders said they were blindsided by Palin's decision to pull the plug. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Saturday that as projected costs for the Ketchikan bridge rose to nearly $400 million, administration officials were telling Ketchikan that the project looked less likely. Local leaders shouldn't have been surprised when Palin announced she was turning to less-costly alternatives, Leighow said. Indeed, Leighow produced a report quoting Palin, late in the governor's race, indicating she would also consider alternatives to a bridge. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]CHANGE OF VIEW [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Andrew Halcro, who ran against Palin in 2006, told The Associated Press on Saturday that Palin changed her views after she was elected to make a national splash. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Mayor Weinstein said many residents remain irked by Palin's failure to come to Ketchikan since that time to defend her decision -- despite promises that she would. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Weinstein may be especially sore -- he helped run the local campaign of Palin's 2006 Democratic rival, Tony Knowles. But comments this week from area Republicans show bitterness there too. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican who represents Ketchikan in the state Senate, told the Ketchikan Daily News he was proud to see Palin picked for the vice-president's role, but disheartened by her reference to the bridge. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]"In the role of governor, she should be pursuing a transportation policy that benefits the state of Alaska, (rather than) pandering to the southern 48," he said. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Businessman Mike Elerding, who helped run Palin's local campaign for governor, told the paper he would have a hard time voting for the McCain ticket because of Palin's subsequent neglect of Ketchikan and her flip-flop on the "Ralph Bartholomew Veterans Memorial Bridge." [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]TIMING OF PRESS RELEASE [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Palin's 2007 press release announcing her change of course came just a month after McCain himself slammed the Ketchikan bridge for taking money that could have been used to shore up dangerous bridges like one that collapsed in Minnesota. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Leighow said she had no record of what time she sent out the press release, but does not recall being told to send it out early for East Coast media. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Once Palin spiked the bridge project, the money wasn't available to Minnesota or other states, however. Congress, chastened by criticism of the Alaska funding, had removed the earmark but allowed the state to keep the money and direct it to other transportation projects. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Enhanced ferry access to Gravina Island is one option under consideration, the state said. [/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Meanwhile, work is under way on a three-mile road on Gravina Island, originally meant to connect the airport and the new bridge. State officials said last year they were going ahead with the $25 million road because the money would otherwise have to be returned to the federal government.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]. . .[/FONT][/SIZE][/quote]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]Here's part of an article from the same source before John McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. [/FONT][/SIZE]September 21, 2007 By STEVE QUINN
The Associated Press[SIZE=-1][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF]:

[URL]http://dwb.adn.com/news/alaska/story/9320482p-9235189c.html[/URL]

[/FONT][/SIZE][quote] JUNEAU -- The state of Alaska on Friday officially abandoned the controversial "bridge to nowhere" project in Ketchikan that became a symbol of federal pork-barrel spending.

The $398 million bridge would have connected Ketchikan to its airport on a nearby island. "Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer," Gov. Sarah Palin said in a prepared statement.
She directed the state transportation department to find the most "fiscally responsible" alternative for access to the airport.
[/quote]Here's a link to to the infamous Alaska Democratic Party site that credits Palin for helping kill "The Bridge That Goes Nowhere":

[URL]http://www.retireted.com/category/real-estate/gravina-bridge/[/URL]

Palin did not do away with the "bridge to nowhere" with a single executive decision as the McCain camp claims, but I can't blame anyone for wanting to get rid of Ted.

John McCain has proposed that both he and Obama suspend their campaigns (in effect) while Congress deals with financial-crisis legislation.

I realized yesterday what this reminded me of:

[I]President Jimmy Carter's self-imposed exile to the White House during the Iranian hostage crisis[/I].

For you young'uns: Some time after Iranians seized the American embassy in Tehran in 1979, taking several dozen people hostage, Carter announced that he would remain in the White House until the hostages were released -- he would make no trips around the country for any reason. The symbolic idea was that he was making every conceivable effort to obtain their release and that his staying in the White House demonstrated that he was maximally available for any communications with anyone who could help obtain the hostages' release.

Even in those days before cell phones, that was rubbish. No president, even then, was more than moments away from adequate telecommunications linkages at any time during his term in office. Furthermore, he has a whole State Department full of people whose speciality is negotiation. They're the ones that actually accomplish most agreements with foreign powers, with the president stepping in only after all the details are agreed and just need his signature.

That self-imposed exile was the dumbest single decision Carter ever made. All it accomplished was to make it seem as though the Iranians were somehow remotely holding [I]him[/I] hostage, too.

Now McCain is trying to make it seem that somehow he (along with, he hopes, Obama) is a sort of "noble hostage" to the financial crisis.

It wasn't a good idea when a Democrat did it, and it's a sorry excuse for a campaign tactic when a Republican tries it now.

- - -

The purpose of history is to learn from it.

“Given Senator McCain’s political stunt to avoid the debate, I ask that Friday’s debate moves forward without him, as I am more than willing to step in to participate,” Barr said.


“If John McCain wants to bow out, I’m willing to step in and take his podium on Friday,” said McKinney.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;143752]The purpose of history is to learn from it.[/QUOTE]

My dear, silly, naive Mr. Cheesehead, you could not be more wrong - the true purpose of history is to interpret it in a way which supports one`s own ambitions.

[quote=AES;143770]“Given Senator McCain’s political stunt to avoid the debate, I ask that Friday’s debate moves forward without him, as I am more than willing to step in to participate,” Barr said.


“If John McCain wants to bow out, I’m willing to step in and take his podium on Friday,” said McKinney.[/quote]Many readers will need fuller identification:

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr

Green Party presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney

[QUOTE=cheesehead;143752]John McCain has proposed that both he and Obama suspend their campaigns (in effect) while Congress deals with financial-crisis legislation.

I realized yesterday what this reminded me of:

[I]President Jimmy Carter's self-imposed exile to the White House during the Iranian hostage crisis[/I].

[...]

Now McCain is trying to make it seem that somehow he (along with, he hopes, Obama) is a sort of "noble hostage" to the financial crisis.

It wasn't a good idea when a Democrat did it, and it's a sorry excuse for a campaign tactic when a Republican tries it now.

- - -

The purpose of history is to learn from it.[/QUOTE]

YeahBut...at least it is not as dumb as Bush giving up golf [URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/15/georgebush.usa"]Bush's golf claim angers veterans[/URL][QUOTE]George Bush has angered US war veterans by declaring that out of solidarity with those who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq he decided to make his own sacrifice: giving up golf.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Bush said he laid down his clubs after the August 2003 bombing of United Nations offices in Baghdad that killed the UN's top official in the country, Sergio Vieira de Mello. "I remember when de Mello got killed as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. I was playing golf - I think in central Texas - and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, 'It's just not worth it any more'."

According to a database held by CBS News the statement is not entirely accurate. He did cut short a round of golf at the 12th hole on that day, but his last recorded game came two months later, October 13.[/QUOTE]

Daily dose of "Liberal Rag Op-Eds"!
 

Pair of campaign-related Op-Eds in today`s edition of that leftist rag, [i]The New York Times[/i]:

[url=http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/it-all-comes-down-to-experience/index.html?ref=opinion]Miachael Cohen | It All Comes Down To Experience[/url]: [i]As Barack Obama continues to stay on message, it’s no wonder John McCain has proposed postponing the first debate.[/i]

[b]My Comment:[/b] I disagree with Cohen w.r.to Obama "staying on message throughout the summer" - I was annoyed at how he and his campaign advisors allowed themselves to get sucked into the Republican politics of sound-bites and distraction after the Democratic convention and McCain throwing the Palin monkey wrench into the campaign machinery. The financial crisis deciding not to wait for the election to be over essentially forced everyone back to what should have been the real issue all along, namely the economy. Cohen does point out something crucial which I predicted would happen: Palin may have shored up McCain`s support among the religious right, but it appears to be alienating many moderates and independents, especially since it is becoming crystal clear that both she and McCain are way out of their depth on economic issues. Watching McCain sitting at the bipartisan legislative leaders meeting convened yesterday by President Bush, the first thought that occurred to me was "here is a man trying very, very hard to look 'clueful'."


[url=http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/poor-sarah/?ref=opinion]Poor Sarah[/url]: [i]In a photo of Gov. Sarah Palin with Henry Kissinger, Judith Warner sees someone she can sympathize with: a woman fully aware that she is out of her league.[/i]

Complete transcript of first McCain-Obama debate
 

FYI:

complete transcript of first McCain-Obama debate, Sept. 26, 2008

[URL]http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/09/debate-transcri.html[/URL]

A couple more items about Sarah Palin's background, and an opinion-piece analysis:

"AP Investigation: Palin got zoning aid, gifts"

[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080928/ap_on_el_pr/palin_ethics[/URL]

"Palin treads carefully between fundamentalist beliefs and public policy"

[URL]http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-palinreligion28-2008sep28,0,1440865.story[/URL]

"How Sarah Palin embodies the Christian right archetype of the Sexy Puritan"

[URL]http://www.slate.com/id/2200814?nav=wp[/URL]

House GOP to Wall Street: "No Soup for You!"
 

Funny exchange spotted on a message board:
[quote][i]User: when_opps_knock[/i]

Obama did not feel it was necessary to show up for the bailout vote. He abstained from voting because he is afraid it may hurt his chances for President.

Please, vote for someone with a backbone!! Not a wimp of a guy who is afraid to take a stand.[/quote]
Which elicits this reply:
[quote][i]User: giant_ignoramus[/i]

smart comment. did you know that obama is a senator? not a rep? just askin'[/quote]

[b]The political spin[/b]

While I am disappointed with Obama for supporting the bailout without asking some really tough questions of its proposers, I was especially interested in what kind of tortured logic the McCain camp would use to try to spin this as something other than the egg-on-their-face which it really is. Predictably, they did not disappoint:

[url=http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/campaign.wrap/index.html?iref=topnews]Obama blasts Congress for failing to pass bailout bill[/url]: [i]Sen. Barack Obama blasted Congress for not passing a financial rescue package Monday, while Sen. John McCain's campaign accused Obama and Democrats of putting "politics ahead of country."[/i]
[quote] Also after the vote, McCain touted his role in last week's negotiations on the bailout bill.

"I laid out principles" including "responsible oversight," transparency and a cap on so-called golden parachutes --the big bonuses Wall Street CEOs would receive despite their involvement in the economic crisis, he said from Des Moines, Iowa. "I worked hard to play a constructive role."

He said he was satisfied with the way the bill was written, though "it wasn't perfect."

Earlier, McCain's campaign accused Obama and Democrats of injecting politics into the American economy.

"From the minute John McCain suspended his campaign and arrived in Washington to address this crisis, he was attacked by the Democratic leadership: Sens. Obama and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid, Speaker Pelosi and others.

"Their partisan attacks were an effort to gain political advantage during a national economic crisis. By doing so, they put at risk the homes, livelihoods and savings of millions of American families," Doug Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy adviser for McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said in a statement.

"Barack Obama failed to lead, phoned it in, attacked John McCain and refused to even say if he supported the final bill. ... [b]This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country," Holtz-Eakin said.[/b][/quote]
Pardon my apparent ignorance, but wasn't it House *Republicans* who voted overwhelmingly against the bill? How does work, exactly? Oh, wait, this is part and parcel of the whole "it's all Nancy Pelosi's fault for placing the blame where it belongs, on the doorstep of the Bush administration" canard. Nice try - now be a good bunch of Bush clones and go down in flames on election day like you deserve to do, willya?


The [i]New York Times`[/i] Paul Krugman has a nice op-ed today on McCain's aggressive economic cluelessness:

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin]The 3 A.M. Call[/url]: [i]The next president will likely have to deal with some major financial emergencies. Barack Obama seems well informed. John McCain, on the other hand, scares me.[/i]
[quote]The real revelation of the last few weeks, however, has been just how erratic Mr. McCain’s views on economics are. At any given moment, he seems to have very strong opinions — but a few days later, he goes off in a completely different direction.

Thus on Sept. 15 he declared — for at least the 18th time this year — that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” This was the day after Lehman failed and Merrill Lynch was taken over, and the financial crisis entered a new, even more dangerous stage.

But three days later he declared that America’s financial markets have become a “casino,” and said that he’d fire the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission — which, by the way, isn’t in the president’s power.

And then he found a new set of villains — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored lenders. (Despite some real scandals at Fannie and Freddie, they played little role in causing the crisis: most of the really bad lending came from private loan originators.) And he moralistically accused other politicians, including Mr. Obama, of being under Fannie’s and Freddie’s financial influence; it turns out that a firm owned by his own campaign manager was being paid by Freddie until just last month.
[b]
Then Mr. Paulson released his plan, and Mr. McCain weighed vehemently into the debate. But he admitted, several days after the Paulson plan was released, that he hadn’t actually read the plan, which was only three pages long.[/b][/quote]

Since the bailout is so politically unpopular, I'm surprised that more challengers to incumbents aren't taking advantage of it. We have 435 (inept) members of the House and another 33 (inept) members of the Senate that are up for re-election. If I were running against an incumbent, I would take them on regarding this bailout.

I was hoping that someone could explain to me why the bailout is so huge. It sounds more like a means to cover all of Wall Street's losses and not just those companies that are in serious financial trouble.

IMO, the government should have forced AIG to sell assets to raise the cash they needed for operations. So they take a loss, so what. It is better than being given an $85B loan from Uncle Sham, er, Sam.

What is scaring me more is that the continued buyouts of banks. It means that Citi and BofA get larger. Doesn't it put them at risk too? Part of the problems today are a result of so many mega-mergers with banks in the past 20 years. It takes risk from many small players and puts it all into one big player. If the big player has a problem, then it shakes up the industry. I suspect that if many smaller players had problems, that the pain would be spread a little more evenly.

What we need now (more than a bailout) is a president that leads and inspires. Bush can't do that. A good leader would be trying to solve the problem by telling Americans how they as individuals can solve the problem, not tell them that they have to fund a ridiculously expensive bailout that might not even solve the problem.

[QUOTE=rogue;144090]IMO, the government should have forced AIG to sell assets to raise the cash they needed for operations. So they take a loss, so what. It is better than being given an $85B loan from Uncle Sham, er, Sam.[/QUOTE]

Actually, the deal the government got with AIG was far better than anything in [even the heavily revised version of] the Paulson $700B bailout proposal - with AIG, the govt got an 80% equity stake, and is first in line to benefit from any future AIG turnaround. And they are getting near-usury rates of interest - a massive 8% above LIBOR - on their loan, which is in effect forcing AIG to unwind assets in an effort to reduce the loan principal as wuickly as reasonably possible. That's the kind of deal Warren Buffett would be proud of. In contrast, the just-rejected blanket bailout had only very vague provisions about equity stakes and asset valuations.

[quote=rogue;144090]Since the bailout is so politically unpopular, I'm surprised that more challengers to incumbents aren't taking advantage of it.[/quote]How do you know they aren't? Has someone already done a survey?

[quote]We have 435 (inept) members of the House and another 33 (inept) members of the Senate that are up for re-election.[/quote]But it's been well-established for decades that in each election the majority of House races are "safe" districts where the incumbent faces no significant challenge. (See salon.com quote, below.)

[quote]If I were running against an incumbent, I would take them on regarding this bailout.[/quote]Yes, but it's far too late to enter state primary elections by now, so only those challengers who had already been running could do so. (Maybe that's what you meant.)

[quote]I was hoping that someone could explain to me why the bailout is so huge.[/quote]The problem is so huge.

[quote]It sounds more like a means to cover all of Wall Street's losses and not just those companies that are in serious financial trouble.[/quote]I've seen reports that the $700 billion figure was _not_ the result of any analysis (this is basically an unprecedented situation, after all), but was, actually, picked out for its psychological impact as an amount likely to signal the size of the problem to the general public.

[quote]What we need now (more than a bailout) is a president that leads and inspires. Bush can't do that.[/quote]Memo to future: please schedule all financial crises early in a president's term rather than waiting until he's in the final months of lame-duckism.

Addendum to future: delete "financial" in preceding memo.

:-)

[quote]A good leader would be trying to solve the problem by telling Americans how they as individuals can solve the problem[/quote]Here's my try at good-leaderism:

Vote for middle-of-the-road politicians who understand how to craft reasonable compromises rather than cater to either extreme of the political spectrum.

