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2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

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Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

I don't see your comment as an insult...but rather see your blindspot as naive. There is no comparison between liberals and conservatives on the matter.

National organization for marriage and Norquist both had purity pledges before the last election. Both are zero tolerance on compromise. Per Newsmax, 258 GOP in congress have signed the Norquist pledge. Where have liberals mandated that everyone in congress sign a similar zero tolerance/no compromise pledge? How many actually have?

Also Norquist has no problem trying to take down whomever in congress signed yet doesn't follow through on the pledge. Again which liberal organizations are actively out trying to take down democrats because they're too moderate? Tea party candidates have the same idea. They have had significant success in taking down more mainstream GOP candidates. And these candidates lost...not because they were bad politicians...but because they were moderates.

IMO the extreme right mirrors the extreme right in other countries such as those in the middle east. In a faar more exteme example, hard core conservative religious terrorists have no problem attacking their fellow moderates...and even do so by design...to discourage their cooperations with more liberal elements in their society. Sounds to me very much like what Norquist is trying to do to some conservatives' political careers.
I'm assuming you are a DFL party member in Minnesota. I think you should take a look at your bylaws.

Candidates follow the party platform or no endorsement. You help, support or personally endorse a candidate who happens to be running against the pure, endorsed candidate, they can take action against you. And they do.

Again, I'm not taking a shot at you, but anyone who thinks this game isn't played by both republicans and democrats has his or her head so far up their partisan azz that they can't see around their kidneys.

EDIT
 
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Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

It certainly is open hunting season on Christians, and I believe South Park has created satire on that a few times...

I have been pleasantly surprised at how sympathetic South Park has been to LDS members; they satirized other people's reactions to LDS instead.
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

I have been pleasantly surprised at how sympathetic South Park has been to LDS members; they satirized other people's reactions to LDS instead.

That's because as much as some may find their beliefs to be daffy, they're just really nice people. How can you make fun of them?
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

I'm assuming you are a DFL party member in Minnesota. I think you should take a look at your bylaws.

Candidates follow the party platform or no endorsement. You help, support or personally endorse a candidate who happens to be running against the pure, endorsed candidate, they can take action against you. And they do.

Again, I'm not taking a shot at you, but anyone who thinks this game isn't played by both republicans and democrats has his or her head so far up their partisan azz that they can't see around their kidneys.

EDIT

Sorry, signing up for a general party platform is an entirely different matter.

As the country faced $16T in debt, 97% of the congressional GOP signed a pledge coming from a real nobody saying something on the scale of 'we won't raise taxes or reduce deductions' one penny regardless of the implications to the country. And you're telling me Democrats would do something on this scale? Show evidence please.

The fiscal cliff issue is going to expose just how important the pledge is to the party. There is absolutely no solution to the debt problem that does not include increasing tax revenues to some extent.

The GOP is going to get what it deserves on this...again. The punishment will be coming from an electorate that is PO'd at the party for its ongoing inability to partner on a solution and/or from its purist side in the form of Norquist lowering the boom. Unfortanately, the country will be getting collateral damage due to the vise that the GOP continuously finds itself in. I know you don't see this...but the Dems do not have this problem.
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

The GOP is going to get what it deserves on this...again. The punishment will be coming from an electorate that is PO'd at the party for its ongoing inability to partner on a solution and/or from its purist side in the form of Norquist lowering the boom. Unfortanately, the country will be getting collateral damage due to the vise that the GOP continuously finds itself in. I know you don't see this...but the Dems do not have this problem.

I disagree. I think their problem is they can't find the government waste they keep talking about. They attack Social Security and Medicare all the time but don't have a credible solution to eliminating waste there so their method is to destroy. Their major cuts to the budget are always entitlements. They can't find a single dollar in the defense dept. that needs cutting. And all the other areas of government they cannot articulate a plan or a savings that meets the level of "waste" that they are harping about.

They always say the problem in Washington is the spending, and that we pay way too much in taxes already. Well, where are the cuts GOP? Let's see them.

Oh, and here's the clarifying caveat.

The GOP's big mantra is cut spending and NO increases to income taxes. Yet, the two programs they want to cut spending in are not funded from income taxes they're funded from payroll taxes. Yes, payroll taxes. And what is the most regressive tax we have in America? Why, it's the payroll tax.

