MR. Tentacle's Squid-o-Rama

"Centrists" think the Recovery bill is too expensive?

Mr Tentacle — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:15:00 GMT

(Just to be clear, the bill has too many tax cuts, and if the Axis of Centrism can't swallow the price tag, they can get rid of the $70 billion AMT patch and the $35 billion home-buying credit and the auto-buying credit, cuts which won't help anyone who can't afford a home or a car and will just give away free money to people who would have bought those items anyway. There's your $100 billion in cuts.)

So if Nelson, Collins et al want to whine about the "cost", they can clip $100 Billion off the price tag by dumping the pointless, wasteful tax custs and credits injected by the wingnuts. Actually, all the tax cuts woiuld be better replaced by direct spending, since spending has a 1.5:1 effect on GDP and tax cuts only 0.75:1.

What Your Wingnut Relatives (wrongly) Believe.

Mr Tentacle — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:29:00 GMT

Dreading those confrontations with wingnut relativesduring the holiday season? Here is some useful information on their deeply held and wholly incorrect beliefs about "liberals" that will help you maintain your sanity, courtest of Sara Robinson at Ourfuture.org:

As you prepare to head once again into the family fray, it might be useful to note that most of the right wing's favorite anti-liberal slanders are rooted in some deeply-held—and deeply wrong—assumptions about who liberals are, and what we believe. If your relatives, God bless 'em all, insist on going down that road, your best defense this year might be to listen closely for these underlying myths and fables at work—and be prepared to challenge them head-on when they surface in the discussion.

Read the rest...

Yes, we did. 365-173.

Mr Tentacle — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:36:00 GMT

UPDATE3: Missouri finally finishes counting votes and goes (barely) to McCain.
UPDATE2: Obama won one additional electoral vote, in Nebraska, which allocates its 3 electoral votes by congressiona district.
UPDATE: AP has called NC for Obama. Total now 364-162. MO still finalizing counts.

Factoring in population produces a FAR more revealing picture than the usual "red/blue" maps.

The right-wing noise machine can blather all they like, the results are a clear and crushing repudiation of "convervative principals" in general and the Republican party in particular.

h/t technopolitical at DailyKOS

More evidence, courtesy of the New York Times (via DailyKOS):

McCain continues to lie about Obama's Tax Policies

Mr Tentacle — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:22:00 GMT

Jed Lewison at DailyKOS put together this excellent takedown of McCain's ongoing stream of lies and misrepresentations of Obama's proposed tax plan. To summarize, no-one with a taxable income of under $250,000 will see an increase, and will in fact get a tax cut. Taxpayers in the $250,000+ brackets will see a modest increase, as the tax brackets are returned to those in force before the Bush tax cuts (which favored the wealthiest Americans).

Obama calls out RNC, McCain on Phony "Voter Fraud" Claims

Mr Tentacle — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:15:00 GMT

Well, its an exciting day so far in the phony "war on voter fraud" being waged by the RNC and McCain campaigns. first the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision on disenfranchising over 200,000 new Ohio voters. Now the Obama campaign has requested the Justice Department add the highly questionable "investigation" of ACORN to the list of items to be pursued by Special Prosecutor Norah Dannehy in the DoJ's illegal firing of U.s. Attorneys.

"With this voter fraud [investigation], we're seeing an unholy alliance of law enforcement and the ugliest form of partisan politics," Bob Bauer, an elections lawyer with the Obama camp, said on a conference call with reporters just now. Bauer compared the decision to launch the investigation with the US attorneys scandal, in which several US attorneys were fired for their unwillingess to pursue politically charged cases, including voter fraud, with sufficient aggression to satisfy the Bush administration.

Full story at Talking Points Memo.

McCain's Guilt by Association

Mr Tentacle — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:26:00 GMT

It's amazing to me that the McCain campaign would dare to play the "guilt by association" game, attempting to tie Barack OBama to a former 1960's radical, when McCain's own background has such a rich vein of questionable associations to be mined by anyone so inclined.

Steve Benen has more:

But as long as we're on the subject, McCain's associations continue to be increasingly interesting as well. We've known for a while that McCain has befriended a convicted felon who advised his supporters on how best to shoot federal officials, used the money of a convicted criminal to help buy a house, befriended a radical anti-Catholic televangelist, befriended a radical anti-American televangelist, was a long-time associate of Charles Keating, and hired for his campaign the publisher of a Confederate nostalgia magazine who has described Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist." This week, we also learned about McCain serving on the board of the extremist U.S. Council for World Freedom, where he worked alongside Iran-Contra figures, and a eugenics researcher studying "white superiority."

