McEvil is simply a evil piece of shit who lives in a delusional reality along with the rest of the REPIGLICANS .. and when that delusional reality is challenged by actual facts these pigs freak the fuck out and then create yet another delusion as a way of deflecting the actual facts and to sustain their existing delusions...........SOUNDS JUST LIKE BUSH AND HIS GOONS DOESN'T IT ?

This could be explained if it's one of the areas where he's taking Palin's advice.

It's just that they work to a different standard than we do. We want things to line up with actual reality. They just say what they wish were true, and then for them, it becomes true.

Unfortunately, 30% or more of the population isn't paying enough attention to notice.

The economy has to be fixed. This presidential race has gone on and on and on, and the economy is getting worse all the while.

Whoever wins this thing has to get a loud message from the public that the economy has to be fixed NOW. I signed this petition to the 44th president.

http://friendsoftheuschamber.com/email/44_email.html

The message is clear. The economy FIRST.

McCain is incredibly shallow when it come to intellect or ideology. He's capable of adopting a partisan ideology but not understanding it or even internalizing it. I doubt he is capable of an intellectual understanding - at least there's no evidence of it. The "rationale" for his whole campaign has been biography and when that failed, all he had left were political hacks and gimmicks. Is it any wonder that his campaign is erratic?

we are all joe the plumber...

Right now, Barack Obama is all that is standing between us and a looming economic freefall into disaster. Think about it: McCain doesn't know the least bit about economics or finance. He, like GWB has done, would defer to others who do not have the general population's best interest at heart. For the little guy (me), that would mean disaster. I would be on my own against the tsunami of a global depression. And so would all of you (unless you are among the 1% wealthiest and best connected people).

Obama has demonstrated (to my satisfaction) that he understands that the long-term economic strength of America lies in a healthy middle-class. It may be tough going for a while, since we are in a shitty spot thanks to unfettered (read: unregulated) derivative/ mortgage/ hedge fund scam that has gone on for years that Phil Gramm and his banking cronies set up.

So it's either McCain and his advisors like Gramm who set up the conditions for our current meltdown, OR Obama who thinks the guys who gained the benefits of creating then selling sub-prime mortgage derivatives, (whose value was impossible to truly examine) over the past deregulated eight years should be required to participate in the pain of digging out, like the rest of us.

It ain't rocket science.

It's impossible for the Repub party to own up to the fact that the Regeanomics voodoo economics bubble has burst and taken down the world's economy. The Repub party has turned into a train wreck on the national stage. Watch for a descent into super ugly election politics - this is Rove's specialty.

CRA? Isn't that the Community Resurgement Act?

They could take the whole quote and give it to Steven Colbert and his writers wouldn't have to change a thing. The definitive "truthiness"

"...to reign in Freddie and Fannie...

That should be "rein in." Pet peeve.

CRA- the Community Reinvestment Act has been in operation for over thirty years. It ain't the culprit.

The meltdown we are seeing on a worldwide scale is because a new product called sub-prime loans, invented through Gramm and Friends' now deregulated banking industry, was bundled and packaged into derivative instruments (which was given higher security ratings than truly should have had due to the indeterminate value within the funds) and sold large scale to investors all over the world.

If this were simply a case of foreclosures, it would only be homeowners and the banks that gave the loans that would be at risk. But it is not. The fallout has come because of the selling, reselling, and reselling of these sub-prime loans with assurances from Wall Street that these instruments were sound. The amount of money made from the multiple sales were pocketed by Wall Street investors, not put back into the communities where the subprime loans were originally made. Otherwise, there would not be so many losers in this situation. The only winners were the investment houses and the execs who got the bonuses for peddling crap to the world.

The McCain team is spinning this shit because they know any objective search of truths and facts would lead to the root of this economic crisis. While deficit spending, trade deficits, and the credit economy have been around for some time now, the deregulation of banks, principally under the GOP, has had the effect of pouring gasoline onto a fire.

I forgot to mention the GOP's distribution of wealth away from the middle class. I guess it's more like pouring rocket fuel onto a fire.

McCain has the idea that the electorate are basically not very curious nor hungry for veracity.

John's understanding about economic matters ends at his love for craps.

Simple game for simple minds.

We are faced with possibly the biggest financial mess of our lifetimes, a mess that will require rigorous intellect and honest debate about how best to proceed.

The lack of leaders at this time is indicative of how vast the derivative-based greed has permeated the world's economies.

I don't think the change we seek will come from Washington, rather it will be all of us re-thinking how to proceed from here on out. We will drive less, live in smaller houses, favor cash and gold, insulate/weatherwise our homes and businesses, and above all, all of us will have to do more with less.

