Campaign 2008

[The Niggardly King 0]

A couple of weeks ago I complained to another poster that he'd gone too far ---an official board moderator no less--- because he'd brought up problems I'd had in my marriage as proof the problem I had with certain female politicians was that she was a woman. I was told that this was perfectly acceptable.

 

Where did this happen? Legit question.

 

Surprised I didn't catch any shit when I said I specifically wasn't voting for McCain simply because he has a woman as a running mate.

 

probably in here with 909 or some shit.

[EricMM 0]

I think that's the one.

[Guest]

Yeah, I did it. Someone asked if Jerk had issues with women, and I responded as to why I thought he did. Nothing wrong with thinking that was why, but I wouldn't do it again.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

So my question for those McCain supporters (or even Obama supporters who may know more about it) is, is there any accuracy to any of this. Is McCain using his health care plan as a guise to actually raise taxes on the working class of America while giving the benefits of the incentives to the corporations.

McCain does indeed want to tax premiums as income.

 

And he plans to give you $5,000 a couple or something like $2,000 an individual if you don't have a plan to go out and buy a private plan on your own. Of course, if you do that, you don't have the power of collective bargaining on your side and you're pretty much at the whims of companies who will inspect your medical history and make a decision depending on how you affect their bottom line, so good luck with all of that!

[EricMM 0]

This should definitely come up tomorrow.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

They sort of try to bring it up, but the signal is lost in the noise of Obama being very timid, and McCain getting a bit of a pass on being able to talk about cutting taxes. People simply believe it's more likely to happen because McCain's a Republican.

[snuffbox 0]

The Keating 5 Surge starts today.

 

http://www.keatingeconomics.com/

[At Home 0]

So my question for those McCain supporters (or even Obama supporters who may know more about it) is, is there any accuracy to any of this. Is McCain using his health care plan as a guise to actually raise taxes on the working class of America while giving the benefits of the incentives to the corporations.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/opinion/06krugman.html?em

 

This explains it a little bit.

[snuffbox 0]

This might not be the best day for the Bill Ayers stuff.

[At Home 0]

[Brett Favre 0]

Jason Sudeikis' Joe Biden is hilarious.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Desperation smells sweet.

[SuperJerk 0]

One guy gets banned and suddenly everyone...or rather, mostly just people from his end of the political spectrum...begin to fear for their posting lives? Doesn't quite make sense.

It wasn't fear, and my originally founding the Pit had absolutely nothing to do with political ideaology of any kind. TSM, like most message boards, has always had problems with enforcing its rules consistently. Mike got banned not because he actually broke any of the rules, but just because he was a conservative asshole. Buncha people didn't take kindly to that, for various reasons. It wasn't just "oh, they PH3ARED our liberalism". I personally am not a conservative, so it always amuses me whenever the Pit is portrayed as some kind of conservative boys' treehouse which they formed in order to hide from the shining leftist light of righteousness. Hell, come on over sometime, poor Eric and Jobber are mighty overworked trying to represent their side all by themselves. But don't kid yourself: that board was started in defense of freedom of expression, not to shelter the poor abused dregs of the Republican party, crying into their coors lite while jerking off to photoshopped nudes of Ann Coulter.

 

 

So now can we get back to ejaculating our steaming hot pearly white misogyny all over Sarah Palin's glasses?

I wasn't trying to knock your intentions for starting the place, I've just never completely understood why it turned into a conservative magnet.

[SuperJerk 0]

Factcheck.org is already on the case.

 

What Obama said, more than a year ago at an August 2007 campaign stop, was a criticism of administration military strategy and not a criticism of "our troops":

 

Obama (August 2007): We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.

 

At the time, then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney attacked Obama for the remark. But Obama was on solid ground. As The Associated Press concluded: "As of Aug. 1 [2007], the AP count shows that while militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286. Another 20 were killed in crossfire that can't be attributed to one party." Even President Bush admitted that there were too many civilian casualties, saying: "The president [Afghan president Hamid Karzai] rightly expressed his concerns about civilian casualty. And I assured him that we share those concerns."

