A good, if bitter, laugh

Obama and the dictators

Obama's intent, then and now

Re Kausfiles:

[T]he supreme court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of basic issues of political and economic justice in this society and to that extent as radical as people try to characterize the warren court it wasnt that radical ... it didnt break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the constituion at least as it has been interpreted and the warren court interpreted it generally in the same way that the constitution is a document of negative liberties

Since Obama is rejecting the idea of pursuing "redistributive change" through the courts, what difference does it make whether this change was narrow and procedural (Reich) or dramatic and substantive (Michelman)

###

But is he rejecting the idea? I read him as simply saying the Warren Court would not. It’s a pragmatic analysis of history, not a call to action in the future.

I don’t see any indication in this quote he thinks an Obama court shouldn’t or wouldn’t.

And I see plenty in other places that he would expect such action by justices he would name.

There he goes again

Somebody needs to tell Curt Bramble: "Senator, it's 2008. There are cameras everywhere. Deal with it!"

Why govt. health care is deadly

Beware Obamacare:

Federal bureaucrats have announced that, as of this month, the Medicare program will no longer provide financial rewards to doctors and hospitals who harm patients.

That is not a typo. For more than 40 years, Medicare has provided financial rewards to providers when a patient requires follow-up care following a medical error.

Medicare is America’s experiment with universal coverage. Operated by the federal government, it provides health insurance to more than 40 million elderly and disabled Americans.

Chicago, Chicago

Kausfiles: What is it with Chicago? Is it Australia? Do they have to take anybody they can get there? I always thought L.A. was Australia.. ... 2:54 A.M.

####

I grew up, went to school, worked in suburbs of Chicago for 28 of the first 30 years of my life.

What’s really astonishing is that the national media haven’t pointed out that Obama is a tool of the Chicago political machine, the most corrupt and ruthless political organization in the country. (With all due respect to New Jersey and Louisiana.)

He has never even claimed to be a reformer. Not even his staunchest backers say he was a reformer, or even helped them. He is totally a machine hack.

The problem isn’t JUST Ayers or JUST Rezko or JUST Rev. Wright. It’s that Chicago is such a festering scab of moral and intellectual rot that in Chicaog they seem ordinary. Remember, Obama lived in Hawaii, Indonesia, and then elite collegiate enclaves: Occidental College, Columbia, Harvard, then he lived in Hyde Park, which is basically the U. of Chicago campus. He’s never seen real life, except in Chicago. He thinks far-left professors, wacko preachers and sleazy politicians are perfectly ordinary!

And why hasn’t anyone pointed out that Boss Daley would’ve been proud of the campaign Obama is running: with bucks flowing in from Doodad Pro and lefty thugs from ACORN registering anyone they can.

Maybe not.

Some hope:

McCain is not as good on television as Obama is. So the immediate impact of the debate was to help Obama.

But the tax-and-spend issue is the one that Republicans want at the center of the race, and McCain put it there.

So this may turn out to have been a turning point for McCain, after all.

This sums it up

Already the obits are coming in:

If John McCain fails in the next 19 days to catch Barack Obama, his slow response to the financial hurricane of 2008 will be Exhibit A.

Debate

McCain seems reassuring, principles, even compassionate.

Too late.

History

What difference does it make? It's a perfect storm, conservatives are mad, they want to punish someone. Gerson has a good piece. Events are in the saddle.

McCain is speaking well, making good points. Hitting him hard. So what? Obama could show up and wave photos of himself making bombs with Bill Ayers, etc.

Debate, Oct. 15

Oh, Christ, Americans are innocent victims of Wall Street and Washington!

Come on, talk straight!

McCain needs to explain markets, and why Obama is full of bs.

Pork barrel -- It's a place to start.

Obama's defending earmarks.

McCain: when have you defied your leaders? Really? that's the key question.

It's not his personal relationships -- ah, ACORN, now McCain is cooking with gas.

It's not his personal relationship.

BS -- Ayers as never repented, never paid his price!

His school reform effort was a complete failure. C'mon, call him on it!

Why Obama's plans will hurt the nation

Economists reject his plans:

Barack Obama argues that his proposals to raise tax rates and halt international trade agreements would benefit the American economy. They would do nothing of the sort. Economic analysis and historical experience show that they would do the opposite. They would reduce economic growth and decrease the number of jobs in America. Moreover, with the credit crunch, the housing slump, and high energy prices weakening the U.S. economy, his proposals run a high risk of throwing the economy into a deep recession. It was exactly such misguided tax hikes and protectionism, enacted when the U.S. economy was weak in the early 1930s, that greatly increased the severity of the Great Depression.

