I just tripled my 401(k) contibution to 24% of my salary. I can’t afford it, but I also can’t believe how cheap this stuff is now. I’ll make the cuts elsewhere to make up for it.
401(k)
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Barack “the Rock” Obama v. John “McSame” McCain – Blogger Reactions
1.) A visual representation of last night’s debate:
It feels good to act like a 12 year old fanboi sometimes.
2.) Next, I am in pain from laughing at the caption to the photo over here. Honest to goodness physical pain.
3.) Larison, as always, is worth a read:
First a few words about the bizarre debate over what happened to the “real” McCain, which becomes more relevant as McCain has started asking, “Who is the real Barack Obama?” Even among McCain critics, there are some who still insist on coming up with excuses for the former media darling, and they echo the excuses journalists have made for McCain for years: sure, he’s lying about this or that, but he’s clearly uncomfortable doing it, which proves that he’s actually a good guy. More recently, McCain has seemed angrier and grumpier than usual, prompting the same excuses: he doesn’t enjoy doing this kind of campaigning, and it shows, which somehow makes it better. This has been the strange ethical standard applied to McCain for as long as I can remember. According to this odd view, if someone is not very proficient at lying and smearing his opponents and gives the impression that even he knows what he’s saying is nonsense, that somehow proves that he is honest and decent at heart. The correct view is exactly the opposite–if McCain knows the truth, doesn’t really believe what he’s saying and tells lies unconvincingly, that is evidence of the far deeper corruption of the man. Instead of being badly misguided or misinformed, he willfully says things that he knows have no merit or that he knows are unworthy of anyone in his position. In short, being a bad smear artist does not make someone ethical or honorable; it makes him unethical and incompetent.
I know a lot of you don’t click through, but you really should read the whole post.
4.) This post title made me laugh as well.
5.) This, as well, is pretty damned funny:
The fractious Michigan Republicans may not be doing McCain-Palin any favors by keeping the story that he’s abandoned the state alive. They’re now petitioning for a Palin visit.
The Democrats have answered with a petition to bring Tina Fey to Michigan.
6.) Apparently, the mortgage buyback scheme McCain tossed out last night was not even discussed internally at McCain HQ. Erratic.
7.) So this is how the inevitable meltdown of the right happens- to howls of laughter.
More as I see it…
Barack “the Rock” Obama v. John “McSame” McCain – Blogger ReactionsPost + Comments (63)
An Interesting Observation
Michael Scherer at Swampland notes something we talked about during liveblogging:
Neither candidate has the courage to speak straight with the American people about our nation’s fiscal problems. Asked about the financial crisis, McCain talked about energy independence, hitting the same talking points he used in July. Obama talked about the need to give tax cuts to the middle class, and expand spending programs, a proposal he put forward last year. Both men have proposed policies that will lead to an increase in the deficit, according to independent analysts, even without a dramatic economic downturn, which looks increasingly inevitable. Neither man has shown any clear intention to tell Americans to face head on the hard economic times that await us. This is politics. The candidates are playing it safe, not telling voters anything they don’t want to hear. They choose to demagogue Wall Street instead. Let’s just pray that after the election, the winner drops this politicking and becomes the bold, honest leader both men claim to be. The nation will need it.
I used fewer words:
9:13 pm- They are both full of shit. This economy is in a deepening recession, and the economy is going to get much worse.
Among the number of things that really concerns me is that there still has not been an honest appraisal of how bad things are right now, even when both candidates were given a chance to talk about sacrifice last night. There are, I think, some very tough times ahead. We don’t just have a crisis in confidence right now, we have a deep structural problems and a mountain of debt and an aging population that has been promised a great deal of entitlement money and I just don’t see any end in sight. Things are really a mess.
On top of all that, Matt Yglesias has a good post up about how right now, spending cuts on the federal level may be the worst thing possible. While there is no doubt that Obama is the superior candidate of the two, this lack of openness about how bad things really are is depressing. I understand it, as no one can run on a platform of “You all are going to have to do with less,” but that is the reality, in my estimation.
Richard Cohen is Shrill
Very shrill indeed. Almost sounds bitter:
Since I began with the Times’ conservative columnist of the moment, I will end with its conservative columnist of years past — the estimable William Safire. In 1996, he called Hillary Clinton “a congenital liar.” It was a head-snapping characterization that, alas for Clinton, has defined her for the ages and that she stubbornly vindicates from time to time.
But what about Palin? Can you imagine the reaction of the press corps if Clinton had given the audience a “hiya, sailor” wink? Can you imagine the feverish blogging across the political spectrum if Clinton had claimed credit for stopping a bridge that, in fact, had set her heart aflutter? What if she had shown that she didn’t know squat about the Constitution, if she could not tell Katie Couric what newspapers or magazines she read or if she had claimed an intimacy with foreign affairs based on sighting Russia through binoculars?
Ah, but the scorn, approbation and ridicule that would have descended on Clinton — I can just imagine the Journal editorial — have been withheld from Palin. Much of the mainstream media, grading on a curve suitable for a parrot — “greed and corruption, greed and corruption, greed and corruption” — gave her a passing grade or better. I agree with Palin. It’s the mainstream media that flunked.
Word.
BTW- You might want to check your children to see if they are suffering from an outbreak of Intermittent Gunderson Syndrome (IGS). Symptoms include a fake accent that appears to come and go, use of folksy mannerisms when in front of a national audience, inadvertent winking, and the loss of the ability to pronounce the letter “g” at the end of words. A video here:
A Blast from the Past
John Rogers- I Miss Republicans
There used to be a time I thought there might be a resurgence of those Republicans. Now, I realize they are all long dead. Or, as it is these days, endorsing Obama.
And for double fun, notice that one of those “sober” Republicans mentioned in that piece- John McCain. How things change. That was also four years ago when a hundred billion sounded like a lot of money.
The Myth of Rural Virtue and Urban Vice
Steve Chapman lays waste to the myth that, somehow, country folk from rural areas are morally superior to those of us city folk with edumacations.
“We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity and dignity,” [Sarah Palin] declared, quoting the late journalist Westbrook Pegler. “They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food, run our factories and fight our wars. They love their country, in good times and bad, and they’re always proud of America.” Not like those idle, insincere, lying city folks who dare to suggest that America can sometimes be wrong.
But no one seemed to take offense. The myth of rural virtue and urban vice is an old one in this country, and it persists no matter what the changes in the landscape. And whatever questions Palin may face in her debate with Biden, her paeans to small-town virtue aren’t likely to be among them.
Most Americans, it seems, can tolerate hearing of the superiority of the small town, as long as they don’t have to live in one. You wouldn’t know it from listening to country music stations, or to the governor of Alaska, but four out of every five Americans choose not to reside in rural areas.
Because they are elitists! City dwellers obviously haven’t discovered that the best meth is served up in the sticks!
The Myth of Rural Virtue and Urban VicePost + Comments (106)
A Worthwhile Open Thread
Not about elections. Not about humor. I just committed to $20 a month, forever, to the World Food Program via the Letterman site (the head of WFP was on his show this week.) You can donate here. FWIW, 93% of what they raise goes directly to feed people. While you’re donating to Obama, donate to WFP. 25¢ a day feeds a child!
That is all. Back to your regularly scheduled political programming.