The ad claims that these votes would have been "increasing the risk on their lives," but in fact they were actually votes for winding down the Iraq war. Funding for active duty combat troops in Iraq would have been cut off only if the president failed to comply. It's also worth noting that Obama wasn't present for two of these votes, and one was a House vote.

[Jingus 0]

I've just never completely understood why it turned into a conservative magnet.

Well, Mike was there by force, DrTom went there because he decided he didn't like this place no mo, Marney wasn't hanging around here at the time and chose to go there when I asked her to, and a few others came along because they liked those aforementioned people. Snowball effect, basically.

 

And argh, don't bring up the "we've been killing more civilians than the terrorists have" meme, my forehead's still bruised from excessive facepalming over arguing about that fact at my neokkkon echo chamber. Depleted uranium for everyone!

[SuperJerk 0]

William Kristol did a phone interview with Sarah Palin, and apparently spend half of it talking about Williams Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/opinion/...amp;oref=slogin

 

If this doesn't prove that the New York Times is a liberal rag, nothing will.

 

 

Also...

 

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Marvin Is NOT a Lunatic.

 

Marvin is a retard.

 

...

 

He finishes wathing Fox News and then tries to explain through the filter of retardation, what he has learned.

 

It wasn't true when he learned it. And it's down right hilarious when he repeats it.

Ha ha..silly..everyone by now knows where I get the majority of my information from, and it ain't Fox News.

 

I'm not defending Marvin's content, just his right to put forth content without being called a fucking idiot, as in previous posts.

 

A couple of weeks ago I complained to another poster that he'd gone too far ---an official board moderator no less--- because he'd brought up problems I'd had in my marriage as proof the problem I had with certain female politicians was that she was a woman. I was told that this was perfectly acceptable.

 

So, if I can have my irrelevant personal problems used against me in this thread, Marvin should be able to handle being called a "retard" for equating boycotting a bank with terrorism.

I have..no clue what you're talking about.

 

Here's the thing...and you don't have to "delete a thread" over it, I'm more than happy to put myself on the line for the whole stake...

 

Marvin doesn't show up when things get into...you know...politics...

 

Like the debates or health care or foreign policy or the economy or energy...

 

He shows up to defend Obama's ties to TERRORISTS.

 

Did you miss where I posted about the fact that I absolutely hate John McCain's health policy (5,000 tax credit that goes to the insurance companies for the right to go and buy health insurance on the free market and paying taxes on what your employee pays for your health insurance in an effort to get everyone buying health insurance on the free market). I am absolutely 100% against the government running healthcare though, since I dont know of one thing that the Government runs that couldn't be run 1,000 times better by someone else.

 

I also spent a good deal of wasted time before I was barred from the folder in the Global Warming thread trying to explain my views on Energy.

 

And I've posted frequently in the Bank Bailout thread, although yes Im guilty of a "He was for it before he was against it" move, but only because the fucking Senate tacks on $150 billion worth of pork (that would have been passed anyway, but hey..lets attach it to the MOST IMPORTANT BILL EVER!) and Im pissed off that John McCain stood there like a idiot and actually went against his "Mr. Anti Pork" label and voted for it.

 

And Foreign policy..I haven't said anything lately about that, but before I was barred I mentioned that the Russia invading Georgia was due to oil..and with the price of oil dropping like a rock they will be forced to do something to re-inflate the price of oil or risk their economy tanking due to the fact that their economy is basically the inverse of ours (they need high oil prices). I could give a rats ass about Iraq with the exception of the fact that its proximity to Iran is important, but right now Iran is basically a distant second threat to Russia so whatever.

 

One issue I still have thats being ignored is illegal immigration, but thankfully as our economy tanks the illegal immigrants see less opportunity to make money here and stay the hell away. But the huge number of illegal immigrants still here is an important issue as they are a drain on our economy and resources and I wish someone was saying anything about it even though I know both candidates pretty much don't want to do anything about it..

 

As for the debates, they are a huge waste of time. Only the people who just started paying attention 2 weeks ago will get any new information out of them. The VP debate was an even bigger waste of time, since it was basically the two VP candidates yapping on for 90 minutes about their running mates and not presenting the viewing audience with things about themselves.