So, when the GOP finally cuts spending in the areas that are NOT related to the payroll tax I'll find them credible. Until then they are completely full of ****.
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

I disagree. I think their problem is they can't find the government waste they keep talking about. They attack Social Security and Medicare all the time but don't have a credible solution to eliminating waste there so their method is to destroy. Their major cuts to the budget are always entitlements. They can't find a single dollar in the defense dept. that needs cutting. And all the other areas of government they cannot articulate a plan or a savings that meets the level of "waste" that they are harping about.

They always say the problem in Washington is the spending, and that we pay way too much in taxes already. Well, where are the cuts GOP? Let's see them.

Oh, and here's the clarifying caveat.

The GOP's big mantra is cut spending and NO increases to income taxes. Yet, the two programs they want to cut spending in are not funded from income taxes they're funded from payroll taxes. Yes, payroll taxes. And what is the most regressive tax we have in America? Why, it's the payroll tax.

So, when the GOP finally cuts spending in the areas that are NOT related to the payroll tax I'll find them credible. Until then they are completely full of ****.

Although they are not mainstream GOP, there are right-wing conservatives (Chuck Woolery being one) that are championing the Chilean model for Social Security. Once Chile went through this change, they balanced the budget. If stealing from other countries is the American way, perhaps we should do this. As for Medicare, I believe it is Herman Cain that has some good ideas for this one. Perhaps we should look at allowing options for those enrolled instead of trying to create a monopoly, because it's obvious the government can't handle it. Also with the changes that are done for Social Security from the Chilean model, we could apply these to how Medicare is funded.

If, after cuts are made, we still can't balance a budget, then we should look towards raising taxes. However, raise them across the board. If you try to push it all on the rich, they'll start to head out.
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

the two programs they want to cut spending in are not funded from income taxes they're funded from payroll taxes. Yes, payroll taxes. And what is the most regressive tax we have in America? Why, it's the payroll tax.

um, while that was the original plan, it's been superseded by a stealth raid on the so-called "Trust fund." Right now, all of Social Security / Medicare Trust fund assets are held in non-marketable US government debt. As payments to beneficiaries exceed inflows from payroll taxes, the difference is made up by replacing the non-marketable US debt securities by (what else?) conventional US debt securities. And guess where the revenue comes from that is needed to pay the interest on that new debt? well, sadly, about 40% of the interest payment on existing debt these days is financed by new debt, but in concept at least it would be income taxes.

Also, there are NO CUTS IN SPENDING! :mad: THE ONLY THING ON THE TABLE IS NEGOTIATION ABOUT THE FUTURE RATE OF SPENDING INCREASE! The so-called "cuts" are merely to reduce the future rate of growth, it is NOT a cut in the way a normal person would ever conceive of using the word.
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

um, while that was the original plan, it's been superseded by a stealth raid on the so-called "Trust fund." Right now, all of Social Security / Medicare Trust fund assets are held in non-marketable US government debt. As payments to beneficiaries exceed inflows from payroll taxes, the difference is made up by replacing the non-marketable US debt securities by (what else?) conventional US debt securities. And guess where the revenue comes from that is needed to pay the interest on that new debt? well, sadly, about 40% of the interest payment on existing debt these days is financed by new debt, but in concept at least it would be income taxes.

Also, there are NO CUTS IN SPENDING! :mad: THE ONLY THING ON THE TABLE IS NEGOTIATION ABOUT THE FUTURE RATE OF SPENDING INCREASE! The so-called "cuts" are merely to reduce the future rate of growth, it is NOT a cut in the way a normal person would ever conceive of using the word.

They're held in debt because the GOP refused to raise taxes to pay for their spending sprees while they were in office. See Reagan and Bush II for examples.

So, yes, now they need to raise income taxes to pay the treasury back OUR money for the things we already paid for through OUR regressive payroll tax system. Or they need to cut from things that are paid for through income taxes. Either way, the entitlements have nothing to do with it. It is so disingenuous for these clowns to be going to programs that are regressively paid for through payroll taxes for their balanced budget. I call BS, and it is BS.
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

Sorry, signing up for a general party platform is an entirely different matter.

As the country faced $16T in debt, 97% of the congressional GOP signed a pledge coming from a real nobody saying something on the scale of 'we won't raise taxes or reduce deductions' one penny regardless of the implications to the country. And you're telling me Democrats would do something on this scale? Show evidence please.

