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Which one is the Elitist again?

John McCain and his 13 cars. Not to mention the houses and the jet.

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Muppet McCain and Miss Palin

A reader sent this to me:

From Best O’ The Web

And with all the talk about lipstick on pigs, I can’t help but think of this image (not that I would ever think any politician is a pig — it’s just a figure of speech):

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The Palin-Hannity Infomercial

Jon Stewart is brilliant as usual, and makes you laugh at something that really ought to make you cry:

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Do Latte Drinkers Vote for Obama?

Back in February, Clinton supporter Tom Buffenbarger famously said:

I’ve got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won’t last a round against the Republican attack machine. He’s a poet, not a fighter.

The image at right notwithstanding, is there some connection between latte drinkers and Obama voters? Urbanspoon found that indeed, there is a mild correlation between states that voted for Obama in the primaries and the number of Starbuck’s stores per capita. Interestingly, there was no correlation at all with Prius drivers or Birkenstock wearers (they couldn’t figure out how to measure the number of trust fund babies per state, but didn’t find much correlation with per capita income).

But they used data from the primary election, which has the benefit of being real numbers rather than polling data. But we’d like to see if the numbers still work for the general election. If we take the average of today’s polling data (from Electoral Vote) and compare it to the number of Starbuck’s stores per capita in each state, we get the same mild correlation (the black line shows the trend of the Starbucks data):

chart

I also note that Buffenbarger’s prediction was wrong. With Obama currently ahead again in the polls for both the popular vote and the Electoral College, he seems to have already lasted more than one round against the Republican Attack Machine. Maybe he’s a poet and a fighter.

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John McCain’s Very Bad Week

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The New Dollar


From All Hat No Cattle

Even conservatives are aghast.

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The Nosey Bridge to Nowhere


© John Sherffius

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Late Night Political Humor

“The Dow went up 410 points today on Wall Street. You may already know, the government has bailed two huge financial companies out, and today, they strongly hinted that they would bail the rest of them out, at taxpayers’ expense. It’s all part of a new approach our leaders in the White House and Congress are taking to the economy. It’s called socialism.” –Jimmy Kimmel

“President Bush is doing his best to respond to the crisis. I love that that gets giggles. That’s not even a joke. It’s just me discussing what’s really going on.” –Conan O’Brien

“The stock market was up 400 points today. Or as Democrats call that, ‘Terrible news!’ Barack Obama said today, again, he wants to raise taxes on the rich. That’s provided if, by November, anyone is still rich.” –Jay Leno

“Due to the current crisis on Wall Street, President Bush announced just a few hours ago that he’s canceled a trip to Alabama. That’s true. Yeah, Bush said, ‘Under the circumstances, I didn’t think it was right to leave the country.'” –Conan O’Brien

“When it comes to the economy, President Bush is no help at all. Like when reporters asked him today, what he thought about AIG, he said he got Showtime and HBO, but he really didn’t get the whole package.” –Jay Leno

“And the Democratic-controlled Congress says they’re going to adjourn for the rest of the year. This is true. The Senate majority leader said regarding the financial crisis, no one knows what to do. Well there’s a ringing endorsement to re-elect them, huh? ‘Hey, good luck! You’re on your own! We’re leaving!'” –Jay Leno

“Big story in USA Today today. They said the days of easy money are over. Well, I’ll bet the CEOs of the oil companies had a big laugh over that.” –Jay Leno

“The political campaign continues, of course, for the presidency. This Sunday, the entire hour of ’60 Minutes’ will be devoted to Barack Obama and John McCain. Yeah. Apparently, Barack Obama will be interviewed. John McCain will fill in for Andy Rooney.” –Conan O’Brien

“This week, someone hacked into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! account and read her emails. Yeah, reading Palin’s email is a great way to hear what she has to say, without having to listen to her voice” –Conan O’Brien

“Hey, anybody see Sarah Palin on the Fox News show, ‘Hannity & Colmes?’ You see that? Nobody watched. Here’s my question. What happened to Colmes? Wasn’t he supposed to be the Democrat? What, did he get shipped to Guantanamo? What happened to him? What, is it ‘Hannity and No Colmes’? Is that what it’s called?” –Jay Leno

Extra Bonus:

“Sen. McCain bragged about how as chairman of the Commerce Committee in the Senate, he had oversight of every part of the economy. Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is, ‘Nice job. Nice job.'” -Barack Obama

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McCain wants to make health insurance just like banking

You can’t make up stuff like this.  In the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies (the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries — the people who figure out how much life and health insurance should cost) there is an article from John McCain.  Here’s what McCain says about market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Opening up the banking market by removing those nasty regulations is exactly what led to the current financial meltdown on Wall Street, as barriers between mortgage banks and investment banks were torn down for the first time since just after the great depression. Sub-prime mortgages were one of those “innovative products” that resulted.

The cost of bailing out the failing financial institutions is estimated (by the Bush administration) to be more money than it would cost to pay for health insurance for every citizen of the US. So if McCain has his way, we just might be bailing out failing health insurance companies in a few years. That is, if our country has any money left by then.

UPDATE: Apparently Obama has picked up on this quote. At a rally in Jacksonville, Obama said that McCain “wants to do for healthcare what Washington did for banking”. As a side note, the rally attracted an overflow crowd of 28,000 people, 8,000 of whom were turned away at the gate and had to listen from outside. McCain spoke at the same spot on Monday, and 3,000 people showed up (less than were turned away for Obama).

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Sarah Palin has been replaced by a robot!

Or at the very least, a member of the Brady Bunch.


From 23/6

Not to mention that independent fact checking organizations all say that her story about the bridge to nowhere is false: FactCheck, PolitiFact, CNN, and the LA Times on the Road to Nowhere.

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Late Night Political Humor

“The big news story today is Sarah Palin. Every day, Sarah Palin. And it is not exactly hard-hitting stuff. I haven’t seen the media fawn over a celebrity this much since — Barack Obama.” -Craig Ferguson

“But the dirt is beginning to come out. Apparently, one of Sarah’s first acts as Governor of Alaska was getting a tanning bed installed in the governor’s mansion. The Republican Party is okay with it, which is weird, because usually they ask themselves, ‘How can we make our candidate more white?'” -Craig Ferguson

“Everybody is trying to find out more about Sarah Palin. Everybody is trying to find out who she is. This is the latest. This week, true story, someone was able to hack into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email account because she hadn’t taken the proper security measures. Yeah. So, folks, it’s official. No one in the Palin family uses protection. This is a problem. It starts with mom.” -Conan O’Brien

“Barack Obama had a big night last night. Last night, Barack Obama attended a fundraiser headlined by Barbra Streisand that raised $9 million. $9 million. Yeah. It’s big. This was historic. This was historic, this is the most money raised in one night, and it’s the first time a black man has ever attended a Barbra Streisand concert.” -Conan O’Brien

“I had a great dinner last night. Put on a Barbra Streisand CD, ordered Domino’s, saved $28,488. Last night, Barack Obama hosted a dinner with Barbra Streisand singing. It was $28,500 a plate. $28,500 a plate! But, to be fair, that did include an all-you-can-eat salad buffet. That was included. I guess the food was pretty exotic. The main course was roasted pig in a lipstick glaze.” -Jay Leno

“See, that’s the problem in this country. You see, Washington is out of touch with the common people. They have no idea what regular people are doing or thinking on a regular basis. You know, just this morning, I was telling that to my valet, Alejandro, as he was putting the toothpaste on my brush for me.” -Jay Leno

“The stock market crashed this week, but market analysts are not calling it a crash. They’re calling it a ‘correction.’ Oh, shut up! A correction. You never hear that at NASCAR. ‘Oh, we had a fiery correction on turn three. Four men are dead.’ That is kind of like saying U.C.L.A. had a close game last weekend when it lost 59-0 to B.Y.U.” -Jay Leno

“President Bush is keeping busy. Yesterday in Washington, President Bush met with the cast of the Broadway musical, ‘The Lion King.’ This country is going down the toilet and he’s meeting with them. No, he did. He met with the cast of ‘The Lion King,’ yeah. Yeah, there was an awkward moment when Bush called Simba his favorite African leader.” -Conan O’Brien

“President Bush has a plan to get us out of this financial mess. It takes place in January when he leaves office, that’s the first step.” -Jay Leno

“And another day, another federal bailout. This is unbelievable to me. The Federal Reserve has just loaned the AIG Insurance Company $85 billion to keep it afloat. $85 billion. That is almost as much money as Barack Obama raised last night in Beverly Hills.” -Jay Leno

“Let me ask you, why are we bailing out an insurance company? I mean, what’s the first thing an insurance company does when you have a loss? They cancel your policy, right? That’s what we should do, cancel their policy. ‘Ooh, sorry, you’re too much of risk.'” -Jay Leno

“And AIG has assets of over $1 trillion. Not billion, $1 trillion. How do you have $1 trillion and still get into financial trouble? You know? I mean, I understand if you’re living in a dumpster, rooting through trash cans, you need a couple bucks, okay. But if you have $1 trillion, don’t hit me up for a loan. Think about it. Has anybody ever had $1 trillion and still failed? Okay, besides the New York Yankees.” -Jay Leno

“What happened to the old days when we had corporations we could trust, like Enron and WorldCom? Where are those blue chip companies?” -Jay Leno

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McCain wanted to bet your Social Security money in a “casino”

McCain declared Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission had turned “our markets into a casino”.

This begs the question — since McCain has long been a proponent of “privatizing” Social Security by investing its funds in the financial markets, doesn’t that mean that he wanted to bet your retirement on a casino? If McCain had had his way, the current financial meltdown on Wall Street could have cost you the money you had saved all your life for your retirement. Wouldn’t that have been lovely?

In addition, if all that money from Social Security had been invested in financial markets, the current bubble (and subsequent burst) would have been much bigger. So not only could you have lost all your saved money, but the economic melt-down could have been much worse. It’s a lose-lose situation — except, of course, for those investment bank CEO’s who always seem to get their fat bonuses and golden parachutes (and the lobbyists who used to work for them, and now work for McCain).

What makes this even more ironic is that McCain is no stranger to casinos, having admitted spending much of his younger days drinking and gambling. He still does. While in Las Vegas during the Republican primary, his aides had to stop him from playing craps.

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How to keep government off your back


© Matt Davies

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Sleazy Politics Throughout History

23/6 has a very funny article about how presidents throughout history could have run campaigns as sleazy as the current McCain campaign. Here are just a few of them; go to their site to see more and read their article:

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Soft Landing


From All Hat No Cattle

UPDATE: James Moore gives one of the best explanations of the current financial crisis, how it happened, and what we should do about it.

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