McCain vs. Obama

[Kolle]

any minute now waves of republicans will denounce mccain for flip flopping seeing as how they attacked kerry for it in 2004 so much. any minute...

well nah. he's been doing that on other issues already several times now. just goes to show that most people are picking sides and sticking with it regardless of circumstance. both sides do it, though. they'll attack one candidate for one thing and defend their own candidate who does the same thing.

to be fair even mccain admitted he knows nothing about the economy. let's cut him some slack.

[Araxen]

This thread isn't complete without this. RIP Tim

[Dis]

Originally Posted by Araxen

This thread isn't complete without this. RIP Tim

Wow, that was some nice ownage.

[I'm Rich Bitch]

McCain's town hall was pathetic. He even stacked the deck with own supporters. This is like Obama throwing a "town hall" and getting questions from David Axelrod, his campaign manager. This old geezer is little more than the anti-"Obama is a Muslim" vote. Even FOX News can not cover for him.

I disagree with you. I think you are a hero.

That was an actual question.

[Soriak]

Just came across an older article (April) on McCain's health care proposal. Apparently he didn't think that through entirely, because it'd be a significant tax increase on everyone who currently gets insurance through their employer.

Health Insurance benefits would become taxable with a tax credit offered in return: $2,500 for individuals, $5,000 for families. This is the average cost for health insurance:


(edit: Don't know if the image shows up or not, seems to be there only half the time. Check the link below for the source)

So you'd get on average an extra ~$9,000 "income" with a family, but McCain's tax credit is only $5,000 per family. You end up paying taxes on $4,000 more than what you do now. Individuals would get a $2,500 tax credit, but on average receive almost $4,000 from their employer - an extra $1,500 that would be taxed.

Economists for Obama: McCain's Health Care Plan

In 2007, for a family the average total premium for a health care plan was $12,106, with $8824 paid by the employer. Let's say the McCain plan is enacted. What would happen to that average family if the employer continued to provide coverage (Scenario 1)? For a married couple filing jointly with income $63K-128K, the marginal tax rate is 25%, so they would face a tax increase of $2406 (25% of $8824).

But of course the intent of the McCain plan is to kill the employer-provided system. So let's say the McCain program is adopted and your employer drops your family's coverage (Scenario 2). What would happen? You would now have to foot the complete $12,106 bill for coverage, a $8825 increase over the employee-portion you're currently paying. This would be offset by a $5000 tax credit. So net, you would end up paying $3325 ($8825-$5000) more for your health care.

So, remarkably, McCain has managed to design a heads-you-lose, tails-you-lose program. Either your employer keeps your coverage, in which case you face a huge tax increase. Or your employer drops your coverage, and you face an even more massive increase in your out-of-pocket health-care costs.

The best-case scenario would be that employers who dropped coverage would then increase wages, compensating workers for the jump in what they have to pay for health care. In the long-run, there's a fair case to be made that this would happen, but as Keynes famously remarked, "In the long run, we're all dead," and the transition period would be extremely painful.

Why has this never been brought up before? You'd think this would have come up once or twice...

[Soriak]

Obama on religion... only 5 minutes and well worth watching. Good stuff.



"People are tired of seeing faith used as a tool of attack."

[Khorum]

Originally Posted by Soriak

"People are tired of seeing faith used as a tool of attack."

No people are tired of being lied to by a man who sat on the pews of a rabid hatemonger and saw SO LITTLE to complain about that he wrote his praises of him for twenty years. And now we're expected to take his word that he refuted his pastor on philosophical grounds? We're expected to just blindly accept this man's newly discovered conviction on moderate religion? Why? Oh because he's shown SUCH A GREAT RECORD for being earnest and sincere about anything right?

Bullshit.

[Kolle]

just out of curiosity, are the sermons of rev. wright available from 20 years ago?

[Khorum]

Originally Posted by Kolle

just out of curiosity, are the sermons of rev. wright available from 20 years ago?

Yeah they used to be all over youtube. TUCC sold tapes of all his sermons on their website but they've pulled that offer for obvious reasons.

You could read about one of Wright's earliest speeches in Obma's book Dreams of My Father, where Obama recalls his tearfully joyous discovery of Wright's message and vision shortly before converting to Christianity, which was a couple years after Wright's infamous world tour of the Rogue State capitals of Africa alongside Louis Farrakhan.

[Kolle]

if he's been spouting vile hatred for 20 years it seems like there would be more videos or at least some transcripts. maybe he has. i dunno. i'd like to see them.

let's see......20 years....that's at least 1,000 sermons. i dunno if he gives more than one on sunday and another one on some other day of the week. but if he gave one each sunday and took off a few sundays he'd still approach 800-1,000. if he was screaming god damn america 1,000 times in a row it seems like you wouldn't be able to take a step without tripping over one of them on youtube or something. other than a few that's already on there.

not just exerts either, but the whole thing so nothing is taken out of context.

[Khorum]

Originally Posted by Kolle

if he's been spouting vile hatred for 20 years it seems like there would be more videos or at least some transcripts. maybe he has. i dunno. i'd like to see them.

let's see......20 years....that's at least 1,000 sermons. i dunno if he gives more than one on sunday and another one on some other day of the week. but if he gave one each sunday and took off a few sundays he'd still approach 800-1,000. if he was screaming god damn america 1,000 times in a row it seems like you wouldn't be able to take a step without tripping over one of them on youtube or something. other than a few that's already on there.

not just exerts either, but the whole thing so nothing is taken out of context.