 

And most importantly, the only reason I am considering right now voting for John McCain is because he picked Palin for VP, but I will tell you right now that he's doing a good job of pissing me off enough as of late that I'll consider taking my vote back to a 3rd party.

[BUTT 0]

And most importantly, the only reason I am considering right now voting for John McCain is because he picked Palin for VP,

oh jeez

[Guest]

If you've got such a big problem with what Marvin's said, ignore him. If you've got a problem with a person like cbacon spreading his anti-punishment (or whatever the fuck) views whenever he comes around, ignore him too. The whining about Marvin's posts is just as bad as when he says something stupid. Just stop.

 

kplzthx

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

And most importantly, the only reason I am considering right now voting for John McCain is because he picked Palin for VP,

oh jeez

 

The cool thing about listening to GB was that he had her on his show numerous times WAAAAAAY before she was picked as VP, so I dare say that I knew more about her through his interviews with her than the media knew about her even a week after she was picked as VP.

 

 

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

since I dont know of one thing that the Government runs that couldn't be run 1,000 times better by someone else.

 

This has always been an really stupid position, but one would think that the current clusterfuck on Wall St. would have finally put the lie to the notion that the private sector is some kind of magical place filled with supremely competent individuals who could do oh so much good for the country if they were simply freed from the oppressive shackles of BIG GOVERNMENT. Guess not tho.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

since I dont know of one thing that the Government runs that couldn't be run 1,000 times better by someone else.

 

This has always been an really stupid position, but one would think that the current clusterfuck on Wall St. would have finally put the lie to the notion that the private sector is some kind of magical place filled with supremely competent individuals who could do oh so much good for the country if they were simply freed from the oppressive shackles of BIG GOVERNMENT. Guess not tho.

 

Least we not forget that the government encouraged the banks to give out the loans to people who couldnt pay them back under the guise of increased low income/minority home ownership..er..mortgages. the banks had nothing to worry about with the government basically assuming the risk, so why not? So without the influence of government, these people aren't being foreclosed on and the economy isn't tanking though it probably would have never gotten as high off the ground as it did leading up to this mess because people wouldn't be spending money left and right like they actually had the money to spend and actually saving money towards home ownership instead of buying homes with no money down and no proof of income.

 

Hmm. Oh well.

[bob_barron 0]

If you've got such a big problem with what Marvin's said, ignore him. If you've got a problem with a person like cbacon spreading his anti-punishment (or whatever the fuck) views whenever he comes around, ignore him too. The whining about Marvin's posts is just as bad as when he says something stupid. Just stop.

 

kplzthx

 

Thank you for reiterating this. Why is it so hard for posters to understand?

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Least we not forget that the government encouraged the banks to give out the loans to people who couldnt pay them back under the guise of increased low income/minority home ownership..er..mortgages. the banks had nothing to worry about with the government basically assuming the risk, so why not? So without the influence of government, these people aren't being foreclosed on and the economy isn't tanking though it probably would have never gotten as high off the ground as it did leading up to this mess because people wouldn't be spending money left and right like they actually had the money to spend and actually saving money towards home ownership instead of buying homes with no money down and no proof of income.

 

Hey cool, you can recite right-wing talking points from two weeks ago. Too bad everything you said is pretty much completely false.

 

But CRA has always had critics, and they now suggest that the law went too far in encouraging banks to lend in struggling communities. Rhetoric aside, the argument turns on a simple question: In the current mortgage meltdown, did lenders approve bad loans to comply with CRA, or to make money?

 

The evidence strongly suggests the latter. First, consider timing. CRA was enacted in 1977. The sub-prime lending at the heart of the current crisis exploded a full quarter century later. In the mid-1990s, new CRA regulations and a wave of mergers led to a flurry of CRA activity, but, as noted by the New America Foundation's Ellen Seidman (and by Harvard's Joint Center), that activity "largely came to an end by 2001." In late 2004, the Bush administration announced plans to sharply weaken CRA regulations, pulling small and mid-sized banks out from under the law's toughest standards. Yet sub-prime lending continued, and even intensified -- at the very time when activity under CRA had slowed and the law had weakened.

