USA Politics
- Thread starter Genghis Khan
- Start date
Just goes to show that historical ignorance abounds in every political party, state, and demographic in the Union.
This is also true.
As an aside, did anyone else see Michelle Obama's speech? I was utterly flabbergasted by the quality of it. I was less impressed by some of the earlier speakers, but I was favourable to Mayor Castro, but Michelle knocked it out of the park. She did a great job humanizing Obama whilst hammering Romney without mentioning his name - in other words, exactly what a speech should be.
I also was very moved by the Ted Kennedy memorial video.
As an aside, did anyone else see Michelle Obama's speech? I was utterly flabbergasted by the quality of it. I was less impressed by some of the earlier speakers, but I was favourable to Mayor Castro, but Michelle knocked it out of the park. She did a great job humanizing Obama whilst hammering Romney without mentioning his name - in other words, exactly what a speech should be.
I also was very moved by the Ted Kennedy memorial video.
Forostar
Ancient Mariner
Yes, (saw it; see previous page ;-), she spoke very well. I really liked the way she opposed Romney's "values".
I am mighty curious what most Americans will choose. In other words:
This touches the core of what people find important, this is what the elections are really about.
I am mighty curious what most Americans will choose. In other words:
This touches the core of what people find important, this is what the elections are really about.
bearfan
Ancient Mariner
She did give a good speech, Ann Romney did as well. As for the Castro speech, parts were good. But, I guess we should go look at the fact checker sites ... they have a fair amount to say about it. I will note, I am glad the fact checkers left the Ann Romney and Michelle Obama speeches alone.
It will be interesting to see what Clinton has to say, but since tonight is the first NFL game, I'll probably just read it tomorrow.
It will be interesting to see what Clinton has to say, but since tonight is the first NFL game, I'll probably just read it tomorrow.
I'll probably watch it on YouTube. I'm curious to see what Warren says as well.
bearfan
Ancient Mariner
So, what that report is actually saying that "The US government will continue to own shares of GM until they can sell for cost." Which may be meaningless, if GM's stock rebounds in the next few years.
Bill Clinton, by the way, made the best case for Obama I've seen yet in a speech. Bill fucking Clinton. Knocked it out of the park last night.
Bill Clinton, by the way, made the best case for Obama I've seen yet in a speech. Bill fucking Clinton. Knocked it out of the park last night.
No, no they don't.
Bloomberg finds no false claims. Neither does Factcheck.org - rhetorical devices, yes, but nothing compared to Paul Ryan's lies. Fox News doesn't cover the speech heavily, and they aren't slamming him on falsehoods - which they would absolutely do if they thought they had a leg to stand on. ABC gives him a good grade. And finally, the AP brought up the Lewinsky scandal, rather than criticise Clinton's speech. Did he do some stretching of the truth? Yes, of course he did - he's a politician. But he didn't break it. Not like it was broken by Ryan.
Bloomberg finds no false claims. Neither does Factcheck.org - rhetorical devices, yes, but nothing compared to Paul Ryan's lies. Fox News doesn't cover the speech heavily, and they aren't slamming him on falsehoods - which they would absolutely do if they thought they had a leg to stand on. ABC gives him a good grade. And finally, the AP brought up the Lewinsky scandal, rather than criticise Clinton's speech. Did he do some stretching of the truth? Yes, of course he did - he's a politician. But he didn't break it. Not like it was broken by Ryan.
bearfan
Ancient Mariner
The Washington Post Fact checker nailed him on all the same types of things they nailed Ryan on, omitting facts, using questionable number, etc.
Fact check link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...f7e1-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_blog.html?hpid=z2
Note they said they were not done going through the speech yet because it ran pretty late
Clinton can speak as much as he wants, on balance he was a pretty solid President, the problem Obama has is the last 4 years of Obama. I expect he will give a speech that is wonderful (like the 2008 one was), but the economy is still what the conomy is, his biggest achievement (Health Care) is still unpopular, and poll after poll shows Romney is more trusted with the economy. That is not going to change, the challenge for Romney is to boost "likeable" at least a bit and do well in the debates and he is in good shape going into November. This election will most likely be much like the 2004 election in terms of closeness and be decided pretty late in the game.