[quote=ewmayer;144086]Nice try - now be a good bunch of Bush clones and go down in flames on election day like you deserve to do, willya?[/quote]Apparently, House members who face a tough reelection race voted more heavily against the "bailout" than those in safe districts.

[URL]http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/09/29/bailout_politics/index.html?source=refresh[/URL]

[quote][B]Bailout was kryptonite for vulnerable House members[/B]

. . .

A [URL="http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/swing-district-congressmen-doomed.html"][COLOR=#003399]very useful analysis[/COLOR][/URL] by Nate Silver's very useful blog FiveThirtyEight.com confirmed my hunch after a quick scan of the House vote against the bailout this afternoon -- almost everyone facing a tough reelection race voted no.

Only eight of the 38 members in competitive races Silver looked at backed the bailout -- or 21 percent. (Some observers would say there are more competitive races -- the [URL="http://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house/competitive.php"][COLOR=#003399]Cook Political Report[/COLOR][/URL] counts 54 -- but Silver used the races tracked by the [URL="http://www.swingstateproject.com/"][COLOR=#003399]Swing State Project[/COLOR][/URL] blog.) That's even lower than the 32 percent support the plan got among House Republicans (or the 59 percent it got among Democrats). Five out of 18 vulnerable Democrats voted for the bill -- Jerry McNerney of California, Tim Mahoney of Florida, Jim Marshall of Georgia, Bill Foster of Illinois and Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania. Among vulnerable Republicans, only Chris Shays of Connecticut, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Jon Porter of Nevada voted yes.

. . .

[B]Update:[/B] The Swing State Project folks [URL="http://letters.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/09/29/bailout_politics/permalink/fc4aa4f70f6219276a5f96bb14f7f567.html"][COLOR=#003399]point out[/COLOR][/URL] that they list 38 incumbent members in competitive races, but 57 competitive races -- the Cook Report's tally of 54 includes open seats.[/quote]

[QUOTE]Pardon my apparent ignorance, but wasn't it House *Republicans* who voted overwhelmingly against the bill? [/QUOTE]

On NPR, I heard McCain blame Obama and his helpers for the failure of the vote, and literally in the next sentence, state that it is time to set partisan fighting aside and fix the problem. He apparently wants to end the partisan bickering immediately after he blames the other party.

Hours later, on the evening news, they showed a film clip only of him pleading to set partisanship aside- no mention that he had blamed the Democrats 5 seconds earlier (the Democrats being the ones who brought more votes for the measure to the table than they had agreed on).

I'm not sure if the bail-out (rescue?) is the right thing, but the way the government is handling it is sure discouraging.

Norm

[QUOTE=cheesehead;144100]Apparently, House members who face a tough reelection race voted more heavily against the "bailout" than those in safe districts.[/QUOTE]
Cheesehead, just by way of clarification, my "go down in flames" comment was aimed at McCain't and his cabal of Bush-clones-R-us advisors. Regarding the "tough re-election" note - apparently not having one's seat more or less in the bag makes one more inclined to actually LISTEN TO ONE'S CONSTITUENTS. A shocking display of "representative democracy", wasn't it?


[QUOTE=Spherical Cow;144121]On NPR, I heard McCain blame Obama and his helpers for the failure of the vote, and literally in the next sentence, state that it is time to set partisan fighting aside and fix the problem. He apparently wants to end the partisan bickering immediately after he blames the other party.[/QUOTE]
Yep - see my "go down in flames" comment. As the NYT op-ed I quoted a couple weeks ago put it so well, I believe the way a candidate runs his campaign is generally quite indicative of the way he would govern. For McCain, "signs point to 'abysmal'."

[quote=ewmayer;144123]Regarding the "tough re-election" note - apparently not having one's seat more or less in the bag makes one more inclined to actually LISTEN TO ONE'S CONSTITUENTS. A shocking display of "representative democracy", wasn't it?[/quote]OTOH, in his book [U]Profiles In Courage[/U] then-Senator John F. Kennedy argued that after L. T. O. C., voting according to one's constituents' preference is not always the right thing to do in exceptional circumstances.

I believe Edmund Burke said something similar about 200 years prior...

EDIT: Found the quote - it's one of my favorites:

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion

The Christian Science Monitor's article on whether or not the moderator of the VP debate is biased has one of the best cartoon/illustrations of the whole campaign.

And if Sarah Palin is a GIMPSter, maybe she'll do OK...

Norm

Today's "Great Books" Recommendation
 

... is this delightful [url=http://www.amazon.com/Dow-36-000-Strategy-Profiting/dp/0609806998]Classic of Economics[/url]. It is alas out-of-print, but used copies can still be obtained surprisingly cheaply.

Aside: One of the authors [Hassett] is an economic advisor for one of the two major-party presidential candidates. Three guesses as to which candidate that would be.*



*[Hint: Think of Tom Cruise wooing Kelly McGillis in the 1986 hit movie, [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092099/]Top Gun[/url]. Better still, print out a color movie still of Tom sitting astride his motorcycle, wearing that manly leather jacket of his. Now cut out a proportionally-scaled headshot of both of the two major-party candidates and lay each in turn on top of Tom’s head – sorry, Tom! No disrespect intended - in the picture, perhaps imagining some typical campaign-speech dialog by each candidate as you do so. Which is the better fit?]

[url]http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/5061852/aussies-want-obama-president/[/url]

[quote=99.94;144675][URL]http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/5061852/aussies-want-obama-president/[/URL][/quote]
Last I checked, the rest of the world aren't voting for the US President, Americans are, so it really doesn't matter who they think our president should be.

[quote=99.94;144675][URL]http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/5061852/aussies-want-obama-president/[/URL][/quote]Reader's Digest article about their poll (referenced by that article):

"Global Poll: How the World Sees the 2008 Election

Our exclusive international poll reveals Obamamania abroad-and the enduring allure of the American Dream."

[quote][B]Citizen of the World[/B]

It's a good thing for John McCain that only American citizens can vote in U.S. presidential elections. If the election were held overseas, or even in the rest of North America, the Republican nominee wouldn't stand a chance.

This was just one of the remarkable findings in a new Reader's Digest Global Poll in which we asked people in 17 countries, including the United States, to name the issues they care about most and tell how they feel about the United States and the presidential contenders.

. . .

Also, in fairness to the GOP nominee, the Republican party is organized around a set of conservative attitudes and principles that are distinctly American in nature. These range from support for gun rights and low taxes to antipathy to legal abortion and centralized governmental control.[/quote]"antipathy to ... centralized governmental control"?

This is the party whose president imposed our only peacetime wage and price controls in the early 1970's.

This is the party whose current president has sought, or simply surreptitiously seized, greater and greater power for the executive branch ... and still continues to do so (e.g., the original Bernanke bailout plan) even now.

This is the party that has made the greatest addition to federal government in at least half a century (Department of Homeland Security), along with one of the greatest assaults on personal privacy and liberties in the history of the United States.

I agree that Republicans generally want, and have a quite legitimate right to advocate, gun rights, low taxes (not low deficits and low national debt, which is what they used to advocate), and barriers to legal abortion.

But they clearly do [U]not[/U] actually, sincerely demonstrate antipathy to centralized governmental control -- far from it, they've consistently worked [U]for[/U], not against, centralized governmental control for at least three decades.

The supposed current Republican antipathy for centralized governmental control is a Big Lie campaign slogan, not the more genuine desire (AFAIK) of the Goldwater-era conservatives.

"centralized [B][federal][/B] governmental control"?

Yes, but "[I]Jawwn McCain ... he's a reformist maverick..."[/I]

ewmayer's post cracked me up when I read it. I sincerely hope Jawwn follows the Goldwater-era conservative economic template as opposed to the Bush-era "new federal government department at every sign of difficulty" template, if elected.

On the path to our newest "economic" government agency, I did find one bit of humor. "Henry Paulson names former Goldman Sachs banker Neel Kashkari to head Wall St. bailout". [B]Is "Kashkari" pronounced "Cash Carry"?
[/B]
And today, Bush says: [B]“We don’t want to rush into the situation and have the program not be effective.”
[/B]
Indeed! Let's instead pressure congress to give our children a lifetime of debt to pay through taxes, or socialism, NOW, ASAP. It's CYA, eat this SH*T now or we'll all be starving or dead tomorrow.

Gawd bless real fiscally conservative (R)congressmen, [B](D)Brad Sherman[/B], ... and also let Gawd bless all of the (D)blue dogs.

conspiracy theory
 

In the midst of comments on a not-too-remarkable article ([URL]http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/06/1501672.aspx[/URL]) is this gem:

[quote=chris, los angeles, california]Even McCain's attack ads are out of touch. You'd think his Bush Campaign attack dogs would at least score a few points on the attack ... right?

Unless they are planning to lose this election and use McCain as the fall guy. They know how bad the economy is! They know how big this Wall Street bailout will be! This first $800 billion is not the end of it! They know the Democrats win when it's the economy - stupid! But even all the regulation in the world will not stop this recession avalanche from becoming deep and hard - particularly for the middle class. It will get really bad. It could be a depression! The next bust will be credit card defaults - I wonder if Congress bails out Visa and Mastercard?

So what's the point here. In politics when you've really fumbled the ball you want the other team to pick it up. The idea is to blame the Democrats for the economy when they cannot fix it. It's an old proven GOP strategy that really works. The GOP give up 4 years under Obama to get the next 8 years starting in 2012.

The GOP will run Huckabee / Romney in 2012 and they'll win since the economy will be weaker in 2011 than it is today. AGAIN it's the economy STUPID.

And McCain will not lead the GOP in 2012. As for Palin she is a base thriller who will go back to Alaska and will start running huge deficits, ask for massive pork, and show all Americans that she can bring the bacon home.

The economy is in free fall, and given the $11 trillion dollar debt the next president will NOT accomplish very much.

Don't forget Government revenues fall in a recession and whatever deficits are estimated you can calculate double that. Hold onto your cash folks - this fall is going to hurt us all.[/quote]

Sincere health warning ... but, conspiracy theory?
 

From ABC Health Insider ([URL]http://blogs.abcnews.com/health_insider/[/URL]) comes this warning:

"Think Twice Before You Vote and Drive"

[quote=Audrey Grayson, ABC News Medical Unit]
Every New Year’s Eve I transform into Driving Miss Daisy out of the sheer awareness that my chances of getting in a car wreck are much higher than usual. From now on, I’ll undergo the same transformation every presidential Election Day as well ... and you may want to do the same.

Driving fatalities in this country rise dramatically during presidential elections, according to a research letter released in today’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. And the increase in the number of these fatalities on Election Day even overshadows the increase in driving fatalities seen on holidays, such as New Year’s Eve and during other dangerous driving times, such as after the Super Bowl.

To make this determination, researchers from the University of Toronto examined government records of fatal car crashes from 1975 to 2006. They compared the number of fatal car crashes on U.S. presidential election Tuesdays (from Jimmy Carter in 1976 to George W. Bush in 2004) with driving fatalities from the Tuesday before election day and the Tuesday of the following week.

They found that on election Tuesdays, the U.S. averaged 13 fatalities per hour compared with 11 fatalities per hour during nonelection Tuesdays. This accounted for an overall 18 percent increase in the number of fatal car crashes on election Tuesdays.

According to Dr. Donald Redelmeier, director of the clinical epidemiology unit at the University of Toronto, the increase in driving fatalities seen on U.S. presidential election days “greatly exceeded the risk of New Year’s Eve and Super Bowl Sunday.”

“The average Super Bowl is associated with an increase of seven more people in fatal motor vehicle crashes, so that makes election days about three times more dangerous than the Super Bowl,” Redelmeier explained.

Comparatively, New Year’s Eve is only associated with about three more fatal crashes than the national average.

There are several reasons Redelmeier suspects presidential election days could be more dangerous for drivers than holidays and big game days. For one, he posits that the public is simply less aware of the potential for added danger.

“This shows that public attitudes and awareness can really influence road safety,” Redelmeier said.

In addition, because of our heightened awareness of roadside safety on holidays such as New Year’s, the number of police officers patrolling the roads for drunken or reckless drivers increases exponentially. The same is not so on our election Tuesdays.

But we can all say from experience that adding even just one extra responsibility to our already loaded schedules can lead to speeding or other distractions.

Redelmeier also points out in his report that many of us are traveling to unfamiliar areas in order to cast our votes. This simple change in routine can lead to increased distractions and even heightened anxiety while driving, all of which could be contributing factors to the increase of fatal car crashes.

Although there are a few simple changes that might help bring down the number of fatal crashes during election days -- such as increased presence of police officers and roadside patrolling, or the establishment of more automatic enforcement technologies such as video cameras at stop lights and photo radar -- I think the one thing we can all do to help curb this phenomenon is to be aware of it.

With that said, this news won’t discourage me from showing up at the polls this year -- but it might take me some extra time to (slowly, calmly) drive there. And I hope the same for you.[/quote](" ... a few simple changes that might help bring down the number of fatal crashes during election days -- such as increased presence of police officers ..."

So [I]that[/I]'s why patrol cars were stationed near polling places in black neighborhoods of Florida on Election Day 2000, with officers telling blacks that their polling place was closed -- Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of then-Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, was just trying to bring down the number of fatal crashes, but his orders to the officers got a bit garbled in transmission.)

[QUOTE=cheesehead;144716]From ABC Health Insider ([URL]http://blogs.abcnews.com/health_insider/[/URL]) comes this warning:

"Think Twice Before You Vote and Drive"[/QUOTE]2 factors not mentioned. The first and lesser, hussling to get to the polling place, before or after work, or during a break. Second, and I believe the major reason, far more old drivers. Since they 'turn out' to vote better, and they often man the polling places, and volunteer to pick people up, they are putting more miles as a group than normal.

Asteroid Palin?
 

[url=http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltall/0,1518,582593,00.html]Der Spiegel: Astronomers' First Success at Predicting Near-Earth Asteroid Collision[/url]
[quote]Unter Astronomen kursieren inzwischen Witze über den Asteroiden. So solle das Objekt zusätzlich zu den bisher verwendeten Bezeichnungen 8TA9D69 und 2008 TC3 noch einen weiteren, griffigeren Namen bekommen. Alain Maury, einer der in Fachkreisen bekanntesten Asteroiden- und Kometenexperten, zitierte in der Minor Planet Mailing List einen Kollegen: "Ich würde diesen Asteroiden nach Alaskas Gouverneurin Sarah Palin benennen. Warum? Er ist klein, nicht besonders hell und wird keine besonders großen Spuren hinterlassen."[/quote]
Translation:
[quote]Meanwhile, jokes about the asteroid are circulating among astronomers, to the effect that in addition to the currently-used designations 8TA9D69 and 2008 TC3 the object should receive a further, more-quotable name. Alain Maury, one of the best-known asteroid and comet experts in the scientific community, cites a suggestion by a colleague in the Minor Planet Mailing List: "I would name this asteroid after Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin. Why? It's small, not especially bright and will leave no particularly memorable traces behind."
[/quote]

[QUOTE]"I would name this asteroid after Alaska's Governor
Sarah Palin. Why? It's small, not especially bright and
will leave no particularly memorable traces behind."
[/QUOTE]

Very amusing. (Un)Fortunately, using names of politicians
for minor planet names is not allowed until the individual
has been dead for at least 100 years. Also, minor planets
receiving names have to be numbered (requiring
observations at four or more oppositions) and 2008 TC3
won't ever be numbered as it was seen only over an
arc of less than one day.

Gareth Williams, Minor Planet Center

[QUOTE=Graff;144747]Very amusing. (Un)Fortunately, using names of politicians
for minor planet names is not allowed until the individual
has been dead for at least 100 years. Also, minor planets
receiving names have to be numbered (requiring
observations at four or more oppositions) and 2008 TC3
won't ever be numbered as it was seen only over an
arc of less than one day.

Gareth Williams, Minor Planet Center[/QUOTE]
Now, see, Gareth, if you were a maverick agent of change like Senator Jawwn McCain, you'd be willing to buck the entrenched Astronomisticistical establishment and change that burdensome bureaucratic regulation.

[quote=Uncwilly;144721]hussling to get to the polling place, before or after work, or during a break.[/quote]Well, the article did say, "... adding even just one extra responsibility to our already loaded schedules can lead to speeding or other distractions."

