After House Speaker John Boehner walked out of debt-ceiling talks, President Obama speaks to the press.
President Barack Obama addressed the country during an extraordinary press conference late this afternoon about the status of the debt ceiling after House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) walked away from talks. Summoning the leadership of the House and Senate to his office at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow for answers about how we will avoid default, the president spoke passionately, with fire, frustration, and, at times, anger at the intransigence of the Republicans.…
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26 - Clavos
--how clavos feels about agw-doubting scientists getting their funding from big oil and coal companies
All scientists get their funding from somewhere; I don't care if some of the antis are getting their funding from oil and coal; I still agree with them (and with the oil and coal companies if they are anti AGW).
Drill, baby, drill -- ANWR -- anywhere; on the lawn of the WH if there's oil there -- in my backyard - PLease drill in my yard. As soon as you pay me, I'll move.
27 - zingzing
heh. well. next time you want to say scientists who claim agw is a reality just want the funding, remember that scientists who claim agw isn't a reality want the same. and then do the math. the basis of your conspiracy theory is bunk. you just believe what the politicians want you to believe. (on the other side we have politics and science! both!)
and, really, why do you agree with them? you don't have to answer that, as you have before... it's all politics to you. it's got nothing to do with science.
but thanks for answering, no matter how snarky it was. one off the checklist.
cannonshop, you're next. this one i really want to hear.
28 - Glenn Contrarian
Clavos -
How about the climatologists of the U.S. government who tried to publish time and again their findings during the Bush administration, only to find their work often censored (61% of them reported censoring) and sometimes their results changed outright by Bush appointees.
Where was their funding from? The government. And the government was AGAINST the results of the research they were trying to publish. Did that change their minds? No. They did the only thing they could do - keep working and trying to publish the results of their research.
That in and of itself should disprove your claim about funding.
Clavos, look at yourself. If you were doing work that you truly felt was important to the world, to the human race as a whole, and people were threatening to cut your funding if you didn't say what they wanted you to say, even though you knew that what they wanted you to say was false, would you lie for them just to keep your funding?
Would you? I don't think you would. And for that reason, you should not assume that the climatologists would, either.
29 - Cannonshop
#28 Censored by WHOM, Glenn, unless you're going to come on record as saying that Scientific Journals are under the purview and control of the Executive Branch of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
Fold up the tinfoil hat, it doesn't look good on you.
30 - Baronius
Glenn, I've only replied to you about three things recently. You cited a false statistic about deficits in the Reagan years. I found the real numbers and laid them out for you, with a link. You implied an article from Redstate said that Republicans wanted the economy to tank for their own political success. I pointed out that the article said the opposite on both points, with actual quotes. You say that Truman raised the tax rates. I noted that Dave has argued that the highest rates were applied to so few earners as to be unimportant. I can't cite a reference to that one, but you can do the leg work on it yourself.
31 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop -
Read here and here.
The second reference - a historical timeline of Bush administration policies on science and the environment - includes quite a few eye-opening statements like this one from February 18, 2004:
Sixty-two leading scientists, including Nobel Prize laureates, university chairs and presidents, and former federal agency directors, sign a joint statement protesting the Bush administration’s “unprecedented” politicization of science (see January 2004 and June 1, 2005). Over 11,000 scientists will add their names to the statement, disseminated by the Union of Concerned Scientists, in the coming years. “When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions,” the scientists write. “This has been done by placing people who are professionally unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest in official posts and on scientific advisory committees; by disbanding existing advisory committees; by censoring and suppressing reports by the government’s own scientists; and by simply not seeking independent scientific advice. Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systematically nor on so wide a front. Furthermore, in advocating policies that are not scientifically sound, the administration has sometimes misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies.”
Okay? Just do a simple Google search and you'll find LOTS of examples where the Bush administration censored scientists - and not only climatologists, but also scientists in the EPA, NOAA, NASA, USGS, and others. Surprised that you haven't heard this before? Think about it, friend - do you really think that the news sources that you normally use would publish news showing that the Bush administration engaged in such wide-ranging attempts to manipulate the results of scientific research?
32 - Glenn Contrarian
Baronius -
You cited a false statistic about deficits in the Reagan years. I found the real numbers and laid them out for you, with a link.
I thanked you, didn't I? And then I went on to point out how this one false statistic did NOT damage my overall point because the Republican memes on income taxes and corporate taxes were both completely false. One wrong statistic does not negate an entire point if the other statistics are strong enough to stand on their own...and they are.
In other words, if you want to prove me wrong, then you've got to prove that USA Today was wrong when they showed last year that we've got a lower tax burden now than we've had since Truman.
You implied an article from Redstate said that Republicans wanted the economy to tank for their own political success. I pointed out that the article said the opposite on both points, with actual quotes.
Baronius, I suggest you go back and READ the article again. Erickson is telling the Republicans to "hold the line", and that "Should the United States lose its bond rating, it will be called the “Obama Depression”." By saying this, he is strongly implying that there IS a possibility even to him that America would lose its bond rating, and that we would have a depression as a result...and that the Republicans wouldn't get blamed for it but Obama would.
He goes on to claim in so many words that he doesn't think this will happen...but it is enough that he implied that it MIGHT. That's called gambling with America's economy, Baronius - and the whole world's economy would suffer badly if he (and the Republicans) was wrong.
You say that Truman raised the tax rates. I noted that Dave has argued that the highest rates were applied to so few earners as to be unimportant. I can't cite a reference to that one, but you can do the leg work on it yourself.
Again, I don't see or remember any such argument by Dave...but I would simply point you back to the USA Today article I've referenced so many times where it shows that our current income tax revenue - as a percentage of total income - is just over 24 percent LOWER than it has averaged for the past half century.
If Dave claimed that the top marginal tax rate only applied to very few (I remember reading somewhere that in today's dollars the 90% rate would have applied to those making $2M/year or more), then why do we all have a lower overall tax burden under Obama than we have had before in our lifetimes?
The two observations are related, Baronius - think it through.
33 - handyguy
Here’s a fun graph from Ezra Klein, one of the best journalist/blogger/commentators around, guaranteed to annoy your conservative friends, if in fact you have any. It clearly illustrates how much of the [continuing and growing] debt comes from Bush policies [over $5 trillion] and how much from Obama policies[less than $1.5 trillion].
Klein is certainly a liberal, but his columns never come across shrilly partisan, and they are full of cogent arguments and relevant facts and figures. My kinda guy.
34 - Clavos
his columns never come across shrilly partisan
That, M'sieu is in the eye of the beholder; I find him to be not only doggedly partisan, but often more than a little shrill.
35 - Glenn Contrarian
Clavos -
I'd really like for you to address the following question:
Clavos, look at yourself. If you were doing work that you truly felt was important to the world, to the human race as a whole, and people were threatening to cut your funding if you didn't say what they wanted you to say, even though you knew that what they wanted you to say was false, would you lie for them just to keep your funding?
Would you? I don't think you would. And for that reason, you should not assume that the climatologists would, either.
I don't think you'll address it. I think you'll ignore it. But I hope you do address it.
36 - handyguy
Re: Ezra Klein -- smug possibly, which can come from usually being the smartest guy in the room. But he's a numbers nerd/policy wonk, and shrillness just doesn't match that persona. Another way of putting it is that he doesn't communicate in the usual talking points, but instead in well-sourced data.