Yeah, uh, I remember him hammering W on taxes during the 2000 debates in South Carolina (and so do others here, you can search for more here )...so, here's a JedReport montage of McCain's tax ideas...sounds like Obama's ideas to me, peeps...
And, here's the exact money quote that recall from that debate that made me proud, at the time, to vote for him in the Mass primaries:
I want a balanced approach. A working families tax cut—Governor Bush has 38 percent of his tax cut go to the wealthiest one percent of Americans—pay down the debt, Social Security and Medicare. If we're going to save Social Security, we've got to take a bunch of the non-Social Security surplus, pump it into the Social Security system, because we all know that it's going broke. If we do that, then people can then invest part of their own payroll taxes in investments of their choice. The difference between Governor Bush's proposal and mine is that I put a whole lot of money into Social Security, Medicare and paying down the debt. He puts a whole lot of money into tax cuts.... Because we'd lay this obligation on another generation of young Americans—$3.6 trillion. At town hall meeting after town hall meeting, I have average Americans stand up to me and say to me, Senator McCain, all these years of running deficits, we've accumulated this debt. We're paying more interest—as much interest, almost, on it as we are in spending on national defense. We ought to pay down that debt, and not saddle the next generation of young Americans with it.... Look, Alan Greenspan just recently said we shouldn't have these massive tax cuts like Governor Bush is proposing. We should pay down the debt. But working families need the tax cut.
The green highlighted text is what I recalled clearly from the debate, but note what I highlighted in red...the $3.6 trillion debt he alludes to in the 2000 debates is, sadly, a low projection but a heckuva lookahead by McCain at the time. And, per this bonddad post from this morning, here are the debt loads carried by the USG at the end of each fiscal year of the Bush administration:
"We will be told that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have finally gotten it right. The scope and size of the proposed program will arrest the decline in home prices, restore stability to the financial markets, enable banks to get back to the business of lending, and restore the confidence of the American consumer.
While the program certainly has each of these points as a goal, the amount of time to achieve each goal is unknowable, but an important factor. Moses was told he would lead the Jews to the Promised Land. He didn’t know it would take 40 years. And, in all due respect to Bernanke and Paulsen, Moses was working with God. They are working with Congress."
...last I checked...he could be up to even more flipflops on this whole financial meltdown/regulation/no regulation thingy...oh yeah, here's a few more...and more on it here...
Scroll to the bottom of the linked post, and you'll get to this:
“The specific bill that Barack Obama voted for calls for sex education beginning as low as the kindergarten,” claimed Romney. Romney then declared that he and McCain both believe that “the only sex education that’s appropriate in kindergarten is no sex education”
When it's clearly not. I no likey Romney, never have, never will.
I forget how I got to the link (click the title above, or see the YouTube vid below) but all it did was 100% validate what I had said about CNN recently, regarding their "echoes of Crossfire" approach to CNN newsreading:
and it became apparent that all CNN had were two talking heads, a liberal and a conservative, and each ran through their talking points about how this issue would play in the electorate...it just seems that CNN has yet to grow up and NOT have echoes of Crossfire each time they have some political thing to talk about...where does this get them? Hmm, now reading the wikipage on crossfire, I can see why they've not been able to shake the format - they've done it since 1982!!!
Now, Candy Crowley totally validates this by stating "I'm not going to be the one to tell you whether it's equal or not," that it's not up to her to catch the lying, but to report & have voters decide:
Crowley's performance last night was astonishing. Asked whether McCain's lies have been worse than Obama's, Crowley says she isn't going to make that call, adds that it's up to voters to sort it out, and -- best of all -- launches into a discussion of Obama's supposed falsehoods in order to argue that both sides do it...
To his credit, Mark Halperin stepped in and made just this point, noting quite accurately that the lies of the McCain campaign are far more central to his campaign than anything Obama has done.
Halperin isn't some whiny liberal blogger. He's the ultimate D.C. media insider. If he can't persuade both-sides-do-it holdouts like Crowley to inform their viewers, then no one can.
"I'm not going to be the one to tell you whether it's equal or not," Crowley said of the lying on both sides. Really? If CNN reporters don't think this is their role, whose job is it, then?
Yup, I wuz right...oh, and two other validation points here and here about another CNN episode which shows that I'm correct...
