Be INFORMED

Friday, October 29, 2010

How Uninformed Are The American People?

 

   I would say that the American Voter has been listening to a lot of the GOP bull as well as the spin coming from folks like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly. One other problem with the American population?

DailyKos

A new Bloomberg poll out this morning finds that by margin of 2-1, voters think taxes have gone up, the economy has shrunk and the TARP money is not going to be recovered. Let me say it again: Two out of Three "likely voters" think taxes have gone up, the economy has shrunk and the TARP money is not going to be recovered.

The Obama administration cut taxes for middle-class Americans, expects to make a profit on the hundreds of billions of dollars spent to rescue Wall Street banks and has overseen an economy that has grown for the past four quarters.

A Bloomberg National Poll conducted Oct. 24-26 finds that by a two-to-one margin, likely voters in the Nov. 2 midterm elections think taxes have gone up, the economy has shrunk, and the billions lent to banks as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program won’t be recovered.

The pollster blames the Democrats ("It does not matter much if you make change, if you do not communicate change.") and i'm pretty sure almost everyone else will too, but i'm not willing to let voters get away with it so easily. It's been almost two years - educate yourself on the most important issues of the day. Now, i'm sure many think that by listening to the news, they're actually doing exactly that - But they get the news from a corrupted media, and that's what they learned. One lie after another.

The Obama administration has cut taxes -- largely for the middle class -- by $240 billion since taking office Jan. 20, 2009. A program aimed at families earning less than $150,000 that was contained in the stimulus package lowered the burden for 95 percent of working Americans by $116 billion, or about $400 per year for individuals and $800 for married couples. Other measures include breaks for college education, moderate- income families and the unemployed and incentives to promote renewable energy.

Still, the poll shows the message hasn’t gotten through to Americans, especially middle-income voters. By 52 percent to 19 percent, likely voters say federal income taxes have gone up for the middle class in the past two years. 61 percent of poll respondents say the economy is shrinking this year, compared with 33 percent who say it is growing. Even a plurality of Democrats, 43 percent, holds this misperception.

And yes, everyone blames president Obama:

"The administration has said for a long time that the best politics was doing the right thing," says Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist. "It requires a lot more. These numbers show that the best politics is selling what you’re doing."

This bottom line is so sad. It doesn't matter what kind of a job you're really doing, all that matters is what story you sell - true or false - and if you have the media in your pocket or not.

I'm extremely proud of this president, who actually came to do the job and not to play games, and it saddens me to no end that both him and the party are expected to be punished for that.

The only thing i can do right now, is to go and GOTV. I hope you're  doing the same.

  Does anyone in this country still read or do even a little bit of research when it comes to what the facts are during our elections, or are we just believing the news channels and the papers?

    Read my  previous post for some other facts that you more than likely do not know. then, go tell your Tea Party and other GOP friends that the party is still full of shit.

Obama’s Massive Deficit Spending?

 

   I am still in the middle of tweaking my Windows 7, but I did take a short break to catch up on a little bit of  '”did you know?” viewing.

    This is a little of what I discovered. Independent and undecided voters would do well to check this out.

Fri Oct 29, 2010 at 10:40:03 AM PDT

Questions:

  1. What was the average monthly private sector job growth in 2008, the final year of the Bush presidency, and what has it been so far in 2010?
  1. What was the Federal deficit for the last fiscal year of the Bush presidency, and what was it for the first full fiscal year of the Obama presidency?
  1. What was the stock market at on the last day of the Bush presidency? What is it at today?
  1. Which party's candidate for speaker will campaign this weekend with a Nazi reenactor who dressed up in a SS uniform?

Answers:

  1. In 2008, we lost an average of 317,250 private sector jobs per month. In 2010, we have gained an average of 95,888 private sector jobs per month. (Source) That's a difference of nearly five million jobs between Bush's last year in office and President Obama's second year.
  1. In FY2009, which began on September 1, 2008 and represents the Bush Administration's final budget, the budget deficit was $1.416 trillion. In FY2010, the first budget of the Obama Administration, the budget deficit was $1.291 trillion, a decline of $125 billion. (Source) Yes, that means President Obama has cut the deficit -- there's a long way to go, but we're in better shape now than we were under Bush and the GOP.
  1. On Bush's final day in office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 closed at 7,949, 1,440, and 805, respectively. Today, as of 10:15AM Pacific, they are at 11,108, 2,512, and 1,183. That means since President Obama took office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 have increased 40%, 74%, and 47%, respectively.
  1. The Republican Party, whose candidate for speaker, John Boehner, will campaign with Nazi re-enactor Rich Iott this weekend. If you need an explanation why this is offensive, you are a lost cause.

The moral of the story is this: if you vote Republican, I hope you enjoy Election Day -- because you're not going to like what comes next.

 

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Another Windows Re-Install…

 

…has kept me offline for the past 36 hours or so. I just could no longer live with that ancient Windows XP so I went and install Windows 7 Ultimate again. It finally got cheap enough for me to buy. Of course, now I have to find the correct audio drivers for the damned machine.

   I’ll be back!