So you DON'T really want pages after pages of Wright's career-long war against American Exceptionalism, you just wanted to try and see if you had an angle for apologizing for Jeremiah Wright altogether. Even though the man HIMSELF admitted his absolute convictions for everything he was accused of and more, shocking even members of the audience as openly afro-centric as Malik Shabbazz. You won't find Wright talking about the Tuskegee experiment or how he believes that AIDS was invented by the CIA as a blight for black people on any of his sermons, instead you'll find that on National TV.

You won't find many sermons were Wright expresses REAL racism with shit like "Africans have a different meter, and Africans have a different tonality. Europeans have seven tones, Africans have five. White people clap differently than black people. Africans and African-Americans are right-brained, subject-oriented in their learning style. They have a different way of learning.". You can only find that in the same places where he praised the infamous Louis Farrakhan and repeatedly expresses his belief in the biological inferiority of Africans: not in his sermons or on youtube but during Jeremiah Wright's speech to the NAACP.

So NOW you're gonna try to come up with some sampling-distribution argument that attempts to excuse Wright solely on the frequency of how often he preached his rabid bullshit? Sorry Kolle, but he lived and breathed his racist politics LOOONG before he infected Barack Hussein Obama with it.

[Kolle]

it's not that complicated. wright is supposedly a rabid hatemonger. a rabid hatemonger would be making rabid hatemongering sermons. this is supposedly going on for over 20 years so i'm just curious where are all the videos and transcripts of these hatemongering sermons that obama listened to. i mean, no one would say such a thing unless they knew all those sermons had rabid hatemongering. no one would listen to exerts from a few speeches and then decide that wright had done nothing but preach rabid hatemongering for over 20 years. right?

he must have gave upwards of 1,000 sermons. so i'm guessing if someone was going to say that he was a rabid hatemongering preacher that they would have completely reviewed at least half of those.

and yeah he did make a good point in the video that was popular on youtube. what he said is no different than what others have said. he just worded it differently. the usa did some shit to other people and then other people did some shit back to the usa. novel concept i know.

[Khorum]

Originally Posted by Kolle

it's not that complicated. wright is supposedly a rabid hatemonger. a rabid hatemonger would be making rabid hatemongering sermons. this is supposedly going on for over 20 years so i'm just curious where are all the videos and transcripts of these hatemongering sermons that obama listened to. i mean, no one would say such a thing unless they knew all those sermons had rabid hatemongering.

and yeah he did make a good point in the video that was popular on youtube. the usa did some shit to other people and then other people did some shit back to the usa. novel concept i know.

It isn't complicated in the least. The man's career as a black separatist is exceptionally well documented but noone is gonna put up 20 years of sermons up on youtube just for you. Not even TUCC sold tapes of ALL his sermons, just the most fiery and rabid that we have ALL seen the "greatest hits of". But the fact is Wright toured Africa along with Farrakhan back in the late 80's and had been singing the praises for that man ever since. He's been confirming his devotion to that black separatist sentiment for twenty years.

To THIS DAY the man believes that AIDS was invented specifically to kill Black people and that Africans should be treated exceptionally because their brains are right-brained and biologically incompatible with normal expectations. And yet you think you have a "GOTCHA" because noone has a giant vault of Wright's sermons as proof? Why the hell would you need proof when Wright repeatedly (and bravely) stood by his beliefs even when his friends and family told him to just shut the fuck up for the good of his cause? Why would ANYONE need to "completely review at least half those" when Jeremiah Wright himself confirmed everything has said about his sermons and more.

Who gives a FUCK whether or not he occasionally preached about how tasty last night's ham sandwich was when he his entire pastorage was built on such a deranged philosophical focus?

And no, his "chickens coming home to roost" bullshit is about as false as his VICTIMIZATION posture. Wright actually served as a marine and he should know better than most that those "things America did to others" we did win the Cold War and to avert a greater evil. But Wright didn't really explain why we sent those Chickens out the way we did in the same he didn't explain that he enjoyed a a lavish upbringing in an affluent Philadelphia neighborhood that poor black kids only DREAM about. He doesn't mention the fact that he enjoyed an education in one of Philadelphia's most exclusive schools, the same school that Bill Cosby's Juliard-trained family attended. He doesn't explain that while the REAL survivors of the Civil Rights movement like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Condolleezza Rice scuttled furtively under bomb threats in Birmingham, Jeremiah Wright lived on the lap of luxury and tolerance in a school that featured black teachers for a 90% white student population.

But we don't get to hear about that because like all charlatans who make a living agitating the self-pity and indignity of others, he has to appear to belong in the haven of misery and deprivation that circles his Hyde Park community. Although he's probably wrong about that. Noone really cares about his credibility when he's got folks who would soooo blindly defend him like you have.

[Kolle]

so you admit to not knowing the content of 99.9% of his sermons? i'm curious if that's the case since obama was listening to rabid hatemongering for 20 years. i'm a little confused. if the sermons aren't available then how would someone know what obama had been hearing? when someone says obama was listening to wright's hateful sermons for 20 years, are they guessing?

[I'm Rich Bitch]

Originally Posted by Khorum

Rev. Wright is the only way McCain can win.

Here is commentary from the red state Republicans on this issue.