So to make it clear on what your tax cut would be under Obama, they developed a tax calculator. Pimpin. Under Obama I get 1k tax cut, under McCain I get 0.
And on a funny note, Palin thought her own fans were protestors and told em to shut up... well not literally but:
A massive crowd of at least 20,000 spread across the parking lot of Richmond International Raceway, and scores of people on the outer periphery more than 100 yards from the stage could not hear.
"Louder! Louder!" they began chanting, and the cry spread across the crowd to Palin's left. Some pointed skyward, urging that the volume be increased.
Palin stopped her remarks briefly and looked toward the commotion.
"I hope those protesters have the courage and honor to give veterans thanks for their right to protest," she said.
Good month so far. Moved back up to NL100 and despite running like shit several times, I've still had a winning month so far. I've learned a lot from SakiSaki so far and my game has greatly improved, so I want to thank him for all the great training so far1 To thank him properly I called some friends in India and had them produce this video (listen to the chorus!):
Things aren't going so well for McCain this week as the polls in my last post suggested, and it's only Monday!
This morning Obama took charge and laid out an awesome rescue plan for the middle class and overall economy. Instead of wallowing in smears like McCain, Obama focused on the economy and came up with this comprehensive plan. He's focusing on helping small businesses, creating jobs and helping people who are facing foreclosure. It's a great speech with specifics. Check it out:
Funny thing is that this weekend there was a bunch of talk about how McCain was going to unveil a big new economic plan today, but it fell apart in the discussions amongst advisers so they decided not to do anything. UPDATE: Now it seems that they WILL set a new plan, tomorrow, lols. They can't decide!
At the same time we're seeing Republicans and conservatives across the board turning against McCain and echoing what us liberals have been saying for a while about McCain's tempermant, stunts and erratic behaviour:
Lastly Christopher Hitchens (conservative leaning Slate writer) wrote a ringing endorsement of Obama today that really nails why Obama is the right choice:
McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace.
I used to nod wisely when people said: "Let's discuss issues rather than personalities." It seemed so obvious that in politics an issue was an issue and a personality was a personality, and that the more one could separate the two, the more serious one was. After all, in a debate on serious issues, any mention of the opponent's personality would be ad hominem at best and at worst would stoop as low as ad feminam.
At my old English boarding school, we had a sporting saying that one should "tackle the ball and not the man." I carried on echoing this sort of unexamined nonsense for quite some time—in fact, until the New Hampshire primary of 1992, when it hit me very forcibly that the "personality" of one of the candidates was itself an "issue." In later years, I had little cause to revise my view that Bill Clinton's abysmal character was such as to be a "game changer" in itself, at least as important as his claim to be a "new Democrat." To summarize what little I learned from all this: A candidate may well change his or her position on, say, universal health care or Bosnia. But he or she cannot change the fact—if it happens to be a fact—that he or she is a pathological liar, or a dimwit, or a proud ignoramus. And even in the short run, this must and will tell.
On "the issues" in these closing weeks, there really isn't a very sharp or highly noticeable distinction to be made between the two nominees, and their "debates" have been cramped and boring affairs as a result. But the difference in character and temperament has become plainer by the day, and there is no decent way of avoiding the fact. Last week's so-called town-hall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience. McCain occasionally remembers to stress matters like honor and to disown innuendoes and slanders, but this only makes him look both more senile and more cynical, since it cannot (can it?) be other than his wish and design that he has engaged a deputy who does the innuendoes and slanders for him.
I suppose it could be said, as Michael Gerson has alleged, that the Obama campaign's choice of the word erratic to describe McCain is also an insinuation. But really, it's only a euphemism. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out. The train-wreck sentences, the whistlings in the pipes, the alarming and bewildered handhold phrases—"My friends"—to get him through the next 10 seconds. I haven't felt such pity for anyone since the late Adm. James Stockdale humiliated himself as Ross Perot's running mate. And I am sorry to have to say it, but Stockdale had also distinguished himself in America's most disastrous and shameful war, and it didn't qualify him then and it doesn't qualify McCain now.
The most insulting thing that a politician can do is to compel you to ask yourself: "What does he take me for?" Precisely this question is provoked by the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin. I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party's right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama's position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.
It therefore seems to me that the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and that both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated, along with any senators, congressmen, and governors who endorse them.