Meanwhile, this race is tightening, fast. McCain has the baseline advantage - if he isn't blundering terribly, and if nothing earthshakingly horrible is occurring, his numbers rise, and Obama's fall. The market freefall seems to have bottomed out, Obama's debate advantage is yesterday's news, and it's moving toward this equilibrium again.

If McCain hadn't campaigned at all, just sat it out on his laurels, he'd have won by a landslide. Obama is only in this thing because McCain ran the worst campaign in history, and is running on the policies of the worst president in history.

Think about it.

I didn't expect this thing to close so fast. I don't like it at all. It's 17 days to go, and there's no way Obama's slim lead can withstand this rate of erosion. It's like one of those balloon punching bags. No matter how hard and how often you hit this idiot McCain caricature,
you stop for a second or two and it just bounces back up again.

I'm not religious, so somebody else start praying fast!

Has anybody wondered lately.... McCain actually being the Republican Party's very own internal Manchurean Candidate?

Consider this:

McCain keeps grudges for a very long time. The defeat in 2000 by the hands of Rove and his gang of operatives without conscience, didn't sit very well with McCain. McCain was even shunned for quite some time in Republican circles.

McCain, although being a life-long conservative, had his good Maverick moments by going against the more stupid Republican ideas.

At the beginning of his 2008 campaign, he tried to be the original maverick by being somewhat sensible on a variety of issues: immigration, Roe vs Wade, campaign reform, etc...

Fox Crazies, Limbaugh ditto-heads, the Dobson crowd swore that if McCain was the candidate they'd vote democratic.

McCain looked at all of this and figured: I'm going to destroy the Republican Party once and for all. Considering how unhinged the Republican field of Presidential candidates actually is; I can sit back and win this contest by default.

1) I'm going to embrace the Agents of Intolerance

2) I'm going to hire Karl Rove's team to run my smear campaign; especially the ones who were vicious towards me in the past.

3) I'm going to surround myself with a lot of lobbyists, preferably the ones with unsavory connections.

4) I'm going to spew a lot of Republican talking points to the point of being rediculous.

5) I'm going to flip-flop several times on pretty much any position I've ever held in my career.

6) I'm going to flat out lie during the debates and interviews; not just the spinnable topics but even on topics that have been proven to be wrong.

7) I'm going to pick one of the least qualified candidates as VP - just because she's a darling of those moronic evangelicals.

8) I'm going to pull some tricks that have never happened during previous presidential campaigns: suspending my campaign, vetoing the first debate, step in at the last moment to crash financial bail-out deliberations and take credit for it.

In short, I'm going to work on exposing what the Republican Party has always been about, by blatantly acting it out in full view, instead of doing it behind closed doors as Republicans usually do it.

True Americans will be so appalled at my behavior and especially all the sycophants who keep defending me against all facts.

The result should be that Obama wins - not that I like Obama - but that is not what it is about; it is about me getting even with the Republicans who didn't elect me in 2000 when it was my turn to be president.

After the landslide defeat in November, I can retire with my trophy wife and think about spending the millions of dollars we already have.

/snark

Joe the plumber is not average, plus the rascal likely does not do work according to city code. Not licensed means no business insurance that would protect the consumer. This guy Joe the Plumber is more like Joe the predator. So America we see a McCain leadership moment here, sending the electorate to loan predators and now plumbing predators. And McCain calls the guy a winner? Worse we have a huge support group, the Republicans for this kind of America business, yep no regulation no how. Not a maverick, this McCain is a bandit.

Our debt to the Chinese passed the $1 trillion mark in 2006, either right before or right after the elections.

As mentioned by other bloggers: Joe the Plumber represents the typical Republican...

- Uninformed
- Low Intellect
- Enjoys exaggeration
- Make up their own reality
- Facts don't mean a thing if they don't fit their belief system.

Republican working class voter = People who vote against their own economic best interest.

we are all joe the plumber...
Posted by: skippy

I am not Joe the plumber, regardless of what the guy in the kangaroo suit tells you. Get back on your peanut-butter jar, skippy!

"The McCain team is spinning this shit because they know any objective search of truths and facts would lead to the root of this economic crisis. While deficit spending, trade deficits, and the credit economy have been around for some time now, the deregulation of banks, principally under the GOP, has had the effect of pouring gasoline onto a fire."
Posted by: Jim on October 18, 2008

Well said.

And the 'root of this economic crisis' is Republican ideology which says the government is the enemy. It's the ideology of a traitor.

For all the pundits that have been 'trying' to defend McCain; Joe Klein said it best in his post debate analysis:
In his anger, McCain confirmed a sad truth about his campaign: that the prime source of the negativity was the candidate himself.

Can't argue with that.

The comments get more obscene as the frenzy mounts.