Fact check link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...f7e1-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_blog.html?hpid=z2
Note they said they were not done going through the speech yet because it ran pretty late
Clinton can speak as much as he wants, on balance he was a pretty solid President, the problem Obama has is the last 4 years of Obama. I expect he will give a speech that is wonderful (like the 2008 one was), but the economy is still what the conomy is, his biggest achievement (Health Care) is still unpopular, and poll after poll shows Romney is more trusted with the economy. That is not going to change, the challenge for Romney is to boost "likeable" at least a bit and do well in the debates and he is in good shape going into November. This election will most likely be much like the 2004 election in terms of closeness and be decided pretty late in the game.
bearfan
Ancient Mariner
Already some nice fact checking on Obama's speech from the portions that were released to the media. -- correction, these are snippets from his stump speeches
“Four years ago, I promised that I would cut middle-class taxes. And the average middle-class family, their taxes are about $3,600 lower than when I came into office. Now I want to keep taxes exactly where they are on the first $250,000 of everybody’s income. So if you’re a family making under $250,000 — which is 98 percent of American families — you won’t see your income taxes go up by one single dime.”
Obama mixes up some apples and oranges here. The $3,600 figure is over four years — $800 in each of 2009 and 2010 due to the Making Work Pay tax credit and $1,000 in each of 2011 and 2012 due to a Social Security payroll tax cut. Obama makes it sounds as though workers got a $3,600 cut every year.
But the Making Work Pay tax credit has expired and Obama has not promised to extend the payroll tax cut, meaning that people’s taxes will go up next year even if he succeeds in his effort to extend Bush-era tax cuts for those earning less than $250,000 a year.
“I’m also going to ask anybody making over $250,000 a year to go back to the tax rates they were paying under Bill Clinton.”
Here, Obama is defending his proposal to boost taxes on the wealthy by noting that the tax rate would be the same as under Clinton. The Bush tax cut set the top income-tax rate at 35 percent, and Obama would restore it to the 39.6 percent rate set during Clinton’s presidency.
But while Social Security taxes are capped, there is no cap on Medicare payroll taxes — also a legacy of Bill Clinton’s 1993 deficit-reduction deal. And Obama does not mention that the health care law included a 0.9 percent Medicare surtax on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples filing joint returns. When the full payroll tax is included, the marginal tax rate would be nearly 45 percent.
He’s earned Two Pinocchios in the past for his slippery language on this issue.
“Governor Romney brags about his private sector experience, but it was mostly investing in companies, some of which were called ‘pioneers’ of outsourcing. I don’t want to be a pioneer of outsourcing. I want to insource.”
Here, Obama is referencing an article in The Washington Post that has been frequently exploited by his campaign. The article used the word “pioneers” but it does not say that transfers of U.S. jobs took place while Romney ran the private equity firm Bain Capital.
Instead, the article says that Bain was prescient in identifying an emerging business trend — the movement of back-office, customer service and other functions out of companies that were willing to let third parties handle that business. Several of the companies mentioned in the article grew into major international players in the outsourcing offshoring field.
One of the president's campaign ads attacking Romney on outsourcing earned Four Pinocchios.
Obama never mentions another Washington Post article, one that detailed how he has not been able to fulfill many of his campaign promises in 2008 to stem the outflow of American jobs to other countries.
“Nearly 7 million young people have health insurance because they’re able to stay on their parents’ plans.”
Obama has framed this assertion different ways, sometimes more accurately than the quotation above.
The Department of Health and Human Services in June reported that more than 3 million young adults would not have health insurance without the health-care law.
So how does Obama get to say that nearly 7 million “have health insurance” because of the law?
