Category: Culture

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Joe the Plumber concerns the world

Something most people may not know, but we aren’t the only people following the 2008 Presidential election. The world cares who we choose for the office because the US and its policies can affect others in the world. The world is VERY interested in this year’s election and Joe the Plumber is a prime example.

Joe was mentioned about 21 times during the last debate on Wednesday. First used by John McCain as an example of how Barack Obama’s tax plan would hurt small businesses (it really won’t), the world media flew into action to find and interview Joe.

Joe Wurzelbacher of Shrewsbury Street in Springfield Township, outside Toledo, Ohio, had stopped Obama during his pre-debate walkabout on Sunday. Obama had been walking in the neighborhood, knocking on doors, and talking to the average folks. Joe and Obama’s mini-debate hit YouTube and that brought him to the attention of McCain and the rest of the world.

While watching the debate at home with his father, he was interrupted several times by calls from the national media including CNN, Fox News, and Good Morning America. In addition, CNBC, ABC News, the Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle, and the BBC called The Blade in their quest to reach Joe the Plumber.

‘Joe the Plumber’ is focus of presidential debate’s first few minutes

Basically Joe was concerned that in buying the business he worked for, Obama’s tax plan would “[tax him] more and more for fulfilling the American dream”.

That is the classic conservative mantra – “Why should I be penalize for working hard?”

I just never could understand the logic of “trickle down” economics where the rich get the tax cuts and then they would spend that money building jobs and increasing growth of the economy. The hope was that it would trickle down to the “unwashed”.

A better idea is to pass that cut to the actual people at the end of the down spout. Then the money passes into the economy immediately. It’s the difference between taking an aspirin versus injecting the medication directly into the vein. Sure the tablet may bring relief but the injection will work sooner.

But back to Joe:

Here is Joe making it on the BBC website and the site for the German national TV network ZDF.

Under further review it turns out that Joe wasn’t exactly what he claimed to be:

“Joe the Plumber” isn’t a plumber — at least not a licensed one, or a registered one.

A check of state and local licensing agencies in Ohio and Michigan shows no plumbing licenses under Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher’s name, or even misspellings of his name.

Questions were raised Thursday morning whether Mr. Wurzelbacher is a registered voter.

Linda Howe, executive director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, said a Samuel Joseph Worzelbacher, whose address and age match Joe the Plumber’s, registered in Lucas County on Sept. 10, 1992. He voted in his first primary on March 4 of this year, registering as a Republican.

Ms. Howe said that the name may be misspelled in the database.

In January, 2007, the Ohio Department of Taxation placed a lien against him because $1,183 in personal property taxes had not been paid, but there has been no action in the case since it was filed.

So Joe isn’t a licenced plumber, may not be registered to vote, and doesn’t pay his taxes.

What a symbol for John McCain! Whooooo hooooo! Go GOP!

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Childhood influence passes on

Someone who influenced my life, even though he didn’t know it, passed away on Saturday.

Dick Daugherty was a DJ at WFIN radio for as long as I could remember. He hosted a Big Band show on the weekends on the AM station. It was on that show that would get my first taste of some great music that popular in the 1940’s and Daugherty would pass on trivia or other tidbits about the artists or music.

I learned about Glenn Miller, Bennie Goodman, and all the stars that younger people today may not have heard. Big Band music is one of my favorite forms of music.

Daugherty also had a hand in the summer concert seasons at the Band Shell at Riverside Park and he played drums for some of the bands that played there.

WFIN back then had an eclectic weekend of programing – from church programs, polka music, and for several hours Mexican music.

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Why I hate the mainstream media

Ever since the mega corporations took over the main stream media networks, there has been a lack of journalism on them. Outside the celeb-centric, missing white woman, serial killer style tabloid style, the networks have stopped being an advocate of the public. Nowadays, the news, especially the cable talk shows are nothing more than press releases read on the air. There is no follow up, no questioning of what is said. The flacks on the shows are allowed to say their version and we are suppose to believe the “journalists” are being fair and balanced.

That is a bunch of BS.

If someone lies, or gives knowingly false information, it is the duty of the host to call the person on it right away. Facts are not opinions to be debated. They are either true or false.

Here is an example:

The New York Times’ John Harwood wrote that Gov. Sarah Palin “assert[ed] that” Sen. Barack Obama’s “relationship with Bill Ayers, the onetime Weather Underground figure, constitutes ‘palling around with terrorists.’ ” But Harwood did not mention that two days earlier, in an article that Palin herself referenced, the Times itself reported that “the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers.”

NY Times’ Harwood quotes Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” claim, but not Times’ own reporting otherwise

or this one

CNN’s Kiran Chetry failed to challenge a McCain campaign adviser’s criticism of Sen. Barack Obama for “claim[ing] that the American military was just air-raiding villages and bombing civilians” in Afghanistan, even though Chetry herself has reported that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has offered “personal regret[s]” to Afghanistan over air strikes that killed civilians.

CNN’s Chetry did not challenge McCain adviser’s misleading attack on Obama’s Afghanistan comments

or this:

On Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough did not challenge Sen. John McCain’s false assertion that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower wrote “a letter of resignation from the Army” in case the D-Day invasion failed, a claim that McCain also made during the September 26 presidential debate.

Scarborough did not challenge McCain’s false claim

And this one that just pissed me off:

On the September 28 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, during his interview with McCain campaign senior adviser Steve Schmidt and Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, host Tom Brokaw did not challenge Schmidt’s false assertion that Sen. John McCain “called for the firing of Don Rumsfeld” as Defense secretary. As Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, and the McCain campaign reportedly admitted, McCain did not call for Rumsfeld’s dismissal.

Rather than noting the established facts debunking Schmidt’s claim, Brokaw concluded the interview by stating, “In fairness to everybody here, I’m just going to end on one note,” then cited the results of a poll question favorable to McCain.

Brokaw allowed McCain adviser to falsely claim McCain “called for the firing of Don Rumsfeld”

Brokaw not only didn’t call Steve Schmidt on the lie he told, he also quoted an old poll about a question no other national poll asks just because it was favorable to McCain. There is also information that Brokaw has been talking behind the scenes with the McCain campaign which included getting Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews removed from anchoring further MSNBC political events.

Yes, the same Tom Brokaw who is moderating the October 7th Presidential Debate in Nashville.

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Free Market My Ass!

The high spending crooks on Wall Street ran a few financial institutions into the ground in the quest for millions of dollars in pay and many houses. Now they’ve come home with their hands out asking the government to bail them out.

The same government these same crooks paid off in the 1980s to remove the safe guards that would have helped prevent the meltdown we saw last week.

Senator John “I’m a deregulator” McCain and his economic advisor, former Senator, and bank lobbyist, Phil Gramm, were at the switch and leading the effort to remove government oversight at the time.

What about the free market these Reagan-era politicians got boners over? You get screwed over than you pay the price – right?

Not in the case of course. When it comes to the Wall Street elites it is all about not being responsible for their criminal actions. Kind of like Daddy bailing you out after a Frat boy bar brawl.

One TRILLION dollars is the bill all of us will have to pay for the unethical and criminal behavior.

In the text of the bill to go before Congress there is not ONE word about holding the crooks or their companies responsible for the failure and need for the buy out. Daddy arrives to bail them out.

As Glenn Greenwald writes:

Second, whatever else is true, the events of the last week are the most momentous events of the Bush era in terms of defining what kind of country we are and how we function — and before this week, the last eight years have been quite momentous, so that is saying a lot. Again, regardless of whether this nationalization/bailout scheme is “necessary” or makes utilitarian sense, it is a crime of the highest order — not a “crime” in the legal sense but in a more meaningful sense.

What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism — where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We’ve retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.

Update: Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes.

The complete (though ever-changing) elite consensus over the financial collapse

Then the same week of the financial meltdown, Mr. Deregulator McCain has an article in a healthcare magazine wanting to do the same thing to health insurance that he and his frat buddies did to the banking industry. McCain has also supported privatizing Social Security – which would have Grandma’s retirement money in the stock market last week if it had happened.

In this video Senator Obama sums everything up:

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Hurricane dark humor

First of all let me say I hate bad storms and I’m glad I have never and hope to never experience a Hurricane. But during a slow point at work the mind of a co-worker and my dark mind came up with some “funny” bits about Hurricane Ike coming ashore tonight in Texas.

Sometimes you have to try to laugh. The following is meant to be funny:

Why do they always name the storms after people? What if they sold naming rights to the storms? It would be a week or more advertising exposure.

Watch out Texas Hurricane Pontiac Solstice is on its way! – after the storm Pontiac gives away 50 free cars.

We could do sports teams too.

Take cover Dallas, Hurricane New England Patriots will hit you tonight.

How about TV shows?

You watched Hurricane American Idol pummel New Orleans now what it 5 nights a a week on the CW!

Local businesses could have contests.

If your home was destroyed between 5 PM and 6 PM you get a coupon for dinner for 2 at Red Lobster.

The money charged for the naming rights and other marketing parts would be used to pay for the storm recovery.

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