[quote]Second, and I believe the major reason, far more old drivers. Since they 'turn out' to vote better, and they often man the polling places, and volunteer to pick people up, they are putting more miles as a group than normal.[/quote]There's something that deserves more analysis. (I don't have online access to JAMA; will check the library to see whether they considered that. It's in the Oct. 1, 2008 issue -- Vol. 300, Num. 13) It didn't take long for another commenter to note that, too:

[URL]http://blogs.abcnews.com/health_insider/2008/09/think-twice-bef.html#comments[/URL]

[quote=zack | Sep 30, 2008 9:40:25 PM]
I think the real subtext here is in regards to older drivers getting on the road in droves. I know a lotter of older folks don't venture out much, but you can be sure they'll be driving to the local polling station on Nov. 4. The added hazard of older drivers on the road with slower reflexes and reaction times shouldn't be overlooked as a cause of the increase in accidents.[/quote]

NYT Editorial: Politics of Attack
 

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/opinion/08wed1.html?ref=opinion]NYT Editorial: Politics of Attack[/url]
[quote]It is a sorry fact of American political life that campaigns get ugly, often in their final weeks. But Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember.

They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia. Senator Barack Obama has taken some cheap shots at Mr. McCain, but there is no comparison.

Despite the occasional slip (referring to Mr. Obama’s “cronies” and calling him “that one”), Mr. McCain tried to take a higher road in Tuesday night’s presidential debate. It was hard to keep track of the number of times he referred to his audience as “my friends.” But apart from promising to buy up troubled mortgages as president, he offered no real answers for how he plans to solve the country’s deep economic crisis. He is unable or unwilling to admit that the Republican assault on regulation was to blame.

Ninety minutes of forced cordiality did not erase the dismal ugliness of his campaign in recent weeks, nor did it leave us with much hope that he would not just return to the same dismal ugliness on Wednesday.

Ms. Palin, in particular, revels in the attack. Her campaign rallies have become spectacles of anger and insult. “This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America,” Ms. Palin has taken to saying.

That line follows passages in Ms. Palin’s new stump speech in which she twists Mr. Obama’s ill-advised but fleeting and long-past association with William Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground and confessed bomber. By the time she’s done, she implies that Mr. Obama is right now a close friend of Mr. Ayers — and sympathetic to the violent overthrow of the government. The Democrat, she says, “sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Her demagoguery has elicited some frightening, intolerable responses. A recent Washington Post report said at a rally in Florida this week a man yelled “kill him!” as Ms. Palin delivered that line and others shouted epithets at an African-American member of a TV crew.

Mr. McCain’s aides haven’t even tried to hide their cynical tactics, saying they were “going negative” in hopes of shifting attention away from the financial crisis — and by implication Mr. McCain’s stumbling response.

We certainly expected better from Mr. McCain, who once showed withering contempt for win-at-any-cost politics. He was driven out of the 2000 Republican primaries by this sort of smear, orchestrated by some of the same people who are now running his campaign.[/quote]


[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/opinion/08friedman.html?ref=opinion]NYT Op-Ed | Thomas Froedman: Palin’s Kind of Patriotism[/url]
[quote]Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.

I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.

Sorry, I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

I can understand someone saying that the government has no business bailing out the financial system, but I can’t understand someone arguing that we should do that but not pay for it with taxes. I can understand someone saying we have no business in Iraq, but I can’t understand someone who advocates staying in Iraq until “victory” declaring that paying taxes to fund that is not patriotic.

How in the world can conservative commentators write with a straight face that this woman should be vice president of the United States? Do these people understand what serious trouble our country is in right now? [/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;144903]He is unable or unwilling to admit that the Republican assault on regulation was to blame.[/QUOTE]

I've been doing a little reading and there are a number of writers who disagree with this statement. They have basically said that the businesses and industries that are regulated (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac come to mind) were most heavily involved with the toxic mortgages, while those entities that are less regulated were not. In fact one article suggested that Sarbanes-Oxley led to more of the "good money following the bad". I haven't done enough research to know the full accuracy of any statements, but to place all (or even most) of the blame on deregulation seems to be an effort to deflect blame from other sources.

Of note, I have not talked to [B]one[/B] person who supports the bailout. Everyone would have preferred the banks and Wall Street to flounder a little more before anything would come from Washington. Even though I own a house (okay a little more than 50% of a house), I would have preferred to see another 10% drop in its value before a bailout that does little to solve the root of the problem, America's (and American's) addiction to debt. I have yet to see either party submit a solution to this basic problem. Instead both say that we'll just continue to borrow the money and spend our way out of it.

I heard yesterday that there is a 10 million home surplus in the U.S (one [URL="http://fathers.blogtownhall.com/2008/10/03/mortgage_banking_crisis_is_symptom_of_housing_surplus.thtml"]web site[/URL] suggests 30 million). This is a huge part of the problems that we currently experience. Apparently Nevada, Arizona, California, and Florida lead the pack in surplus housing. It has been suggested that housing will not rebound until this surplus is significantly reduced. In those markets I would have to believe that housing values will drop a lot more than 20% before this is over. Unfortunately the rest of us are being dragged down by the housing speculation

I did find one of McCain's remarks from last night incredibly frightening. If I heard him correctly, he basically stated the the U.S. government should absorb the loss of value of all of these properties so that the current mortgagees could refinance. This must be related to Palin's remark of houses valued at $300K that are only worth $100K (a disingenuous remark). Boy, I wish I had purchased a $1M home that was worth $350. Then the government could absorb that $650K loss instead of me. I could keep my house, then sell it for $1M when the market rebounds. That's a pretty good deal. BTW, I would have had a lot more respect for him if he would have just stated that both Republicans and Democrats where responsible for this mess instead he could only find fault with Obama and the Democrats.

Can we just stop pretending that we have a binary choice between regulation and deregulation?

rogue, if deregulation is such a panacea, why do we have the FAA regulating safety standards on aircrafts? The market should be able to figure out what's right, no? Airlines that are unsafe will automatically go out of business.

There is good regulation and there is bad regulation. Sometimes it is hard to tell which is which but most of the time we can use a bit of common sense to figure it out. And we cannot repeat CANNOT trust businesses and markets to figure out what is good for the country. They can only figure out what is good for them and if it screws up the country, so be it.

If they could control their own greed for the sake of national good we wouldn't have had this bailout and we wouldn't have the coming severe recession.

So let's just stop pretending no regulation is the answer. Good regulation is the answer.

PS: We have had a removal of good regulation by the Republicans and an institution of bad regulation by the Democrats. Can we just leave it at that?

PPS: I'm not convinced that Sarbanes-Oxley is to blame. That is being used as a fall guy by some. The Gram-Leachey or whatever it is called seems to be more relevant here.

[QUOTE=garo;144935]Can we just stop pretending that we have a binary choice between regulation and deregulation?

rogue, if deregulation is such a panacea, why do we have the FAA regulating safety standards on aircrafts? The market should be able to figure out what's right, no? Airlines that are unsafe will automatically go out of business.

There is good regulation and there is bad regulation. Sometimes it is hard to tell which is which but most of the time we can use a bit of common sense to figure it out. And we cannot repeat CANNOT trust businesses and markets to figure out what is good for the country. They can only figure out what is good for them and if it screws up the country, so be it.

If they could control their own greed for the sake of national good we wouldn't have had this bailout and we wouldn't have the coming severe recession.

So let's just stop pretending no regulation is the answer. Good regulation is the answer.

PS: We have had a removal of good regulation by the Republicans and an institution of bad regulation by the Democrats. Can we just leave it at that?

PPS: I'm not convinced that Sarbanes-Oxley is to blame. That is being used as a fall guy by some. The Gram-Leachey or whatever it is called seems to be more relevant here.[/QUOTE]

I never stated that regulation is a bad thing or that deregulation is a good thing. In general I agree with your statements, but how does one differentiate between good and bad regulation? It seems to me that regulation must evolve in order to be effective, but that neither party is really interested in that.

If you cut out the lobbyists and the vested interests, most of the time one can tell what is good regulation. But as you say, none of the parties is interested in it.

[quote=rogue;144938]In general I agree with your statements, but how does one differentiate between good and bad regulation?[/quote]I suggest that often it's not a matter of good or bad legislation, but instead a matter of regulation more palatable to conservatives and regulation more palatable to liberals (or choose your own opposites), and the best answer is political compromise whenever there is not sufficient objective (and agreed-upon) data to [I]clearly[/I] support one side or the other.

[quote]It seems to me that regulation must evolve in order to be effective,[/quote]Exactly. Sometimes after a compromise or experiment is put into effect (or, all too often, some calamity occurs), enough objective data results to make it clear(er) what needs to be done.

[quote=garo;144939]If you cut out the lobbyists and the vested interests, most of the time one can tell what is good regulation.[/quote]Well, I'm sympathetic to that, but both two- and three-piece-suited lobbyists and special interests are actually essential to represent fractions of the public who are genuinely informed and interested in particular pieces of legislation. I want a lobbyist who can advocate and explain certain matters that affect me more than the average citizen, because I have a special interest in those matters! But certain practices (bribery etc.) arise from application of human nature to objectively-sound lobbying, so we get messes that need regulation (to coin a word) to try to keep lobbying within proper bounds.

[quote=rogue;144938]but that neither party is really interested in that.[/quote]
[quote=garo;144939]But as you say, none of the parties is interested in it.[/quote]Well, many in each party used to be, and some still are, interested in negotiating and being satisfied with compromises, but recent (3 decades) evolution of political strategy and tactics has worked to separate folks with differing worldviews into sharply different positions, which has not been favorable to reasonable compromises. (I've previously hinted whom I consider most responsible for that.) Hence my call for voters to vote for candidates who seem most likely to be able to reach reasonable compromises without insisting on entrenched extreme positions.

[quote=rogue;144908]I haven't done enough research to know the full accuracy of any statements, but to place all (or even most) of the blame on deregulation seems to be an effort to deflect blame from other sources.[/quote]... or else it's a sincere, honest, informed conclusion that most or all of the blame [I]does[/I] lie with de-(or non-)regulation. Not everyone is a liar.

We saw bad finance-related things happen during the Reagan administration because of deregulation. Does "savings-and-loan scandal" ring a bell? Notice how some current discussions refer to what was done in the 1980s when large numbers of savings-and-loan institutions failed after doing non-cautious (or downright sleazy) things following deregulation in that industry? Over five hundred Reagan appointees were later indicted for felonies (ten times the number of Carter appointees, for comparison), mostly related to savings-and-loan-related misdeeds, according to a [U][I]Wall Street Journal[/I][/U] article sometime around 1990-91.

Some of us think there was a lesson from history there, as there were in other matters related to events that have occurred during the current administration of the only president in my lifetime to have stated that he didn't know much about history before the Reagan administration (e.g., Vietnam). Perhaps W didn't study [I]all[/I] of what happened during the Reagan administration, either.

So, perhaps some blaming of other sources is an effort to deflect blame from de-(or non-)regulation, right?

Because I didn't watch much of Tuesday's McCain/Obama debate, I didn't know about this science-ignorant remark by McCain until reading about it just now:

[quote=[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl78[/url]]In the debate, McCain portrayed Barack Obama as an excessive spender, and he punctuated his attack (twice) with this example:

[quote]"[Obama] voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?"[/quote]

Turns out, a lot of people think we do. This is no ordinary overhead projector from your 5th grade classroom. The blog [URL="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ynews/pl_ynews/storytext/ynews_pl78/29429822/SIG=124rsgrqr/*http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/10/08/that-darn-overhead-projector/"]Cosmic Variance[/URL] sums it up:

[quote]"If you've ever had the pleasure of visiting the Adler Planetarium, you'd probably guess that the 'overhead projector' he's talking about is the spectacular 'Sky Theater' -- one of the most engrossing, gorgeous venues for displaying visuals about space."[/quote]
[/quote]

From Wikipedia's Adler Planetarium article, under heading "Controversy":
[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adler_Planetarium[/URL]

[quote]In the second presidential debate of 2008, John McCain was critical of Obama's support for a $3 million earmark which would have bought a new projector for the planetarium. The current Zeiss Mark VI projector is 40 years old and no longer supported by its manufacturer, Carl Zeiss AG. The Adler has asked six area U.S. representatives and both Illinois senators for assistance in obtaining federal funding for various projects. Both Republicans and Democrats were enlisted for assistance. The replacement projector earmark was not approved.[/quote]Folks, if you've ever been to a planetarium, you know that in the middle of the room is a complex, precise optical instrument capable not only of projecting, overhead, an array of stars, but also of showing all sorts of other objects (Sun, Moon, planets, comets, asteroids) [I]moving[/I] and/or [I]varying[/I] (variable stars, novae, supernovae) among those stars, and furthermore of showing the long-term effects of Earth's 23,000-year precession on how all those change their alignments with our NSEW compass directions, plus a long list of other scientifically-educating optical effects worth millions of mere words in a textbook.

Surely, I would think, to anyone at all familiar with planetariums the phrase "overhead projector" in close proximity to a world-famous planetarium's name would at least cause a pause to consider what might be meant.

So, exactly which Republican in the McCain campaign translated any detailed reference to the Zeiss projector to "overhead projector" in order to portray it as a boondoggle? Whoever it was is either science-ignorant or a cynic willing to sacrifice accurate description to the goal of rousing science-ignorant members of the audience. (I can't imagine that McCain himself would misunderstand a factually-correct description. The idea that he himself would deliberately and knowingly refer to the instrument as a simple "overhead projector", for fleeting political purpose, would require him to have such an anti-science attitude that ... One of you McCain supporters help me out here: is McCain either that ignorant or that willing to sacrifice science to politics, or must McCain have been fed a distorted version by some subordinate?)

- - - - -

UPDATE: I have now learned, to my disgust, that apparently [B]McCain himself [U]is[/U] that willing to sacrifice science to politics[/B].

McCain trained in a planetarium at the Naval Academy.

It wasn't simply repeating an underling's distortion.

It wasn't ignorance of what planetariums are.

He visited a planetarium less than a month ago.

"McCain: Planetariums are Foolish"

[URL]http://theperfectsilence.com/?p=417[/URL]

[quote=(I can't find the blog author's name)][B]Update[/B]: At the end of this article, giving McCain one last shred of the benefit of the doubt, I suggest that perhaps he doesn’t know what a planetarium is, maybe confusing it with some kind of [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickelodeon_movie_theater"][COLOR=#326916]fancy nickelodeon device[/COLOR][/URL] or 1893 World’s Fair attraction. All of this despite McCain having trained in a planetarium at the Naval Academy. Well, now we can’t even consider that, [URL="http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080818/NEWS05/808180326"][COLOR=#326916]since he visited a planetarium less than a month ago[/COLOR][/URL]:[INDENT]The presumed Republican presidential candidate, McCain was scheduled to speak at 9 a.m. today to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Orlando. Afterward, he planned to head for Cocoa, where he will attend an 11:15 closed-door, roundtable discussion with 18 local space industry leaders .

The meeting at the Astronaut Memorial Planetarium at Brevard Community College is closed to the public. Although McCain is expected to make a brief public statement afterward.
[/INDENT]That’s the planetarium I helped build in 1994 - I know it very, very well. He probably walked by my old office, and sat under the planetarium dome where I spent a lot of blood, sweat and tears, silently nodding his head while looking up in awe, [I]“So this is what a plantation looks like.”[/I]

—

He was waiting until my power went out for a few days to say this.

If you needed any more evidence that a certain major political party - at least on the Federal level - is on the completely wrong side of science education in this country, I give you the [URL="http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/1164527,pig091508.article"][COLOR=#326916]latest quote from Presidential Candidate John McCain[/COLOR][/URL]:[INDENT]McCain responded by criticizing Obama for seeking more than $900 million in these earmarks, by one count.

‘‘That’s nearly a million every day, every working day he’s been in Congress,’’ McCain said. ‘‘And when you look at some of the [B]planetariums and other foolishness[/B] that he asked for, he shouldn’t be saying anything about Governor Palin.’’ (emphasis mine)
[/INDENT]. . .

Many astronauts, engineers, scientists, and physicists cite their planetarium experience as a young adult as the inspiration for their careers. And something tells me that McCain is a fan of home schooling. Well, home school teachers use planetariums and museums extensively (to their credit) to teach their kids about the Universe and the wonders of nature. Why does McCain hate resources for home schools?