I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that "issue" I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.
Bill Kristol, a super conservative, called for McCain to fire his campaign. His column today actually laid out the only strategy I think has a winning chance for McCain. You can read it here.
So Politifact.com went after McCain's ridiculous smear campaign about Ayers and tore it to shreds. At the same time, we find out that Sarah Palin abused her authority in the troopergate scandal. Take into account the way she refused to testify and had her staff stonwalling the courts, you get the building blocks of Cheney junior.
Anyway, about Ayers Politifact wrote:
Not a radical group, and Ayers didn't run it
Pants on fire!
For most of the election, Sen. John McCain's campaign has been somewhat subtle about trying to tie Sen. Barack Obama to the former '60s radical William Ayers.
No longer. A 90-second Web ad released Oct. 8, 2008, features sinister music, side-by-side photographs of Obama and Ayers, and a series of dubious allegations about their past connections, including this one:
"Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together."
Ayers was a founding member of the militant Vietnam-era anti-war group the Weathermen. He was investigated for his role in a series of domestic bombings, but the charges were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct. He is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and actively engaged in the city's civic life.
The McCain campaign said the "radical education foundation" to which they were referring is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charity endowed by publishing magnate Walter Annenberg that funded public-school programs in Chicago from 1995 to 2001.
We'll look at whether the foundation was radical. But first we have to grapple with whether Obama and Ayers ran it.
Of course, when you look at the polls it's no surprise that they're in "all smear all the time" mode, inciting their supporters to call Obama a "terrorist" and say "kill him!" at McPalin rallies.
Latest Gallup: Notice McCain started to recover on Saturday and then took a nose dive on Sunday, lolz
Last 2 days from Real Clear Politics.com.... not seeing any red in there!
And here are the projections from 538.com, with Obama at landslide figures in the electoral college and a huge win %
Last we have the electoral map and projection from pollster.com which is more reserved than 538.com yet still with 320 EV's for Obama
We're in the final sprint. This week is the last debate (Wed). Then it's 2 weeks till election day. The last 3 weeks of an election are the most important time. Many campaigns have come into this point with a lead and lost it. The challenge ahead of McCain is huge, but it's not impossible. If you're an Obama supporter like me, then get off your ass and go volunteer. Even if you're super lazy, at least sign up to volunteer over the last 4 days which are the most crucial of them all. And if you're uber crazy super lazy, sign up to volunteer on election day to help turn out the vote. Obv you should already have voted early. I have =)
Think about it - would you rather sit at home and just hope that this lead holds and we win, or take action to make sure it happens? Imagine how you'd feel if on Nov 4th you saw McCain win and you realized that if you'd gotten off your ass you could have helped make a difference. As reassuring as these polls are, I am even more eager to get out there and work on this campaign, to make sure that if we do lose I know I did all I could. And honestly, my goal is to try and create a huge landslide. Biggest in history. Let's do it!
Go to http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/statepages and find your state and on the right hand side of your state page, find your local office. Get involved. It's actually pretty fun, the people are nice and they usually have good food and conversation. Remember, Obama is all about 'hope' but he doesn't want Americans to sit around 'hoping' things get better. He wants to inspire the hope so that we will take action, because when you lose hope you don't bother to try and make a change. There are lots of us taking action right now but we need more help, so come join us! Get out of your house for a bit, you're a poker player, you need to see sunlight on occasion!
Sorry to those who were hoping for a post debate blog by me. I didn't do one cause... well... there wasn't THAT much to talk about. They both said the same stuff that I've heard a million times and McCain failed to do anything special to pull ahead. Overall Obama won all the focus groups again and he got a little bump in the polls, but considering how far ahead he is it's hard to get much further without eating into the Republican base. But if McCain keeps it up Obama could very well do that, as a strong McCain supporter told my mom yesterday when we were canvassing that he was gonna vote for McCain as long as "he keeps his mouth shut, cause every time he speaks I like him less".
Anyway, there were SOME highlights, so let's get to those. First the funniest, which was McCain's "lost old man" wandering of the stage, which was heavily mocked everywhere:
Now onto some substance. First off, if you missed it, again I suggest watching it on MSNBC's Politics Page cause they have a great vid player there. Just click the link and then scroll down to the debate box. Next here's a bunch of short reviews of the debate (in spoiler if you're interested) + Show Spoiler +
Andrew Sullivan:
This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. I've watched a lot of debates and participated in many. I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater. I debated dozens of times at Oxofrd. All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out.It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. It reminds me of the 1992 Clinton-Perot-Bush debate. I don't really see how the McCain campaign survives this.