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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Democrats and Republicans:Latest Polling

The Rasmussen Reports  daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove

    Forty-three percent (43%) believe that neither Republicans nor Democrats represent the American people. Thirty-eight percent (38%) say it’s at least somewhat likely a third party presidential candidate will be elected within the next decade.

Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove.

    There is also a new poll out by NewsWeek which was conducted with cell phone users only. Some interesting results.

   … NEWSWEEK Poll (full results) shows that they remain in a close race with Republicans 12 days before Election Day, while the president’s approval ratings have climbed sharply. The poll finds that 48 percent of registered voters would be more likely to vote for Democrats, compared with 42 percent who lean Republican (those numbers are similar to those in the last NEWSWEEK Poll, which found Democrats favored 48 percent to 43 percent). President Obama’s approval ratings have jumped substantially, crossing the magic halfway threshold to 54 percent, up from 48 percent in late September, while the portion of respondents who disapprove of the president dropped to 40 percent, the lowest disapproval rating in a NEWSWEEK Poll since February 2010. However, his approval rating, which is notably higher than many recent polls of the president’s popularity, may be evidence of a closing “enthusiasm gap” more than a sea change in voter attitudes, and may not substantially affect Democrats’ fortunes come Election Day. In 1994, NEWSWEEK Polls showed a similar steep climb in President Clinton’s approval between late September and late October, but Democrats still suffered a rout in the midterms.

   Maybe a few of the American citizens are starting to realize that President Obama’s lack of progress in a swifter manner is due to the Republicans disrupting things just so that they can win an election? I would hope so.

 

Sunday, October 24, 2010

A Look At Governor Charlie Christ

 

       For those of you who may have been in a comma over the past few years,Charlie Christ is the current governor of the state of Florida who is running for the Senate.  Another Republican governor in the state and everyone wonders why the state is now in a state of “third world” living. Of course, Jeb Bush and the rest of the Republicans up in the capitol get most of the blame for the mess that this state is in, and rightfully so. Christ has just been towing the GOP line of tax cuts and budget cuts in order to crate jobs and reduce state spending. Neither of these has happened as of yet to any great degree. Any spending cuts have come at the expense of the lower income workers in Florida. Business tax cuts have not garnered any jobs and aren’t going to.

    Charlie Christ on taxes

    calls himself "a proven tax-cutter". He wants to make the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent and eliminate the estate tax (which he, like Mr. Rubio, calls a "death tax"). He doesn't mention the capital-gains tax specifically. He supports a balanced-budget amendment, but doesn't say anything specific about which trillions of dollars in spending would be cut to balance the budget while cutting taxes at the same time. He does point to his record of cutting the Florida state budget by $7.4 billion over the past three years.                                                    The Economist

   

Replace income tax with a flat tax or national sales tax

Q: Do you support replacing the U.S. income tax structure with a flat income tax?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you support eliminating the Internal Revenue Service?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you support instituting a national sales tax?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you support requiring a super-majority vote in both houses of Congress to raise taxes?

A: Yes.                                                              OnThe Issues.org

   Of course no Republican likes any of the Obama health care plan and GOPer Christ is no different. What would he do instead?

           Cover Florida: $150 a month plan for 3.8 million uninsured

Among the many ideas floated by Gov. Charlie Crist last month for improving health care in Florida, one stood out for its simplicity and its allure: Offer the estimated 3.8 million Floridians who lack health insurance an affordable plan for “$150 a month or less.”

Crist’s “Cover Florida” proposal would not come with a state mandate that individuals had to buy it or employers had to offer it. And it would give insurance companies lots of leeway in deciding how to structure such a health plan--as long

they included “a robust package of preventive, primary and urgent-care benefits, including hospitalization.”

A $150-per-month health-insurance policy “can’t get you comprehensive coverage,” says one analyst; such a plan would either have sky-high deductibles for hospital stays or have no hospitalization coverage at all. Another analyst replies, “Anything that moves some number of people from the uninsured category into the insured category is a good thing that is worth considering.”   Source: Orlando Sentinel, “Plan for health insurance” Mar 14, 2008

Mr Crist wants to "repeal and reform" the Obama administration's health care reforms. He provides no details about what he would do to reform the health-insurance system except that it should be "focused on the free market". (The Obama reforms, of course, do nothing but guarantee people access to private-sector free-market health insurance. Mr Crist does not explain how his proposed reforms would be any different.) Mr Crist points to his record in creating the "Cover Florida" programme, which he claims allows private insurers to provide far cheaper individual health insurance for individuals without spending any tax dollars. This claim sounds suspiciously like magic, and in fact PolitiFact rates Mr Crist's claims on the programme "False". The Cover Florida plans don't appear to be significantly cheaper than existing private-market plans, and that may explain why only 5,000 of Florida's nearly 4m uninsured have taken advantage of them.                             Source

    Since Mr.Christ was getting slaughtered by his opponent, Mark Rubio, he has gone and switched from a Republican to an Independent so that he can get the votes that he couldn’t get as a Republican. He has changed his mind on many issues now that he has to kiss up to the voters/groups that opposed him as a Republican,and it has worked to a certain degree.  Charlie Christ is one of those career politicians who need to be let out to pasture before he really fucks the people of Florida up as a Senator.