Just reading the paper and it seems that Pelosi and her Democratic friends are waiting for the election in order to get 61 Billion more for unemployement benefits. Well who is going to pay the taxes again. The working middle class as usual. In Louisiana we are having an oilfield boom again. Friends of my husband are constantly looking for workers, and have to get Visa's and get people from other countries to come work. This is pathetic that this nation has so many lazy usless individuals. The pay is real good down here and people opt to stay at home and let the government take care of them. It is time that programs that assist usless people stop. I am tired of watching our paycheck get cut so much in taxes due to programs that give to people who do not want to help themselves. The Democrats need to wake up if they take over complete control of the Houses this fall. They cannot continue to raise taxes on the working class.
To Democrats:
- Thread starterblkoralslaveboy
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The real concern is that both the republicans and democrats are proposing all kind of new spending and/or tax breaks. If they succeed in their agenda, which will do little for the economy except pander to various interests, there's real danger of the deficit approaching $1 trillion dollars annually.
Of course, it suits some people to take a partisan stance and blame one party or the other but the reality is that both parties are to blame.
If you're 'tired of watching our paycheck get cut so much in taxes', wait until we have to pay the bills for both parties' actions.
Of course, it suits some people to take a partisan stance and blame one party or the other but the reality is that both parties are to blame.
If you're 'tired of watching our paycheck get cut so much in taxes', wait until we have to pay the bills for both parties' actions.
Elizabeth T said:
Actually the "working middle class" doesn't pay most of the taxes. The rich really do pay most of the taxes relative to their numbers. However, the rich are the only ones that have enough income to pay significant amounts after reasonable expenses are taken out. The middle class bite that you and I complain about is because we don't have much if any "extra" after reasonable expenses. And of course the poor paying income taxes simply can't happen. They do however pay a significant percentage of their income in other taxes, mostly sales taxes.
There is no doubt that there are lazy people living off of welfare. But the majority of welfare recipients (not counting corporate welfare) are children, elderly and people with disabilities. It's a ploy of the rich and their representatives to blame lazy so they can cut or use one of their other favorite tricks, raise but by too little the programs that help these people that do deserve to be helped. They also cut/or raise too little the staffing of those who's job it is to investigate the fraudulent and other non deserving claims.
The place to look for money for tax cuts for the middle class is in corporate welfare, wasteful spending in the military and totally ineffective and costly programs like the war on drugs. This is not a bash on the military. In fact some programs for the military are very short of funding, but the amount of money the military has just "lost" is staggering. If significant and proper savings could be wrested from those in power of these programs, there would be plenty of money left to help the deserving poor and to weed out those that shouldn't qualify.
sexycouple2011 said:
I don't know what all that is about. What I am remembering is just after the courts in essence said Bush won by disallowing whatever the Dems sued for, and after all was said and done, didn't all the investigations and ballet counts by most of the major news organizations come up with the fact that whichever way you counted the ballets, chads/no chads or whatever way the Dems had wanted everything counted, that not one count had Gore winning?
Don't tell me that the liberal media would not have wanted to show proof of Gore winning Florida if they could have.
Also, if you are in a boxing match and you feel you were robbed of the match by the judges, wouldn't you want a rematch? So why didn't Gore run in 04?
It still comes down to the people who knew Gore best. The people in his own state, and they didn't vote for him. If he had taken his own state he would have won.
SaltandPepper98 said:
You have your facts and assumptions a little mixed up.
1) First, the Supreme Court essentially gave this election to Bush by ruling that the Republican Secretary of State of Florida, Katherine Harris (who had been the Florida co-chair of Bush's campaign) could remain as the person to certify Florida's vote. This is totally unacceptable in a democracy, especially when the state in question is governed by an immediate family member of one of the candidates.
2) "All that stuff" [about voting machine fraud] as you put it, is precisely what we're debating on here my man. lol Voter fraud and stealing elections. The point is that Greg Palast broke the Choicepoint voting machine fraud story BEFORE the election was over, but in order to get any play he had to publish his stories in the Guardian which is a UK paper. Salon.com picked the story up first...ran it...but no mainstream media had the balls to run with it until the Washington Post eventually picked up the story after it was too late. Several months later, CBS ran a short retraction for their story thatTed Koppel had ran in which he concluded black people basically couldn't figure out how to use voting machines. CBS ran the retraction instead of a new story about the scandal.
3) The "liberal media" is a myth. It's true that journalists tend to lean liberal as a group, which makes sense given the nature of the job is to be curious, critical, and suspicious of the truth...and most journalists (other than the very small percentage of those who are anchors or who have their own shows) fall into a lower tax bracket as well. Yet, what is far more important to realize is that editorial autonomy only goes so far. Write a story that truly could be called "investigative" or "controversial" in the current environment and you will lose your job. This has been documented over and over in recent years, several times by surprisingly high profile journalists who have admitted they now operate within an environment of fear for their jobs before they publish each story.