 

Second, it is hard to blame CRA for the mortgage meltdown when CRA doesn't even apply to most of the loans that are behind it. As the University of Michigan's Michael Barr points out, half of sub-prime loans came from those mortgage companies beyond the reach of CRA. A further 25 to 30 percent came from bank subsidiaries and affiliates, which come under CRA to varying degrees but not as fully as banks themselves. (With affiliates, banks can choose whether to count the loans.) Perhaps one in four sub-prime loans were made by the institutions fully governed by CRA.

 

Most important, the lenders subject to CRA have engaged in less, not more, of the most dangerous lending. Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, offers the killer statistic: Independent mortgage companies, which are not covered by CRA, made high-priced loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts. With this in mind, Yellen specifically rejects the "tendency to conflate the current problems in the sub-prime market with CRA-motivated lending.? CRA, Yellen says, "has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."

 

But feel free to try again.

[Guest]

Republicans and Democrats are both equally responsible. That was a good deflection, but CRA is still a contributing factor to a crisis which doesn't have any one thing you can point at and say, hey, there you go.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Businessweek!

 

Add President Clinton to the long list of people who deserve a share of the blame for the housing bubble and bust. A recently re-exposed document shows that his administration went to ridiculous lengths to increase the national homeownership rate. It promoted paper-thin downpayments and pushed for ways to get lenders to give mortgage loans to first-time buyers with shaky financing and incomes. It’s clear now that the erosion of lending standards pushed prices up by increasing demand, and later led to waves of defaults by people who never should have bought a home in the first place.

 

President Bush continued the practices because they dovetailed with his Ownership Society goals, and of course Congress was strongly behind the push. But Clinton and his administration must shoulder some of the blame.

[SuperJerk 0]

OMG SCANDAL~!!!111one

 

Something Funnye going on with Illinios social services grants?

 

As a state senator, Democrat Barack Obama awarded $75,000 in government grants to a Chicago social service organization led by a rabbi who is also his wife's cousin, records show.

 

In 1999, Obama arranged for $50,000 for adult literacy and counseling services offered on Chicago's South Side by a group called Blue Gargoyle. A $25,000 grant for the group's youth services followed the next year.

 

The group's executive director when the grants were awarded was Capers Funnye, a South Side rabbi and Michelle Obama's first cousin once removed.

 

But, wait, there's more!

 

Funnye (pronounced fun-NAY) said Monday there was nothing improper about the way Blue Gargoyle obtained the grants. Obama did not encourage him to apply for the money, he said, and Funnye denied using family connections to pressure Obama to approve the application.

 

Obama's presidential campaign said the grants supported valuable services.

 

"State Sen. Obama joined other legislators in securing funding for a well-established social services agency in his district that provided job training, employment counseling, and alternative education programs to approximately 1,200 Chicago residents each year," campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

 

We're supposed to believe Obama provided state money to an organization that helped with job training and adult literacy? And I guess next they'll tell us its just a coincidence his wife's cousin was director of the agency at the time?

 

Funnye noted that Blue Gargoyle got similar grants from another state legislator who had no family ties to the group.

 

Oh.

 

Nevermind, then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Businessweek!

 

The best part about that article is the total lack of concrete statistical evidence showing any direct correlation between Clinton's policies and the market collapse. Solid work.

[SuperJerk 0]

http://www.atom.com/spotlights/kung_fu_election/

 

 

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Businessweek!

 

The best part about that article is the total lack of concrete statistical evidence showing any direct correlation between Clinton's policies and the market collapse. Solid work.

 

Without having a solid source to base this on (oh no, a couple blogs dont really count do they?), I keep seeing the same point that there were about a trillion dollars worth of subprime loans issued from 1995-2000, with 1995 being when Clinton Amended the CRA Act to get more low income/minorities into the game.

 

How much did that bailout bill cost? 7/10ths of a trillion bucks. Close enough when you're talking in the hundreds of billions of dollars..