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Oct
16 |
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. "Joe the Plumber," is the topic of the day on the campaign trail, in part because he held an impromptu press conference Thursday morning in front of his house to discuss tax policy, his disdain for Social Security, and his critiques of Barack Obama. Already, however, there is some dispute as to whether or not Wurzelbacher was being accurate with his critique of Obama. His business, as ABC reports, would almost certainly get a tax cut under Obama's plan, given that he does not expect to make anywhere close to $250,000 in profits. Moreover, for someone worried about his taxes, Wurzelbacher doesn't -- it appears - always pay them. A filing with the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas shows that he has had state tax liens filed against him, meaning he was either delinquent or didn't fully cover taxes that he owed. A representative at the court explained that Wurzelbacher had not paid $1,182.98 of personal income tax. The state filed a lien on January 26, 2007, and the payment remains outstanding. But the court rep also cautioned that this all may have occurred without Wurzelbacher's knowledge. "We get hundreds of state liens every day and we don't have to make a judgment on them. We are just putting in there what the state says is owed. We don't notify that person and neither does the state. If there was activity on this lien, if they attempted to collect it on this case - which they haven't -- it would show up. But I am 99.9 percent positive that he doesn't even know about this." Tax-issues aside, the "Joe-the-Plumber" fervor seems to be spreading beyond small town Ohio. On the streets of Manhattan this morning, a plumbing company car was spotted with a "Joe The Plumber For President" poster on its side. But before Obama supporters fret about losing the plumber vote, it's worth noting that the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters has endorsed the Illinois Democrat, in part because the union thinks he has the best economic agenda for its members. "Obama will help us keep existing jobs and work to develop new, higher paying jobs here in America, reform our health care system, fix our ailing schools and make sure that the pensions of our retirees are safe," the union said. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/16/joe-the-plumber-is-it-see_n_135211.html
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Oct
16 |
HEMPSTEAD, New York (CNN) -- A majority of debate watchers think Sen. Barack Obama won the third and final presidential debate, according to a national poll conducted right afterward. Fifty-eight percent of debate watchers questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll said Democratic candidate Obama did the best job in the debate, with 31 percent saying Republican Sen. John McCain performed best. The poll also suggests that debate watchers' favorable opinion of Obama rose slightly during the debate, from 63 percent at the start to 66 percent at the end. The poll indicates that McCain's favorables dropped slightly, from 51 percent to 49 percent. The economy was the dominant issue of the debate, and 59 percent of debate watchers polled said Obama would do a better job handling the economy, 24 points ahead of McCain. During the debate, McCain attacked Obama's stance on taxes, accusing Obama of seeking tax increases that would "spread the wealth around." But by 15 points, 56 percent to 41 percent, debate watchers polled said Obama would do a better job on taxes. By a 2-1 margin, 62 percent to 31 percent, debate watchers said Obama would do a better job on health care. Sixty-six percent of debate watchers said Obama more clearly expressed his views, with 25 percent saying McCain was more clear about his views. By 23 points, those polled said Obama was the stronger leader during the debate. By 48 points, they said Obama was more likeable. Watch entire debate: McCain won in two categories. Eighty percent of debate watchers polled said McCain spent more time attacking his opponent, with seven percent saying Obama was more on the attack. Fifty-four percent said McCain seemed more like a typical politician during the debate, with 35 percent saying Obama acted more like a typical politician. "Independents tend to prefer debates that are dominated by substance and light on discussion of personal characteristics," said Keating Holland, CNN polling director. "The perception that McCain attacked Obama gave red meat to GOP partisans, but it probably didn't help McCain with independents.""There was a notable gender gap as well," Holland said. "Women thought Obama won the debate by a 62 percent to 28 percent margin. Among men, Obama's lead was narrower, 54 percent to 35 percent in Obama's favor." During the debate, McCain demanded to know the full extent of Obama's relationship with William Ayers, a 1960s radical. But the poll suggests that line of attack may not resonate with Americans. Fifty-one percent of debate watchers said Obama's connection to Ayers didn't matter at all to them, with 23 percent saying it mattered a great deal. The audience for the debate poll appeared to be a bit more Democratic -- and a bit more Republican -- than the U.S. population as a whole. Forty percent of debate watchers in the survey were Democrats and 30 percent Republicans. CNN's estimate of the number of Democrats in the voting age population as a whole indicates