The Party of NO™ has once again decided to take up the "GM should go bankrupt" mantra. Earlier today on the Fox Noise channel John McCain and John Boehner picked up where Richard Shelby and Bob Corker left off a few weeks ago.
General Motors should hand over the factory keys to a bankruptcy court, two top Republicans said Sunday.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the best thing for the ailing automaker to do would be to go into Chapter 11 to reorganize some of its business agreements and come out stronger than before.
"I think the best thing that could probably happen to General Motors, in my view, is they go into Chapter 11, they reorganize, they renegotiate ... the union-management contracts and come out of it a stronger, better, leaner, more competitive automotive industry," McCain told "FOX News Sunday."
Let's face it, this is noting but a cheap attempt at union busting. The Republicans want to pretend the UAW doesn't exist and pay everyone minimum wage. This is contempt for people who have built a middle class life --- the old fashioned way --- by working. They want the workers to bear the brunt of GM's problems. And by doing so, they inflict a double whammy. DNC Chair Tim Kaine made this point in the same interview:
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said GM's failing can be attributed to the overwhelming cost of health care.
The same Republican menagerie is steadfast against addressing our nation's heath care woes. Specifically, there are over 45 million people without any sort of health insurance. In addition, corporate contributions to employee and retiree healthcare make American corporations uncompetitive in a global economy.
Dean Baker from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (and a native Michigander by the way) presents a good analysis of the situation at Talking Points Memo. He points out that GM is not responsible for everything that has brought them to the edge of bankruptcy.
Most obviously, they are not responsible for the collapse of the housing bubble and the subsequent loss of more than $15 trillion in housing and stock wealth. This falloff in wealth has sent consumption plummeting. The auto industry has been especially hard hit, with sales falling by more than 30 percent year over year in the last two months.
The Big Three are also not responsible for the broken U.S. health care system. If we paid the same amount for health care as Canada, G.M. would have accumulated an additional $22 billion in profits over the last decade. That would be the savings if we assumed that General Motor's health care expenditures were reduced by roughly 48 percent to be in line with expenses in Canada. Of course, not all the savings in this counterfactual would have gone to profits. Some of it would have gone to workers in the form of higher wages or to consumers in the form of lower car prices.
And, don't forget GM is also picking up the tab for healthcare costs for the spouses (and dependents) of both employees and retirees. That's something else automakers don't have to be concerned about as they negotiate a contract in Canada.
Baker continues with an even more powerful argument.
But the real reason that Big Three are on their deathbeds right now is the economic crisis created by the Wall Street crew and their friends in Washington. It will be tragic if the people of the Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio are made to suffer through a depression because of the failed financial dealings of the Wall Street crew.
This situation is made even worse by virtue of the fact that most of the Wall Street executives who are directly responsible for this disaster are still quite wealthy, in large part because of the generosity of Congress and the Bush administration. While they demanded that the auto manufacturers produce plans for returning to profitability in exchange for providing loans, no similar conditions were imposed on Citigroup and the rest of the Wall Street gang.
Our middle class is quickly disappearing. We're close to a country with a few "haves" and mostly "have nots."
Many of the politicians who were elected to represent us don't. Thursday's Congressional vote on H.R. 1106, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009, is just one recent and important example. Michigan has 15 Congressmen. Seven voted no and one didn't bother to vote. It's time for them to go.
He nails some of the key problems with the Republican party (to name a recent few). He directly calls the republican party out for their textbook propaganda and fear-mongering. Saw it on Huff Po.
It's over the top that his campaign made them, but to defend them is poor judgment --- at best.
If you can't stomach watching a video from FOX, here's the synopsis of McCain's justification:
Bush's robocalls against McCain in 2000: Vile
McCain's robocalls against Obama in 2008: Completely legitimate and truthful.
Now that he's told Chris Wallace, on the air that, he (Wallace) doesn't understand what a legitimate campaign issue is, Ol' John may not have any friends left, anywhere.
By the way, McCain hired the same guy who made those 2000 calls against him to do his calls against Obama.
Barack Obama hammered John McCain this evening --- even among undecideds who were leaning McCain prior to the debate. Ol' John needed a game changer. He didn't get it on any issue.
"Joe, the Plumber," the campaign's attempt at painting a voter's face, fell flat. McCain's facial expressions drew snickers at focus groups. And, listeners were dismissively told health concerns of pregnant women aren't legitimate.
Pollster Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner reported, as did other polls --- including FOX, that the results looked more decisive than the first two debates. In fact, McCain continued to lose favorability tonight.