That Ridiculous William Ayers Smear

Mr Tentacle — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:34:00 GMT

As part of their ongoing strategy of "making stuff up" the McCain campaign has latched onto former Weather Underground member William Ayers. Although Mr. Ayers was never convicted of any crimes he is open about his activities during the turbulent late 60's. Ayer's supposed "connection" to Barack Obama is tenuous at best; the two men lived in the same Chicago neighborhood and served on the board of an educational foundation.

The McCain smear characterizes the foundation as "radical", another baseless canard.

Smear groups and the McCain campaign are trying to connect Obama to acts Ayers committed 40 years ago – when Barack was just eight years old. Here’s what the New York Times reported on the connection:

But 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, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

Full details are available here.

McCain is out of ideas and running out of time. He's losing, and losing BADLY. This is all he's got left. Pathetic.

Sarah Palin: Secessionist

Mr Tentacle — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:44:00 GMT

McCain and Palin have been making much of Barack Obama's so-called "palling around" with William Ayers, claiming Ayers is a "domestic terrorist". In point of fact, although Ayers was a founder of the Weather Underground in 1968, Obama was 8 years old at the time. Mr. Ayers was never convicted of a crime and is now a college professor.

Ms. Palin, on the other hand, has a number of very unsavory associates in the Alaska Independence Party, an extremist group that seeks to secede from the United States and make Alaska a separate nation.

h/t Jed Lewison at JedReport

McCain Campaign, out of ideas and money, turns to smears

Mr Tentacle — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:57:00 GMT

The economy is in a tailspin; his "suspending my campaign" gambit was a failure; his disastrous VP pick was handily crushed in her "debate" with Joe Biden ("you betcha!"). His poll numbers are collapsing. What does John McCain do? He knows he's wrong on all the issues, so he refocuses his campaign on smearing his opponent.

This is an admission by McCain that if the campaign is about issues, or about his own judgement, he loses. The only path he can see to winning is tearing down Barack Obama with a hail of lies and distortions. This isn't surprising since smearing opponents with lies and distortions is the only thing McCain's Rove wanna-be strategist Steve Schmidt knows how to do.

These people are pathetic.

Barack points this out in this new ad:

John McCain's Keating 5 Scandal

Mr Tentacle — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:19:00 GMT

John McCain likes to tout his "experience" in Washington.

It's true that he is no stranger to economic crises - he was in the middle of the S&L meltdown and found himself in deep trouble for influence peddling with his close friend Charles Keating. McCain and 4 other Senators used their positions to deflect banking regulators away from Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan, which ultimately failed, costing investors millions as part of the S&L collapse that cost American Taxpayers 500 Billion dollars.

McCain, Losing, Panics.

Mr Tentacle — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:46:00 GMT

Yes, a panicked, shoot-from-the-hip response to his campaign imploding is exactly what we want to see from someone who wants to be the leader of the free world, nuclear weapons and all.

With his campaign falling apart around him, his VP Candidate self-destructing on national TV, and an economic crisis he doesn't understand and can't control moving to center stage what does Mr. War Hero do? He tries a desperate political gambit, announcing he is "suspending his campaign" to work on the economy. As part of the suspension, of course, he wants to "postpone" his debate with Barack Obama, a debate for which he is ill-prepared. Not only does he want to postpone the Friday debate, he wants to move it to next week, displacing the VP debate between Joe Biden and Caribou Barbie. How convenient.

Like his last desperate roll of the dice, accepting Palin as the VP candidate, this ploy isn't working out as planned. Even the traditional media have recognized it for what it is - not "putting country first" but attempting to divert attention from the ongoing embarassment his campaign has become.

Way to go, Johnny.

Are you registered to vote? Are you sure?

Mr Tentacle — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:02:00 GMT

Verify your registration, request an absentee ballot or register online for many states here.

For complete (and I mean complete) information on how to register NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE, go here.

h/t IcebergSlim

Barack Obama on McCain, Deregulation, Health Insurance, and Social Security

Mr Tentacle — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:39:00 GMT

John McCain, "The Great Deregulator" who with the help of his republican "free market" friends managed to completely destroy the U.S. economy, wants to do the same thing for health insurance:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Yeah, that's worked out fine so far. h/t Paul Krugman in the NYT.

Let's not forget that McCain also campaigned for privatization of Social Security - yes, lets hand over everyone's retirement to the greedy cowboys who brought us the mortgage meltdown and collapse of the financial markets.

Barack Obama has some pointed observations on this and related topics:

John McCain: Washington Insider, Corporate Tool

Mr Tentacle — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:04:00 GMT

John McCain has been trying to re-invent himself as a force for change in Washington, casting himself as an "outsider", but in reality nothing could be further from the truth. John McCain is the ultimate Washington insider: a loyal Republican foot soldier doing the bidding of George Bush and selling out his office to the highest bidder for 26 years (Keating 5, anyone?).