As recently as 1983 (during Reagan's run) the international media was controlled by 50+ corporations. Now it is controlled by 6. Soon, it will be 3. All of these controlling bodies are owned and operated by multi-national coalitions and/or indivuals who are interested primarily in promoting viewpoints which help them maintain their vast wealth. Pushing stories which get ratings to secure advertising dollars and maintain ownership wealth is the primary goal. Reporting on the "real news" is a distant priority. Most of the owners of our current, remaining media corporations have strongly conservative views. Rupert Murdoch is the most obvious offender. His media empire, which includes Fox and now, sadly, the Wall Street Journal, does not even pretend to be even handed or objective.
4) SO, I am telling you precisely what you don't want me to tell you: the so-called "liberal media" just pretty much wanted the election scandal to "go away" back in 2000. They couldn't sweep it under the rug fast enough.
5) Gore's reasons for why he didn't run in 2004 are his own, and I really don't know the answer to that. However, if I had to guess I'd say it's because he had been through the muck once already and was exhausted from it. Running for President of the United States is not like running for your local school board. It's a trying, emotionally draining experience. Plus, Gore had achieved some measure of personal success on the lecture circuit by that point and was working on his book, so in terms of financial goals he was doing something more lucrative anyway. I'm sure there are a whole host of reasons why he didn't choose to run again in '04 or '08.
Despite any analogies that are currently thrown around about this current race being a boxing match, you don't choose to run for President on a whim or as a "grudge match" any more than you decide to start a war because you have daddy issues...OOPS. ;-)
6) Gore lost Tennessee for 2 main reasons - 1) A sharp change in Demographics (which most media pundits agree on); his home state was much more conservative than when he dominated it in his Senate runs. Also, keep in mind, he left the Senate in 1992, which is a full 8 years before he Presidential bid. Those demographics changed; 2) Karl Rove pulled out the investigative dogs and tried to link Gore to some Tennessee criminals, linking one or two directly to him and another to his uncle in a neighboring county. These stories ultimately proved to be untrue (like everything else that Rove slimes up)...and the stories stayed under the radar nationally...but locally in Tennessee the damage was done.
Lets face it the only reason that Bill Clinton was the first elected Democrat President since Jimmy Carter is that the Clintons knew (know) how to fight dirty and negative like the Republican Party. Kerry got swift boated, Gore was ridiculed and made fun of mercilessly as claiming to have invented the internet, and also Dukakis. Hell in 2003 when the Establishment Republicans viewed John McCain as a threat one of the people working on McCains campaign today was working for Bush and spread the word down south that McCain had a nigger baby from his wife having an affair (their words not mine).
Yes sir re! The GOP tried to slime Billy Clinton too, but he outfoxed and out dirtied them with their own games. Actually did it twice.
In my heart I had hoped that Obama would have picked Hillary as VP just cause I knew she had the players and machine already in place to slime the Repubs from the outset!
I was worried but will give Obama credit. He has out foxed McCain at every turn, and hope he can keep it up.
However there is no doubt in my mind that if he had picked Hillary he would be up higher in the Polls all along than he is now, but I will be just as happy with a slim win.
Don't forget when Bush stole the election in Florida and in the national numbers Gore actually got more votes, Bush claimed a mandate.
Yes sir re! The GOP tried to slime Billy Clinton too, but he outfoxed and out dirtied them with their own games. Actually did it twice.
In my heart I had hoped that Obama would have picked Hillary as VP just cause I knew she had the players and machine already in place to slime the Repubs from the outset!
I was worried but will give Obama credit. He has out foxed McCain at every turn, and hope he can keep it up.
However there is no doubt in my mind that if he had picked Hillary he would be up higher in the Polls all along than he is now, but I will be just as happy with a slim win.
Don't forget when Bush stole the election in Florida and in the national numbers Gore actually got more votes, Bush claimed a mandate.
Liberal Media Myth
By the way, I'd like to add one little addendum to the above...the bottom line is that while journalist pols as a whole have shown them to be liberal leaning in the past (read: the 80s), they are far more centrist now and actually lean conservative on economic issues. Also, when it comes to pundits - the talking heads who have their own shows - the number of conservatives far outnumbers the liberals. In other words, punditry...talk radio, shows on various networks, etc...leans strongly conservative. Do a head count. This isn't hard to prove.