So planetariums are very much involved in the direct classroom education of the very kids we need to teach science to. That’s Foolishness You Can Believe In. But beyond that, and even more important than the direct lessons - is the role planetariums have in[B] inspiring[/B] the next generation to envision themselves participating in a future of science and technology. Students and adults take away an incredible sense of awe from their planetarium experience, of being a part of something amazing as they fly through canyons on Mars and investigate the strange galaxies that contain hundreds of billions of stars. The planetarium allows kids to excersize their most amazing asset - their imagination - by simply giving them the place to throw their thoughts to the possible, as they sit entranced under the stars. I always got chills when I would first turn down the lights in the planetarium, to reveal the beauty of the night sky to a roomful of school kids. “Wwwoooooowwww!” they always collectively would shout to the stars. You tell me of another math or science lesson that gets that kind of response within the first minute.

More “foolishness,” please.

. . .

There couldn’t be any better use of such an “earmark” - the education about an important endangered species in nature - the Universe above us all. All in one of America’s premiere historic science teaching facilities no less. I guess McCain really hated the latest updating of the [URL="http://www.nasm.si.edu/visit/theaters/planetarium/"][COLOR=#326916]Smithsonian’s Einstein Planetarium[/COLOR][/URL], which he had to vote on, or his state’s own recently [URL="http://www.azscience.org/planetarium.php"][COLOR=#326916]renovated planetarium at the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix[/COLOR][/URL], and I’m sure he’s banging his fist about the “foolishness” of the upcoming state-of-the-art planetarium at the [URL="http://www.gotuasciencecenter.org/about/uasciencecenter-2/"][COLOR=#326916]University of Arizona’s Science Center[/COLOR][/URL] located in Tuscon, one of America’s astronomy capitals.

Does McCain hate science education? Actually, I really don’t think so. Instead, I’m willing to bet that he doesn’t even know what a planetarium even is - [B]even though he spent his college years training in one in a standard course in Celestial Navigation at the Naval Academy[/B]). Now that’s Irony You Can Believe In.

Planetariums are Bridges to the Future, and America would be a much better place if all the congressional earmarks went to projects like them.[/quote]Note that in the next-to-last paragraph the author was willing, as I was, to grant McCain the benefit of the doubt. (I have not changed anything above the "UPDATE" line since I learned of this later stuff, so you can judge for yourself how genuinely I was willing to give McCain the benefit of the doubt.)

Then we found otherwise.

- - -

Here's Phil Plait's take:

[URL]http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/08/mccains-planetariophobia/[/URL]

- - - -

Go ahead, McCain supporters: explain how sacrificing science to politics, as the GOP has done for seven years [U]and continues to do even now[/U], is justified.

McCain just proposed bailing out every underwater mortgage in America at taxpayer expense, irrespective of how reckless the responsible lending institution and the homebuyer were, and he accuses Obama of pork barrel politics? McCain and the Repugnicans from Reagan onward have put future generations, our children and grandchildren, on the hook for many multiples of our GDP in federal debt, because they don't have the honesty to say that all this insane military spending and national-socialism-for-the-wealthy-and-the-profligate has to paid for somehow? Like I said ... lying scumbags. I can't even stand to hear anything that comes out of McCain's mouth anymore, my disgust at the way he is running his desperate smear campaign is so great. I tried tuning in to debate #2 the other night, and immediately had to change the channel. Alas, nearly every channel that was carrying anything of remote interest was broadcasting the debate, so it was off to the DVD collection.

[quote=cheesehead;144990]- - - -

Go ahead, McCain supporters: explain how sacrificing science to politics, as the GOP has done for seven years [U]and continues to do even now[/U], is justified.[/quote]BTW, to head off something I've seen in comments to the articles I linked, let me point out that it's not about the $3 million dollars, it's not about voting to disallow that earmark, it's not about government spending, and it's not about McCain's blanket opposition to all earmarks.

It's about McCain's deliberately deceptive portrayal of the Zeiss projector to the debate audience.

McCain didn't have to mention it. No one forced him to refer to it AFAIK. It wasn't a joke. Surely there are dozens of other earmarks Obama supported or inserted that McCain could've complained about ... honestly.

He _chose_ to introduce a deliberate distortion that fits right in with the anti-science drift of the Republican Party. (And he did so [U]twice[/U].)

Justify that, please, McCain supporters.

Please.

I beg you.

[quote=cheesehead;144997]BTW, to head off something I've seen in comments to the articles I linked, let me point out that it's not about the $3 million dollars, it's not about voting to disallow that earmark, it's not about government spending, and it's not about McCain's blanket opposition to all earmarks.

It's about McCain's deliberately deceptive portrayal of the Zeiss projector to the debate audience.

McCain didn't have to mention it. No one forced him to refer to it AFAIK. It wasn't a joke. Surely there are dozens of other earmarks Obama supported or inserted that McCain could've complained about ... honestly.

He _chose_ to introduce a deliberate distortion that fits right in with the anti-science drift of the Republican Party. (And he did so [U]twice[/U].)

Justify that, please, McCain supporters.

Please.

I beg you.[/quote]
Well, I for one had never heard of this projector thing prior to the debate--could someone enlighten me as to what exactly this projector is supposed to do that their old one doesn't? (And don't tell me that they [i]didn't[/i] have an old one, since I'm sure that Congress has always had plenty of projectors all over the place.) :smile:

I'll betcha that Zeiss fella was a Nazi sympathizer. And he probably didn't support The Holy Surge, either.

So there.

Umm okay, if you want American children to learn science using 40 year old technology, WTG man you're going to be the scientific leaders of teh world. Do you have any idea how hard it is to source parts for 40 year old planetarium projectors? Do you want to wait till the whole thing breaks down and then put in a request to Congress and wait two years while it gets worked on and not have a projecter in a planetarium for that period?

As a physics teacher, I lamented the decline in the
Geometrical Optics content of the syllabus.

When exactly did Carl Zeiss live?

[QUOTE=garo;145041]Umm okay, if you want American children to learn science using 40 year old technology, WTG man you're going to be the scientific leaders of teh world. Do you have any idea how hard it is to source parts for 40 year old planetarium projectors? Do you want to wait till the whole thing breaks down and then put in a request to Congress and wait two years while it gets worked on and not have a projecter in a planetarium for that period?[/QUOTE]

When I was in junior high school, one of the sciences teachers built
his own planetarium out of a slide projector, plastic gears, cardboard,
etc. etc. It was suspended from his classroom ceiling and the dome
was about 10' x 10' in size. It worked surprisingly well.

I think there is a difference between a classroom model planetarium - I say well done to your teacher - and what we are talking about here. You cannot deny that the "real one" has the power to inspire and make things more interesting to the less motivated student.

[quote=davieddy;145044]As a physics teacher, I lamented the decline in the
Geometrical Optics content of the syllabus.

When exactly did Carl Zeiss live?[/quote]
1816-1888

[QUOTE=davieddy;145048]1816-1888[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but even though he lived in the 19th century, I betcha he was a Nazi sympathizer ... just like his countryman, that Ree-shard Wagner dude. [Who similarly was against the Surge, as well as being skeptical of several other McCain policy initiatives.]

Getting back to the non-facetious: One small comfort I take from the economic implosion [besides the fact that housing may once again be semi-affordable in the next few years] is that it makes it less likely that McCain and Pretty-head-full-of-ugly-ideas [I am tempted to call her simply "that one", but that's McCain's latest pet dehumanizing euphemism for Obama] will win in November. That means I may not find myself forced to emigrate in the coming year.

[QUOTE=garo;145041]Umm okay, if you want American children to learn science using 40 year old technology, WTG man you're going to be the scientific leaders of teh world. [/QUOTE] For most of the teaching that most kids need, a $1,500 projector (like is in many classrooms today) and a $1,500 laptop (like is in most classrooms) running software that costs less than $200 (some is free) would do well. The person operating it makes a bigger difference than the projector.

[quote=ewmayer;145050]Yeah, but even though he lived in the 19th century, I betcha he was a Nazi sympathizer ... just like his countryman, that Ree-shard Wagner dude. [Who similarly was against the Surge, as well as being skeptical of several other McCain policy initiatives.]

[/quote]
As Winshton Churchill once said:
In the morning I will be sober:smile:

[quote=mdettweiler;145036]Well, I for one had never heard of this projector thing prior to the debate--could someone enlighten me as to what exactly this projector is supposed to do that their old one doesn't?[/quote]Easy to miss in the middle of the quote from Wikipedia ([URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adler_Planetarium[/URL]) was:

"The current Zeiss Mark VI projector is 40 years old and no longer supported by its manufacturer, Carl Zeiss AG."

It's mechanically complicated, and parts need repair or replacing once in a while, but can no longer be obtained from the manufacturer.

It's not so much a matter of the new one doing more than the old one (though it probably will), it's a matter of having a working one at all. Adler Planetarium (which was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark over twenty years ago) wouldn't be requesting a new one if they were able to keep the old one going.

[b][i][Editor's Note: This is the first post in a deficit-spending discussion which arose in ther Subprime/Global-Fiscal-Crisis thread - I copied the first post of this discussion here, and physically moved the ensuing ones over.][/i][/b]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;145064]But at least "they didn't raise your taxes" ... they just mortgaged the nation's future to pay for the profligate spending of their "smaller government".[/quote]

ewmayer, the national debt was just about doubled, in one week, by congress and senate, run by democrats. I imagine that almost every Republican who voted for the bill and who comes up for re-election will be voted out of office. That's partially because a majority of Americans (but especially the Republicans) did not want the bill. I just don't understand how you can blame the debt solely on Republicans.

On the other hand, I personally am sick of the ones we've elected. They do not represent the party of low taxes and lower spending.

[COLOR=White].[/COLOR]

[quote=Zeta-Flux;145075]ewmayer, the national debt was just about doubled, in one week, by congress and senate, run by democrats.[/quote]... and [U]not vetoed by the Republican president, even though there are enough Congressional Republicans to uphold the veto in either house of Congress![/U]

[Note: you mean "deficit", the shortfall in one year's budget, not "debt" which is the cumulative total (over $10 trillion now) of all deficits and surpluses since the U.S. was founded.]

[quote]I just don't understand how you can blame the debt solely on Republicans.[/quote]Do you understand the presidential veto provisions of the U.S. Constitution?

One president plus one-third-plus-one of the same party in either house of Congress can stop any legislation they want, and hold hostage any provision they want until the majority of Congressmen and Senators cave in. It is possible for 35 people (president plus 34 senators) to stop legislation approved by the other 501 people in Congress, and to insist on getting what they want before approving the rest.

(BTW, don't confuse the 60 votes currently needed to stop a Senate filibuster with the 67 votes needed to override a presidential veto there.)

Your argument is along the same lines as one Ronald Reagan used (I watched him look straight into the TV camera and say it, so don't claim he didn't) in the first year of his administration to portray congressional Democrats as responsible for passing bills that contained too much spending, and say that he was going to veto them for that reason. What he chose _not_ to tell his audience (and so, fooled millions of Americans such as my mother) was that what he wanted was bills that contained [U]even more spending, just in different areas than Democrats wanted[/U]. You can look it up -- there are versions Reagan vetoed that had less spending than the versions he signed! (And, BTW, Reagan set the all-time record for number of vetoes, both in his first year and overall.)

I've been hearing this Big Lie (that Democrats are responsible for the large federal deficits since 1980, that Democratic-desired spending counts as the only evil federal spending, but Republican spending on what [I]they[/I] want is never referred to as in any way connected to the federal debt or deficit) from Republicans for almost three decades now, and I'm not going to let it go unchallenged any more.

I'm not accusing you, Zeta-Flux, of knowingly lying; I'm accusing you of repeating someone else's carefully-crafted, monotonously-repeated, and very-effective-so-far Big Lie.

Ronald Reagan [U]tripled[/U] our national debt (from about $1 trillion to about $3 trillion); George H.W. Bush added as much debt (another $1 trillion) as was the entire total before Reagan took office. Clinton presided over the only surpluses we've had since then, and George W. Bush has added about as much to the federal debt as Reagan and his father combined.

Don't give me that Big Lie about which party has been spendthrift for the past three decades. It's pure propaganda (and obviously very effective!!), and publicly-available facts prove that.

[quote]On the other hand, I personally am sick of the ones we've elected. They do not represent the party of low taxes and lower spending.[/quote]Perhaps you ought to heed my repeated call to moderate Republicans to take back their party from those who value political power above all ethics and, as I've explained previously (see my posts in the New President thread, I think -- I'm looking for the one I mean so I can post a direct link - here [URL]http://mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=140800&postcount=467[/URL]), have since 1980 been following a conservative-think-tank strategy that reverses the traditional Republican spending conservatism but won't be honest about that.

Unfortunately, Xyzzy, that isn't indicative of the mood at some recent McCain/Palin appearances, including here in Waukesha County, Wisconsin.

"McCain booed after trying to calm anti-Obama crowd"

[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_angry_crowds[/URL]

[quote]LAKEVILLE, Minn. - The anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is acting to tamp it down. McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt switch from raising questions about Barack Obama's character, he described the Democrat as a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some GOP events this week as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag against Obama. Some in the audience are making it personal, against the Democrat. Shouts of "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar," and even "off with his head" have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin rallies, and gone unchallenged by them.

McCain changed his tone Friday when supporters at a town hall pressed him to be rougher on Obama. A voter said, "The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight." Another said Obama would lead the U.S. into socialism. Another said he did not want his unborn child raised in a country led by Obama.

"If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said. "But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." When people booed, he cut them off.

"I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he said. "I just mean to say you have to be respectful."

Presidential candidates are accustomed to raucous rallies this close to Election Day and welcome the enthusiasm. But they are also traditionally monitors of sorts from the stage. Part of their job is to leaven proceedings if tempers run ragged and to rein in an out-of-bounds comment from the crowd.

Not so much this week, at GOP rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and other states.

When a visibly angry McCain supporter in Waukesha, Wis., on Thursday told the candidate "I'm really mad" because of "socialists taking over the country," McCain stoked the sentiment. "I think I got the message," he said. "The gentleman is right." He went on to talk about Democrats in control of Congress.

On Friday, McCain rejected the bait.

"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

He had drawn boos with his comment: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

The anti-Obama taunts and jeers are noticeably louder when McCain appears with Palin, a big draw for GOP social conservatives. She accused Obama this week of "palling around with terrorists" because of his past, loose association with a 1960s radical. If less directly, McCain, too, has sought to exploit Obama's Chicago neighborhood ties to William Ayers, while trying simultaneously to steer voters' attention to his plans for the financial crisis.

The Alaska governor did not campaign with McCain on Friday, and his rally in La Crosse, Wis., earlier Friday was much more subdued than those when the two campaigned together. Still, one woman shouted "traitor" when McCain told voters Obama would raise their taxes.

Volunteers worked up chants from the crowd of "U.S.A." and "John McCain, John McCain," in an apparent attempt to drown out boos and other displays of negative energy.

The Secret Service confirmed Friday that it had investigated an episode reported in The Washington Post in which someone in Palin's crowd in Clearwater, Fla., shouted "kill him," on Monday, meaning Obama. There was "no indication that there was anything directed at Obama," Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren told AP. "We looked into it because we always operate in an atmosphere of an abundance of caution."

Palin, at a fundraiser in Ohio on Friday, told supporters "it's not negative and it's not mean-spirited" to scrutinize Obama's iffy associations.

But Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania an author of 15 books on politics, says the vitriol has been encouraged by inflammatory words from the stage.

"Red-meat rhetoric elicits emotional responses in those already disposed by ads using words such as 'dangerous' 'dishonorable' and 'risky' to believe that the country would be endangered by election of the opposing candidate," she said.[/quote]Folks, this sort of demonizing and emotion will spur assassination attempts, should Obama be elected.

In 1960, a charismatic Democratic candidate, demonized by Republicans during the campaign, from a demographic group (Roman Catholic) never before represented in the U.S. presidency, was elected. When my algebra teacher came into the classroom shortly after lunch on November 22, 1963, to inform us that Kennedy had been shot, one thing he said with a small smile was, "They finally got the sonofabitch."

[quote]"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."[/quote]Perpetuating urban legends can lead to real harm.

[quote]Still, one woman shouted "traitor" when McCain told voters Obama would raise their taxes.[/quote]This is what the GOP strategy of the past 28 years has brought: running up the national debt to the point that China has the financial power to "veto" certain U.S. decisions, but portraying opposition to that course as not just harmful, but actually [I]traitorous[/I].