the sample is about 3 to 4 points more Democratic than the population as a whole, but also about 2 to 3 points more Republican than the population as a whole. Eighty-eight percent of Democrats questioned in the poll said Obama did the best job, with 68 percent of Republicans saying McCain performed best. Among independents, 57 percent said Obama did the best job, with 31 percent backing McCain as the winner of the debate. The candidates first debated in Oxford, Mississippi, on September 26. Fifty-one percent of debate watchers polled by CNN and the Opinion Research Corp. said Obama won that debate, with 38 percent saying McCain performed best. The second presidential debate was held in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 7 and 54 percent of debate watchers polled said Obama won, compared with 30 percent who said McCain did the best job. The running mates, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and Republican Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska faced off in Saint Louis, Missouri, in the single vice presidential debate October 2. Fifty-one percent of debate watchers polled said Biden won, and 36 percent said Palin won. The post-debate polls do not reflect the views of all Americans. They only represent the views of people who watched the debates. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted by telephone Wednesday night, with 620 adult Americans who watched the debate questioned. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/15/debate.poll/?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail
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Oct
08 |
The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), John McCain (R-AZ), and Donald W. Riegle (D-MI), were accused of improperly intervening in 1987 on behalf of Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of a regulatory investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). The FHLBB subsequently backed off taking action against Lincoln. Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed in 1989, at a cost of $2 billion to the federal government. Some 23,000 Lincoln bondholders were defrauded and many elderly investors lost their life savings. The substantial political contributions that Keating had made to each of the senators, totalling $1.3 million, attracted considerable public and media attention. After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings, with Cranston receiving a formal reprimand. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment". All five of the senators involved served out their terms. Only Glenn and McCain ran for re-election, and they both succeeded. McCain would go on to become the Republican nominee for president in 2008. In early 1987, at the beginning of his first Senate term, McCain attended two meetings with federal banking regulators to discuss an investigation into Lincoln Savings and Loan, an Irvine, Calif., thrift owned by Arizona developer Charles Keating. Federal auditors were investigating Keating's banking practices, and Keating, fearful that the government would seize his S&L, sought intervention from a number of U.S. senators. ---- As the market continues to tank more than Bush's approval rating we can't elect a president so easily swayed by political contributions. Some text stolen from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_five
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Oct
03 |
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and DAVID ESPO Associated Press Writers With the economy on the brink and elections looming, Congress approved an unprecedented $700 billion U.s. government bailout of the battered financial industry on Friday and sent it to President George W. Bush for his certain signature. "We have acted boldly to prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country," Bush said shortly after the vote, although he conceded, "our economy continues to face serious challenges." The final vote, 263-171 in the House of Representatives, capped two weeks of tumult in Congress and on Wall Street, punctuated by daily warnings that the country confronted the gravest economic crisis since the stock market crash of 1929 if lawmakers failed to act. There were 58 more votes for the measure than in an earlier version that failed on Monday. "We all know that we are in the midst of a financial crisis," House Republican Leader John Boehner said shortly before casting his vote for government intervention in private capital markets that was unthinkable only a month ago. "And we know that if we do nothing, this crisis is likely to worsen and to put us into an economic slump like most of us have never seen." The leader of the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said the bill was needed to "begin to shape the financial stability of our country and the economic security of our people." Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pledged to begin using his new authority quickly, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank would work closely with the administration. Stocks rose on Wall Street in anticipation of the bill's passage, on a day on which investors absorbed a bad unemployment report. The Labor Department said employers slashed 159,000 jobs in September, the largest cut in five years and further evidence of a sinking economy. The U.S. action was certain to relieve pressure in international financial markets, which feared that a deep slump in the U.S. economy could drag the rest of the world into recession. At its core, the bill gives the Treasury Department $700 billion to purchase bad mortage-related securities that are weighing down the balance sheets of institutions that hold them. The flow of credit has slowed, in some cases drying up, threatening the ability of businesses to conduct routine operations or expand, and adversely affecting consumers seeking financing for mortgages, cars and student loans. Some state government have also experienced difficulty borrowing money. The House vote marked a sharp change from Monday, when an earlier measure was sent down to defeat, largely at the hands of angry conservative Republicans. A total of 33 Democrats and 25 Republicans switched from opposition to support. Several of the Democrats were members of the Congressional Black Caucus who said presidential candidate Barack Obama had pledged to support legislation easing the burden on consumers if he wins the White House. Republican presidential candidate John McCain also lobbied for the measure, according to aides who declined to release a list of lawmakers he called. After Monday's vote, Senate leaders quickly took custody of the measure, adding on $110 billion in tax and spending provisions designed to attract additional support, then grafting on legislation mandating broader mental health coverage in the insurance industry. The revised measure won Senate approval Wednesday night, 74-25, setting up a furious round of lobbying in the House as the administration, congressional leaders, the major party presidential candidates and outside groups joined forces behind the measure. In addition, the measure was changed to broaden the federal government's deposit insurance program, and the Securites and Exchange Commission loosened a regulation to ease the impact of the distressed assets on the balance sheet of financial institutions. Despite ocassionally strong criticism of the added spending and tax measures, the maneuvers worked _ augmented by a sudden switch in public opinion that occurred after the stock market took its largest-ever one-day dive on Monday. "No matter what we do or what we pass, there are still tough times out there. People are mad _ I'm mad," said Republican Rep. J. Gresham Barrett, who opposed the measure the first time it came to a vote. Now, he said, "We have to act. We have to act now." Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat and another convert, said, "I have decided that the cost of doing nothing is greater than the cost of doing something." Critics were unrelenting. "How can we have capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, a leader among conservative Republicans who oppose the central thrust of the legislation _ an unprecedented federal intervention into the private capital markets. It was little more than two weeks ago that Paulson and Bernanke concluded that the economy was in such danger that a massive government intervention in the private markets was essential. White the main thrust of their initial proposal was unchanged, lawmakers insisting on greater congressional supervision over the $700 billion, measures to protect taxpayers and steps to crack down on so-called "golden parachutes" __substantial payments to corporate executives whose companies fail. Earlier in the week, the legislation was altered to expand the federal insurance program for individual bank deposits, and the Securities and Exchange Commission took steps to ease the impact of the questionable mortgage-backed securities on financial institutions. In the moments before the vote, Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pledged "serious surgery" next year to address the underlying causes of the crisis. If anything, the economic news added to the sense of urgency. The Labor Department said initial claims for jobless benefits had increased last week to the highest level since the gloomy days after the 2001 terror attacks. The news of the payroll cuts came on top of Thursday's Commerce Department report that factory orders in August plunged by 4 percent. Typifying arguments the problem no longer is just a Wall Street issue but also one for Main Street, lawmakers from California and Florida said their state governments were beginning to experience trouble borrowing funds for their own operations. Pelosi said, "We must win it for Mr. and Mrs. Jones on Main Street."
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male, 30 y/o Web Dev |
- Auto Execs Fly Corporate Jets to D.C., Tin Cups in Hand
- World Champion Celtics Talk a lot of Smack Now
- Downturn to last at least 12 months: JPMorgan head
- California ban on same-sex marriage undecided
- Karl Rove predicts Obama landslide
- Make-Believe Maverick
- Joe The Plumber: Doesn't Pay His Taxes
- Poll: Debate watchers say Obama wins
- John McCain is one of the Keating Five
- US Congress OKs historic bailout bill
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MichelleM commented on:
Auto Execs Fly Corporate Jets to D.C., Tin Cups in Hand -
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World Champion Celtics Talk a lot of Smack Now -
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World Champion Celtics Talk a lot of Smack Now -
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World Champion Celtics Talk a lot of Smack Now -
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California ban on same-sex marriage undecided
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