By the way, I'd like to add one little addendum to the above...the bottom line is that while journalist pols as a whole have shown them to be liberal leaning in the past (read: the 80s), they are far more centrist now and actually lean conservative on economic issues. Also, when it comes to pundits - the talking heads who have their own shows - the number of conservatives far outnumbers the liberals. In other words, punditry...talk radio, shows on various networks, etc...leans strongly conservative. Do a head count. This isn't hard to prove.
handigrl said:
To your point about Hilary's "machine" and Obama's current prowess in being able to play dirty in order to win: Part of the reason this has been successful is because a large number of people who had worked on Clinton's two presidential runs are currently working for Obama. A lot of them jumped ship off of Hilary's band-wagon and joined Obama's. I'm not saying that cost Hilary the nomination, but I am saying it's helping Obama a lot.
RoSquirts said:
Obama will have to bite the bullet and renege on his promise to cut taxes. The Republicans set this stage every year because it plays well when the talking heads spout off. When "average" Joe-plumber bitches about paying more taxes a bunch of people stand up and take notice.
By the way, funny that "Joe the Plumber" isn't even really a licensed plumber, actually owes back-taxes, and makes less than $40K a year...so he would actually currently benefit from Obama's tax plan...not to mention it's highly unlikely he can buy a business which grosses $280K annually...and even if he did manage to somehow pull off that miracle he would only be taxed extra on the $30K over the $250K cut-off, which amounts to about $900 more than he would pay now. LOL But that's neither here nor there...;-)
So, anyway, Presidential candidates have to play on the playing field they're given. You can't run on either platform right now without saying you're going to cut taxes, even if it would be the absolute worst thing for the country to do so for any tax bracket.
I'd say best case scenario is he might be able to leave the under $150K bracket at current levels but he will have to raise everyone else's taxes at least a little bit. This will be a tough sell in our increasingly addicted consumer culture, but he is going to have to break it down to fat-ass Americans everywhere: it's time to cut back and quit spending more money than you make. This goes for the country as a whole and for our government. Bushy's 8 years are a fiscal embarrassment. He even outspent Clinton by a wide, wide margin (in fact, he has spent more money than every other President combined which is astounding). As a country, we've got some hard work to do to make up for the past 8 years.
Elizabeth T said:
Just out of curiosity, what is the "real good pay" you're talking about? Any time someone starts talking about "having to get Visas for foreign workers to do jobs Americans just won't do" my bullshit detector goes off.
The bottom line is that most of the time when this subject comes up its really all about profit for the business owner because they simply don't want to pay a living wage or even a reasonable wage to American workers, so they get illegal immigrants at the low end or import Indian workers in the high tech field who will work for a fraction of the cost.
The line of reasoning that we don't have enough qualified, skilled, motivated workers in the US so we *have* to reach out to foreign labor markets is absolute bullshit.
But sexycouple, didn't all those ballets finally get counted by many different organizations and in front of many official observers of different media and government, state and federal? I remember that it took forever with updates every day on the front page of every newspaper. And wasn't the result when all was said and done that Bush won by even more than originally thought? That even counting the way the Dems wanted that Gore still would have lost?
Thats the question I've been trying to get answered. Not all that other stuff.
Thats the question I've been trying to get answered. Not all that other stuff.
Found this in Wikipedia sexycouple and its actually more interesting than I remembered. I Googled "Florida election 2000."
There were two different recounts of the disputed ballets. It was the media like I thought it was that was behind both recounts. Here is the relative segment:
"Ultimately, the Media Consortium hired the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago [5] to examine 175,010 ballots that were discounted; these ballots contained under-votes (votes with no choice made for president) and over-votes (votes made with more than one choice marked). Their goal was not to deduce who actually won the election but to determine the reliability and accuracy of the systems used for the voting process.
In the aftermath of the election, the first independent recount was conducted by The Miami Herald and USA Today. Counting only "undervotes" (when the vote is not detected by machine), and not considering "overvotes" (when a ballot ends up with more than one indication of a vote, for example both a punch-out and hand-written name, even if both indicating the same candidate)[36] Bush would have won in all legally requested recount scenarios.
If overvotes where the intent of the voter was clear were counted, using any consistent standard for 'clear intent of the voter', Gore would have won. This was not requested by either side at the time; the independent recount therefore led to a greater awareness of the issue of 'overvotes'.
Under the recount rules initially requested by Gore, Bush would have won, and under the rules requested by Bush, Gore would have won."
So where did Bush "steal" the election?
As for "he didn't win the popular vote. Well as you well know the popular vote doesn't elect the President. The electoral college does.