Republicans should be ashamed of their Big Lie fiscal policy since 1980. Let's fervently hope that some future history doesn't have to point to it as a principal cause of US downfall.

Remember: Author Tom Clancy portrayed, in his novel [I]Debt of Honor[/I], the deliberate crashing of a jumbo jet into an important building by an enemy of the United States a decade before it happened for real with multiple planes and buildings. [B]The same novel portrayed foreign countries as using their holdings of dollars and U.S. Treasury bonds (at a far lower level than today's) as a financial weapon against the United States in order to escalate a crisis already started for other, financially-related reasons.[/B]

In a different novel ([I]The Sum of All Fears[/I]), Clancy described details of terrorists' construction of a nuclear weapon. In an afterword of that book, he explained that he had omitted or distorted crucial details, so that the procedure he described would not work in practice.

There is no such disclaimer at the end of [I]Debt of Honor[/I].

[quote=cheesehead;145104]Remember: Author Tom Clancy portrayed, in his novel [I]Debt of Honor[/I], the deliberate crashing of a jumbo jet into an important building by an enemy of the United States [B]a decade[/B] before it happened for real with multiple planes and buildings.[/quote]Oops. Copyright date was 1994. Only seven years before.

Paranoid or what?:smile:

[QUOTE=cheesehead;145104]
This is what the GOP strategy of the past 28 years has brought: running up the national debt to the point that China has the financial power to "veto" certain U.S. decisions, but portraying opposition to that course as not just harmful, but actually [I]traitorous[/I].[/QUOTE]Um...excuse me... I asked this on the other thread, but I'll ask it here again. Who has been in the majority in the senate and congress during the largest increase of that debt. While I don't deny that the GOP has done its share to raise the debt, I would argue that Republicans do not like what their elected officials have done, and those officials who supported the bailout bill will be ousted. Can the same be said of the Democrats who supported the bill?

[QUOTE=cheesehead;145095]... and [U]not vetoed by the Republican president, even though there are enough Congressional Republicans to uphold the veto in either house of Congress![/U][/quote]This is irrelevant to my point. The bill was birthed by Democrats. That some republicans supported it is irrelevant to the fact that it was ratified due to the democrats. Furthermore, a *majority* of Republicans congressmen voted against it. Furthermore, a *majority* of Republican voters were against the bill, and will oust those few Republicans who voted for it.

[quote][Note: you mean "deficit", the shortfall in one year's budget, not "debt" which is the cumulative total (over $10 trillion now) of all deficits and surpluses since the U.S. was founded.][/quote]Yep.

[quote]Do you understand the presidential veto provisions of the U.S. Constitution?[/quote]Of course. Do you understand the role of the legislative branch?

[quote]One president plus one-third-plus-one of the same party in either house of Congress can stop any legislation they want, and hold hostage any provision they want until the majority of Congressmen and Senators cave in. It is possible for 35 people (president plus 34 senators) to stop legislation approved by the other 501 people in Congress, and to insist on getting what they want before approving the rest.[/quote]Of course. Are you trying to *blame* the people who could have stopped its initial passage? Are you blaming their constitutency, which was rabidly against the bill?

[quote]Your argument is along the same lines as one Ronald Reagan used (I watched him look straight into the TV camera and say it, so don't claim he didn't) in the first year of his administration to portray congressional Democrats as responsible for passing bills that contained too much spending, and say that he was going to veto them for that reason.[/quote]That is a ridiculous comparison on the face of it. First, I personally do not have the power to veto it. Second, I personally would (hopefully) have listened to my constituency and vetoed it. Third, while I admit the president has liability, my argument isn't about his lack of liability but that the [b]Democratically controlled congress and senate[/b] have a larger liability for passing the bill in the first place! You can't blame it all (or even a majority of it) on the president for not vetoing. Fourth, the intentions of the president are in direct contradiction with the majority of the party. We will oust those officials who voted for the bill; will you do the same?

[quote]I've been hearing this Big Lie (that Democrats are responsible for the large federal deficits since 1980, that Democratic-desired spending counts as the only evil federal spending, but Republican spending on what [I]they[/I] want is never referred to as in any way connected to the federal debt or deficit) from Republicans for almost three decades now, and I'm not going to let it go unchallenged any more.[/quote]That's fine. I agree with you. Democrats are not entirely responsible. They are, however, [b]primarily[/b]responsible for doubling the current deficit, thereby adding about 1 trillion to the debt.

[quote]I'm not accusing you, Zeta-Flux, of knowingly lying; I'm accusing you of repeating someone else's carefully-crafted, monotonously-repeated, and very-effective-so-far Big Lie.[/quote]No, you are seriously misunderstanding me.

[quote]Ronald Reagan [U]tripled[/U] our national debt (from about $1 trillion to about $3 trillion); George H.W. Bush added as much debt (another $1 trillion) as was the entire total before Reagan took office. Clinton presided over the only surpluses we've had since then, and George W. Bush has added about as much to the federal debt as Reagan and his father combined.

Don't give me that Big Lie about which party has been spendthrift for the past three decades. It's pure propaganda (and obviously very effective!!), and publicly-available facts prove that.[/quote]No, no, no, no, no. Congress and the Senate did those things. While the Presidents have complicity, it is the legislative branch which bears the brunt of the blame. Second, the actions of the presidents in these regards goes *against* the will of the constituency. We WANT lower spending. We are supposed to be the party of lower spending. Our leaders have lied to us, so they've lost our support, and especially in the coming months more will be outed. Can the same be said of the democrats? Have you voted someone in your party out of office for spending too much? Will you send a signal this Nov. for the huge deficit (and hence debt) increase?

[quote]Perhaps you ought to heed my repeated call to moderate Republicans to take back their party from those who value political power above all ethics and, as I've explained previously (see my posts in the New President thread, I think -- I'm looking for the one I mean so I can post a direct link - here [URL]http://mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=140800&postcount=467[/URL]), have since 1980 been following a conservative-think-tank strategy that reverses the traditional Republican spending conservatism but won't be honest about that.[/QUOTE]That's exactly what I've tried to do. Unfortunately, radical anti-mormons in Iowa voted for Huckabee, thereby crushing the most qualified economist from being my candidate (even if I disagreed with him on lots of other matters, such as the war, rights of POW's, etc...). I personally cannot vote for either Obama or McCain, as both supported the deficit increase, and both do not represent my desire to get rid of deficit spending. Strangely enough, Romney (I believe) was also for the bill, and thus would have lost my vote even if he had been the nominee.

[quote=cheesehead;145062]Easy to miss in the middle of the quote from Wikipedia ([URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adler_Planetarium[/URL]) was:

"The current Zeiss Mark VI projector is 40 years old and no longer supported by its manufacturer, Carl Zeiss AG."

It's mechanically complicated, and parts need repair or replacing once in a while, but can no longer be obtained from the manufacturer.

It's not so much a matter of the new one doing more than the old one (though it probably will), it's a matter of having a working one at all. Adler Planetarium (which was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark over twenty years ago) wouldn't be requesting a new one if they were able to keep the old one going.[/quote]
Oh, I see--I thought this was just an ordinary overhead presentation projector, not a big planetarium-sized one. :smile:

With that in mind, though, this begs the question: how much does this new one cost? Can the government really afford to purchase it on money that they don't have?

[QUOTE]"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have
disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

He had drawn boos with his comment: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."[/QUOTE]

This was one of the brightest spots (though there's been very few of them)
of the campaign. McCain trying to head off the unreasonable anger and fear
that comes from the campaign rhetoric. I saw the entire exchange, and
McCain went on to say that he thought he (McCain) would be a better
president than Obama, but at least McCain tried to temper the anger that
seems to be out there.

My view of McCain improved significantly with that one exchange- not enough
to vote for him yet, but it sure was good to see that.

Norm

[quote=Zeta-Flux;145123]Who has been in the majority in the senate and congress during the largest increase of that debt.[/quote]You forgot to ask about the presidency, which has the veto power.

=> What I'll look up, after posting this, is the correlation between party-in-power and budget deficits 1981-2008. <=

After all, I hope you'll agree, if Democrats were in power half the time, Republicans the other half, but 3/4 of the debt was incurred by budgets for which Republicans were responsible, then such an equal division of time would not be indicative of debt responsibility without consideration of who approved which deficits, right?

BTW, I'll tell you right now that the Wall Street Journal had an article, about two years ago IIRC, in which it was clearly and unmistakably shown that the budgets that Republican presidents submitted to Congress during recent history (I don't recall the specific starting year, but it was 1980 or earlier; maybe it was all post-WW2 presidents) had consistently, significantly larger deficits than those submitted by Democrats during the same period.

I'm not trying to fool anyone; I'm trying to point out facts that skillful GOP propaganda has caused many Republicans (and Democrats!) not to notice in the past three decades, and that I'm tired of being ignored and distorted.

[quote]While I don't deny that the GOP has done its share to raise the debt, I would argue that Republicans do not like what their elected officials have done, and those officials who supported the bailout bill will be ousted.[/quote]But I'm talking about what has _actually happened_ in the federal budget, not what might be on voters' minds, and not about the bailout bill in particular. If Republican voters were not responsible for electing Republican Congressmen and Presidents who did these things in the past, then who were?

The theoretical argument that Republican voters throw out Republican lawmakers if those lawmakers instituted the fiscal policy I've outlined fails because facts show that _it just hasn't happened that way_. Republican voters keep electing and re-electing more Republican lawmakers _who keep exercising the same fiscal policy I've been outlining_, even if they're not the same individual lawmakers who represented particular districts in the preceding terms. Political slogans and emotional appeals may obscure this fiscal reality, but it's true. Incumbent Republicans keep getting re-elected at about the same rate as Democratic incumbents.

My arguments about Republican fiscal policy have nothing to do with the bailout bill -- it's about what has happened from 1980 to 2008 _before_ the bailout bill.

[quote]Can the same be said of the Democrats who supported the bill?[/quote]Irrelevant, because I'm not discussing a hypothetical situation; I'm discussing _real history_, and not the bailout bill in particular.

Now, _if in the future_, Republican voters show that they not only turn out lawmakers who enact big deficits, [U]but also do not elect other lawmakers who do the same during their own terms[/U], then I'll congratulate those Republican voters for taking their party back to authentic fiscal conservatism. But, you'll notice, I could have said the same thing just before the 2004, 2002, 2000, 1998, 1996, ..., 1982 elections -- and I would not yet have to have issued such congratulations! _History_ shows that your [B]hopes[/B] in regard to fiscally-spendy Republican lawmakers simply _have not yet been borne out_.

I suggest that if you carefully analyze GOP rhetoric, you can see for yourself how it's designed to deflect attention from the numbers I've been quoting, by using "loaded" words and emotional appeals to non-fiscal stuff.

- - -

Edit:

Here's a table that illustrates one aspect of what I've claimed. I don't cite it as an _authoritative_ source (I'm still looking) because I know that politically-related Wikipedia articles are subject to edit wars and such, so are not reliable ... but its figures are consistent with those I recall from, e.g., WSJ. And no, it doesn't show Congressional party divisions (I'm not finished looking), but it shows some of what I mean.

Look at the table _at the bottom of this page_.

[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms[/URL]

It covers the period 1978-2005. Note that federal spending increased an average of 12.1% during Republican administrations, but only 9.9% during Democratic administrations, and the national debt increased an average of 35.4% during Republican administrations, but only 4.2% during Democratic administrations, while GDP increased an average of 12.6% during Democratic administrations, but only 10.7% during Republican administrations.

Yes, I need to check the details of how the figures were arrived-at (I can see already one problem in that they calculate some figures not by year, but by presidential term, whether that be 4, 8, or some other number of years- this needs correction), but you can see for yourself the overall picture.

BTW, the apparent one-year offset (first Carter budget is for fiscal year 1978, not 1977) is not a mistake. Remember when fiscal years start.

In fact, I think it needs to be adjusted yet another year -- i.e., the first fiscal year for which a ABCD-submitted budget was [I]his[/I] work, and not mainly his predecessor's work, was fiscal year (year ABCD was elected + 3)!. It has to do with the fact that when ABCD submitted the FY (year ABCD was elected + 2) budget to Congress in early (year ABCD was elected + 1) just after his inauguration, it was too soon for his administration to have gone through the budget and thoroughly make it his "own". This is what the WSJ did -- credit each president with the budgets starting only in FY (year president was elected + 3).

A Wikipedia article

[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve-the-beast[/URL]

on what I posted here:

[quote=cheesehead;140800]... which is desirable insofar as it ties the hands of future liberal presidents and legislators to enact immoral social spending ...[/quote]

[quote=mdettweiler;145129]Oh, I see--I thought this was just an ordinary overhead presentation projector, not a big planetarium-sized one.[/quote]See? That's what McCain wants you to think about his deliberate mischaracterization, that it's wasteful federal spending.

In other words, he deliberately distorted the facts about this item in order to portray it as something it's not.

That's [b]L Y I N G[/b].

[quote]With that in mind, though, this begs the question: how much does this new one cost?[/quote]$3 million, as already quoted above

[quote]Can the government really afford to purchase it on money that they don't have?[/quote]Depends on your definition of "afford" and "don't have".

We have to set priorities for government spending, and means of government income to pay for it, of course. I contend that this (single, you'll notice) precision scientific instrument is well worth $3 million. Note that the last one lasted 40 years and has educated millions of people.

Could the government afford to spend about (ultimately, considering rebuilding expense and treating veterans' medical ills) $2 trillion to invade and destroy a country which not only was not a threat to us, but also served as a useful bulwark against theocratic-and-soon-to-be-nuclear-weapon-equipped Iran's expansionist ambitions in the Middle East? with money it [I]borrowed from China[/I], among other entities? China currently receives tens of millions of U.S. dollars each year as income from the U.S. Treasury bonds it owns.

Here's an idea: (1) Spend $3 million the government _does_ have to buy the projector for one of this country's greatest educational institutions (and U.S. National Historic Landmark). (2) Cancel spending $6 million to subsidize moving jobs overseas. (3) Cancel borrowing $3 million to cover the net effect of #1 and #2. (4) Cancel all government-sponsored faith-based abstinence-only sex education ([I]which has been clearly shown to be ineffective in reducing either unwanted pregnancies or STD transmissions[/I]) programs, saving further millions of dollars.

"The Certainty Bias: A Potentially Dangerous Mental Flaw

A neurologist explains why you shouldn't believe in political candidates that sound too sure of themselves."

[URL]http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-certainty-bias[/URL]

[quote=Jonah Lehrer][I]Robert Burton is the former chief of neurology at the University of California at San Francisco-Mt. Zion hospital. He recently wrote a book, [/I][URL="http://www.amazon.com/Being-Certain-Believing-Right-Youre/dp/0312359209"][COLOR=#0aa1dd]On Being Certain[/COLOR][/URL][I], that explored the neuroscience behind the feeling of certainty, or why we are so convinced we’re right even when we’re wrong. He and Jonah Lehrer, the editor of [/I]Mind Matters[I], discussed the science of certainty.[/I]

[B]LEHRER: [/B]What first got you interested in studying the mental state of certainty?

[B]BURTON[/B]: A personal confession: I have always been puzzled by those who seem utterly confident in their knowledge. Perhaps this is a constitutional defect on my part, but I seldom have the sense of knowing unequivocally that I am right. Consequently I have looked upon those who ooze self-confidence and certainty with a combination of envy and suspicion. At a professional level, I have long wondered why so many physicians will recommend unproven, even risky therapies simply because they "know" that these treatments work.

It is easy to be cynical and suspect the worst of motives, from greed to ignorance, but I have known many first-rate, highly concerned and seemingly well motivated physicians who, nevertheless, operate based upon gut feelings and personal beliefs even in the face of contrary scientific evidence. After years of rumination, it gradually dawned on me that there may be an underlying biological component to such behavior.

. . .

[B]LEHRER[/B]: To what extent do these mechanisms come into play during a presidential election? It seems like we all turn into such partisan hacks every four years, completely certain that our side is right.

[B]BURTON[/B]: The present presidential debates and associated media commentary feel like laboratory confirmation that the involuntary feeling of certainty plays a greater role in decision-making than conscious contemplation and reason.

