Tonight former presidential candidate John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama in Michigan, bringing his populist message.
“The American voters have made their choice, and so have I. There is one man who knows that this is a time for bold leadership... knows in his heart there is a way to create one America.”…
Article comments
26 - Barbara Barnett
Ruvy, don't lecture me on the meaning of cheshbon nefesh. I know how and why I used the term and it applies. Americans must decide, must make an accounting, of who we are as a nation, and what we are all about.
Dave, soylent green--yum.
I can't wait for the general election. If the results in Mississippi, Louisiana and Illinois (special elections, all won by democrats, taking long-time repub seats) are an indication, we're in for an interesting ride. But mostly, I can't wait to see if America has finally realy woken up to the Rovian tactics and politics of fear--and refuse to play along.
Believe me, in all three contests, the repubs left no slimy rock unturned, and they still lost.
I'm also looking forward to Obama and McCain going one-on one, discussing political and policy differences that are wide and deep.
27 - Doug Hunter
"The base taxpayer in this country is the consumer, who not only pays income, property and sales taxes, but all the taxes corporations pay, as well."
About right, I'd say it's the workers rather than the consumers though. Workers must work extra to cover for the percent of purchasing power taken by taxes. At a basic level, you can only take from those that are producing something. Non-workers can be consumers but they aren't really 'paying' anything, just giving back a portion previously transferred to them.
28 - troll
Doug - ...or one could say: 'hungry - ? well look around...you ain't seen nothin' yet'
29 - Clavos
the workers rather than the consumers
One and the same, except for pensioners (who already paid the bulk of their taxes, and still pay property, capital gains and sales taxes) and welfare recipients (who are not a significant cohort, in terms of numbers).
I say consumers because some taxes, hidden taxes and sales taxes, are not paid until the goods and services are actually purchased.
"End user" would suffice as well.
30 - Andy Marsh
Ruvy - it's basically impossible to cheat on property taxes, at least where I live. The value of property is set by the city and there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it other than pay the indicated amount. I dunno. maybe it's different in Brooklyn, but I doubt it.
And looking at all that other shit in your comment #17, you must have really lived in a shitty neighborhood and you've never ever forgotten it. Normally, after a while people tend to forget the bad and remember the good things...you seem to have done the opposite. And that's a shame...must be more of a glass half empty kinda guy...
31 - Arch Conservative
I wonder what Archie will do if McCain picks Lieberman as his VP...
I have no clue other than not vote for him.
Edwards is agreat pick for Obama. Edwards canhelp hime win his home state of NC like he helped Kaerry win it in 20....oh wait nevermind.
It doesn't matter who Obama picks he's still going to lose.
32 - Ruvy
Andy,
I didn't have to deal with property taxes until I lived in St. Paul. You can't cheat on paying the taxes themselves - but you can sure as hell try to cheat on the refund you are due from the State, which is what I was really referring to. Sorry for being unclear.
As for everything else, I was trying to make a list of things I saw (or might have seen) in the States that require a serious moral reckoning. Obviously, they are not all true.
But I'll add one that is; I knew a woman who liked drinking alcohol "socially" and did so while she was pregnant - evidently she got seriously drunk more than a few times.
She and her husband paid the consequences, too. The child born of that pregnancy was seriously deformed in his mental development. We had friends who would throw parties where the liquor flowed like water, and this couple was there with their son - and you could always see the tension between them when anything had to be done for the poor child.
I have to wonder if this woman learned to stay off the bottle while pregnant - or even if she is still married to her husband.
Actually, Andy, I'm not a "bottle half empty" kind of guy at all. But sometimes, you need to give a harsh example, and that was what I was doing. Also, while I tend, like most people, to remember the good things and forget the bad ones, a lot of the stuff I read here, (and a lot of the intentional blindness I see - see comment #26) reminds me of all the shit that I'd rather forget.
33 - Lee Richards
#31:
AC, Remembering that it takes 270 electoral votes to win, how and why do you think Obama is sure to lose?
34 - Arch Conservative
I think Mccain will win FL, OH, MO, NH, and possible even michigan. I don't see Obama turning and red states blues.
35 - Dr Dreadful
Lee, stop encouraging Archie to predict things. You know how well that tends to turn out for him.
I agree that McCain will probably win Florida and possibly Missouri if he puts his back into it, but there's no way he'll take any of the others - unless Obama commits electoral hari-kiri in some truly outrageous way between now and November - like, I dunno, openly embracing Satanism or outsourcing Congress to Bangladesh or something.
And I think Obama can and will win a few Southern states, most likely Virginia and North Carolina.
36 - Clavos
outsourcing Congress to Bangladesh...
If Obama were to do that, he'd have my vote in a heartbeat...
37 - Dr Dreadful
Cool. I'll let him know, Clav.