McCain continues to blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He's completely wrong.

No, your link does not take into account the role of incentives, just as your allies ignore the dynamic effects of tax policy. When Fannie-Freddie began to accept as "conforming" these NINJA loans, the other lenders followed suit. Fannie-Freddie bought such loans and that encouraged the risky behavior.

I know we will never agree on economics but you won't get far calling these concerns "nonsense." It may be to you but Nobel Prize winners disagree.

The question is whether the voters wise up before November 4. We'll see. I call it too close to call but the trend may be shifting.

A commenter at TPM said:

I want the Republican Party dissolved and I want whatever takes its place to have a different name - Republican is synonymous with traitor to democracy...

Actually I think we are already seeing some of this happening:

Republicans running for (re)election in various states - counties - cities, who do not wish to use the 'Republican' colors / logos / 'R' behind their name.

The Republican contender for unseating the Democratic governor in Washington State, has GOP behind his name, instead of "R". ... because most voters do not know that GOP is the same as Republican. He can claim to run for the "Grand Ole Party"

Locally, I've seen several Republican State Rep - signs that in previous elections proudly claimed to be Republicans. Not so much nowadays.

Actually Gordon Smith has been running more ads touting that Obama likes him, and that he works together with Democrats a lot, instead of his embracing of the Republican party he used to do in previous elections. He uses green and blue on his signs... when was the last time you saw a Republican use green and blue on his election literature?

I can go on with examples, but the point is: Just as liberal 'used' to be a very bad word, Republicanism could only hope that it was only as bad as being labeled 'liberal' in the past.

(As Ezra politely explained this eek, "[Everyone] spouting this CRA bullshit, is a fraud, and they should be laughed out of polite company.")

No. Everyone spouting this CRA bullshit is a RACIST.

Read Matt Taibbi's great article in the newest Rolling Stone, where he demonstrates clearly that what we are seeing is the last gasp of publicly-acceptable white supremacy.

Look at who spouts the bullshit - Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, etc. Racists every one of them.

Yes, one hopes that the morons who are currently claiming they will vote for more malice, incompetence, and idiocy will come to their senses and vote for Obama instead.

Mike K will not, but then he's never been the sharpest crayon in the box.

A month after the crisis began, and just 17 days before Election Day, John McCain remains economically illiterate. It's actually kind of scary.

About 8 years after being selected as President. George W. Bush still can't read or speak (or most likely write) English. That's scarier.

-Z

I know we will never agree on economics but you won't get far calling these concerns "nonsense." It may be to you but Nobel Prize winners disagree.

Which Nobel winners?

While there is plenty of room to disagree on economic theory there are some indisputable facts:
Bush turned a budget surplus into a deficit early in his first term.
Bush doubled the national debt in eight years.
Despite warnings, Bush took no action to mitigate the economic collapse. Instead, he showed up when the signs of collapse were glaringly apparent and then he acted as though the disater was caused by chance and not by the actions of people with names and job titles.
This country can't afford four more years of Republican economic policies. The voters may wise up indeed. If they do, McCain will suffer the worst defeat in political history.

People like McCain and MikeK know that they are full of their own shit. They're just betting that they can sell their phony bullshit version because it's so well packaged for their base. That way their base can continue to believe what it wants (those damn n*ggers and l*berals) without having to use what it hates (frontal cortex).

Let's continue fighting so that this lemon version doesn't get sold to the rest of America.

I disagree Jim, McCain knows but doesn't care. Mike K isn't smart enough to know much of anything. Some people smarter than he is wrote a set of talking points for Mike K to recite, but that's all he is. A mindless parrot. He can't explain why the minorities, who weren't getting the kind of housing loans that are at the heart of the problem, caused all of this. All he can do is recite his mindless drivel and hope that it helps get McCain elected with a Democratic Congress so he can continue to blame Democrats for the problems caused by Republican excesses.

Because admitting that the Republicans have fucked over the nation requires a level of intellect far beyond that available to drones like Mike K.

They get away with the CRA non-sense because the Democrats who have sold their souls to Wall Street clearly don't want to defend it. McCain'sargument that he tried to reign in Freddie-Fannie is so bogus. Both houses of Congress when he made his attempt were in the hands of the GOP and the President was none other than Bush. Yet no one ever points that out. Whatever arises from the ashes of the financial bailout a commitment to the CRA and minority lending aint going to be one of them.

I wrote a Kos diary about CRA for those interested:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/14/6245/4338/582/629960

"No, your link does not take into account the role of incentives, just as your allies ignore the dynamic effects of tax policy"

You are, as usual, flatly incorrect, which is why you cannot back up these silly assertion any more than you can back up the rest of the nonsense you've spewed here over the years.

hannity is a hate monger