This was a paraphrased statement from one of the GoOPer yum-yums from this episode of On-Point. Wifey will have more to say about this comment in this post, which infuriated her, and if I was listening would infuriate me. I see that more than one commenter also had a problem with the statement that was beyond the pale. You can listen to the program from the page (click the title above).
Hilarious! This really should go along with the Jed Report's movie of the Palin unveiling speech after the Dem convention, when he was clearly looking at her booty:
Since we dumped cable a few years ago (with little kids and a job 100+miles roundtrip, just dont have the time to sit in front of the teevee anymore) I've forgotten how inane the conversations are on CNN...and how DUMBED DOWN the conversations are...anyways, I was listening to the CNN coverage of Hurricane Gustav on XM radio - the CNN TV broadcast is simulcast on XM122, and, let's face it, CNN is everywhere so if there's a crisis, they'll give you the raw feed quicker than anybody else...but while listening, they turned to their reporters at the RNC convention in St.Paul and asked specifically about the political impact on the convention - fair enough...they very quickly started talking about Sarah Palin and her 17-yr old daughter's pregnancy and it becaome apparent that all CNN had were two talking heads, a liberal and a conservative, and each ran through their talking points about how this issue would play in the electorate...it just seems that CNN has yet to grow up and NOT have echoes of Crossfire each time they have some political thing to talk about...where does this get them? Hmm, now reading the wikipage on crossfire, I can see why they've not been able to shake the format - they've done it since 1982!!!
Driving home late from work today, I was able to listen to the 6PM Rachel Maddow Show on XM167...as some know, the first hour is now a feed from MSNBC's prez talk show, hosted by David Gregory. They talked at length about who had a better week, McCain or Obama. Somehow, McCain's shitty week was a bad thing for Obama, since he wasn't on the air every day hammering McCain on the economy. Gregory (I thought, I was driving) ended the segment by saying if he [obama] is then he's not 'bubbling up'.
Tired of the silliness, I turned to POTUS08 XM130 and listened to a live-on-tape Obama speech today about energy and the economy...specifically I heard this:
"So when he talks about the failure of politicians in Washington to do anything about our energy crisis, understand that Senator McCain has been a part of that failure. When he proposes policies that give $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies but only pennies a day to Americans struggling with high gas prices, understand that that’s not part of the solution in Washington, that’s part of the problem in Washington. When he offers a plan that doesn’t make any real investment in alternative sources of energy, that represents a failure to think long-term about our nation’s future. That’s what we’ve had in this country for too many years, and that’s why we need change in November."
Yesterday was the Dr. Phil comment about Gramm's retardo statements. Uh, not hammering?
"Now Senator McCain is an honorable man, and we all deeply respect his service to our country. But when you look at our records and plans on the economic issues that matter most for women, it becomes very clear that he won't bring the change we need – while I will.
That starts with acknowledging the economic difficulties so many women are facing right now. Senator McCain, however, has said that we've made "great progress" on the economy. And Senator Phil Gramm, a top economic advisor to Senator McCain, just recently said that this is merely "a mental recession." Senator Gramm then deemed the United States – and I quote – "a nation of whiners." This comes after Senator McCain recently admitted that his energy proposals will have mainly "psychological" benefits.
Well, you know, America already has one Dr. Phil. When it comes to the economy, we don't need another.
Let's be clear, when people are struggling with the rising costs of everything from gas to groceries, when we've lost 438,000 jobs over the past six months, when typical families have seen their incomes fall nearly $1,000 since 2000, this economic downturn isn't in our heads. It isn't whining to ask for more than just psychological relief.
And I think it's time we had a President who doesn't deny our problems – or blame the American people for them – but takes responsibility and provides the leadership to solve them."
Amazingly, at the end of the show they even recognize that they live in an echo chamber and aren't listening to either candidate (about the 1:40-1:50 mark in this clip):
I'm a liberal chemical engineer swimming in a sea of right-wingers. My cohorts and I (The Gumbinator, Lemon-Lyman and Johnny K-Street) will post about such things as "green" science and engineering, other engineering/IT and how they may relate to politics and economics, and economic issues such as tax policy and government transparency. Electoral stuff too. Of course, I'll bash the Bushies...