38 - Clavos
Cool. I'll let him know, Clav.
Millions of other malcontents and curmudgeons will likely join me, tell him.
39 - Dr Dreadful
And Bangladeshi-Americans?
40 - Clavos
Probably...
41 - Dave Nalle
Don't forget to ride your bike each day for two hours to generate the electricity to run your government approved cubicle gated compound, Dave.
You joke, Ruvy, but I actually have all the parts assembled in my garage right now to build a pedal-powered generator.
Dave
42 - Dave Nalle
"This arbitrary 'poverty' farce does not include food benefits, housing benefits, medicaid or other government benefits or address the fact that yes, some people choose to not report income for the purposes of avoiding taxes (gasp!!!)."
Doug has a very good point on the lack of poverty in the US. And here he touches on something that is one of my pet issues, the underground economy. There are literally tens of millions of people making respectable livings who pay no taxes at all and live completely or mostly off the grid, and the numbers are growing at an astonishing rate. It's a very important indicator of an over-taxed population that so much of the economy is moving into the shadows.
Dave
43 - Arch Conservative
I live in NH and there's a very good chance that Mccain will win NH. Don't ask me why but people up here love him.
It's only 4 electoral votes but every last one counts right?
44 - zingzing
archie, do you take anti-depressants? do you sometimes skip days? or abruptly stop taking them. because some days you are lucid and calm. others, not so much. i know everyone has mood swings. and i know i'm not the authority on lucidity... but still. you're not quite your "charming" usual self today.
45 - Arch Conservative
I work with what I'm given by the rest of you each new day zing.
i'm just a reflection of the rest of you.
46 - Lumpy
thw mere idea that someone like Edwards can be taken even halfway seriously is a sad commentary on this country. In a reasonable encironment his endorsement ought to be like a mprtal curse on Obama's campaign.
47 - Clavos
The reason Lumpy posted that comment twice is because he knew I would agree with him, and he wanted to save me the trouble of repeating.
Right Lump?
48 - Dr Dreadful
Lumpy needs validation.
Unfortunately, so does our bandwidth...
So bye-bye to the dupe!
49 - Ruvy
Don't forget to ride your bike each day for two hours to generate the electricity to run your
government approved cubiclegated compound, Dave.You joke, Ruvy, but I actually have all the parts assembled in my garage right now to build a pedal-powered generator.
Actually, I don't joke at all. I'd like to build such a thing myself.
50 - Dave Nalle
I wonder what Archie will do if McCain picks Lieberman as his VP...
I have no clue other than not vote for him.
Hell, I won't even vote for him if he picks Lieberman as his VP.
Dave
51 - Dr Dreadful
While we're skirting the subject, the amusing thing about Lieberman's campaign in '06 was how Connecticut Republicans rushed en masse to vote for him as an Independent, seeing it as an opportunity to block a Democrat... not stopping to realize that once re-elected, Lieberman would caucus with the Dems anyway.
52 - Jet in Columbus
Lieberman looks too much like "Mr. Wizzard" anyway.
53 - Arch Conservative
Look.... Liberman is a decent guy...how can you not like a guy that tells the dem party to go fuck themselevsa and beats them after they've thrown him under the bus?
But Mcaain can't and won't pick him if he wants to win in Nov. Mccain has a history of enjoing pissing off conservatives and taking them for granted but if he were to pick Lieberman it would push them over the edge forever as far as he is concerned, costing him the election. Hopefully even Mccain is not so sytupid and arrogant as to fail to realize this.
Mccain's biggest weakness is his lack of understanding of the economy. He looked like Frankenstein when talking about the economy during the republican debates........ "jobs.......good..........unemployment bad..............grrr..."
The one person that would be able to help Mccain with this weakness is of course Mitt Romney, whose greatest strength is his understanding of the economy. There is a very good chance that Mitt on the ticket would help Mccain to win both MI and NH and if Mccain wins these two states plus Florida he wins it all. Contrary to popular belief Obama is not going to win a single southern state.
Romney had nearly the amount of support during the primaries that Mccain had and would be able to help Mccain raise the huge amount of money it takes to run a presidential campaign.
If Mccain picks Lieberman, Huckabee or some other dumbass to be his VP I won't vote for him.
Romney is the ONLY chice.
The guy's money.
54 - Cindy D
Barbara,
"But mostly, I can't wait to see if America has finally realy woken up to the Rovian tactics and politics of fear--and refuse to play along."
I am afraid you will get your wish with today's bad news. And I surely hope America has woken up. Because the bin Laden news is going to be a big test of that.
55 - Baronius
Arch, Fred Barnes wrote a really good column about McCain/Romney a couple of months ago. He agreed with you, that Romney balances McCain's weaknesses nicely. But the problem is, McCain hates Mitt, and McCain isn't the kind of guy to let go of personal grudges.