That’s because he is relying on a private survey, published by the Commonwealth Fund, that showed that 6.6 million young adults “stayed on or joined their parents’ health plans” in 2011.
Not all of those people were uninsured; some simply joined their parents’ plans for other reasons. The HHS report notes this fact in a footnote: “This number exceeds our calculation because it includes some individuals who were already insured, often through their own private coverage.”
Obama is more accurate when he frames his quotation this way: “Nearly 7 million young people can stay on their parents’ plan because of the health-care law I passed.”
“Over the last three and a half years, we have focused on righting the ship, making sure that we didn’t slip into a depression, saving an auto industry, creating 4.5 million new jobs, getting health care done, helping young people go to college.”
The president loves this jobs figure — and it is has already been cited many times at the Democratic National Convention. But it is quite misleading, because it refers to private sector jobs, not all jobs, and because it is based on a date (February 2010) that puts the president’s jobs record in the best possible light.
The total number of jobs--private and government-- created in the United States from February 2010 is 4 million.
The job growth number is still negative if you start counting frm the beginning of Obama’s presidency.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job creation in Obama’s entire presidency is plus or minus a few hundred thousand jobs, depending on whether you date his presidency from January or February of 2009. At this point, Obama is on track to have the worst jobs record of any president since World War II.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...f7a3-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_blog.html?hpid=z2
“Four years ago, I promised that I would cut middle-class taxes. And the average middle-class family, their taxes are about $3,600 lower than when I came into office. Now I want to keep taxes exactly where they are on the first $250,000 of everybody’s income. So if you’re a family making under $250,000 — which is 98 percent of American families — you won’t see your income taxes go up by one single dime.”
Obama mixes up some apples and oranges here. The $3,600 figure is over four years — $800 in each of 2009 and 2010 due to the Making Work Pay tax credit and $1,000 in each of 2011 and 2012 due to a Social Security payroll tax cut. Obama makes it sounds as though workers got a $3,600 cut every year.
But the Making Work Pay tax credit has expired and Obama has not promised to extend the payroll tax cut, meaning that people’s taxes will go up next year even if he succeeds in his effort to extend Bush-era tax cuts for those earning less than $250,000 a year.
“I’m also going to ask anybody making over $250,000 a year to go back to the tax rates they were paying under Bill Clinton.”
Here, Obama is defending his proposal to boost taxes on the wealthy by noting that the tax rate would be the same as under Clinton. The Bush tax cut set the top income-tax rate at 35 percent, and Obama would restore it to the 39.6 percent rate set during Clinton’s presidency.
But while Social Security taxes are capped, there is no cap on Medicare payroll taxes — also a legacy of Bill Clinton’s 1993 deficit-reduction deal. And Obama does not mention that the health care law included a 0.9 percent Medicare surtax on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples filing joint returns. When the full payroll tax is included, the marginal tax rate would be nearly 45 percent.
He’s earned Two Pinocchios in the past for his slippery language on this issue.
“Governor Romney brags about his private sector experience, but it was mostly investing in companies, some of which were called ‘pioneers’ of outsourcing. I don’t want to be a pioneer of outsourcing. I want to insource.”
Here, Obama is referencing an article in The Washington Post that has been frequently exploited by his campaign. The article used the word “pioneers” but it does not say that transfers of U.S. jobs took place while Romney ran the private equity firm Bain Capital.
Instead, the article says that Bain was prescient in identifying an emerging business trend — the movement of back-office, customer service and other functions out of companies that were willing to let third parties handle that business. Several of the companies mentioned in the article grew into major international players in the outsourcing offshoring field.
One of the president's campaign ads attacking Romney on outsourcing earned Four Pinocchios.
Obama never mentions another Washington Post article, one that detailed how he has not been able to fulfill many of his campaign promises in 2008 to stem the outflow of American jobs to other countries.
“Nearly 7 million young people have health insurance because they’re able to stay on their parents’ plans.”
Obama has framed this assertion different ways, sometimes more accurately than the quotation above.
