Before the internet, incompetent shills like Brooks could get away with this kind of lying, but now they're ridiculed before the paper hits the newstands. Like the print newspaper, Brooks and his no-talent, no-ethics ilk are headed for extinction.

Posted at July 2, 2008 2:26 AM in response to Muddy Brooks

Frankly, I thought it was a great speech. Like the race speech, he's taking a hot-button issue and talking about it without being superficial.

Listen - I loved the General Betrayus ad. My blood pressure goes up every time I see an American flag. I'm deeply embarrassed by and ashamed of this country and as far as I'm concerned, every moron who voted for Bush in 2004 is as much an enemy of democracy and America as Bin Laden.

I hate those people with a deep passion, but when I get to know some of them personally, as I was forced to on an extended business trip in the heartland, I see that, however misguided, they're decent human beings.

If Obama can get through to these people, more power to him.

Remember that they hate us as much as we hate them. We're right, of course, and I'm not being facetious. We are right and they are stupid. I know that to be true with every fiber of my being, but somebody's got to make peace with these idiots and if Obama can do it, he can thrown moveon.org and Wesley Clark (whom I never liked although I wholly agreed with his comments about McCain) under the bus with my blessing. I'll keep donating to moveon, but I hope for the day that 527s on both sides become unnecessary.

The FISA stand is just plain wrong, but this speech, in my opinion, is just plain right.

Posted at June 30, 2008 4:50 PM in response to Obama's Patriotism Speech Stresses Life Story, Criticizes MoveOn

If it's only $2000 a year property taxes for that house, Cindy probably inherited it and it was probably purchased in the 50s or before.

Posted at June 29, 2008 2:54 AM in response to McCains Delinquent On Tax Bill

The problem is that the price of real estate fluctuates madly and over time goes up WAY more than income (in CA anyway), so you buy a house, and without P13, the tax would soon become unaffordable, but if you sell the house, you still can't afford to buy another because they've all gone up that much.

Of course this is really an isolated symptom of the overall war on the middle class. In the 50s and 60s a guy with no education could work a normal unskilled job 40 hours a week, and be able to buy a house and support 4 or 5 kids without his wife working. Now a college educated couple with both people working and no kids still can't buy a frikkin' house.

Posted at June 29, 2008 12:29 AM in response to McCains Delinquent On Tax Bill

But anyway ... for the McLame's to owe 8K over 4 years, or 2K per year ... that's the same as I pay, so we can deduce that they paid 80K for that La Jolla house!

Here's a google streetview where you can actually see the street the McBane's house is on - hard to know WHICH house. TPM will probably choke on it, so to search for it, just go to maps.google.com and type camino de oro, la jolla, ca and then click the streetview button.

Camino Del Oro, La Jolla, CA 92037
Link:

Now ... even AFTER the subprime bubble burst, any house on that street is currently worth a minimum of 3 or 4 million - probably much more. Old Cindy must've bought it in the early 60s.

Yeah - I know - I'm making my pro-Prop 13 argument look pretty lame here! How about you only get to freeze the property taxes on your FIRST house?

Posted at June 29, 2008 12:12 AM in response to McCains Delinquent On Tax Bill

Thanks to prop 13 the educational system is screwed as well in cali.

However, thanks to Prop 13, good old Señor Timba is able to afford to stay in the house he paid 80K back in the 80s. Without P13, and prior to Mr. McCain's adviser Mr. Gramm's subprime mortgage scam, I wouldn't have been able to afford the property taxes on this dump.

There are all sorts of little old ladies with tiny little social security checks sitting in crappy little houses that were driven up to a million bucks. They'd be even more screwed.

(For those who don't know, Prop 13 says that when you buy a house, the base property tax rate is fixed at 1% per year of what you paid. So, since I paid 80K, my base rate is 800 a year (my real rate is 2000 a year after they tack on all the other stuff). But at the height of the bubble, my house was worth about a million (supposedly), which, had whatever might have replaced prop 13 reappraised it, would have increased my base rate to 10,000 a year!! So let's say I decide to sell. But now the subprime thing has forced the value back down to ... ? ... see what I mean?

Okay, now let's look at the young people. They mortgage themselves to the teeth to buy a house. Some have 10K/month mortages! In their case, if the prop tax went up they'd also be forced into default.

All that said, you're right that the educational system is way screwed up. To say nothing of the state is still way underwater from Mr. McCain's economic advisor Mr. Gramm's Enron heist.

Posted at June 28, 2008 11:56 PM in response to McCains Delinquent On Tax Bill

Why not run an ad that shows the false ad, debunks it and says "John Gard knowingly lied to you about Chinese oil drilling off the coast of Cuba for political gain. Is this the kind of person you want representing you? What else will he lie about in the future?"

Posted at June 27, 2008 11:36 PM in response to Yet Another Republican Pushes China-Cuba Oil Myth

Ambinder can be an ass sometimes.

Yes, but those good moments are few and far between.

Speaking of skanky traditional media trolls, if you want to see what the highly questionable Ben Smith is like, he's got a long video discussion with Matt Cooper at www.bloggingheads.tv

Posted at June 25, 2008 3:41 AM in response to Obama Asks Donors To Help Hillary Pay Off Her Debts

I agree. Plus - the whole point of public financing is to keep the corporations and special interests from unduly influencing the elction

1) Obama's money is all coming from individuals anyway
2) The corporations and special interests are unduly influencing the election anyway through 527s and their ownership of most of the media, so they need to be fought off as with as much firepower as possible.

I think the brújaja over Obama's "hit" on opting out is nonsense. I highly doubt that he'll lose a single vote because of it.

Posted at June 25, 2008 3:38 AM in response to Obama Asks Donors To Help Hillary Pay Off Her Debts

Just because you consider this a "rogue administration" doesn't make it so.

Just because you don't consider this a rogue administration doesn't rule out the fact that adminstrations which even you agree to be of the rogue variety could and would misuse the power to wiretap American citizens.

Posted at June 22, 2008 4:00 PM in response to Poll: Presidential Race A Dead Heat -- In Georgia