New York Times:
Here, Mr. Obama has a star turn -- on foreign policy, Mr. McCain's supposed turf. Mr. Obama is more forceful than usual, and makes the hunt for Osama bin Laden his singular focus.
National Review's Andy McCarthy:
We have a disaster here -- which is what you should expect when you delegate a non-conservative to make the conservative (nay, the American) case. We can parse it eight ways to Sunday, but I think the commentary is missing the big picture...
...With due respect, I think tonight was a disaster for our side. I'm dumbfounded that no one else seems to think so. Obama did everything he needed to do, McCain did nothing he needed to do. What am I missing?
Chris Cillizza:
Status Quo. By and large, both Obama and McCain stuck to their tried and true attacks on their rival. Obama cast McCain as a clone of the current president whose judgment on domestic and foreign affairs had been wrong time and time again. McCain painted Obama as a liberal who wants to raise taxes and increase spending in the midst of an economic crisis. No new ground was broken. Obama, smartly, stuck to a script to avoid any sort of flub that could change the general direction of the race, which is a trend in his favor.
Ross Douthat:
I'd call tonight's debate a draw, which if the dynamic from the first debate holds probably means it was a big win for Obama. I was gratified by the approach McCain took - by the absence of personal attacks (though, yes, the dislike still came through), by the attempt to actually engage with Obama on issues like health care, and yes, by the promise to buy up home mortgages, which was exactly the kind of blatantly panderish thing McCain needs to do if he wants to actually win this thing. (More on this tomorrow.) But Obama was unruffled and consistent - change vs. more of the same, change vs. more of the same, rinse and repeat - and for whatever it's worth the physical and generational contrast between the two men was very striking in this setting, and especially in the early going McCain seemed to me be showing his age as he delivered his answers. He improved as the night went on, but the vigor gap was palpable.
Political Wire:
Tonight's debate wasn't even close. Sen. Barack Obama ran away with it -- particularly when speaking about the economy and health care. Talking about his mother's death from cancer was very powerful. On nearly every issue, Obama was more substantive, showed more compassion and was more presidential.
In contrast, Sen. John McCain was extremely erratic. Sometimes he was too aggressive (referring to Obama as "that one.") Other times, he just couldn't answer the question (on how he would ask Americans to sacrifice.) And his random attempts at jokes (hair transplants?) were just bad.
CBS News:
And this new poll has good news for the Democratic ticket: Just as in the first presidential debate and the vice presidential face off, more uncommitted voters say the Democratic candidate won the debate. (The exact numbers may change as more respondents complete the survey.)
Thirty-nine percent of the 400 uncommitted voters surveyed identified Barack Obama as tonight's winner; 27 percent said John McCain won, while 35 percent saw the debate as a draw.
After the debate, 68 percent of uncommitted voters said that they think Obama will make the right decisions on the economy, compared to 54 percent who said that before the debate. Fewer thought McCain would do so - 49 percent after the debate, and 41 percent before.
Washington Post:
Who won? I look forward to your answers to that question. As I did the first time--just 11 days ago, if you can believe it--I did not think this was McCain at his best. He often seemed very self-conscious to me. His breathless voice tonight sometimes seemed strained and unnatural. His determination, evident in the first debate, to avoid his catch-phrase "my friends" disappeared tonight. He repeated himself quite often. But he ended very well. Obama seemed to project the same steady, cool persona we saw the first time out, and which, the polls say, won the debate for him then. But he avoided answering quite a few questions, which may have annoyed viewers. Of course McCain avoided answering some questions too.
Joe Conason:
John McCain's latest debate performance points up the cynicism of his recent attacks on Barack Obama's character -- which he plainly did not dare to repeat before the live audience on national television.
The theme of McCain being disrespectful and blatantly showing his dislike for Obama continued in this debate. There are 2 moments that stuck out. One is at the end when McCain totally dodges shaking Obama's hand as Wolf Blitzer talks about McCain's "disdain" for Obama:
And the other moment came when McCain was talking about an energy bill and he referred to Obama in a very dismissive way... watch:
Now some people are trying to spin that as racist. I don't think it was. I just think it's McCain being an old dude and annoyed by a young "liberal" who's kicking his ass. But it's funny cause earlier in the debate there was a question from a young black voter about the economy and McCain said "I bet you never heard of fannie or freddie before now" (or something like that). The questioner was actually in law school and HAD heard of them. Hell I've heard of them, that's how I got one of my student loans. But McCain wasn't scoring points with people with these comments.
Obama's best moments of the night came when talking about Iraq and healthcare. He flipped McCain's "You don't understand" line from the first debate around and pwned JohnnyMac: (watch the graph at bottom to see the reaction of undecided voters)
Then he had the better answer on health care, at least in my opinion and in the opinion of the undecided voter focus groups. The question was about how the candidates saw healthcare to be, whether it was a right, or a responsibility or a priveledge. McCain said it was a responsibility, while Obama said it was a right:
Again, the graph's spike. Woot.
I guess the biggest news coming outta the debate was that McCain proposed another 300 BILLION in spending to have the Govt buy up bad mortgages and then renegotiate the price to allow people to stay in their homes. He made a big deal about how this was "My plan, not Obama's". This backfired bigtime. First off, Obama had pushed for something similar to be in the bailout bill but so far the Govt hasn't put it into action. Second this is exactly the type of thing that conservatives hate. Third, and most importantly, his plan is to buy the bad mortgages at the ORIGINAL PRICE, not the current one. This means that we'd be OVERPAYING for these mortgages and giving the banks even more bailout money. This leaves the loss on us, the taxpayers. The only way his idea makes any sense is if the Govt buys at the LOW CURRENT PRICE. In McCain's proposal taxpayers burden the loss and banks walk away 100% saved. It's a plan to save the banks, not the American people.
Lastly, let's end with a fact check from FactCheck.org:
* McCain proposed to write down the amount owed by over-mortgaged homeowners and claimed the idea as his own: “It’s my proposal, it's not Sen. Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal.” But the idea isn’t new. Obama had endorsed something similar two weeks earlier, and authority for the treasury secretary to grant such relief was included in the recently passed $700 billion financial rescue package.
Update, Oct. 12: The day after the debate the McCain campaign released additional details of the mortgage plan, which Obama aides said made it a new idea, and a bad one in their view.
* Both candidates oversimplified the causes of the financial crisis. McCain blamed it on Democrats who resisted tighter regulation of federal mortgage agencies. Obama blamed it on financial deregulation backed by Republicans. We find both are right, with plenty of blame left over for others, from home buyers to the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
* Obama said his health care plan would lower insurance premiums by up to $2,500 a year. Experts we’ve consulted see little evidence such savings would materialize.
* McCain misstated his own health care plan, saying he’d give a $5,000 tax credit to “every American” His plan actually would provide only $2,500 per individual, or $5,000 for couples and families. He also misstated Obama’s health care plan, claiming it would levy fines on “small businesses” that fail to provide health insurance. Actually, Obama’s plan exempts “small businesses.”
* McCain lamented that the U.S. was forced to “withdraw in humiliation” from Somalia in 1994, but he failed to note that he once proposed to cut off funding for troops to force a faster withdrawal.
* Obama said, “I favor nuclear power.” That’s a stronger statement than we've heard him make before. As recently as last December, he said, “I am not a nuclear energy proponent.”
* McCain claimed “1.3 million people in America make their living off eBay.” Actually, only 724,000 persons in the U.S. have income from eBay, and only some of them rely on it as their primary source.
So I saw commercials for this new "Fringe" show on Fox and thought "awesome!"... I missed the premiere and was sad. So I DL'd the first episode and then never watched it cause I was too busy with work/poker/Obama stuff. Tonight I had a good poker session (7 buyins woot!) and so I stopped and decided to have some fun and watch Fringe! Bad move.
I watched the first episode and it started off with a bit of an X-files feel. But it quickly dissolved into a hyper paced attempt to build a creepy x-files esque show. Didn't fly with me. they tried to introduce crazy conspiracy shit way too quickly, the characters love story got started already, and overall the story felt like they were trying to skip character development so that they could get to the "juicy stuff" asaply. It was not what I was hoping for and overall fell very flat.
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