Get over it people. You all have been kicking this dead horse for eight long years now and you've been wrong for eight long years now. Gore had everything going for him. He was the incumbent Vice President, and he had Bill Clinton (and his infamous Clinton "machine") backing him. Gore didn't lose because Florida was "stolen" from him. He just didn't win Florida. And if the court had decided to count only the specific cherry picked ballets he had wanted counted, he still would have lost Florida. Gore lost in 2000 because he couldn't carry his own home state. Period.
There were two different recounts of the disputed ballets. It was the media like I thought it was that was behind both recounts. Here is the relative segment:
"Ultimately, the Media Consortium hired the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago [5] to examine 175,010 ballots that were discounted; these ballots contained under-votes (votes with no choice made for president) and over-votes (votes made with more than one choice marked). Their goal was not to deduce who actually won the election but to determine the reliability and accuracy of the systems used for the voting process.
In the aftermath of the election, the first independent recount was conducted by The Miami Herald and USA Today. Counting only "undervotes" (when the vote is not detected by machine), and not considering "overvotes" (when a ballot ends up with more than one indication of a vote, for example both a punch-out and hand-written name, even if both indicating the same candidate)[36] Bush would have won in all legally requested recount scenarios.
If overvotes where the intent of the voter was clear were counted, using any consistent standard for 'clear intent of the voter', Gore would have won. This was not requested by either side at the time; the independent recount therefore led to a greater awareness of the issue of 'overvotes'.
Under the recount rules initially requested by Gore, Bush would have won, and under the rules requested by Bush, Gore would have won."
So where did Bush "steal" the election?
As for "he didn't win the popular vote. Well as you well know the popular vote doesn't elect the President. The electoral college does.
Get over it people. You all have been kicking this dead horse for eight long years now and you've been wrong for eight long years now. Gore had everything going for him. He was the incumbent Vice President, and he had Bill Clinton (and his infamous Clinton "machine") backing him. Gore didn't lose because Florida was "stolen" from him. He just didn't win Florida. And if the court had decided to count only the specific cherry picked ballets he had wanted counted, he still would have lost Florida. Gore lost in 2000 because he couldn't carry his own home state. Period.
SaltandPepper98 said:
No, actually the truth which has become conventional wisdom in this debate is that its the opposite...Gore actually won the popular vote no matter how you slice it, yet he still lost because of the way the electoral system works and how the vote certification process was FUBARED by Katherine Harris and then backed up by a conservative, suddenly legislative Supreme Court. ;-)
SaltandPepper98 said:
You consider the Wiki the authority on this issue? <snicker>
Again, this "historical record" of the event ignores the Choicepoint exclusion scandal. Google Choicepoint Election 2000 or Greg Palast, do some searching for the articles on salon.com. The so-called recounts you're speaking of ignore this issue.
Most of the people that apply for these oilfield positions are capable of working but cannot pass a drug screen. So many people are turned down due to the drugs. My husband is almost 52 years old. He had been doing insurance fraud Investigations for many years. We lost everything with Hurricane Rita and he lost his office and all equipment due to the tidal surge. He went into a totally different field and now is a manager for a oil company. Sometimes people have to make changes to get things in life. But in our area of Louisiana, there are so many people who would prefer sitting outside under a tree and let the government take care of them instead of trying to better their life. Sometimes change is good. Also he travels 260 miles from home to work for this Company.
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I love it. I seem to remember the democrats laughing when Clinton beat Bush spouting off that he lost, get over it. Funny how that joke only works one way.
That's one reason I try to avoid talking about politics. Most already have their minds made up and wouldn't change it for love or money. They can't discuss, they argue. On both sides. I include myself in that group too.
That's one reason I try to avoid talking about politics. Most already have their minds made up and wouldn't change it for love or money. They can't discuss, they argue. On both sides. I include myself in that group too.
Today, i thought i would put my money where my mouth is and knocked out two birds with one stone, that is of course the best way i can at this point. i bought a hybrid civic, good economically, gets about 45mpg, which means it is fuel efficient. this also means it, on average, has less impact on the environment compared to most cars in it's class. then i took my old civic, which i've had since my college days, and gave it to a family in need. well, i sold it to them for $1 so their registration would turn out to be 6 cents. they were a family from afghanistan, a young couple with 4 kids, that i always drove past waiting at the bus stop. i'm a traditionally christian guy helping out a traditionally muslim group. just thought once in a while we have to be human and forget everything other than what we see. i know you think i'm some tree hugging pinko.
even if the gov't ****** me to give it to them as long as the end result produced the same impact i would whole heartedly accept it!! not for argument just to mention something.
even if the gov't ****** me to give it to them as long as the end result produced the same impact i would whole heartedly accept it!! not for argument just to mention something.
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