Barack Obama's Economic Plan

Mr Tentacle — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:49:00 GMT

This video provides a concise introduction to Barack Obama's economic plan for America.

In a speech in Miama this morning Barack laid out the core principles of a recovery plan addressing the collapse of the financial markets (full text at thepage.time.com):

In the same bipartisan spirit that is being shown with regard to the crisis on Wall Street, I ask Senator McCain, President Bush, Republicans and Democrats to join me in supporting an emergency economic plan for working families – a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, spark job creation through repair of our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, help homeowners stay in their homes, and provide retooling assistance for America’s auto industry. John McCain and I can continue to argue about our different economic agendas for next year, but we should come together now to work on what this country urgently needs this year.

The second principle I would like to see in the emerging plan from the Treasury and the Fed is that our approach should be one of mutual responsibility and reciprocity. It must not be designed to reward particular companies or the irresponsible decisions of borrowers or lenders. It must not be designed to enhance the personal gain of CEOs and management. The recklessness of some of these executives has helped cause this mess, even as they walk away with multimillion dollar golden parachutes while taxpayers are left holding the bag. As taxpayers are asked to take extraordinary steps to protect our financial system, it is only appropriate that those who benefit be expected to contribute to the protection of American homeowners and the American economy. Just as support is not designed to payoff egregious executive compensation, it should not reward those who are ruthlessly foreclosing on American families.

Third, this plan must be temporary and coupled with tough new oversight and regulations of our financial institutions, and there must be a clear process to wind down this plan and restore private sector assets into private sector hands after restoring stability to the system. Taxpayers must share in any upside benefit that such stability brings.

Fourth, this plan should be part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20. This is a worldwide issue, and while the United States can and will lead in stabilizing the credit markets, we should ask other nations, who share in this crisis, to be part of the solution as well.

John McCain and George Bush: A Legacy of Failure

Mr Tentacle — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:49:00 GMT

John McCain's "election eve conversion" from free-market deregulator to populist reformer is amusing but lacks credibility. McCain has been a foot soldier in the Republican war on prudent regulations for his entire career.

What has all of this gotten for this? The worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.

Senators Boxer, Stabenow, and Melendez have some interesting observations on the current crisis and how we got here:

Barack Obama: Real Solutions to Real Problems

Mr Tentacle — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:33:00 GMT

The collapse of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Bear-Stearns, and 11 banks (so far) clearly shows that the so-called "conservative" idealogy of complete deregulation of financial markets is a disastrous failure. One of the chief architects of the collapse is Phil Gramm, John McCain's chief financial advisor, perhaps best known today for referring to Americans suffering from the devastating effects of Republican financial mismanagement and malfeasance as "A nation of whiners".

While McCain has begun paying lip service to regulation in the past few days, his record speaks volumes - he has consistently voted AGAINST regulation in the financial markets and has SUPPORTED the policies that created this mess, including a vote FOR the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 which laid the foundation for the current collapse. McCain has no plan to resolve this mess, other than to offer more of the same failed Bush policies.

Barack Obama has consistently warned of the problems in the financial markets and has a plan to re-establish a regulated environment that will all ALL Americans to prosper, not just the privileged few.

Read the plan at BarackObama.Com/Plan.

Sarah Palin: Cronyism, Vendettas, Secrecy. Change from what, exactly?

Mr Tentacle — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:04:00 GMT

The New York Times reports that Caribou Barbie, far from being a "reformer" could hardly wait to engage in the sort of back-room politics she has publicly decried. The story begins with:

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal. So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency. Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

...and it just keeps getting better. If you liked the Bush-Cheney White House and the Alberto Gonzales Justice Department, you will LOVE Sarah Palin's Alaska. There is no daylight visible between Bush-Cheney and McCain-Palin, either in the policies they support or in their personal behavior.

h/t Thomas C on DailyKOS.

John McCain: Serial Liar

Mr Tentacle — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:36:00 GMT

What happened to the John McCain we knew and respected in 2000? He's gone, replaced with a man who either cannot control his own campaign or who has lost all sense of honor and propriety.

No Maverick

Mr Tentacle — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:08:00 GMT

This new ad from the Obama campaign strikes directly at McCain's claims of being a "maverick" and "bringing change" to Washington.

Clearly McCain wants to hitch a ride on the "Change" theme, but it's very hard to claim you are the agent of change when all of your policies are the same old Bush-Cheney policies and you vote with Bush 90% of the time.

Here's Barack discussing McCain's claims to be for "change" this morning in Flint, MI: