2012 Debates: Why Lying and Bullying Moderators is a Short-term Win

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday October 04, 2012 · 12:34 AM PDT

2012/10/04 · 00:34

Cross-posted from mediadeconstruction.com.com

I've been seeing a lot of glum, "house is on fire," "Obama lost the debate" loser talk here on Kos. I say non-sense. President Obama did exactly what he needed to do. Follow me below the fold on why.

Poll

98 votes Show Results

Do you think this will change the trajectory of the election?

98 votes Vote Now!

Do you think this will change the trajectory of the election?

Yes

20 votes

78 votes

Are You Better Off Today Than Four Years Ago? A Sampling of Sept. 15th, 2008 Headlines

steveholt

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 12, 2012 · 8:29 AM PDT

2012/09/12 · 08:29

I present the first in a series of related entries to combat the Romney/MSM lunatic question, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Beyond simply being a dodge tactic designed to oversimplify the race and insinuate that the current economic situation belongs to President Obama's policies, the question relies upon journalists complacently repeating the question to Democrats without giving any critical thought to the state of the nation four years ago. Setting aside the disconcerting implications presented by political journalists thoughtlessly and uncritically repeating themes generated purposefully by political campaigns, the question can undeniably and resoundingly be answered in the affirmative. In order to capture the clarity of how much better off we are, I will present headlines found on front-pages in newspapers across the country four years ago. I begin with September 15th, 2008, four years ago from this Saturday. Enjoy.

"Financial crisis sinks 2 titans of Wall Street" -The San Francisco Chronicle

"Wall Street scrambles as banks teeter
Lehman will file for bankruptcy and BofA will take over Merill. The Fed eases emergency lending terms." -Las Angeles Times

"Massive shifts on Wall St." -The Washington Post

"Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers to Disappear from Wall St." -The Orlando Sentinel

"Banks hatch rescue fund" -The Baltimore Sun

"Big changes to financial landscape" -The Boston Globe

"Financial crisis on Wall St. deepens" -The Detroit News

"In frantic days, giants teeter on Wall St." -Star Tribune

"Lehman rescue falters
Several banks pool funds to help ailing financial world" -Las Vegas Review-Journal

"Bids to halt financial crisis reshape landscape of Wall St." -The New York Times

"Stunning Fall for Main Street's Brokerage Firm" -The New York Times

"Crisis on Wall St. as Lehman Totters, Merrill Is Sold, AIG Seeks to Raise Cash" -The Wall Street Journal

"Financial upheaval swallows 2 giants" -The Columbus Dispatch

"Wall St. worries could wreak havoc on markets" -USA Today

From now until November 7th (and beyond), do not let anyone forget where we were four short years ago.

Can We Stop Talking About the Political Implications of the #@%^$&# Weather?!

steveholt

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 06, 2012 · 6:07 PM PDT

2012/09/06 · 18:07

Short diary, don't want to dwell, but seriously, what the hell?

So now, evidently, Nate Silver has written about this, complete with a misguided, waste-of-time statistical analysis. Here's the non-story: there was a chance of rain, the speech was moved in-doors. If you wanted a sign that real journalism is gone in this country, the aforementioned event earlier today became a Twitter fest from nearly every major political pundit, and dominated the day's news cycle. It's bad enough that politics has been reduced to a horse-race, personality narrative during presidential elections and simplistic sports anecdotes during legislative sessions. I mean the Right is so devoid of ideas and being so thoroughly pounded right now that it makes sense that they would rapid fire piles of analytic fecal matter about to see if they can make anything distract from former President Clinton's deconstruction of their entire reason for political existence, but to watch news outlets, and now Nate Silver (!), respond to this non-sense with anything but a brief "let's all point and laugh at the last gasps of a desperate and dying movement" is depressing. Seriously, Tweets like "Democrats breathe a sigh of relief at the rain" legitimize the idea that "rain is expected so we moved the speech inside" has any political meaning or significance whatsoever. It implies that, somehow, had it not rained, it might reveal something politically damaging. It's insane! Really, all that's out there, and time is spent on THIS. Please, just...stop.

A Google+ Argument with a Conservative

steveholt

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 06, 2012 · 1:04 PM PDT

2012/09/06 · 13:04

Hey all. Quick hit diary, because I don't have much time to write too much in detail. Basically, the context: I was on Google+, which I use as just another news aggregate by following the streams of various sources. On a thread about the search interest about former President Bill Clinton during his DNC speech, someone posted this:

"I am a proponent, however, of the idea that people who CAN pay more SHOULD pay more. Like it or not, we're all in this together."
Do the people who pay more get any more benefit?
In actuallity, they get less benefit, both in absolute and proportional terms.

Further, when you tax something, you reduce how much it happens. When you subsidize something, it happens more.

So why is taxing sucessful business a good idea for growing the economy?
Why is subsidizing being poor going to help people in the long run?

Now, I came in a little late, so he was responding to an earlier comment. Anyway, below the curly was my response, his response, and my final rebuttal. Credit where credit is due, others were offering very solid critiques of this person as well. Enjoy. Read More

The Most Destructive Myth Today: “We Can’t Afford That Anymore”

steveholt

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday August 20, 2012 · 1:12 PM PDT

2012/08/20 · 13:12

Cross-posted from mediadeconstruction.com

In the current climate of austerity, recession, and anxiety about perceived national decline, we, as a nation, face numerous large, complex, multivariate problems. An intricate mix of history, policy, political structure, and economic structure drive our problems in ways that cannot be easily understood or communicated, much less resolved. Unfortunately, the more cynical among the political punditry and politicians of a certain stripe have been sewing a simple, easy to understand policy prescription for every public problem: “We can’t afford that anymore.” No other narrative framework for discussing important policy more expertly serves the conservative agenda than this frame. While Republicans have been shoehorning this phrase into stump speeches on nearly every issue for the past few years, a recent example of this came from Governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) while providing an interview on CNN as a Romney surrogate. Governor McDonnell said,

Because the biggest problems facing the country have to do with a $16 trillion national debt and a crushing unemployment rate that's affecting the middle class. And so, Paul Ryan is the guy that understands the federal budget, perhaps better than anybody and along with Mitt Romney I think has got the right ideas and, Soledad, to say, listen, we can't afford this anymore. We've got to make tough choices. We've got to reform Medicaid and Medicare if we're going to get the country back on track.

Notice the pairing of “we can’t afford this anymore” and the need to “reform Medicaid and Medicare.” As I will get to later, and will address throughout this entry, conservative politicians repeat this phrase whenever discussing popular social programs. The tactical framing of the debate in these terms allows conservative operatives to, on the one hand, acknowledge the legitimacy of using public expenditures towards the goal of the social program in question (in the case of Medicare, guaranteed health care services for the elderly) and, on the other hand, using an arbitrary and short-term public finance circumstance to justify reductions to said social program, shield operatives from public outcry at the threat of losing a popular service. Embedded in this tactic is a set of economic and political arguments that reveal a great deal about the conservative worldview, and I will explore each in turn. Follow me below the fold. Read More

A Cure for Voter Amnesia: Changing the Frame About the Economy

steveholt

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday August 01, 2012 · 6:33 AM PDT

2012/08/01 · 06:33

Hello Kos Community! I have been following the community for about a year now, and some of you may have seen my occasional comments in various threads. This is my first diary (of hopefully many), and unfortunately it must be brief. I have noticed both a trend in comments on various news sites, Facebook statuses, and in the mainstream media framing that Obama's biggest weakness is the economy and we are now dealing with "Obama's economy."

Now, I understand that in politics, perception is reality and voters often attribute the economy to the sitting president, which is certainly a problem for President Obama in his re-election efforts. Anyway, this is the narrative oft repeated by political analysts and journalists in mainstream outlets, and the majority of the public seems to internalize it (of course, FDR was elected four times in the Great Depression, but pay that no mind). We can, however, push back against this perception that this economy is Obama's economy. In fact, I have seen many diaries and comments on DK recently that explore the need for us to push back against common misinformation and to publicly engage with those spreading it.

All of this brings me to my point. I saw on a news article about Mitt Romney's face-plant abroad this comment:

Quite the contrary. We have a President whose running for a second term raising the issues of:
In 1980's Romney took his dog in a dog carrier.
The American Public needs to see Romney's 1999 tax return to prove he headed up the Olympics and wasn't running Bain.
While Romney's campaign isn't perfect it is more focused on the Problems of America and the solutions to get us moving forward.

Only a democratic partisan would be yelling "4 more years of 8% unemployment!! Obama!! 4 more years of trillion dollar deficits!! Obama!! Nothing Changes!!!

I wrote a response, but realize the comments section required you to log in through Facebook. Since I do not have a Facebook, I unfortunately could not post my response. Below the squiggly is my response. Read More

Newer
Older

RSS