The fiscal cliff issue is going to expose just how important the pledge is to the party. There is absolutely no solution to the debt problem that does not include increasing tax revenues to some extent.

The GOP is going to get what it deserves on this...again. The punishment will be coming from an electorate that is PO'd at the party for its ongoing inability to partner on a solution and/or from its purist side in the form of Norquist lowering the boom. Unfortanately, the country will be getting collateral damage due to the vise that the GOP continuously finds itself in. I know you don't see this...but the Dems do not have this problem.
Signing a "pledge" or something like that in order to get elected, or in order to get re-elected, or for pretty much any other reason other than giving money to the March of Dimes, your University or public tv, is stupid. I don't care who does it.

But your original point was that only conservatives use some sort of purity test and actively seek to oust those members of their own party or persuasion who won't abide by it. That is simply false. As I pointed out in my edit, unions have used that tactic for years, as have groups on both sides of the political spectrum.

What we have seen with this tax group is they took the extra step of actually drafting a document and having the candidates sign it. That is, after they were promised something by the candidate, these voters decided to put it in writing.

That has created the interesting problem the republicans face now. Instead of doing what every other politician, republican and democrat, has done in the past and simply ignored or forgot about their promises once elected, these clowns were dumb enough to put it to paper.

I'll admit, the tax group was successful for a time getting these candidates to own up to their contract, but only because it was in writing.

For better or for worse democrats never got promises from their candidates in writing. It can be argued that's why a lot of things like higher minimum wages, changes to union organizing rules, etc..., never got dealt with. On the other hand, at least they didn't have some clown waving a contract in their face.
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

They're held in debt because the GOP refused to raise taxes to pay for their spending sprees while they were in office. See Reagan and Bush II for examples.

wow, you just can't help yourself, can you? you just make stuff up?

If you actually look at IRS data, tax revenues increased under Reagan; it's that spending increased even faster. So if you believe in evidence, you are wrong, especially as the Democrats controlled Congress for most of Reagan's two terms in office.

Tax revenues also increased under Bush II, and spending increased even more than revenues.

So, if you said "neither the Democrats nor the GOP could restrain themselves from increasing spending faster than revenues increased when they controlled Congress" you actually would have been accurate! :)
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

wow, you just can't help yourself, can you? you just make stuff up?

If you actually look at IRS data, tax revenues increased under Reagan; it's that spending increased even faster. So if you believe in evidence, you are wrong, especially as the Democrats controlled Congress for most of Reagan's two terms in office.

Tax revenues also increased under Bush II, and spending increased even more than revenues.

So, if you said "neither the Democrats nor the GOP could restrain themselves from increasing spending faster than revenues increased when they controlled Congress" you actually would have been accurate! :)

From 2004-2007, this is actually partially inaccurate. Spending did not increase more than revenues, since we saw a decline in the by-the-year deficit. http://www.davemanuel.com/history-of-deficits-and-surpluses-in-the-united-states.php
 
So if you believe in evidence, you are wrong, especially as the Democrats controlled Congress for most of Reagan's two terms in office.

Deceptive, as in fact the GOP controlled the Senate for the first 6 years of Reagan's term, making any increase in spending and deficits over that time 2/3rds GOP backed (Prez, Senate) with only 1/3rd Dem House control.

I think its an interesting piece of art. I think it could be interpreted many ways. One could interpret that Obama is under attack too much, that he is sacraficing himself for the greater good or even that he is like a god. Art can go too far by primarily just being demeaning...but this doesn't. Yet much of the greatness in art in general is in freedom of expression and freedom of interpretation.

To be fair, right wing hero and USCHO conservative icon has come up with his own "art" in response:

Saltz: Is Glenn Beck’s ‘Obama in Pee-Pee’ Actually Art?
• By Jerry Saltz


Amid the deluge of stories about the post-election meltdown of the right, last night we saw an epically demented manifestation of conservative America's mental breakdown. In an eleven-minute video, the fruitbat right-wing radio personality Glenn Beck donned a tweed jacket, then switched to a painter's smock and a red beret that made him look like a geezer Guardian Angel. He carried a pipe, and spoke in an accent that bounced back and forth between French, English, and his own American. And then Glenn Beck made a piece of art.
Inspired by the news story of Michael D'Antuono's long-hidden painting of a crucified Barack Obama finally emerging on the walls of a Boston community college art gallery, Beck set out to make a point about censorship and art and filth and liberals by using his own waste and trace amounts of satire. The segment started with a series of riffs: railing at people who portray nudes, then painting a thong on a print of a Rubens (whom he calls the "butt-crack guy") and adding a sweater and jeans to a Lucian Freud. He mentioned Picasso's Blue period, and carried on for awhile about painting out men's "ding-a-lings." And then Beck deliriously announced that he'd been working on a work of art of his own, "for quite a while — all day."
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Ambling over to a tall pedestal, he lovingly cupped his hands around a jar filled with yellow liquid. He announced that he'd been drinking a lot of water all day, that this was a jar of his own urine. He offered that this was his "yellow period," and told us it's "a warm piece of me," again seeming overinterested and excited, fondling the jar with both hands. Then he had an assistant bring him a little plastic figurine. It was a kind of dashboard Obama, maybe in a smock. Beck took the figure between his fingers, held it over the jar, and dropped it into the urine.

However, the little Obama did not sink. The moment was hilarious: Beck tried to push it down a few times, splashing himself in the process. Looking around, he asked for "a stick." He then walked over and got his paintbrush, and tried to submerge the figure a few times. It still floated. Wouldn't go down. Flustered, flummoxed, he announced, "We should have tried this before." Not knowing what to do, he screwed the lid on and christened it "Flobama." He then unveiled a label that had a different title on it, Obama in Pee Pee. The price was $25,000. He announced that if this work were to sell on eBay, he'd do one of Michelle Obama and her "little abs," and put it in a Dos Equis beer bottle. (The auction would be removed by eBay in midstream, though it continued on Beck's own site.)

But is it art, this potty spectacle of a white man ridiculing the work of black artist Andrès Serrano, placing a black man in a jar of urine (while also attacking the work of black artist Chris Ofili as an aside)? Well, as Beck sneers, "Art is in the eye of the beholder." Yep, and so is pornography, which this thing seems closer to: It's just as canned, conventional, predictable, and badly produced, and stars a bad actor. As art, Beck's Obama in Pee Pee looks rinky-dink and silly. More like a party favor or a tchotchke. Boring bad art, plain and simple. Terrible sculpture, regardless of politics.

Yet Beck's goody-two-shoes censuring of the Rubens and Freud nudes has something truly possessed and bizarre about it. A fear of sex this latent but pronounced makes for a fantastically charged visual paradox. Plus, Beck's brushwork is so flippant and slapdash that it somehow goes well on the reproductions — even adds to them. Beck obviously has several screws loose; he can't think his work through, and doesn't know when to stop. But if he concentrates, rounds up all the many nudes he disapproves of from art history, and covers them up with paint in ways that he finds more appropriate, I would love to see a show of these paintings and write about it. His blackboards that demonstrate the ways in which Democrats are Maoists or Communists, or prove that Obama is a Nigerian set on overthrowing the United States, are true masterpieces of paranoid-delusion, works that I would gladly see in any museum. Beck is an artist; just not in the way he thinks he is.
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

wow, you just can't help yourself, can you? you just make stuff up?

If you actually look at IRS data, tax revenues increased under Reagan; it's that spending increased even faster. So if you believe in evidence, you are wrong, especially as the Democrats controlled Congress for most of Reagan's two terms in office.

Tax revenues also increased under Bush II, and spending increased even more than revenues.

So, if you said "neither the Democrats nor the GOP could restrain themselves from increasing spending faster than revenues increased when they controlled Congress" you actually would have been accurate! :)

The Democrats are NOT the ones saying they can't increase taxes to pay for their spending. Thus they're not part of this discussion. The fact that you and Grover fail to get that is beyond human comprehension. If you're going to sit on your high horse and say no new taxes we have plenty of money than you also have to pass a budget that makes significant cuts. The Ryan budget failed. Not only did it fail but it epic failed. He only went after one program and it was a program that has a separate funding source from income taxes. Where were his cuts to things directly affected by income taxes????
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

Ryan Budget failed? I don't think it ever got to the President's desk. I think we'll find that the ACA will be a failure. I think the Patriot Act is a failure.