(So why can't John McCain say this more plainly!!?????????)

FDR's real legacy

This is why markets are spooked (as an Instapundit post says): they're afraid of what Dems will do in power:

After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

.....

In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.

"President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."

Why "regulation" isn't the villain

As other bloggers have noted, this is an excellent column:

The claim that the financial crisis reflects Bush-McCain deregulation is not only nonsense. It is the sort of nonsense that could matter.

(As so often, Instapundit is original lead on this.)

Everybody take a deep breath

OK, I'm scared now. You can stop it.

Some reassurance from a trusted source:

Fortunately, there is also good reason to believe that the means are now available to turn the tide. Financial authorities, in the United States and elsewhere, are now in a position to take needed and convincing action to stabilize markets and to restore trust.

addendum

Our failure to "talk" made N. Korea and Iran seek arms?

He's just a fraud.

where or where is the kid who can't get into a college?

Yeah, it's been nothing but poverty!

back to liveblogging

Previous post shows why tax cuts are needed more than ever, contra Obama at 7:27.

Obama: a lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11.

Duh!

more "call to service."

Obama is just too slick. Little substance, excellent delivery.

Obama: people with higher incomes are living high on the hog. Duh.

McCain isn't bad, that isn't the point.

He's right: don't raise taxes now. That should be obvious.

Tax cut for 95 percent of Americans: a huge amount don't pay taxes!

Another Reagan problem.

McCain on warming: ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

Why not just say nuclear power?

McCain -- why doesn't he say that it's the small companies that will probably develop the green technologies?

I'm sick and tired of Obama's slick bs.

What a load of hooey -- that the government and Democrats will reduce costs, without reducing quality.

McCain's plan is better.

But can anyone say -- health care is getting more expensive, and the population is getting older.

I think it should be a right. Right! Then the pointless anecdote.

You can keep your plan -- but it's going to destroy those plans.

This is vital -- regulation vs. deregulation.

McCain: America is the greatest force for good in the history of the world. All right.

Good question: what is the Obama doctrine?

If we could have stopped Rwanda .... so what's the cost? Obama's hypocrisy.

He wanted to stand idly by as Saddam attacked.

We're not going to be everywhere all the time.

Darfur. We could be providing logistical support. But only if we can lead the int. community.

But what if they don't want to follow? You can lead a horse to water ....

Obama and Pakistan. That's the central front. No, he doesn't get it.

Geez, even we bloodthirsty neocons want to attack our enemies, not our allies.

McCain -- answers effectively, I think.

Bombing Iran and North Korea -- well, at least they're enemies.

Why are we talking? I don't care what Obama says. he'll tax the hell out of us, let radicals run amok here, and wimp out overseas.

McCain -- I'm no big fan. But.

stuff

It's not a depression. But what will candidates do?

From WSJ:

Yesterday's global stock selloff is best understood as the recognition by investors that the financial panic is world-wide, and moreover that it almost certainly means a global recession. As bad as the carnage is and will be, this isn't the end of days. It might even be clarifying if it causes economic policy makers to abandon some of the illusions that have guided them for the past 14 months.

liveblogging debate

7:14 -- This is the issue: how do we go from here?

Is the problem too much deregulating? Too much wrong regulation?

Why can't they admit no one knows.

Strengthen you as a homeowner? No the problem is some people can't. And a lot of people overbought.

We have a 20th century regulartory system for the 21st century. True.

Families stay in their homes? but what if they bought a house too expensive for them?

workers are the innocent bystanders.

Well, we the people (myself included) have overborrowed.

Clinton surpluses: well, the Internet bubble burst. And there's that Sept. 11 thing.

And why oh why didn't Bush rein in spending?

Obama is very slick. Hell, I'd vote for him if he wasn't so far left. That's the damned shame.

The Democrats can't cut spending. The Republicans might.

ride to the sound of guns

Our Sunday editorial made the same point as this:

Last week's passage of the rescue plan still leaves the economy as Issue One in 2008 - and this could give John McCain an electoral opportunity.

He needs to seize it.

The fact is Barack Obama's ties to the far left - to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, radical community groups and rapacious unions - are an objective threat to the nation's already wobbly economy.

McCain should say so - in detail and with vigor. He needs to tell the truth about Obama, his allies and their economically perilous plans.

Let's not pretend there wasn't greed

Greed is a problem.

"We see the excesses most starkly in the continuing crisis - that is not an extreme description - in our overleveraged, overly speculative banking and investment industries, and even in our two mortgage lenders, to say nothing of the billion-dollar-plus annual paychecks that top hedge fund managers draw down and the obscene (there is no other word for it) compensation paid to the chief executive officers of our nation's publicly held corporations - including failed CEOs, often even as they are being pushed out the door."

more sleaze from Obama

The media are all over Palin; let's see what they do about Obama's contributions.

I'm from Chicago -- Obama is a tool of the Chicago machine.

more live blog

Hit the wrong button.

7:19 Biden to Palin

Slow down double in foreign assistance.

We can't slow up on education -- but is it the engine, as Biden says?

We are going to eliminate wasteful spending.

His fellow Dems won't let him do it.

7:22:  I had to take on the oil companies.

Palin -- how long have I been at that? Five weeks?  

Palin -- goes back to energy.  Does she come across as tense, or energetic?

Biden -- it's clearly manmade. What a crock it is.

We have a solution -- nuclear power.

Iraq.

Why should we care how he or she looks? Are they, and their parties, going to do the right things?

Palin she is forceful.

The problem is: will Obama, and his supporters, stand fast?  

This is a fundamental difference. 

Your plan is a white flag of surrender. OK, she's strong.  

Who would stand fast, McCain or Obama? Answer is obvious.

Biden: McCain voted not to fund the troops. Nobody thinks McCain would let troops down.

Biden:  must have been drilled to say fundamental.

Moderator seems OK to me.

She's warming up. She's got real intensity.

Biden -- do people seem him as a blowhard?

There have been huge blunders -- she says it just right.

Change is coming. Palin says it well.

I haven't heard how his policy is different from George Bush's .... all right, already.

7:56  God almighty. We only went an hour. Well, who can take any more?

8:02 --  So is he willing to send NATO to Darfur? Is that a commitment?

"Americans are craving the straight talk."  

Yeah, I voted for it, but wasn't really for it.

Biden: lines.  

At that time that country forfeits its rights to say you can't come in there. So he's going to invade 70 nations. 

As this goes on, at 8:07 is he forceful, or does his act wear thin.

Replace regime change? But invade Pakistan?

She's starting to score. "goverment, get out of the way." 

This is a slugfest. She's loosening up.

Have people tuned out by now?

Now she seems a bit stiffer.

Exec branch:  John Adams, George Washington, etc. all saw the vp as more of a legislative office, and they ought to know.

Biden is wrong.

Her inexperience -- good answer.

Biden -- finally shows a bit of humanity.

No more, stop, please for the love of humanity. If I hear their sound bites much more, I'll scream.

I just don't trust Joe Biden. Just don't. 

The whole democrat blame game, the poor pathetic people who need our help.

Biden is proud of Borking!!!

He's proud of politicizing the Supreme Court!

Biden is a Democrat hit man! What chutzpah.

Thank God it's almost over. Maybe I've overdone the debates.

I'm sick of Joe Biden. Good night.

veep battle liveblog

Of course the moderator is biased. You should have seen her face covering the GOP convention.

Biden on bailout. The worst economic policies we've ever had? What a crock. 

Palin:  "You're going to hear fear." I don't know about this year, but she knows how to connect to people. She's a bit tight.  Gets into that McCain trope.

Biden: he's ignorable. "As many friends on the GOP side." Fraud.

Palin:  She's tight, nervous, by rote. But flashes of that connection.

Palin:  Corruption on Wall Street. She steals that. "We're taking responsibility."  "Never again will we be taken advantage of."

Biden:  regulation is savior.  If they succeed in implanting that meme, we're in trouble.

Palin:  Tax relief?

-- Aside, is hashing through votes a mess?

Biden -- I think he's full of crap, but will people see that.

-- The middle class is the economic engine.  

-- Palin is right: business is the engine.

-- Palin:  on health plan.  "unless you're pleased with the way the federal government is doing anything.'  Good jab

-- Artificial bounds on insurance. She's right. 

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