In a post debate conference call Greenberg said that among his Denver focus group of McCain leaning undecideds McCain lost 18 favorability points over the course of the evening while Obama gained 30. Coming into the debate the majority of group members were more comfortable with McCain. By the end of the debate, they were more comfortable with Obama.
As Bob Schieffer, the moderator, asked his last question on education, Obama was dialing (that's the hand gizmo the focus group members use to record favorability of the speaker) 80 on a scale of one to a hundred. That's unheard of.
In the words of Yogi Berra, "You can observe a lot by just watching." That's something the voters are doing this election cycle.
Yogi also said "It ain't over till it's over." There's still twenty days until the election. Keep on knocking on doors. We need a landslide when it's over.
By now I'm sure most have heard about McCain defending Obama at a recent Town Hall Meeting, or as it has lately become a "Lynch Mob Meeting", when a apparently confused Lady called Obama a "Arab" who she does not trust. Now McCain quickly took the microphone away from the Confused Lady, and stated that Obama was not a Arab, but a good decent family man, who he just has fundamental disagreements with.
Now I applaud McCain for doing the right thing. I mean over the last week the 'lynch mob's' at his rallies have screamed out "terrorist", "traitor", and "Arab". If we look at this in a fair way, some of those on the right have lost any ability to think or be rational. However as much as I appreciate what McCain said, I wonder what sort of message this sends. The attack was 'Obama is a Arab', McCain's response was that Obama is not a Arab, but a good decent family man. Are we to assume that Arab's are not good decent family orientated people? Now I'm sure that is not what McCain was implying, but if I take myself and put myself in the shoes of someone who might be Arab, I have to say such a statement could really be offensive.
I think the ultimate problem is we as Americans associate terrorism with Arabs. Sorry folks terrorism existed long before 9-11, and Osama Bin Laden. Terrorism is not limited to one religion, in fact I would argue that on different levels, almost all of the major religions have dipped their hand into terrorism, especially fundamentalist, whether that terrorism is done through bombs, or social oppression.
Obviously those on the far right have a extreme hatred for Obama, some of it is race related, and some of it is spurred on by smear tactics, some tactics that even John McCain is responsible for. If John McCain wants to really stand up against the lies and smears of his own party, he can start with his own ads that are leading the charge, as well as Sarah Palin.
A desperate John McCain now ratchets up the rhetoric. He is responsible for the veiled racism seen in his new attack on our next president Barrack Obama. McCain in desperation is pushing Obamas link to a 1970's radical, a PhD he met on a community project well after the 70's. The pathetically worried republicans are trying to label Obama as a terrorist sympathizer. As our next Vice President Biden recently stated" McCain is an erratic candidate who sees the presidency slipping from his grasp"
Posted here by
Terry Bankert 10/09/08
Contact through; Google ,attorneybankert
John McCain's temper is more than just a rumor. This video features a number of people who have been on the receiving end of his outbursts. Please watch it and pass the link along to anyone who might still be considering a vote for McCain in November.
A hat tip to Robert Greenwald and the folks at the Brave New PAC for putting this together.
John McCain is fond of boasting that he "knows how to win wars," but in his own campaign for president, he's committed a George Armstrong Custer-grade blunder: opting to accept public funding. The apparent strategy was to convince voters that Barack Obama had gone back on his promise--which he never made--to stay within the public-funding system.
I first became acquainted with Nate Silver through baseball. He's been a contributor to The Baseball Prospectus and various other number-crunching books about baseball--which helped keep the Tigers' disappointing performance from distracting me too much. Since then, he's branched out into another form of inside baseball: crunching the political poll numbers and offering his analysis. He's created a website called FiveThirtyEight.com, which is a stats freak's delight.
This afternoon, Silver offers his thoughts weighed in on John McCain's decision to pull out of Michigan....
If you remember about 6 months ago the far right was going nuts because Obama was not wearing flag pin. However over the last few months I have noticed Obama is wearing his flag pin, but John McCain is not. Last night at the Debate, I once again noticed that McCain was not wearing a flag pin.
So here is how I see it, if Obama was somehow not American enough, not Patriotic enough, not good enough to hold the Presidency because he did not wear a flag pin, than neither is John McCain. Maybe John McCain can be harassed by the far right, maybe Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh can demonize him for a change. The way I see it, until McCain wears a flag pin, in the good ole' boy tradition of the far right, he is just not good enough to be in the White House!
