New U.S. President

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

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

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

[philmoore]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

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

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.

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by philmoore

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.

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.

[ewmayer]

Have any of you seen the FactCheck.org 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

"Obama's tax plan will actually raise taxes for single people making over $42,000 per year" [not true]

"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" [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.

[ewmayer]

The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama

The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama

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.

My Comment: 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.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

Switch my answer? I've never denied this.

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'").

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

Can you not see beyond your hatred of Republican presidents past and present

It is bitterness, 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.)

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?

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.

[ewmayer]

Fact check: Plumber Joe's taxes: McCain has entrepreneurs spooked about tax hikes, but fewer than 2% of small business owners would pay more under Obama's plan.

...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.

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.

"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.

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."

My Comment: 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 Frontline 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.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

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

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

ModerateMcCainMan

Faster-flip-flopping than any other president in history,

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

Able to leap to the political center in a single bound.

"Look!"

"Up in the White House!"

"It's a conservative!"

"It's a liberal!"

"No. It's ... ModerateMcCainMan!

[ewmayer]

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

The Deal, Sealed?: John McCain plays the Bill Ayers card again, and it feels like it’s time for him to fold.

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.

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:

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.

— Steven in Santa Cruz

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

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.

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)