Any law that expands the power of the Federal Government because its good for us is a failure. We've become way too dependent on DC. Trouble is it appears we don't want to change the model.
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

Ryan Budget failed? I don't think it ever got to the President's desk. I think we'll find that the ACA will be a failure. I think the Patriot Act is a failure.

Any law that expands the power of the Federal Government because its good for us is a failure. We've become way too dependent on DC. Trouble is it appears we don't want to change the model.

Let me clarify. Ryan budget failed to live up to ANY of the GOP's mantra about how we spend too much money and we tax way too much.
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

The Democrats are NOT the ones saying they can't increase taxes to pay for their spending. Thus they're not part of this discussion. The fact that you and Grover fail to get that is beyond human comprehension. If you're going to sit on your high horse and say no new taxes we have plenty of money than you also have to pass a budget that makes significant cuts.

um, the republicans offered up a significant increase in tax revenues through capping deductions.

What is so hard for you to understand? Generally there is an inverse relationship between tax rates and tax revenues. your posts consistently lack specificity on this essential distinction making them really hard to follow.

generally you want people to buy less of something, you increase its price. that does make sense to you, no?

higher tax rates = higher price. increase tax rates, you get less of what is taxed. how hard is that to understand? :confused: you see it over and over and over and over.

look at the 1991 tax on yachts; it brought in $0 in revenue despite the 10% excise tax it imposed. why? rich people merely bought their yachts overseas. meanwhile it nearly destroyed the US boat-building industry which since has revived quite nicely since the tax was repealed.

PBS did a great documentary on the subject: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/gover...get_01-01.html


We are seeing exactly the same thing play out now as far as corporate stock dividends are concerned. several companies have moved their January 2013 dividend payment forward to december 2012. several other companies are making large one-time dividend distributions in december 2012. Why? because the Federal tax rate on dividends is currently 15% and it is slated to increase to 43.4% :eek: in 2013. How many dividends do you expect to be paid out in 2013 under that regime? companies will merely keep their cash instead, and tax revenues from dividends will drop substantially.

and why? what is the point? distort rational economic decision making by thrusting a huge tax wedge in the middle? that does no one any good. you will even hurt yourself by how vigorously you pat yourself on the back. it's just [aaargh!]
 
Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...

um, the republicans offered up a significant increase in tax revenues through capping deductions.

What is so hard for you to understand? Generally there is an inverse relationship between tax rates and tax revenues. your posts consistently lack specificity on this essential distinction making them really hard to follow.

generally you want people to buy less of something, you increase its price. that does make sense to you, no?

higher tax rates = higher price. increase tax rates, you get less of what is taxed. how hard is that to understand? :confused: you see it over and over and over and over.

look at the 1991 tax on yachts; it brought in $0 in revenue despite the 10% excise tax it imposed. why? rich people merely bought their yachts overseas. meanwhile it nearly destroyed the US boat-building industry which since has revived quite nicely since the tax was repealed.

PBS did a great documentary on the subject: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/gover...get_01-01.html


We are seeing exactly the same thing play out now as far as corporate stock dividends are concerned. several companies have moved their January 2013 dividend payment forward to december 2012. several other companies are making large one-time dividend distributions in december 2012. Why? because the Federal tax rate on dividends is currently 15% and it is slated to increase to 43.4% :eek: in 2013. How many dividends do you expect to be paid out in 2013 under that regime? companies will merely keep their cash instead, and tax revenues from dividends will drop substantially.

and why? what is the point? distort rational economic decision making by thrusting a huge tax wedge in the middle? that does no one any good. you will even hurt yourself by how vigorously you pat yourself on the back. it's just [aaargh!]

It's only 15% if you hold onto the stock for 61 days within a 121-day period encircling the ex-Dividend date. Plus, if you get the dividend through a Roth IRA, you're taxed 0% on it.

As for your question of number of dividends paid, I don't think it'll change. Companies aren't going to all of a sudden stop paying dividends because of a tax that doesn't apply to them. They've already paid taxes on it through the corporate tax on gains, regardless of whether or not the concept of qualified dividends applies. Also, the large tax increase is only applied to long term gains. Sure, people will sell the long term stuff to lock in the lower rate, but that doesn't mean the money will disappear. Investors aren't dumb; they know they won't be able to make money with CDs. They'll still be in the stock market, but you're going to see more volume, since there's no longer a reason to not wait the 61 days for an ex-dividend trade.
 
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