Rumors of Phil Gramm's political death have been exaggerated. The former Texas senator, who served as John McCain's economic advisor until he reached his level of incompetence as an armchair psychiatrist and called America a nation of whiners, is back. Dr. Gramm celebrated his return from exile with a starring role on the op-ed page of today's Wall Street Journal.
Sarah Palin's idea of an expense report leaves a funny taste in my mouth. She doesn't think the government should be paying for programs like public health care, and yet she finds herself charging the state for things such as sleeping in her own home and staying in extremely expensive hotels.
ANCHORAGE, Sept. 8 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.
...
Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.
The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.
Jessica Van Sack, a blogger at the Boston Herald, has posted a memo that lists ten instances in which John McCain unleashed his famous temper--at fellow Republicans.
And fittingly, for a candidate who sang "Bomb, Bomb Iran" on the campaign trail, he's quick to drop the F-bomb when angry. In fact, item number one on the list: "Defending His Amnesty Bill, Sen. McCain Lost His Temper And "Screamed, 'F*ck You!' At Texas Sen. John Cornyn" (R-TX)."
You can read the entire list of McCain explosions here
Oh, I almost forgot. The list was supposedly prepared by aides to Willard "Mitt" Romney, who's still said to be on McCain's short list for the vice-presidential nomination.
If you only forward one email this year, make it this one... America needs to know the truth about John Sidney McCain III and the disaster that awaits us if he becomes president.
DID YOU KNOW? John McCain came back from Vietnam and cheated on his disabled wife before leaving her and his three children and marrying a rich heiress 17 years his junior. McCain obtained a marriage license for his second marriage while he was still married to his first wife. (1)
DID YOU KNOW? The McCains own ten homes, valued at more than $13 million, including TWO swanky beachfront condos in California. The McCains failed to pay taxes on one of those beach homes for the past four years. (2)(3)
DID YOU KNOW? The McCains have been known to charge hundreds of thousands of dollars IN A SINGLE MONTH on their credit cards. (4)
DID YOU KNOW? John McCain's chief economic adviser, rich Swiss Bank lobbyist Phil Gramm, recently told the Washington Times that the current economic crisis is a "mental recession" and said that America is a "nation of whiners." (5)
DID YOU KNOW? Earlier this year John McCain said, "I don't believe we're headed into a recession, I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong and I believe they will remain strong." He also stated that, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should." (6)
DID YOU KNOW? John McCain regularly plays craps for "a few thousand dollars at a time." He loves to gamble and is extremely superstitious. (7)(8)
DID YOU KNOW? John McCain recently called Social Security "an absolute disgrace." McCain was a big supporter of President Bush's unpopular plan to ditch Social Security and replace it with private accounts. (9)(10)
DID YOU KNOW? American taxpayers spend $340 million EVERY SINGLE DAY in Iraq. Yet John McCain thinks it would be okay to keep our brave troops there for up to "one hundred years." (11)(12)
DID YOU KNOW? Disabled American Veterans give John McCain a 20% rating on his voting record for Veterans, the worst score among all 100 senators (tied with Mike Crapo and Larry Craig). The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave him a "D" rating. (13)(14)
DID YOU KNOW? John McCain says he wants to save the environment, but the League of Conservation Voters currently ranks him DEAD LAST among all 535 members of Congress, with a 0% rating. (15)
DID YOU KNOW? McCain has failed to vote on the last 19 environmental bills in the Senate, dating back to 2005. (16)
DID YOU KNOW? Every single day for the first four months of this year 1.6 million barrels of U.S. oil were exported to foreign countries - up 33% from last year - while our gas prices continue to go through the roof. The McCain/Bush solution is to give big oil companies even more opportunities to pollute our coastlines and despoil the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (17)(18)
DID YOU KNOW? The Department of Energy estimates that if we start the McCain/Bush offshore drilling plan today, we could lower gas prices by 6 cents - but not until the year 2025. (19)
DID YOU KNOW? John McCain, like George W. Bush, supports using the form of torture known as waterboarding. (20)
DID YOU KNOW? John McCain will continue George W. Bush's "rich get richer, poor get poorer" fiscal policies. If you make under $112,000 per year you will pay HIGHER taxes under John McCain than under Barack Obama. One quarter of McCain's tax breaks go to people making more than $2.8 million per year. (21)
I don't know why Republicans think killing people is funny, or why it should even be a joke, from the same people who claim to be pro-life. However McCain thinks killing Iranians is really funny, in fact he had a website on his campaign page just dedicated to the "Top Ten Funniest Ways To Kill Iranians". Now since than the page has been removed so you can't see it, but a video of him joking about killing the Iranians still exist:
