Re: Walsingham
Well, that's close. You really mean how "High" that number could go...

Right over his head...

>>40% of Americans pay no income tax whatsoever

To start with you offer no proof for your claim. Nor do you note what percentage of this alleged 40% are children or retirees.

A significant number of those not paying (or more often, underpaying)are wealthy Republicans who have found ways to hide and/or defer their true income.

But you just go ahead and keep believing the endless GOP that is destroying the middle class. Don't let me stop you.

the 40% figure is 40% of those who file tax returns have zero income tax liability. Children do not file income tax returns.

IF we must have taxation.. The only tax should be the "FAIR TAX" !

I am a Libertarian (formerly Republican) who believes both parties are using the same "play book"!

1913 ..a year of infamy..the year of giving guns to C.P.A.'s !

Those who say we must give our "FAIR SHARE" are pudding -headed Idiots who have forgotten our history and Constitution !

Fair share my butt !

The "FAIR TAX" is the ONLY way to go..if you insist on a tax.

IsleCook:

ONE: Here is a link that confirms the 40% number is based on the number of those filing taxes and does not include children (unless they have enough income where they, too, would have to file).

TWO: The article linked to above also mentions that the Top 5% of tax filers pay more than half of all income taxes. One could assume that a great number of wealthy Republicans are included in that group.

But since you now claim significant numbers of "wealthy Republicans" make up the non-paying group I must now ask you to provide your sources that show the actual numbers. And while you are at it, please provide a source that proves that they are indeed all wealthy Republicans and not people like, say, Tim Geithner. Or Tom Daschle. Or any of the other Obama appointees with....um....tax issues.

THREE: If you cannot do that then please at least post a comment admitting that it was I, Walsingham, that came into this discussion with actual and verifiable numbers (the 40% figure) and it was you that pulled stuff right out of you arse.

FOUR: I cannot tell you how amused I am how you pronounced with such authority the obvious political affiliation of all of those people that are contained in a group the size of which (and almost the mere existence of) you dismissed out of hand.

Ouch.

I recently heard an old saying which I think is very valid here:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy..." ~~ paraphrased from Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) Scottish jurist and historian.

It is quite obvious to me that a 51% majority is now in charge to give free services, health care, tax breaks, home buying credits, junk car money, etc. etc. - all on the backs of the shrinking minority of voters that still do work and pay taxes. Our Country is doomed.

Side bar - If only the Republicans had not allowed the religious right to take control of the party and make it more of a social/religious party than one devoted to monetary issues. We could have stood a chance. I guess you could indirectly blame this Liberal take-over on the religious right...

I don't think the democrats won because they convinced everyone how socially liberal they could be.

I agree, I think the Democrats won -and will continue to, until the Republicans win back that 10 - 20% independent vote. I think I have heard that there is a solid percentage (25% - 35%) for each party with the remaining being the Independent vote. So it is the Independents that really hold the key.

And I think the Independents now vote Democratic, not so much because they like Liberals, but because they don't like the right-wing persona of the Republicans. If Republicans could put aside the social issues (abortion, gay marriage, guns, etc.) and once again become a party of conservative fiscal policy, I think they could win again.

I don't think coming out against the Second Amendment is a big winner for the Republicans, frankly.

I don't see it. California bans gay marriage. More people identifying themselves as pro-life than ever before. Guns sales going through the roof.

The public opinion went sour on Iraq, Republicans let pork run amok, though relative to what we see coming out of washington now, it was nothing. The economy slowed. That's why liberals got ahead.

The social issues are not settled. Maybe in your mind.

Walsingham:

>>Here is a link that confirms the 40% number is based on the number of those filing taxes and does not include children

According to your source: "it includes nonfilers, typically taxpayers who don't have to file returns because their incomes are too low."

So, in fact, it does include retirees as I previously indicated. What demonize-the-poor statements like this 40%-claim ignore is that those too poor to pay income taxes still pay many other taxes, most of them highly regressive taxes like the sales tax or taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and gasoline.

Further study would show that the poor pay as much and more as a percentage of their income as anyone in taxes and "fees." Additionally, their taxes often come out of their essential-for-survival funds, unlike those with more income.

If you weren't so busy demonizing the poor you would be asking why they aren't paid a living wage. But this is all part of Atwater and Reagan's "Southern Strategy" where you still get to be bigots like you were in the good old days, only you have to change a few terms. Now instead of using racist labels when you trash the underclass, you cite them as parasites and welfare queens.

you forgot that everyone also plays social security and medicare taxes. Alot of retirees do file taxes.

I'll fess up. My income tax liability last year was $14. I'm not rich, far from it. I'm not poor either. I just had a lot of deductions last year. And I knew I would have a lot of deductible expenses so I did everything I could to pile them up before the end of the year. I don't expect or hope to ever repeat it. As walsingham's source indicates, most of those who do not have tax liaiblity are not poor, rather they are average. Like me. And the tax code is being manipulated more and more so that the average person does not have to pay federal income taxes. And the gist of the original post is that this is problematic. As the one who is gay in austin but somehow turns straight in midland noted, when the majority of average folks fund the government off the earnings of the minority, there is no limitation on how far they will go. It never hurts to spend other people's money. So back to the original question. 60% of american wage earners pay some amount of federal income tax. At this level spending runs amok. If that number were greater, say 85% paid income taxes, would this public be more averse to increasing spending, increasing debt and incresing taxes?

and where in this thread did anyone other than you islecook, demonize 'the poor'?

Is pointing out that senior citizens (who have had their property taxes frozen) are by and large less sensitive to tax initiatives that raise local property taxes demonizing the elderly?

My point was that people who pay no income tax are less sensitive to politicians who are eager to raise income taxes.

I think that is indisputable.

So, back to the question at hand: Did you find a source that backs up your claim of all those evil rich...and of course lily-white...Republicans make up a large part of the non payers?

Also, I think that I am personally offended by your racist, bigoted, classist assertion that poor people are obviously paying a ton of money in taxes because of all of the tobacco and alcohol they buy.

See how easy it is to be a knee-jerk, see-my-faux-populism-on-my-sleeve member of the so-called caring class? All you have to do is intentionally miss the point and then go on a rant dragging in any unrelated issue or parties...in this case Atwater and Reagan. You did leave several rant points on the table for failing to weave into your narrative any mention of Jim Crow, Joe McCarthy, or Selma, Alabama. And a quote from Gandhi wouldn't have hurt, either.

I love it when Walsy is having fun.

Yes , Portia , I do too !

Here ! I brought blankets for us to soften this bench so we may sit in comfort... and some spicy rum !

Let's watch !

Walsingham:

>>My point was that people who pay no income tax are less sensitive to politicians who are eager to raise income taxes. I think that is indisputable.

I think that reading is quite disputable, and the description of your intent, equally disputable, if not risible in its transparency.

You intentionally use Federal Income Tax, a progressive tax, as your measure because it provides a distorted picture of the tax burdens paid by the poor. It willfully ignores all of the regressive taxes paid by all denizens of the US. Anyone old enough to spend money pays scores of regressive taxes. The poorer you are the higher the percentage of your total income goes for these regressive taxes.

That, Walsingham, is quite indisputable. Try to prove otherwise.

gayinaustinformerlygayinmidland:

>>I recently heard an old saying which I think is very valid here: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy..." ~~ paraphrased from Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) Scottish jurist and historian.

I rather think John Kenneth Galbraith is far more apropos when he notes "the modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

Walsingham:

>>I cannot tell you how amused I am how you pronounced with such authority the obvious political affiliation of all of those people that are contained in a group the size of which (and almost the mere existence of) you dismissed out of hand.

Does the irony (not to mention hypocrisy) of that statement just completely escape you? Do you not remember saying this, "I wonder how low that number could go before the Democrat Party would no longer be a viable national party," as the first post in this thread?

Regarding my insinuation that tax cheats are usually Republican you only have to look at their philosophies to understand that obvious point. One philosophy embraces the collective, the other philosophy favors the self. Who has the incentive and motive to want to "starve the beast?"

>>I don't think the democrats won because they convinced everyone how socially liberal they could be.

While that was a significant part of why they won, the sheer ignorance and incompetence of the Republican Party was also a pretty significant factor, don't you think?

Walsingham:

>>Also, I think that I am personally offended by your racist, bigoted, classist assertion that poor people are obviously paying a ton of money in taxes because of all of the tobacco and alcohol they buy.

So now you want to pretend that alcohol, fuel, Social Security, tobacco, and sales taxes are NOT regressive taxes?

You call that an argument?

But that's what happens with those of you deep into the conservative dogma, you are quickly forced into making cheap ad absurdum arguments. You have no serious viable arguments. Just your entrenched dogma and superficial comebacks that evaporate when examined critically.

bob:

>>and where in this thread did anyone other than you islecook, demonize 'the poor'?

When you pretend that the poor are not paying taxes with a distorted example like that used to start this thread you are demonizing them. It is demagoguery. The poor, in fact, pay as high a percentage of their income in assorted taxes and fees as almost anyone, maybe more. Sales tax and cigarette taxes don't mean much if you make a couple of hundred K a year. If you are working part-time at minimum wage those same taxes can be onerous.

bob:

>>and where in this thread did anyone other than you islecook, demonize 'the poor'?

When you pretend that the poor are not paying taxes with a distorted example like that used to start this thread you are demonizing them. It is demagoguery. The poor, in fact, pay as high a percentage of their income in assorted taxes and fees as almost anyone, maybe more. Sales tax and cigarette taxes don't mean much if you make a couple of hundred K a year. If you are working part-time at minimum wage those same taxes can be onerous.

IsleCook:

I think that reading is quite disputable, and the description of your intent, equally disputable, if not risible in its transparency.

The idea that people not subject to an income tax being less sensitive to income tax rate increases as those who are subject to income taxes is just common sense.

Take a hypothetical club. (Let us make it a country club. One that excludes blacks, and Jews, and holds Friday night Cross Burnings and Buffets...because that of course is the only kind of club we Republicans join, you see.)

You are argiung that non-members of the club are just as sensitive to dues increases as the members.

Which is ridiculous.

Regarding my insinuation that tax cheats are usually Republican you only have to look at their philosophies to understand that obvious point. One philosophy embraces the collective, the other philosophy favors the self. Who has the incentive and motive to want to "starve the beast?"

Just admit that you are guessing based upon your own biased philosophy on the political make-up of the tax cheats and that you have no data whatsoever to back it up.

If you will remember, you dismissed my 40% number and when I backed it up we then moved into what it all meant. But the number was valid.

Personal bias not being an actual source, you still have nothing to back up your assertion that Republicans are bigger tax cheats than Dems.

Further, how do you square your theory on the self v. the collective with the studies that show conservatives give more to charity in both real numbers and percentage of income?

I know how you hate me asking for sources, but do you have any emperical data that would back up your theory? Or is this, too, just right out of your back pocket?

Think it possible that we have reasons for "starving the beast" other than to hurt the poor.

Your precious beast is keeping them poor.

Portia ! It gets better and better ! Good thing I brought along my nitroglycerin !

May I refresh your beverage?

So now you want to pretend that alcohol, fuel, Social Security, tobacco, and sales taxes are NOT regressive taxes?

No. There I was gently reminding you that in between their smoking and drinking binges they might, from time to time, buy some books and clothing too.

Of course I know about regressive taxes. If you had read more than one thread on this blog you would know that we argue very enthusuastically against increases in the sales tax to fund pet projects like stadiums and corporate welfare with one of the main reasons being that increases disproportionately hurt the lower income earners.

I'm sorry....does that not fit your characature of us?

Walsingham - 10, Islecook - 0

It's like he's reading a differnet blog than the one he is commenting on.

While that was a significant part of why they won, the sheer ignorance and incompetence of the Republican Party was also a pretty significant factor, don't you think?

You want incompetence? A $2.5 trillion dollar deficit. With talk of another *cough* stimulus. Followed by Cap and Trade, potentially the biggest job killing bill of all time. You have spoken much about the harm of the regressive tax. Cap and Trade is the Mother of All Regressive Taxes.

Followed by the rationing of health care and the driving of the elderly down to the bottom of the health care priority stack and the outlawing of private insurance.

You want ignorance: Print a bunch more money to pay for it all so that the currency devalues to the point where the world is thinking about moving to some other "reserve" currency.

Oh, and then hammer those who are most likely to hire people with a bunch more taxes.

This is what happens when you elect a guy who comes from the fantasy land of patronage and grants. There has never been any connection between his compensation and his productivity. Money just kind of fell on him and he thinks that is how everyone else gets it too.

But at least he closed Gitmo and gave back all of those powers that Bush arrogated unto himself when he shredded the Constitution!

And now we have "Smart Diplomacy!

And the World loves us!

At this point, I'd be willing to take what you are calling ignorance and incompetence over what you are calling Hope and Change.

And guess what?

Public opinion is moving that way too. The Dems know it, too. That is why they are trying to get things voted on before they are read by the congress, much less us rubes in flyover country.

Transparency, my a**.

From my own statement:

You are argiung that non-members of the club are just as sensitive to dues increases as the members.

Which is ridiculous.

I will point out another indisputable truth, the higher the dues, the less attractive it is to join the club.

Catch my drift?

And I'll finish with a theory of mine that is sure to burn you up:

If income tax withholding was done away with and every taxpayer had to do what private contractors do, i.e. actually right a check out of their bank account every quarter for their tax liability, the party* viewed as that which is most likely to tax and spend would be relegated to the minority.

* And the last 8 months have shown us who the all-time tax and deficit spenders really are, have they not?

Unless, of course, you have a theory that the spending and deficit numbers have been bigger....but being the buzzkill that I am you know that I am going to ask for your source.

>>My point was that people who pay no income tax are less sensitive to politicians who are eager to raise income taxes. I think that is indisputable.

>I think that reading is quite disputable, and the description of your intent, equally disputable, if not risible in its transparency.

>>The idea that people not subject to an income tax being less sensitive to income tax rate increases as those who are subject to income taxes is just common sense.  Take a hypothetical club. (Let us make it a country club. One that excludes blacks, and Jews, and holds Friday night Cross Burnings and Buffets...because that of course is the only kind of club we Republicans join, you see.) You are argiung that non-members of the club are just as sensitive to dues increases as the members.  Which is ridiculous.

Your original point, despite what you laughably now claim, is still abundantly clear. You want to demonize the poor as parasites, therefore justifying your callous greed. That is made clear by the distorted representation of their true tax burden you presented and championed. That distorted representation is the cheap straw man that you now flail away at. Your true intent is made clear as you went on to to try to malign the Democratic Party with an association to said parasites. Your intent was further confirmed by your childish use of the "Democrat" Party disparagement.

Save it for the rubes, Walsingham. Your ilk are a dime a dozen on the internet.

My original point is that people who pay income tax are more sensitive to increases in income tax rates.

My original question was, essentially, how many more people actually paying income taxes would it take before the tax and spend party (which are the Democrats, DEMONSTRABLY) gets less popular?

In between respites on your fainting couch, you are still arguing against what you just know that I meant instead of what I actually typed.

Never any sources. Never any data. And a logic function made stillborn by unchecked, weapons grade emotion. It is like having an argument with that "Leave Britney alone!" guy on the internet.

I will concede one point. To the extent that I linked parasites to the Democrat Party, I apologize to the parasites.

At this point I'm just dying to ask what Isle does for a living.

>>Just admit that you are guessing based upon your own biased philosophy on the political make-up of the tax cheats and that you have no data whatsoever to back it up.

To start with, if you check, I never claimed anything like what you are attributing to me. I clearly qualified my statement. Just more of your cheap strawmen. As for my alleged bias, I'll go with what Stephen Colbert says about it, "the truth has a liberal bias." In fact it is overwhelmingly on our side.

>>If you will remember, you dismissed my 40% number and when I backed it up we then moved into what it all meant. But the number was valid.

The number, even if accurate, is grossly misleading in the context it was used, and poorly sourced. I have yet to see any breakdown of who is being counted. I see no link to the original study. All I see is hearsay.

>>Personal bias not being an actual source, you still have nothing to back up your assertion that Republicans are bigger tax cheats than Dems.

This is the part where you, like so many conservatives before you, play the obtuse fool. You claim you can't see blatantly obvious truths. Do you really think Enron, Worldcom, Leahman Brothers, et al, were hotbeds of liberalism?

>>Further, how do you square your theory on the self v. the collective with the studies that show conservatives give more to charity in both real numbers and percentage of income?

Again, no breakdown numbers. How much of this alleged charitable giving was used to build grand religious edifices for themselves. The article suggests quite a bit, as well as taking a shot at the author's bias:

That's a claim that some liberals may have a tough time believing, given Mr. Brooks's withering criticism in the book of liberal icons like Ralph Nader, Mr. Brooks's work for The Wall Street Journal's famously conservative op-ed page, and a promotional tour for the book that reads like a conservative coming-out party.

>>Think it possible that we have reasons for "starving the beast" other than to hurt the poor.

Sure, I think most Conservatives have no idea how thoroughly duped they are, and their intent, for the most part, is well meaning. That still doesn't change the facts or make them right. Whether intentioned or not your adherence to conservative dogma hurts poor people, and kills a lot of them, unnecessarily.

>>Your precious beast is keeping them poor.

Thanks to people like you and Bush who want to pretend that an unfettered marketplace and a do nothing government will magically cure all of societies ills. Government can and does dramatically improve lives when it is allowed to. History is replete with examples for anyone open-minded enough to see them. You, I'm fairly certain, will pretend to be completely blind to such evidence despite its pervasiveness.

>>Of course I know about regressive taxes.

>>It's like he's reading a differnet blog than the one he is commenting on.

Poor bob, subjected to wingnut spinning and propaganda for so long that you can no longer recognize simple basic truths. I feel your pain, bro. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Somehow I don't think we're done here.....

>While that was a significant part of why they won, the sheer ignorance and incompetence of the Republican Party was also a pretty significant factor, don't you think?

>>You want incompetence? A $2.5 trillion dollar deficit. With talk of another *cough* stimulus.

Now it just gets silly. Now you want us to pretend that Bush and his incredible record of abysmal failure and incompetence doesn't exist or that the deficit you cite wasn't the price tag for his, and the GOP's, historic ineptness. Despite mountains and mountains of evidence shrieking in your face you still want to pretend that Reagan's trickle down economics is an unparallelled success, and to suggest otherwise akin to blasphemy. Excuse me if I don't join you in your dupedom.

>>And the last 8 months have shown us who the all-time tax and deficit spenders really are, have they not?

>>My original question was, essentially, how many more people actually paying income taxes would it take before the tax and spend party (which are the Democrats, DEMONSTRABLY) gets less popular?

Satchel:

Well, given Isle's reaction when his/her (I'm guessing her) unsourced and question-begging pronouncements are challenged at all and how they spread across a range of emotions; always arriving at a simultaneous flurry of condescension and wetting of pants.....I'm thinking academia.

Lower, though, not higher.

She doesn't even have down the Varsity-level talking points.

And she finds an environment in which people just don't nod while waiting for the bell inhospitable. Which, of course, means that we are all stupid. Or mean. Or evil. Or greedy. Take your pick.

We ask for numbers. She quotes Steven Colbert. And we are supposed to be in awe or something.

As for Democrats being tax and spend, at least we pay our bills.

With IOU's now, apparently. Why is it all of the um...progressive states are going broke?

You can proclaim Bush a failure all you want, but until you provide a metric other than your own Bush Derangement Syndrome invective then you have nothing. I will not accept your pronouncements as fact. Give me the actual metric.

Both the levels of Bush's and Obama's deficit spending can be measured. Obama is the all time champ by a factor of four.

A year ago, Bush was said to be mortgaging our children's futures with his deficit spending.

President Obama comes along and quadruples it and you swoon and faint like a Beatles fan.

In the meantime, we pay for the folly of electing a man with no credentials.

Truly, I am interested to know why a $400 billion deficit is the end of the world as we know it and a talisman of incompetence, but a projected $2.5 trillion dollar deficit is enlightened policy.

Enlightened? Nay, more than that. Brought down from Mount Sinai is more like it.

Cheer up. Preident Obama is as popular as was George W. Bush after 6 months in office.

The only difference being that if we get attacked again then President Obama's approval ratings will go South, not North.

And of course Dick Cheney is planning another attack. Everyone knows that, right?

Otto, better break out another portion of spicy rum........it ain't over yet!

Portia , I'm not so sure...methinks Islecook has said all that hesheit could have possibly have said and used up all the 50cent words hesheit knows.

If this individual decides to return , perhaps you could convince Theo to engage in a debate using his one and two dollar words !

Yes ! That may tip the scale ! Obviously hesheit
has great difficulty understanding The Walsers "Plain Speak".

Here , let me refresh that toddy for you and we shall sit back and wait and watch.

Oh look ! I packed some nachos !

>>You can proclaim Bush a failure all you want, but until you provide a metric other than your own Bush Derangement Syndrome invective then you have nothing.

>>And of course Dick Cheney is planning another attack. Everyone knows that, right?

We have an IRS that takes in money and writes down where it is coming from. We have a CBO that writes this down also and also tells us where it is going and to whom.

They generate nice reports with lots of numbers from which you can measure things.

Things like a projected $2 trillion dollar deficit. Things like job lossess and gains.

Here is the basic problem: You actually think that mentions from the stage at a convention is a metric. Just like each additional time I ask for sources and/or numbers is a measure to you of how much "Kool-Aid" I have drunk.

And just like you measure your compassion by the amount of other people's money you are willing to spend, you measure people's IQ's by how often they agree with you.

I would hope that you, for all of your talk about other's greed, personally have risen above Joe Biden-level charitable giving.

You want measurable failure? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The catalyst for the whole recession.

Please, tell me why George W. Bush is more responsible for their collapse than Barney Frank.

Walsingham: From your link to Joe Biden's charitable giving:

"Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife gave an average of $369 a year to charity during the past decade, his tax records show."

That is the average! Which means that at least some years he gave a total of what? $100? $50?

$0??

I'd call that a metric. An inconvenient one at that.

>>Here is the basic problem: You actually think that mentions from the stage at a convention is a metric.

It is an extraordinarily telling metric. That you are too sodden by the Conservative Kool-Aid to recognize that blaring fact is similarly telling.

Incredible. It is like you are trying to prove his point, Isle.

Satch:

Drinking the Conservative Kool-Aid simply means that we are somehow not able to understand and agree with whatever it is that she is unable to argue.

Portia , should I be a gentleman and offer these people some spicy rum for their Kool-Aid or sit tight and enjoy these nachos ?

BTY You were right . Seems to be no end in sight .

>>You want measurable failure? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The catalyst for the whole recession.

Do try to keep up Walsingham, Fannie and Freddie crashed on Bush's watch. They crashed because Bush and the GOP eviscerated the regulations and watchdogs that had previously kept those entities, and other large financial organizations, on the straight and narrow.

>>Please, tell me why George W. Bush is more responsible for their collapse than Barney Frank.

Your posts just keep getting more shrill and absurd by the day, don't they? Now you want to pretend that Representative Frank was chairman (and Bush wasn't potus) when so much of the regulatory evisceration took place. Admittedly a fair portion took place when Clinton was trying to appease Gingrich's loonies, but the worst abuses were under Bush and Delay's war on any and all business regulation. Cowboy capitalism. Sounds cool, but the reality is that it is a dangerous ignorance that has come within a hair's breadth of taking us into a catastrophic global depression, and still might take us there despite the current leadership's best efforts to contain the massive damage it has wrought.

>>Drinking the Conservative Kool-Aid simply means that we are somehow not able to understand and agree with whatever it is that she is unable to argue.

>>It is like you are trying to prove his point, Isle.

Your superficial "facts" quickly debunked you are now left with nothing but childish invective and cheap ad hominems.

Talk about projection.

IsleCook, you are a fool.

What is worse, you are an unread fool.

What do you do for a living nayway?

>>IsleCook, you are a fool.

Like I said, you are quickly left with nothing but cheap ad hominems. Big surprise.

Delay, Gingrich.....

In any event, it looks like my advice is being taken. Jim Crow, Joe McCarthy, and Selma can't be far behind at this point.

Don't forget Gandhi.....always a great help with weepy moral preening.

Although, he is no Steven Colbert.

You were right to go with Colbert.

Isle, I asked a direct question: How is it that a $2 trillion dollar deficit is good policy and and a $400 billion deficit is abject incompetence?

Just answer the question.

Hey! Check out all of the Republicans deregulating Fannie Mae!

I guess "ad hominem" was today's Word of the Day somewhere.

>>Isle, I asked a direct question: How is it that a $2 trillion dollar deficit is good policy and and a $400 billion deficit is abject incompetence? Just answer the question.

This is actually quite a window into the mind of a very average, vocal, "progressive" liberal. I appreciate the give and take, though it is one sided.

I wonder what will happen, two-or-so years hence, when what is left of free enterprise has ceased to existin the US; when a Yugo-Trabant is all that is on the lot of the local ChryslUAW dealer; when the internet is censored and hobbled; when you have to take a number to get an appointment to get an appointment at the one GP still practicing in town; when the country has devolved to a Honduras that no one will be trading with anymore;

...when IsleCook's house is appropriated by her government for use by a 10 member immigrant family from France;

...will THAT be enough for the blinders to come off of these people?

What WILL it take???

Love this blog,
Shepherd

Just answer the question.

>>I wonder what will happen, two-or-so years hence, when what is left of free enterprise has ceased to existin the US

>>Just answer the question.

Do you still beat your wife?

Just answer the question.

Damn ! I ran out of rum !

Everybody stay where you are and I'll be right back !

>>Just answer the question.

Poor Walsingham, you just can't stop debasing yourself by playing the obtuse fool, can you? I answered your question, substantively, when I noted that the current deficit was payment for the years of Bush incompetence finally come due. Do you just not appreciate how pathetic your pretense is? Seriously dude. No matter how hard you wish and how hard you clap Bush was still a miserable failure, and so is his know-nothing ideology.

>>Hey! Check out all of the Republicans deregulating Fannie Mae!

• Shocking Audio: Obama has to Redistribute WHITE Suburbias Wealth for both His and Our Salvation
• Scandal Exposed: American Universal Health Care Exists NOW and its Killing People
• EVIDENCE FOUND!!! Clinton administration's "BANK AFFIRMATIVE ACTION" They forced banks to make BAD LOANS and ACORN and Obama's tie to all of it!!!
• Lie Exposed: Pelosi's Power, Oversight and Control of the CIA after being briefed on Waterboarding
• SHOCK Audio Unearthed OBAMA TELLS SAN FRANCISCO HE WILL BANKRUPT THE COAL INDUSTRY
• Explosive Video Reich, Obamas economic advisor no "White Male Construction Workers"

"Payment for Bush's incompetence" is a substantive answer?

That's it? That's all you have?

It's no more complicated than that?

Oh........you "noted" it. Silly me.

You are citing yourself as a source. How so.....you.

I am going to venture a guess. At work, just as it is here, nobody realizes just how gifted and brilliant you are and how it is you that should be running things.

Give my regards to the rest of your colony.

>>"Payment for Bush's incompetence" is a substantive answer? That's it? That's all you have? It's no more complicated than that?

See, now was that so hard to admit? It is a blatantly obvious observation to anyone who isn't profoundly duped and/or deep in denial.

"It is a blatantly obvious observation to anyone who isn't profoundly duped and/or deep in denial."

I agree with Walsingham, this is pure projection. You, IsleCook, have been profoundly duped and you are in deep denial.

The profoundly duped are those who believed the campaign rhetoric of Our President...AND currently believe that he is carrying it out, being totally deaf to the current message, singing "La La La...I can't hear you...Hope and Change, Hope AND Change, Hopenchange...La la la" with their fingers in their ears.

Those of us in the reality-based community see the facts, discuss them and plan accordingly. More than a few business people I know are actively winding down their business to prepare for the coming 2010-2012 tax tsunami: the end of free enterprise as we know it.

Time to hunker down, play some golf, drink some scotch (or rum!) and watched as the profoundly duped slowly get a clue. But only after their unemployment insurance runs out.

Rube.

oh I can recognize simple basic truths. I just look at the evidence in front of me. And it all points to this: IsleCook is an idiot.

I wish our nation did not have to go through the next few years. Perhaps all the idiots like islecook will learn something from Obama's cascading failure, and that might be a good thing. But the cost will be massive. The liberals' destruction of American prosperity will hurt the world. It will kill millions.

Theo said it best in another post, it all comes down to the bossy gene. Obama's got it bad. Looks like IsleCook has it too, though it manifests itself at a fairly innocuous level of impotence. Just another Obama lackey, living vicariously through Obama's brief moment in power. Enjoy it while it last. I'm guessing two 18 more months, for the house at least.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring ! I think I bought enough spicy rum for everybody so lets spread some sheets on the ground and break out the fried chicken !

There's nothing like a dog fight on a fine Sunday mornin' !

Bring your own lawn chairs !

"The Walser" vs."Islecook" part three !

BE THERERERERERRE !!!!!

Thanks, Otto, but I will bring a lawn chair. One of those dogs isn't house-trained.

Well, I've been here all day and nobody showed up! I guess I know how to empty a room.

I suppose I'll just pack my cooler and folding chair in the trunk of the car and go home.

sigh......

Actually, Otto, I think bob and I (especially with my captcha driven double posting) emptied the room, but Walser did a great job.

There are millions of IsleCooks out there. When will they get a clue?

And will we on the correct side collectively get our backs up in time to turn the situation around?

Thank you, Walsingham, for a very enlightening post. Whodathunk such a short statement (of fact!) would generate such a dialogue? Not me, but you did. Congrats!

Actually there wasn't much "dia" to the "logue" was there?

And thanks for cleaning up my captcha messes...

>>I agree with Walsingham, this is pure projection. You, IsleCook, have been profoundly duped and you are in deep denial.

I'm not the one making a fool of myself trying to pretend that Bush/Cheney were a rousing success instead of the abysmal failure the entire world knows them to be.

Say it with me Isle:

$2.5 Tttttttttrrrrilllllllliiiiiiooooon.

Don't you just love the way it rolls off the tongue?

Trrrrrrriiiiiiiilllllllliiiiiioooooooonnnnn.

bob is correct. You are an idiot.

"Projection" is "the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or objects; esp. the externalization of blame, guilt or responsibility as a defense against anxiety."

Feeling a bit anxious lately?

Epic Fail is what we are witnessing (and having the opportunity to live through) with our current king-wannabe.

Go away.

>>There are millions of IsleCooks out there. When will they get a clue?

We already have. It's why Conservatives are getting trounced in almost every election in the nation. It is why the GOP lost the House, the Senate, and the WhiteHouse. It is why Democrats are increasing their lead, and look to continue to gain for the foreseeable future.

So your definition of forseeable is looking back 9 months and still not perceiving today's reality. De. Ni. Al. Willful ignorance will not be a defense.

>>Epic Fail is what we are witnessing (and having the opportunity to live through) with our current king-wannabe... De. Ni. Al.

You really have no idea how silly all of you sound trying to pretend that Bush isn't an incompetent idiot. The entire planet knows it, but that doesn't stop you. No sir. You are exceptional. You know better than them. LOL

>>Say it with me Isle: $2.5 Tttttttttrrrrilllllllliiiiiiooooon.

You GOP'ers do enjoy humiliating yourselves, don't you? Yet again you are reduced to playing the obtuse fool.

No one is talking about Bush but you, my dear........what Walser and company are appalled at is your wilful looking the other way at the nine months just past.

Well said, Portia.

IC, after defining projection, now we have to define obtuse for you?

One definition would be not understanding Epic Fail when being run over by it.

BTW, I don't know about you, Portia, but I am way more bemused than I am appalled. There are millions of IsleCrooks out there, all are:
a. projecting their own failure and loserhood on Bush & Co.,
b. in denial on the current regime's policy paths which are diametrically opposed to the campaign rhetoric (what he said, not what many of us on the Right knew he would do),
and c. are clearly the willful ignorant on what the outcomes of these policies will be.

Also, in case I forget: Walser, Theo and Ospurt rock.

>>So your definition of forseeable [sic] is looking back 9 months and still not perceiving today's reality.

Uh no, that would be your definition, the dupe definition. The definition desperately trying to pretend the Conservative movement wasn't a dead stinking fish.

>>IC, after defining projection, now we have to define obtuse for you?

Obtuse is simultaneously/ignorantly trying to pretend that Bush/Cheney wasn't an unprecedented historic failure and that President Obama's is. Seriously, do you just have no appreciation of how absurd your goofy claims really are? Do you people have no self respect whatsoever? How can you tell such blatant lies to yourself and not feel mortified by your profound gullibility?

What lies?
Name them.

Bob , do you reeeeaaallllly think you're going to get an answer ?

I'm expecting the reply to be " Well , if you don't know then you're too stupid for me to waste my time explaining". You've had eight years of stupidity and YOU DON'T KNOW !!! I can't believe how much kool-aid you drank !"

prove me wrong Islecook ,

Like Bob asked ,

Name Them .

Well, if you don't know then you're too stupid for me to waste my time explaining. You've had eight years of stupidity and YOU DON'T KNOW !!! I can't believe how much kool-aid you drank !

Yeah. I like that answer. I'll go with that.

They say that Trillion is this year's Billion.

Ain't that right, Cookie?

I like that answer. I'll go with that.

Beggars can't be choosers.

Sad. So sad.

So the idiot calls me stupid. I expected as much.

If this is the caliber of Obama's true faithful. I'm not too worried. Yes, the Obama administration will suck, but folks like IC will insure that it's a short one.

Woo-hoo!!!

#100!

IsleCook, the idiot's idiot's idiot. Your village in Illinois is looking for you.

Okay, we've had our "levity Break" now back to business . Islecook , please present the "lies" Bob asked for .

Thank you .

>>Okay, we've had our "levity Break" now back to business . Islecook , please present the "lies" Bob asked for .

Regarding what? You would need an encyclopedia to catalog the endless lies of the GOP and/or Bush.

You want to pretend he didn't treasonously lie us into an unnecessary war, or that he and his thuggish cohorts didn't treasonously out a covert CIA agent? Go ahead and show the depth of your dupedom. Dupedom so profound that you will defend treason.

IsleCook asks "How can you tell such blatant lies to yourself".

I ask for clarification.

Nothing.

Nothing that applies to anything anyone has said here in this conversation.

Just more conjecture, more baseless accusation, more projection.

Nothing substantive. You and your typical audience might be so gullible to fall for your strawmen IC, but not here.

Now to Respond to the original topic, rather than respond to the attention and intelligence starved IsleCook. Obama's approval rating fell through the 50% level today. Knowing that only 60% of tax filers actaully pay income taxes, is it safe to assume only 10% of income tax paying Americans approve of the way Obama is fumbling the presidency?

Before I spend a bunch of time typing and sourcing...do you consider Richard Armitage to be either Bush himself or a Bush cohort?

Because the original "outing" came from a Robert Novak column and it is unversally accepted that Richard Armitage was Novak's source.

Armitage admits to it in this CBS interview.

Not Bush. Not Cheney. Not Rove.

The Special Prosecutor knew this early on, too, and yet Armitage was never charged with any wrong doing. The reason? By the actual law protecting covert agents, Valerie Plame did not meet the requirements specifying who was covert and who was not. (Can't find the link right now, but I remember this from an interview with the congressional staffer who actually authored the law itself.)

A key paragraph: "Armitage never did tell the president, but he's talking now because Fitzgerald told him he could."

So, on Cook Isle is Armitage a cohort? He did not "out" Plame on anyone's orders, nor did he even tell his superiors what he had inadvertantly done.

Armitage is a bi-partisan operator, not a Bush cohort. We know this because it is establsihed fact that he 'outed' Plame and there is absolutley zero uproar about this from either side of the aisle.

At this point, you may be tempted to inject the idea that there were multiple leakers and that Cheney and/or Rove also 'outed' Plame, but if the true intent of the law and all of those involved is to protect covert agents rather than....what was Joe Wilson's quote again..."see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House" you have to ask yourself why no action was taken against Armitage when he admitted to being at least one of the leakers in such a scenario.

Next, on the "lying us in to an unecessary war claim": I can argue that it was not an unnecessary war (I believe it was) but that is a subjective issue. Reasonable people can and do disagree on that. I can and will argue that we were not "lied" into war.

But given your history here of answering any demand for sources with either a repeat of the claim itself or another new and unrelated claim I sure as Hell aren't going to take any time to do it before I see if you continue your non-responsiveness in answer to the Plame thing.

Like I said, dupedom so profound you will defend treason, and you just proved my point.

I rest my case. I can't waste any more time with this moron.

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You should claim the pro-rated aomunt you paid on the old property and any pro-rated aomunt you paid on the new property (often in advance of the year-end billing), then remember to make any necessary adjustments after official tax bills come out and get re-divided. In theory, you paid the taxes by giving the money to somebody else (or putting it into escrow for taxes) and you are allowed to assume they actually made the necessary payments to the necessary authorities. A lender holding tax escrow should give you an annual statement of taxes collected, held and paid out.

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