Both for character and the simple fact that Obama has the truth on his side more often than not. Yes I know his failings, no need to repeat them. But he does not lie every time he breaths like everyone on a GOP debate stage.

Someone dosed Peter pretty bad at some point..

The Congress is not trending left, it's trending right - thanks, in large part, to the insane belief that a Democrat is a Democrat is a Democrat, which I think we can agree is just not the case - and a trending-right Congress isn't going to be agreeing on policy that trends left, it's going to agree on policy that isn't as far to the right as the extreme right wants it to be.

Sure, the argument is that with a Republican in the WH, the push will be for that extreme right position - but in a Congress that's already getting redder in ideology if not in party affiliation, what guarantee is there that the few truly blue Democrats will triumph over their redder peers AND the united Republican caucus?  

Moyers interviewing Black in 2009: U.S. Banking Collapse Driven By "fraud", Tim Geithner Covering Up Bank Insolvency

He equated the entire US financial system to a giant "ponzi scheme" and charged Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, like Secretary Henry Paulson before him, of "covering up" the truth.

"Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?" asked Moyers.

"Absolutely, because they are scared to death," he said. "All right? They're scared to death of a collapse. They're afraid that if they admit the truth, that many of the large banks are insolvent. They think Americans are a bunch of cowards, and that we'll run screaming to the exits.

And by Black: The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

The FBI correctly identified the epidemic of mortgage control fraud at such an early point that the financial crisis could have been averted had the Bush administration acted with even minimal competence.

help us finally turn the page on this destructive period in our nation's history," reads a White House document outlining the objectives.

Why is the Obama administration so obsessed with this "turning the page" metaphor? I don't wanna turn the page. I want that page to be blown up to poster size, and plastered on the side of ever building.

Also this whole thing smacks of the classic "blue ribbon panel" dodge.  A favorite of pols since world was new.

Five banks--Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Ally Financial (formerly GMAC)--would pay the federal government $25 billion. About $17 billion would be used to reduce the principal that some struggling homeowners owe, $5 billion more would be used for future federal and state programs and $3 billion would be used to help homeowners refinance at 5.25 percent. Civil immunity would be granted to the banks for any role in foreclosure fraud, and there would be no investigations.

And the keywords are in the last two sentences of the article...

Moreover, attorneys general in California, New York, Delaware, Nevada and Massachusetts have previously said they won't be a part of any deal that offers civil immunity.

So the deal is far from done--but it's certainly moving towards an undesirable conclusion. We'll have plenty more in this space all week.

But it played well to the crowd, I guess.

Now, wait for whether any journalist looks into the background at that company. But the union did what it had to do.  Again, and again, and again.  Union concessions make many things possible!

You have only to look at sales taxes to understand the regressive consequence of everyone paying at the same rate.  Mary Smith makes $25,000 a year, her neighbor Joe makes $50,000 and George Gotrocks lives up on the hill and doesn't "make" anything, collects $500,000 a year from his many investments.

Mary, Joe and George shop at the same stores in their town; George can afford to buy more, and buy more often, but for the sake of argument, let's have the three of them buying the exact same items at the local Wal-Mart, and we'll be generous and have them living in a state where food is not taxed.  

Let's say the total of the items purchased equals exactly $100.00, and the sales tax is 5%, so the grand total of each of their purchases is $105.00.

As a percentage of their gross income, before taxes (income taxes probably should be part of the equation, but I'm trying to keep this simple), Mary is paying .42%, Joe is paying .21% and George is paying .0021%.  Even though they are shelling out the same amount of money, Mary pays twice as much as Joe, and 200 times as much as George, Joe pays half of what Mary pays, but 100 times what George pays - as a percentage of their gross income.

Now, on $100.00, a 5% tax seems like peanuts, right?  But no matter how large or how small the purchase, Mary and Joe are always going to be paying more - a lot  more - as a percentage of their income, than George, and paying it is going to be harder, and take more out of the total of what's in their pockets than what's in George's.  

Which is why Mary and Joe aren't buying cars or computers or "extras;" they aren't going to restaurants or movies, or buying more clothing beyond the basics - which they often have to skimp on because of a medical or pharmacy bill they didn't expect, or because they're late on the utility bill.  They end up contributing less to the economy in an effort to keep their heads above water - the millions of Marys and Joes have the power to slow the economy when they can't afford to participate in it, and the 1% of Georges can't make up for their absence from the economy - if they did, we would never have to worry about recessions, would we.

Which is 100% not true.

And of course, Obama himself was only speaking of income taxes, not all the other taxes you mention.

back to the thread....

A previous coworker was an officer on the Nimitz during the Iran rescue attempt. In his opinion it was the compartmentalized info sharing between the various special ops units during planning that handicapped the mission, which led to the cf in execution. Don't know if he's right, but it does kinda go along with the public reports.