The Department of Health and Human Services in June reported that more than 3 million young adults would not have health insurance without the health-care law.
So how does Obama get to say that nearly 7 million “have health insurance” because of the law?
That’s because he is relying on a private survey, published by the Commonwealth Fund, that showed that 6.6 million young adults “stayed on or joined their parents’ health plans” in 2011.
Not all of those people were uninsured; some simply joined their parents’ plans for other reasons. The HHS report notes this fact in a footnote: “This number exceeds our calculation because it includes some individuals who were already insured, often through their own private coverage.”
Obama is more accurate when he frames his quotation this way: “Nearly 7 million young people can stay on their parents’ plan because of the health-care law I passed.”
“Over the last three and a half years, we have focused on righting the ship, making sure that we didn’t slip into a depression, saving an auto industry, creating 4.5 million new jobs, getting health care done, helping young people go to college.”
The president loves this jobs figure — and it is has already been cited many times at the Democratic National Convention. But it is quite misleading, because it refers to private sector jobs, not all jobs, and because it is based on a date (February 2010) that puts the president’s jobs record in the best possible light.
The total number of jobs--private and government-- created in the United States from February 2010 is 4 million.
The job growth number is still negative if you start counting frm the beginning of Obama’s presidency.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job creation in Obama’s entire presidency is plus or minus a few hundred thousand jobs, depending on whether you date his presidency from January or February of 2009. At this point, Obama is on track to have the worst jobs record of any president since World War II.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...f7a3-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_blog.html?hpid=z2
When I read the Washington Post article, I saw that all the claims they hit Clinton for were ones the other organizations had pretty much mentioned. It's a matter of spin, not accuracy, I think.
What someone needs to do is create a factcheck amalgamator like Metacritic, but for factcheckers, and see what the various factcheckers find, from all the major organizations that do it.
What someone needs to do is create a factcheck amalgamator like Metacritic, but for factcheckers, and see what the various factcheckers find, from all the major organizations that do it.
Onhell
Infinite Dreamer
Finally somebody mentions the DNC! So here is my take on it. The RNC wasn't exactly a snooze-fest, but the DNC looks like a rave in comparison. AFTER the speeches the RNC was lambasted for lying and "stretching" the truth. after the DNC the media was having a love affair with the analysis and post analysis praising every single speaker, specifically Michelle Obama. Clinton's was great too giving actual FACTS and numbers about BOTH the democratic and republican economic plans. But to be fair I decided to put on Fox news to see what they would say. Their complaint? Why was God not mentioned in the platform... SERIOUSLY? That's the best you got? I don't care how religious the United States pretends to be, when we are facing unemployment, major competition from foreign markets and wrapping up two wars... does the mention of god really matter? I'm sure even if they had mentioned him they would have gotten shit for mentioning him/her/it x amount of times instead of y.
Obama's speech was very good too. I think the Democrats solidified their base in a much better way than the republicans did, but we have to remember this is merely the beginning. We still have the debates to look forward to.
Obama's speech was very good too. I think the Democrats solidified their base in a much better way than the republicans did, but we have to remember this is merely the beginning. We still have the debates to look forward to.
bearfan
Ancient Mariner
60 Days to go until the election ... The debates should be inetersting and may very well decide this. I sometimes feel bad that I do not live in any kind of swing state, but then I feel very sorry for the deluge of ads that are about to bombard people in Ohio, Iowa, Florida, etc. Just the primary Senate ads were plenty for me this year. With no real contested races House level and up near me, it should be a pretty quiet time between now and November.
I believe it is time again for the Maiden Fans Debate Drinking Game!
Last election, Loosey, Cornfed and I were in the chat, watching debates and drinking... well, Cornfed wasnt, he was at work. Then the convo got weird
Anyway, Rules?
Last election, Loosey, Cornfed and I were in the chat, watching debates and drinking... well, Cornfed wasnt, he was at work. Then the convo got weird
Anyway, Rules?