I suspect that retreat into absolute ideologies is accentuated during periods of confusion, lack of governmental direction, economic chaos and information overload. At bottom, we are pattern recognizers who seek escape from ambiguity and indecision. If a major brain function is to maintain mental homeostasis, it is understandable how stances of certainty can counteract anxiety and apprehension. Even though I know better, I find myself somewhat reassured (albeit temporarily) by absolute comments such as, "the stock market always recovers," even when I realize that this may be only wishful thinking.

Sadly, my cynical side also suspects that political advisors use this knowledge of the biology of certainty to actively manipulate public opinion. Nuance is abandoned in favor of absolutes.

. . .

[B]LEHRER[/B]: How can people avoid the certainty bias?

[B]BURTON[/B]: I don't believe that we can avoid certainty bias, but we can mitigate its effect by becoming aware of how our mind assesses itself. As you may know from my book, I've taken strong exception to the popular notion that we can rely upon hunches and gut feelings as though they reflect the accuracy of a thought.

My hope is the converse; we need to recognize that the feelings of certainty and conviction are involuntary mental sensations, not logical conclusions. Intuitions, gut feelings and hunches are neither right nor wrong but tentative ideas that must then be submitted to empirical testing. If such testing isn't possible (such as in deciding whether or not to pull out of Iraq), then we must accept that any absolute stance is merely a personal vision, not a statement of fact.

. . .

In short, please run, do not walk, to the nearest exit when you hear so-called leaders being certain of any particular policy. Only in the absence of certainty can we have open-mindedness, mental flexibility and willingness to contemplate alternative ideas.[/quote]

[QUOTE=cheesehead;145245]$3 million, as already quoted above

Depends on your definition of "afford" and "don't have".

We have to set priorities for government spending, and means of government income to pay for it, of course. I contend that this (single, you'll notice) precision scientific instrument is well worth $3 million. Note that the last one lasted 40 years and has educated millions of people.[/QUOTE]The device costs close to $10 million. There are private fund raising efforts for the other $7 million. The feds are not buying the whole thing.

Frank Rich: The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama
 

[QUOTE=mdettweiler;145129]Oh, I see--I thought this was just an ordinary overhead presentation projector, not a big planetarium-sized one. :smile:

With that in mind, though, this begs the question: how much does this new one cost? Can the government really afford to purchase it on money that they don't have?[/QUOTE]

Can the government really afford a $2 Trillion-dollar-plus bailout of Wall Street and underwater mortgage debtors using money they don't have?

Cheesehead, that incident you recount about JFK's assassination is extremely disturbing. Especially for someone in a position of authority to so egregiously abuse said authority in order to espouse their own hateful views - did anyone report the teacher in question?

To those who are lauding McCain for muting one of his rabid supporters at an event last week, please consider that it's the repugnant, hate-inciting campaign tactics of McCain and Palin which are causing the vitriol to begin with. And I haven't heard of Palin making any serious attempt to rein in the shouters of "kill him" and racial epithets at her own campaign rallies. Frank Rich's latest Op-Ed in the NYT puts it nicely:

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12rich.html?em]Frank Rich: The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama[/url]
[quote][b]The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama[/b]

By FRANK RICH
Published: October 11, 2008

IF you think way back to the start of this marathon campaign, back when it seemed preposterous that any black man could be a serious presidential contender, then you remember the biggest fear about Barack Obama: a crazy person might take a shot at him.

Some voters told reporters that they didn’t want Obama to run, let alone win, should his very presence unleash the demons who have stalked America from Lincoln to King. After consultation with Congress, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, gave Obama a Secret Service detail earlier than any presidential candidate in our history — in May 2007, some eight months before the first Democratic primaries.

“I’ve got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying,” Obama reassured his supporters. Eventually the country got conditioned to his appearing in large arenas without incident (though I confess that the first loud burst of fireworks at the end of his convention stadium speech gave me a start). In America, nothing does succeed like success. The fear receded.

Until now. At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option.

All’s fair in politics. John McCain and Sarah Palin have every right to bring up William Ayers, even if his connection to Obama is minor, even if Ayers’s Weather Underground history dates back to Obama’s childhood, even if establishment Republicans and Democrats alike have collaborated with the present-day Ayers in educational reform. But it’s not just the old Joe McCarthyesque guilt-by-association game, however spurious, that’s going on here. Don’t for an instant believe the many mindlessly “even-handed” journalists who keep saying that the McCain campaign’s use of Ayers is the moral or political equivalent of the Obama campaign’s hammering on Charles Keating.

What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers’s Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.

That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family” was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.

We all know what punishment fits the crime of murder, or even potential murder, if the security of post-9/11 America is at stake. We all know how self-appointed “patriotic” martyrs always justify taking the law into their own hands.

Obama can hardly be held accountable for Ayers’s behavior 40 years ago, but at least McCain and Palin can try to take some responsibility for the behavior of their own supporters in 2008. What’s troubling here is not only the candidates’ loose inflammatory talk but also their refusal to step in promptly and strongly when someone responds to it with bloodthirsty threats in a crowded arena. Joe Biden had it exactly right when he expressed concern last week that “a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop midsentence and turn and condemn that.” To stay silent is to pour gas on the fires.

It wasn’t always thus with McCain. In February he loudly disassociated himself from a speaker who brayed “Barack Hussein Obama” when introducing him at a rally in Ohio. Now McCain either backpedals with tardy, pro forma expressions of respect for his opponent or lets second-tier campaign underlings release boilerplate disavowals after ugly incidents like the chilling Jim Crow-era flashback last week when a Florida sheriff ranted about “Barack Hussein Obama” at a Palin rally while in full uniform.

From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to the second: Yes.

McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican convention, with Rudy Giuliani’s mocking dismissal of Obama as an “only in America” affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist rumors.

No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin’s convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago’s mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was “regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.” In the ’60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: “Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls.”

This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It’s astonishing there’s been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan — or William Ayers — in Denver.

The operatives who would have Palin quote Pegler have been at it ever since. A key indicator came two weeks after the convention, when the McCain campaign ran its first ad tying Obama to the mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Rather than make its case by using a legitimate link between Fannie and Obama (or other Democratic leaders), the McCain forces chose a former Fannie executive who had no real tie to Obama or his campaign but did have a black face that could dominate the ad’s visuals.

There are no black faces high in the McCain hierarchy to object to these tactics. There hasn’t been a single black Republican governor, senator or House member in six years. This is a campaign where Palin can repeatedly declare that Alaska is “a microcosm of America” without anyone even wondering how that might be so for a state whose tiny black and Hispanic populations are each roughly one-third the national average. There are indeed so few people of color at McCain events that a black senior writer from The Tallahassee Democrat was mistakenly ejected by the Secret Service from a campaign rally in Panama City in August, even though he was standing with other reporters and showed his credentials. His only apparent infraction was to look glaringly out of place.

Could the old racial politics still be determinative? I’ve long been skeptical of the incessant press prognostications (and liberal panic) that this election will be decided by racist white men in the Rust Belt. Now even the dimmest bloviators have figured out that Americans are riveted by the color green, not black — as in money, not energy. Voters are looking for a leader who might help rescue them, not a reckless gambler whose lurching responses to the economic meltdown (a campaign “suspension,” a mortgage-buyout stunt that changes daily) are as unhinged as his wanderings around the debate stage.

To see how fast the tide is moving, just look at North Carolina. On July 4 this year — the day that the godfather of modern G.O.P. racial politics, Jesse Helms, died — The Charlotte Observer reported that strategists of both parties agreed Obama’s chances to win the state fell “between slim and none.” Today, as Charlotte reels from the implosion of Wachovia, the McCain-Obama race is a dead heat in North Carolina and Helms’s Republican successor in the Senate, Elizabeth Dole, is looking like a goner.

But we’re not at Election Day yet, and if voters are to have their final say, both America and Obama have to get there safely. The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism, and each day the mob howls louder. The onus is on the man who says he puts his country first to call off the dogs, pit bulls and otherwise. [/quote]

[quote=ewmayer;145318]Cheesehead, that incident you recount about JFK's assassination is extremely disturbing. Especially for someone in a position of authority to so egregiously abuse said authority in order to espouse their own hateful views - did anyone report the teacher in question?[/quote]It was a single sentence, muttered in a low voice without emphasis, never repeated. I seriously doubt that anyone reported it. In those days, it wouldn't have been considered as significant by school authorities as it would be now.

Also, my fellow students and I were quite accustomed to hearing various extreme conservative and fundamentalist expressions of thought throughout our lives growing up in Tulsa, which leaned pretty heavily to the right in those days. (When I went back to visit in 1992, I was rather shocked to see, at a couple of major intersections, some ... businesses with big public signs that never would have been allowed in the old days. It's definitely loosened up since the 1950s when Reader's Digest declared Tulsa "America's Cleanest City", which I thought then was because they washed the downtown sidewalks every evening.)

[quote=Zeta-Flux;145124]This is irrelevant to my point. The bill was birthed by Democrats. That some republicans supported it is irrelevant to the fact that it was ratified due to the democrats. Furthermore, a *majority* of Republicans congressmen voted against it. Furthermore, a *majority* of Republican voters were against the bill, and will oust those few Republicans who voted for it.[/quote]But you left out the fact that [B]if our Republican president had vetoed it, he would have had enough support in Congress to sustain the veto!!![/B].

[quote]Of course. Are you trying to *blame* the people who could have stopped its initial passage? Are you blaming their constitutency, which was rabidly against the bill?[/quote]No, I'm trying to alert you to the nature of, then persuade you to stop repeating, some skillfully-crafted GOP propaganda that is not supported by facts.

[quote]Third, while I admit the president has liability, my argument isn't about his lack of liability[/quote]... exactly as Reagan did, to distract the public from the role his own vetoes played in the budget process!

I wasn't arguing that _you_ are President. I was pointing out that the logic of your argument is the same as the logic Reagan used: Disclaim presidential responsibility connected to his veto power.

[quote]but that the [B]Democratically controlled congress and senate[/B] have a larger liability for passing the bill in the first place! You can't blame it all (or even a majority of it) on the president for not vetoing.[/quote]Reagan vetoed bills over 500 times, until Democrats in Congress agreed to change the bills to what he wanted!!!!!!!!!

Bush has _exactly_ the same veto power, should he decide to use it. Look at how many Republican legislators voted against the bill -- wasn't it more than 1/3 of each house? So

[quote]Democrats are not entirely responsible. They are, however, [B]primarily[/B]responsible for doubling the current deficit, thereby adding about 1 trillion to the debt.[/quote]The quotation to which this was your reply concerned the actions of Republicans since 1980. Notice the presence of text strings "since 1980" and "for almost three decades now" in what you quoted from me immediately preceding your reply. It was not about the recent financial crisis bill.

[quote]No, no, no, no, no. Congress and the Senate did those things. While the Presidents have complicity, it is the legislative branch which bears the brunt of the blame.[/quote]You seem still not to understand the power of the presidential veto.

Even a Congress of majority Democrats has to keep in mind, when crafting legislation, that if the (Republican) president is sufficiently opposed to it, they will have to muster a 2/3+1 majority, in each house, to get it passed. This consideration stops a lot of stuff from ever getting into the bills Congress votes on. Reagan made that point by issuing 500 vetoes, an all-time record!

Senators and representatives don't want to waste lots of time passing bills they know are going to be vetoed but for which they do not have 2/3+1 support. So the president's wishes are a powerful force hanging over legislators. [I]This[/I] is what the GOP has carefully been not-mentioning for 28 years.

Why do you think it is the _president_ who sends the annual budget (request) to Congress? It's because the administrative branch is the prime architect of the budget, and Congress generally goes along with most of it unless they can muster 2/3+1 votes.

[quote]Second, the actions of the presidents in these regards goes *against* the will of the constituency.[/quote]As I point out in the other thread, I am referring to _actual historical events_, not voters' wishes for the future.

[quote]We WANT lower spending. We are supposed to be the party of lower spending. Our leaders have lied to us, so they've lost our support, and especially in the coming months more will be outed.[/quote]Oh? So why have you lower-spending, leader-ousting, Republicans repeatedly been outvoted the past 28 years? (Answer is below.)

[quote]That's exactly what I've tried to do. Unfortunately, radical anti-mormons in Iowa voted for Huckabee, thereby crushing the most qualified economist from being my candidate (even if I disagreed with him on lots of other matters, such as the war, rights of POW's, etc...).[/quote]... and that's exactly the game that GOP leaders have been playing for 28 years:

1) Proclaim that they are in favor of lower spending and balanced budgets.

2) Cut taxes on the heavily-Republican wealthy enough to make balanced budgets impossible to achieve. Always, always, always, always, always describe any attempt to roll back such cuts as "raising taxes" rather than "restoring previous (financially-responsible) levels of taxation" or (Heaven forbid) "cancelling the transfer of wealth from the middle and lower classes to the wealthy" even though that's the effect.

3) Remember (but never, ever mention): The more the federal government has to borrow, the more current income goes to the wealthy Republicans holding Treasury bonds, and the more future federal revenues will have to be raised from the middle and lower classes. (Note: reprimand Richard Cheney for publicly saying that deficits didn't matter any more.)

4) Loudly proclaim the evils of "liberal" spending, while characterizing "conservative" spending as absolutely essential, national-security-God-and-motherhood issues which can't [I]possibly[/I] be connected to deficits or debt.

5) Portray their party's presidents as helpless to control spending in the face of an opposing-party-controlled Congress, even when the partisan margins there are nowhere near to being enough to override a veto. Never mention their party's presidents' responsibility connected to veto power, except carefully-worded appeals to #1, #2 and #4.

6) Just before each election, [I]raise up all the hot-button emotional issues that will cause conservative voters to re-elect Republicans who have not been, or will not be, fiscally conservative, because GOP leaders know that these emotional issues will always trump voter dissatisfaction with high-spending Republican legislators[/I].

7) Never, ever, breathe a word that might remind voters to examine the actual fiscal figures to see that Republicans have primary responsibility for our current large national debt and the largest deficits that have built it ever since their 1980 turnaround to implement the think-tank strategies and tactics developed after the 1964 Goldwater defeat and 1974 Nixon disgrace.

- - -

Because my argument is about fiscal propaganda and policies that are being continued from the past 28 years, and not about the current financial-crisis bill(s), my future replies will be in the "New President" thread.

cheesehead,

It is clear you cannot understand me. It is irrelevant to my point that the President has veto power. Of course he has veto power. Of course many bills wouldn't get anywhere if the POTUS threatened to veto them. Yes, the President is to blame. Yes, Republicans are at fault. Yes, they lie. Yes they cheat. etc... etc... But they [b][i]SHARE[/i][/b] the blame. Those POTUSs share the blame, which *primarily* lies with the legislative branch, whose responsibility it is to come up with and pass the bills.

For example, in the present context, it was President Bush who *suggested* the bailout in the first place! Of course he shares blame for the huge deficit increase. But just like when congress and senate voted to send troops to Iraq, he only SHARES the blame, which primarily rests in the lap of that branch of government whose duty it is.

I repeat my question. What are you going to do about those representatives you have in congress and the senate who voted for the bill? Or are you doing exactly what you accuse Republicans of doing--electing representatives who continue deficit spending? Can you not see beyond your hatred of Republican presidents past and present that you miss the horrible job our legislative branch (past and present) is doing, and how they are the primary contributers to the deficit and debt?

[quote=Zeta-Flux;145335]What are you going to do about those representatives you have in congress and the senate who voted for the bill?[/quote]Representative Sensenbrenner (R) voted against it. Senator Feingold (D) voted against it. Senator Kohl (D) voted for it. None of them surprised me, in light of their past records.

Neither senator is up for election this year. Sensenbrenner is unopposed. When Kohl runs for re-election, I'll weigh this vote in with others of his that are important to me. Senator Kohl has generally disappointed me since he first gained office, and I hope a better candidate challenges him.

[quote]Or are you doing exactly what you accuse Republicans of doing[/quote]No, I never have.

[quote]--electing representatives who continue deficit spending?[/quote]My congressional district is so heavily Republican, and Sensenbrenner has so much seniority, that in all the time I've lived here, Sensenbrenner has never had a close election, and often (such as this year) has no Democratic opponent at all. His primary victory this year versus a RINO (Republican-In-Name-Only) guaranteed his reelection.

[quote]Can you not see beyond your hatred of Republican presidents past and present that you miss[/quote]Will you explicitly acknowledge the truth of my factual statement that the president plus 1/3 + 1 of either chamber can defeat any legislation approved by all other legislators? I invite you to switch your answer on this particular matter to the "New President" thread, and I will switch my followup president-related questions and discussions there.

[quote]the horrible job our legislative branch (past and present) is doing,[/quote]I prefer not to make such a blanket statement about the legislative branch. If you instead ask about specific-enough issues, I might agree with you, or not, on those.

[quote]and how they are the primary contributers to the deficit and debt?[/quote]The primary responsibility for the general upturn in deficit and debt since 1980 lies with conservative policymakers who have given politicians, primarily but not solely Republicans, new campaign strategies and tactics that allow them to dodge accountability to voters for large portions of the deficits and debt. These new policies cynically "mortgage our future" to obtain current political power by taking (unfair) advantage of certain aspects of economic ignorance, human psychology and voter behavior.

[quote=cheesehead;145245]See? That's what McCain wants you to think about his deliberate mischaracterization, that it's wasteful federal spending.

In other words, he deliberately distorted the facts about this item in order to portray it as something it's not.

That's [B]L Y I N G[/B].

$3 million, as already quoted above

Depends on your definition of "afford" and "don't have".

We have to set priorities for government spending, and means of government income to pay for it, of course. I contend that this (single, you'll notice) precision scientific instrument is well worth $3 million. Note that the last one lasted 40 years and has educated millions of people.

Could the government afford to spend about (ultimately, considering rebuilding expense and treating veterans' medical ills) $2 trillion to invade and destroy a country which not only was not a threat to us, but also served as a useful bulwark against theocratic-and-soon-to-be-nuclear-weapon-equipped Iran's expansionist ambitions in the Middle East? with money it [I]borrowed from China[/I], among other entities? China currently receives tens of millions of U.S. dollars each year as income from the U.S. Treasury bonds it owns.

Here's an idea: (1) Spend $3 million the government _does_ have to buy the projector for one of this country's greatest educational institutions (and U.S. National Historic Landmark). (2) Cancel spending $6 million to subsidize moving jobs overseas. (3) Cancel borrowing $3 million to cover the net effect of #1 and #2. (4) Cancel all government-sponsored faith-based abstinence-only sex education ([I]which has been clearly shown to be ineffective in reducing either unwanted pregnancies or STD transmissions[/I]) programs, saving further millions of dollars.[/quote]
What I mean by money the government doesn't have is that we are too far in debt to be throwing out 3 million dollar earmarks for various projects, even if they're somewhat worthy ones. That's how our country got so far in debt--by handing out earmarked money to every institution and its proverbial brother.

Now mind you, I'm not saying that the government should give no grants at all to organizations--just that in times like this, they have to be extremely careful about what they give their money out for. I'm sure the planetarium can come up with another 3 million somewhere--after all, if they can come up with 7 million, surely there's some corporate donor out there that would be more than happy to cough up 3 million to get their name on the thing? They may have to wait a few months or a year longer before they get all the money necessary to build the thing, yes--but, hey, so do the rest of us when we purchase big things (assuming there is no unwise pulling of rabbits out of subprime hats involved). :smile:

I must admit that this wasn't a great example of frivolous earmarking for McCain to pick on--I'm sure there's plenty of other, much, much more laughable Democrat earmarks that would have made his point much better. Such as the earmark a year or two ago, supported by Hillary, that gave a wad of dough to--you may want to put down your beverage here--a Woodstock memorial museum, of all things! :lol: (I know it's not an Obama earmark per se, but I'm sure there's similar useful cannon fodder on his side of the matter.) :smile:

Max :smile:

[QUOTE=cheesehead;145341]Will you explicitly acknowledge the truth of my factual statement that the president plus 1/3 + 1 of either chamber can defeat any legislation approved by all other legislators? I invite you to switch your answer on this particular matter to the "New President" thread, and I will switch my followup president-related questions and discussions there.[/quote]Switch my answer? I've never denied this. Will you similarly explicitly acknowledge that while one of the purposes of the President and 1/3+1 of either chamber is to attempt to defeat some legislation, it is the legislative branch whose role it is to discuss and pass/not-pass legislation while the President's veto power is a stop-gap?

[quote]The primary responsibility for the general upturn in deficit and debt since 1980 lies with conservative policymakers who have given politicians, primarily but not solely Republicans, new campaign strategies and tactics that allow them to dodge accountability to voters for large portions of the deficits and debt. These new policies cynically "mortgage our future" to obtain current political power by taking (unfair) advantage of certain aspects of economic ignorance, human psychology and voter behavior.[/QUOTE]No. The primary responsibility is not with conservative policymakers. We will simply have to disagree on this issue. The primary responsibility is on the legislative branch, and specifically those who have voted for deficit spending. There are side issues (such as: a lack of a line-item veto [restricted to budget matters, it you like], lack of vetos from Presidents, etc...) but I take issue with your blanket assertion that the fault lies with conservative policymakers. I think you'd be surprised at how often democratic/liberal policymakers are the ones primarily (but not unilaterally) responsible; such as with the recent $1 trillion in debt/deficit increase.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;145324]It was a single sentence, muttered in a low voice without emphasis, never repeated. I seriously doubt that anyone reported it. In those days, it wouldn't have been considered as significant by school authorities as it would be now.

Also, my fellow students and I were quite accustomed to hearing various extreme conservative and fundamentalist expressions of thought throughout our lives growing up in Tulsa, which leaned pretty heavily to the right in those days. (When I went back to visit in 1992, I was rather shocked to see, at a couple of major intersections, some ... businesses with big public signs that never would have been allowed in the old days. It's definitely loosened up since the 1950s when Reader's Digest declared Tulsa "America's Cleanest City", which I thought then was because they washed the downtown sidewalks every evening.)[/QUOTE]


When I was in the 3rd grade in Houston Texas, the school was constantly
complaining to my parents that I was a 'discipline problem'. I got sent
to the principal's office often. My crime, as told directly to my parents:
"He disrupts the classroom with questions. He does things differently
from the way the teacher tells him. We don't like [b]smartass Yankee
Jews to interrupt the class with questions or to disagree with the teacher[/b]"

I would say that this attitude is still prevalent in red states today.

BTW, this was 1962. I was in class in Nov. 1963 and when the principal
announced on the PA system that Kennedy had been shot there was actual
*cheering*.

It seems that the Arab "kill the infidel" attitude that Americans disparage
is prevalent in Red States towards anyone who is disliked.

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;145124]Unfortunately, radical anti-mormons in Iowa voted for Huckabee, thereby crushing the most qualified economist from being my candidate[/QUOTE]

How did the RAMs voting for the Huckster hurt Ron Paul's chances? I'm not following the logic here. ;)

[QUOTE=ewmayer;145388]How did the RAMs voting for the Huckster hurt Ron Paul's chances? I'm not following the logic here. ;)[/QUOTE]

Isn't it obvious? If they hadn't had Huckabee they would have gravitated to Ron Paul, duh!:hooked:

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;145393]Isn't it obvious? If they hadn't had Huckabee they would have gravitated to Ron Paul, duh![/QUOTE]

Doesn't seem at all obvious to me. Maybe they would have gravitated to John McCain. I don't think there was a lot of overlap between the Huckabee supporters and the Paul supporters.

[QUOTE=philmoore;145400]Doesn't seem at all obvious to me. Maybe they would have gravitated to John McCain. I don't think there was a lot of overlap between the Huckabee supporters and the Paul supporters.[/QUOTE]

Of course it is obvious. We are talking about counter-factuals here. Everything is obvious when you assume things are other than they actually are.

:kitten:

FactCheck.org website
 

Have any of you seen the [url=FactCheck.org]FactCheck.org[/url] website? It seems very useful in terms of vetting the pronouncements, accusations and promises of the 2 campaigns and separating "merely distorted and selectively presented truth" from "blatant lie".

The scary thing is how many people swallow the propaganda that fits their preconceptions hook, line and sinker. This past weekend at the local coffee shop, I was a conversation with a friend about the economy and the McCain and Obama campaigns, and another one of the regulars overheard us ragging on McCain for his campaign of Big Lies, and started spouting all the GOP propaganda such as
[i]
"Obama's tax plan will actually raise taxes for single people making over $42,000 per year"[/i] [not true]
[i]
"The subprime mortgage crisis has its roots in the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act and the irresponsible lending-to-minorities-and-the-disadvantaged which the CRA forced the participating banks to engage in" [/i][not even close]

With respect to the CRA, the "facts" he was relying on were in fact on their face correct - that roughly 25% of banks and mortgage lenders most heavy into "exotic mortgages" over the past 5 years participate in the CRA. The Big Lie here is confusing correlation with causality - just because a bank *participates* in the CRA does not imply that said participation is responsible for its subprime lending practices - the very fact that the CRA predates the subprime explosion by 25 years should indicate to most readers that something doesn't add up here.

If you are interested in getting the facts [or at least unbiased references for deeper study] behind - or not - the various campaign claims, I highly recommend the site.

The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama
 

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/us/politics/13martin.html?em]The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama[/url]

[quote][b]The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama[/b]

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: October 12, 2008

The most persistent falsehood about Senator Barack Obama’s background first hit in 2004 just two weeks after the Democratic convention speech that helped set him on the path to his presidential candidacy: “Obama is a Muslim who has concealed his religion.”

That statement, contained in a press release, spun a complex tale about the ancestry of Mr. Obama, who is Christian.

The press release was picked up by a conservative Web site, FreeRepublic.com, and spread steadily as others elaborated on its claims over the years in e-mail messages, Web sites and books. It continues to drive other false rumors about Mr. Obama’s background.

Just last Friday, a woman told Senator John McCain at a town-hall-style meeting, “I have read about him,” and “he’s an Arab.” Mr. McCain corrected her.

Until this month, the man who is widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign that still dogs Mr. Obama was a secondary character in news reports, with deep explorations of his background largely confined to liberal blogs.

But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.[/quote]
[b]My Comment:[/b] Worth reading the entire article. This guy is a certifiable nutcase, yet Fox News (and I use the term "news" very loosely) gives him the kind of air time genuine scholars and pundits would die for.

I also find the fact that Obama repeatedly needs to "reaffirm that he is a practicing Christian" disturbing, but I suppose that's the price of living in a de facto Christian theocracy.

[quote=Zeta-Flux;145375]Switch my answer? I've never denied this.[/quote]Oh, for crying out loud! -- By

"... switch your answer on this particular matter to the "New President" thread ..."

I meant

"... post your answer on this particular matter to the "New President" thread ..."

rather than post your answer to the same global financial crisis thread where I had posted that invitation.

(Doesn't a re-reading show that that was my intent, not "... change your answer ..."?)

which you did.

or, rather, somebody did.

"Never denied" is not quite an explicit acknowledgment. Since that can easily be misinterpreted, too, let me illustrate it this way:

When I respond to your "Will you similarly explicitly acknowledge that while one of the purposes of the President and 1/3+1 of either chamber is to attempt to defeat some legislation, it is the legislative branch whose role it is to discuss and pass/not-pass legislation while the President's veto power is a stop-gap?", I will (haven't finished composing it yet) post something like

"Yes, one of the purposes of the President and 1/3+1 of either chamber is to attempt to defeat some legislation, but" (here I might post a rewording that I hope meets your approval, such as, "rather than 'it is the legislative branch whose role it is to discuss and pass/not-pass legislation while the President's veto power is a stop-gap', I prefer to say, 'somethingsomethingandtheotherandsoforth'").

[quote=Zeta-Flux;145335]Can you not see beyond your hatred of Republican presidents past and present[/quote]It is [U]bitterness[/U], not hatred, and it's about Reagan and the younger Bush, not the elder Bush who seemed more reasonable to me. (Assuming that W.'s administration would more closely resemble his father's than it has was the reason I publicly opined in another forum right after the 2000 election that W.'s election would not be the catastrophe others predicted. That later turned out not to break my string of unsuccessful public predictions.)

[quote]that you miss the horrible job our legislative branch (past and present) is doing, and how they are the primary contributers to the deficit and debt?[/quote]Once I see that you explicitly agree with my statement about presidential veto, 1/3+1, and so forth, my followup will make it clear that I have not missed anything you mention about the job our legislative branch is doing, but that there are additional factors regarding the executive and legislative branches that you may not have considered (you've never mentioned them). I ask for your _explicit_ agreement because I first want to make sure you agree with my point in your own words, if not exactly in mine (see the reply example I gave in my preceding post) -- giving you a chance to restate the idea if you wish, or else specifically show that my wording is acceptable to you. (You may recall my explanation of an initial negotiation procedure in another thread recently.) If we don't agree on the starting point, there may be misunderstanding about my followup.

FactCheck: McCain + Joe the Plumber = Full of Crap
 

[url=http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/15/smallbusiness/small_biz_taxes_factcheck.smb/index.htm]Fact check: Plumber Joe's taxes[/url]: [i]McCain has entrepreneurs spooked about tax hikes, but fewer than 2% of small business owners would pay more under Obama's plan.[/i]
[quote]...even using the broad definition of small business that McCain likes, very few owners would see their own taxes rise.

That's because the lion's share of taxable income comes from a small number of wealthy businesses. Out of 34.7 million filers with business income on Schedules C, E or F, 479,000 filers fall into the top two brackets, according to an analysis of projected 2009 filings by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
[b]
The other 34.3 million - or 98.6% - would be unaffected by Obama's proposed rate hike.

That includes Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher, whom McCain invoked nearly two dozen times at the debate Wednesday night to illustrate the plight of the average worker and small business owner.
[/b]
"Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years ... he wanted to buy the business but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes," McCain said.
[b]
In an interview afterward with WTOL, Wurzelbacher acknowledged that he'd still like to eventually buy the plumbing company he works for but that he wouldn't yet be hit by higher taxes.

"I want to set the record straight: Currently I would not fall into Barack Obama's $250,000-plus," he said. "But if I'm lucky in business and taxes don't go up then maybe I can grow the business and be in that tax bracket - well, let me rephrase it. Hopefully, that tax won't be there."[/b][/quote]
[b]My Comment:[/b] If you end up being that lucky/successful in business, Joe, paying a little more in taxes should be something you can well afford. So McCain keeps repeating that Obama would raise taxes on "half of small businesses in America", whereas the actual number is less than 2%. If he looks like a lying scumbag, and lies like a lying scumbag, and grins mockingly at his opponent between debate lies like a lying scumbag - he`s a lying scumbag.

There was a 2-hour PBS [i]Frontline[/i] special on a few nights ago about the political histories of McCain and Obama, which reminded me of the reasons I liked the 2000 version of McCain [who fell victim to a Bush/Rove smear campaign not dissimilar from the one he and Plain are running currently] - the difference between the 2000 McCain and the current incarnation is simply startling. He really did sell his soul to the Republican right wing in order to make himself nominatable.

Perhaps the most interesting tidbit in the Frontline special was about how in the wake of his 2000 debacle-at=the-hands-of-the-Bushies, McCain actually seriously considered switching parties. In the end not only did he not switch parties, he "made peace" with Bush, Rove and leaders of the religious right like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Welcome to The Party of Stupid, Senator McCain - we'll find out in a few weeks how that ended up working out for ya.

ModerateMcCainMan, the "stealth moderate"
 

[quote=ewmayer;145568]the difference between the 2000 McCain and the current incarnation is simply startling. He really did sell his soul to the Republican right wing in order to make himself nominatable.

Perhaps the most interesting tidbit in the Frontline special was about how in the wake of his 2000 debacle-at=the-hands-of-the-Bushies, McCain actually seriously considered switching parties. In the end not only did he not switch parties, he "made peace" with Bush, Rove and leaders of the religious right like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell[/quote]Alternative theory:

McCain is trying to run a "stealth moderate" campaign.

He hasn't actually sold his soul to the right wing; he just decided that his only path to the White House (remember his age) is to conceal his real identity and adopt right-wing's clothing in order to persuade the right wing to elect him. Then, once he's safely in office, he can drop his right-wing outergarb and reveal himself as

[B][U]ModerateMcCainMan[/U][/B]

[B]Faster-flip-flopping than any other president in history,[/B]

[B]More powerful in his abilities to reach compromises with liberals than any right-winger could ever hope to be,[/B]

[B]Able to leap to the political center in a single bound.[/B]

"Look!"

"Up in the White House!"

"It's a conservative!"

"It's a liberal!"

"No. It's ... [B][U]ModerateMcCainMan![/U][/B]

Timothy Egan Op-Ed on last night's debate
 

Nice Opinion piece on last night's debate and the contrast between the "old" and "new" John McCain by the NY Times` Timothy Egan:

[url=http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/the-deal-sealed/?ref=opinion]The Deal, Sealed?[/url]: [i]John McCain plays the Bill Ayers card again, and it feels like it’s time for him to fold.[/i]
[quote]McCain, though much better on Wednesday night than he was in the first two debates, looked pained, pickled along with his honor. Some of the reaction shots made Bob Dole at his grumpiest look botoxed into serenity by comparison.

McCain hasn’t been “McNasty” since he was a cadet with that nickname, and it doesn’t suit him in old age. He tried Ayers. He tried ACORN. He even tried infanticide.

But you can tell McCain wants his reputation back; he wants out of this angry old man role. Being the designated white guy for Fox News does not suit him.

His best indignant moment — a line that may follow him to his grave, with many permutations of irony inherent in the words — was his retort: “I am not President Bush.”

But with that cleared up, McCain went back to some of his obscure obsessions, including yet another mention of that overhead projector that Obama helped to get some museum in Chicago. Imagine if Herbert Hoover, debating Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 at the depth of the Great Depression, kept dwelling on the problem with university chalkboards, and some old sympathizer with Sacco and Vanzetti.

In the first debate, John McCain wouldn’t look his rival in the face. In the second debate, he wouldn’t address him by his name — “that one,” as the t-shirts now proclaim.

And in the third debate, he scuffed and huffed, but ended up with a somewhat muddled conversation with a plumber. Little wonder, in the ideological wilderness of 2008, a time when McCain’s dark-side supporters want him to stay dirty, that McCain chose to dwell on a guy who spends a lot of time with his head in the toilet.[/quote]

The reader comments [not all from liberals, even] are quite interesting - one of them puts McCain's lie about the effect of Obama's tax proposal on small businesses in even starker relief than I was able to muster above:

[quote]Advice for Joe the Plumber from an Obama supporter and small business owner:

You will not pay any income taxes on the interest payments for your loan to buy the business, nor on your rent or tools or computers or other expenses, nor on the salaries of your employees (even your son or brother in law). You can pay yourself $250,000 a year and your taxes will not go up under Obama. You won’t pay taxes on your $12,000 health insurance plan or on a new $25,000 truck. You can put up to $45000 into a pension plan and you won’t pay taxes on that either. It is only after you make even more than all that that you will become part of the 2% of small businesses who will simply go back to paying the same taxes that we all did during the booming Clinton years. And I guarantee you that you would be better off paying slightly higher taxes in boom times than in the recession that the Republicans have created for us.

[i]— Steven in Santa Cruz[/i][/quote]

[quote=ewmayer;145575]go back to paying the same taxes that we all did during the booming Clinton years. And I guarantee you that you would be better off paying slightly higher taxes in boom times than in the recession that the Republicans have created for us.[/quote]Reminds me of my own tax proposal:

Start by reverting all taxes to those in effect during the boom-time Clinton administration, then adjust by multiplying all tax brackets by the CPI (or other) inflation factor. Keep them that way by reinstating the automatic inflation adjustment we had before the Reagan administration took that out.

Advantage: automatic tax cut each year (by adjusting brackets upwards)

[QUOTE=cheesehead;145417]Oh, for crying out loud! -- By

"... switch your answer on this particular matter to the "New President" thread ..."

I meant

"... post your answer on this particular matter to the "New President" thread ..."

rather than post your answer to the same global financial crisis thread where I had posted that invitation.[/quote]Thank you for clarifying. Your intent might have been clear to you, and it is certainly clear in hindsight, but I honestly misread you.

[quote]"Never denied" is not quite an explicit acknowledgment....

Once I see that you explicitly agree with my statement about presidential veto, 1/3+1, and so forth, my followup will make it clear that I have not missed anything you mention about the job our legislative branch is doing...[/QUOTE]If you cannot see that I have affirmed, and continue to affirm, and explicitly agree that a President bears blame when not executing his veto power, then I cannot expect you to understand my other points. As this is all moot anyway, given that I'm not voting for McCain and you clearly are enamored with Obama, let's just let it drop.

[quote=cheesehead;145619]Reminds me of my own tax proposal:

Start by reverting all taxes to those in effect during the boom-time Clinton administration, then adjust by multiplying all tax brackets by the CPI (or other) inflation factor. Keep them that way by reinstating the automatic inflation adjustment we had before the Reagan administration took that out.

Advantage: automatic tax cut each year (by adjusting brackets upwards)[/quote]

This is very confusing. Please correct my understanding of Obama's tax plan.

1. Do away with the Bush tax cuts and raise taxes on all [B]taxpayers[/B], to some extent. (boom-time Clinton administration rate)

2. Raise earned income taxes on every productive person earning over $250,000. Does this include any corporate entity? And, raise the "capital gains" tax and a few other taxes that I don't pay or completely understand. I don't know about the Social Security and Medicare tax. I need clarification there as well.

3. The "government" keeps ([B]?%[/B]), and then redistributes the excess to everyone, including ~30% of the US population which pay no federal income tax?

4. Resulting in an [B]extension[/B] of the "tax refunds" received by those who pay no federal income taxes to begin with?

[quote=AES;145744]This is very confusing. Please correct my understanding of Obama's tax plan.[/quote]What I posted was _my own_ tax proposal, but I am not a candidate for any office. It was not a comment on Obama's tax plan.

[quote]1. Do away with the Bush tax cuts and raise taxes on all [B]taxpayers[/B], to some extent.[/quote]According to what I've read and heard about Obama's plan, that is not a correct statement about it.

[quote](boom-time Clinton administration rate)[/quote]According to what I've read and heard about Obama's plan, that is not what he's proposing.

[quote]2. Raise earned income taxes on every productive person earning over $250,000.[/quote]I do not know whether that is part of Obama's plan. I understand that his plan raises income taxes of _some_ people earning over _some_ amount, but not as much as their taxes were cut seven years ago, so their tax rates would remain lower than they were during the Clinton administration.

(BTW, "my own" tax plan also keeps taxes lower than they were during the Clinton administration. Since conservatives always argue that lower tax rates are good for the economy, and since the longest economic boom since World War 2 occurred during the Clinton administration, it follows that conservatives should agree that the Clinton administration's tax rates were, and could be again, good for the economy, even more so if the pre-Reagan automatic inflation adjustments were restored, as I propose in "my own" tax plan.)

[quote]raise the "capital gains" tax and a few other taxes that I don't pay or completely understand.[/quote]Here's the Wikipedia article defining "capital gains" tax: [URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax[/URL]

Here's the Wikipedia article on capital gains tax in the United States in particular: [URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax_in_the_United_States[/URL]

[quote]I don't know about the Social Security and Medicare tax. I need clarification there as well.[/quote]Here is the Wikipedia article on the tax that funds Social Security and Medicare: [URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FICA_tax[/URL]

[quote]3. The "government" keeps ([B]?%[/B]), and then redistributes the excess to everyone, including ~30% of the US population which pay no federal income tax?

4. Resulting in an [B]extension[/B] of the "tax refunds" received by those who pay no federal income taxes to begin with?[/quote]Those are not part of any major party candidate's proposed tax plan I've heard.

[quote=Zeta-Flux;145678]If you cannot see that I have affirmed, and continue to affirm, and explicitly agree that a President bears blame when not executing his veto power,[/quote]... but that's _not_ what I asked you to agree with! You have _never_ said or shown that you agree with what I asked you to agree to!!!

Do you affirm that you understand and explicitly agree that:

a presidential veto plus 1/3 + 1 of the members of either house of Congress (voting to uphold the veto), can stop any piece of legislation from becoming law

?

Notice that your statement, "I have affirmed, and continue to affirm, and explicitly agree that a President bears blame when not executing his veto power" [U]does not mention Congress or the ability of Congress to override a veto[/U], and furthermore, my statement is about [U]the President [B]executing[/B] his veto power, not about a President [B]failing to execute veto power,[/B][/U] so your statement "I have affirmed, and continue to affirm, and explicitly agree that a President bears blame when not executing his veto power"[I] [U]can't possibly be the same as what I'm asking you[/U][/I]. I'm not asking about [I]blame[/I]. I'm asking whether you understand a particular combination of parts of the U.S. Constitution. You've never mentioned that combination!!!

I never expected this to be a sticking point in our discussion. I was and am simply trying to make sure both of us understood a certain, important, technical point. I'm not trying to trick or trap you; I'm just trying to make sure we agree on a starting point. Why do you fight so hard to avoid doing that?

However, if you again refuse to acknowledge the truth of that statement, I will continue anyway by explaining some consequences of it that you have never mentioned in any of your arguments, and which show that parts of your argument don't "hold water". Also, I will gladly post my answers to all your questions that you have posted after I originally asked you to agree to this particular thing.

Is there something wriong with my wanting your answer to my question, [i]which I asked first[/i], before I answer your questions, [i]which you asked only after my question[/i]? If so, what is wrong with answering questions in chronological order?

[quote]I cannot expect you to understand my other points.[/quote]I've understood your other points, and I see that you've apparently overlooked something very important (since you've never mentioned it), just as many other folks, who have never thought about the statement I'm asking you to acknowledge, have overlooked. It's something the president and all members of Congress are aware of, and that members of Congress have to take into account from the very beginning of drafting legislation, but much of the general public has not thought about.

[quote]As this is all moot anyway, given that I'm not voting for McCain and you clearly are enamored with Obama[/quote]A) My comments are not about the current election. They are about what has happened in the past, and what will continue to happen in the future regardless of who is elected president this year. So it's not moot at all.

B) I'm not enamored with Obama. I've repeatedly written in this thread that he was not one of my favorite candidates. I've never voted for him. I have voted for one of his opponents. I've written that I expect to be levelling some of the same criticism about his actions, should he be elected, that I've presented about Republicans (with corresponding reflection about the conservative/liberal axis).

[QUOTE]Do you affirm that you understand and explicitly agree that:

a presidential veto plus 1/3 + 1 of the members of either house of Congress (voting to uphold the veto), can stop any piece of legislation from becoming law[/QUOTE]No, I don't. Technically speaking, there are other ways for legislation to become law. For example, states can ratify ammendments to the Constitution, which cannot be vetoed by the President. The Presidents veto power is limited to national law. Etc... etc...

But if you meant, do I affirm that I understand what you were trying to convey, and do I agree with the spirit of it (namely, do I understand the basics of Presidential veto power, and how the legislative branch can attempt to override that veto power, but they need a super-majority) I've already done so, a million times. You just keep reading too deeply into the phrasing.

But as I said, I'm done with this thread.

[URL]http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h_bwkeK4Hok5UTp4kbGkew3ZiwhgD93T7C1O0[/URL]

Good tax plan article, IMO.

[quote]
Obama favors retaining Bush-era cuts except on taxpayers making more than about
$250,000, whose taxes would revert to higher levels in effect a few years ago.

Like McCain, the Illinois senator advocates other cuts, including a tax credit
of up to $500, depending on income. As part of his plan, millions of individuals
and families who do not make enough money to pay income taxes would receive their
cut in the form of a government check, known as a refundable tax credit.

McCain seized on that point as he attacked — even though he has proposed giving
tax credits to those who pay no taxes as part of his health care plan. To finance
those tax cuts, he proposes requiring workers to pay income taxes on the health
benefits they receive from their employers.
[/quote]

[quote=AES;145744]Please correct my understanding of Obama's tax plan.

1. Do away with the Bush tax cuts and raise taxes on all [B]taxpayers[/B], to some extent. (boom-time Clinton administration rate)

2. Raise earned income taxes on every productive person earning over $250,000. Does this include any corporate entity? And, raise the "capital gains" tax and a few other taxes that I don't pay or completely understand. I don't know about the Social Security and Medicare tax. I need clarification there as well.

3. The "government" keeps ([B]?%[/B]), and then redistributes the excess to everyone, including ~30% of the US population which pay no federal income tax?

4. Resulting in an [B]extension[/B] of the "tax refunds" received by those who pay no federal income taxes to begin with?[/quote]When I originally replied to this list of yours, I had not yet seen a Republican campaign ad on TV that contained statements just like, or very similar to, what you posted there. Niow, I have. So instead of implying that those statements were "Obama's tax plan", you should have characterized them more correctly as an (unfriendly) interpretation of Obama's tax plan, or a campaign reply to Obama's tax plan -- something like that. A more accurate characterization such as one of those would have told us why some of the wording was, as I wrote earlier, "not part of any major party candidate's proposed tax plan I've heard."

[quote=Zeta-Flux;145811]No, I don't. Technically speaking, there are other ways for legislation to become law. For example, states can ratify ammendments to the Constitution, which cannot be vetoed by the President. The Presidents veto power is limited to national law. Etc... etc...[/quote]See? _That_'s why I kept insisting on asking you whether you explicitly agreed -- [I]so you could make corrections or otherwise point out what particulars needed to be modified[/I]. Had you simply pointed out those disagreements the first time I asked, I could have had the chance days ago to incorporate or satisfy your objections by modifying the statement!

Your phrase "limited to national law" surprised me, since all I had in mind for purposes of this discussion would seem to me to be "national law" anyway, but then I realized that you might be thinking I meant something else, so I'm glad to incorporate that specification. Do you mean international treaties, or something else? I certainly didn't mean to include treaties in my discussion.

As for amendment ratification, that was outside of what I intend to discuss in the rest of my argument, but you are correct in pointing out that my statement does not exclude it.

Now, my next step is to propose a modified statement, hoping you can agree with this revision:

[B]In regard to national-law legislation passed by both chambers of Congress that ordinarily needs either presidential approval or a congressional override of a veto to become law, a presidential veto (instead of that approval) plus 1/3 + 1 of the members of either house of Congress (voting to uphold the veto), can stop any such piece of legislation from becoming law.[/B]

(The phrase "... ordinarily needs either presidential approval or ..." excludes constitutional amendments.)

Can you agree with that modified statement?

[quote]But if you meant, do I affirm that I understand what you were trying to convey, and do I agree with the spirit of it[/quote]No, I did [B]NOT[/B] mean "Do you agree with the spirit of it?" If I had meant that, I wouldn't have kept re-asking my question.

That's why I kept asking for your _explicit_ agreement to my statement, to try to exclude that the possibility of "I agree with the spirit of your statement", but later on comes "wait a minute -- I thought you meant something else" which would waste a lot of discussion time.

And sure enough, you were thinking of certain cases I hadn't thought about, and you couldn't have known, without bringing them up, that I didn't intend to ever reference them.

It wasn't a matter of [I]the spirit of what I asked[I]!!! It was precisely a matter of the "letter" of what I wrote!!! I wasn't asking for an agreement "in spirit" -- I was (and, ahem, still am) asking for agreement with the "letter", so as to avoid future disagreements on what the spirit meant.[/I][/I]

[I][I]I wasn't ignoring or disagreeing with the "spirit" of what you wrote! It's just that the "spirit" wasn't specific enough![/I][/I]

[I][quote]You just keep reading too deeply into the phrasing.[/quote]Yes, you and I have differences in our interpretation -- [I]that's why I needed to get your explicit agreement before I proceeded further -- to accommodate the possible differences you had in interpretation[/I].[/I]

[quote]But as I said, I'm done with this thread.[/quote]Why? I didn't have ulterior motives in "pestering" you with my question -- I just wanted to save time and trouble later on by getting possible disgreements or misunderstandings out of the way as early as possible! [I]Now that you've finally answered that initial request for agreement (assuming, that is, that you agree with my revision above), we can proceed without hitting misunderstandments about national law and constitutional amendments later on![/I]

BTW, I'm not going to be this picky about other stuff later in the discussion, as long as I think we understand each other.

I hope your withdrawal is not because I claimed that my intended argument would demonstrate a flaw in your argument (about responsibility etc). After all, if you don't stay around, you can't point out flaws or oversights in my future statements that would render my claim false.

- - -

I'm pausing now, in case you wish to comment on my revised statement. But I'll continue later with some implications of that initial statement about constitutional powers -- how it affects the way legislators proceed when drafting bills.