Letters to the Editor
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obama's handling of his good friend rev."god damn america" wright is the definition of pandering
A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 30% of the nation's Likely Voters believe Barack Obama denounced his former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, because he was outraged, 58% say he denounced the Pastor for political convenience.
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Oil is a global commodity...
... which means the U.S. is competing with other buyers whose currencies are stronger than the U.S. dollar. Oil just looks expensive to U.S. buyers because the dollar is so weak.
Oil company profits as a fraction of revenue aren't really outrageous compared to other businesses. The absolute dollar amounts just look outrageous because the oil companies are dealing in something that is expensive to buy with dollars.
If you want to blame someone for high oil company profits, try looking in Washington D.C. for the people who set our nation's fiscal policies.
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Feel the Gouge
"Take on price-gouging by oil companies."
You're comparing apples with oranges. Obama wants to take on the wholesale side; your analysis deals with the retail side. You might want to educate yourself somewhat on the issues before you write about them, although I must admit this hasn't been Salon's strong suit since it decided to become an outlet for Clinton propagand.
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Panderella
Add the Clinton embrace of the preposterous gas-tax holiday idea to her growing list of pandering ploys.
She blundered big-time in leaping aboard a plan proposed by John (I don't know nothin' about economics) McCain. If she had any economists on her campaign staff (where is Robert Rubin on this anyway?) or even native common sense she would have seen this idea for the ineffective nonsense it was.
Obama needs to stomp on her with both feet on this one. It is a legitimate example of her seriously flawed claim to having the experience and expertise to assume the presidency. Sen. Clinton would rather spin the voters a fairy tale than speak to them with the plain truth.
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Hillary hates normal people
She has made the proposal that she should buy the votes of Joe and Jane Sixpack for the cost of a bag of potato chips.
She must really hate normal people, if she thinks that she can buy a vote for such a contemptibly small sum.
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"Give working families a permanent, thousand-dollar tax cut to help with rising costs."
Yesterday, by scrap paper math (not including variable like rising gas prices), I figured that the commuter someone had mentioned in a previous post who already spent $1000 a month on gasoline would save about $60/month (at $3 a gallon for 333 gallons) ... for 3 months, or $180 total. (yes, it's a stupid, bad, bad, bad, rob peter to pay paul soluntion)
I never know what a thousand dollar tak cut for "working families" means for single folk like me, or the part-time retired or students, or those on social security ...
I'm sorry but, imho, more tax cuts are the answer either .... and that "relief" wouldn't be seen until next year ... why not do a $1000 working family rebate then? or better yet, let's send it out now, to arrive after Bush's "stimulus" checks ...
oh, and reining in those gouging oil companies ... show me some broadbased congressional commitment to that plan ...
not impressed.
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Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Dude.
You bore us with your off-topic nonsense. You need some new material. C'mon, get on your game.
Despite Obama being completely off his game and having this clown Rev. hanging around he is soundly thrashing you candidate. Get used to it. Imagine how bad Clinton is to remain SO far behind the winner. How is Obama ALWAYS 2 steps ahead? It must be so annoying. I feel for you.
Hillary needs 80% of the unpledged Super Delegates, 70% of the remaining pledged delegates in play, and Edwards' 19 pledged delegates. She needs this to win by 1.
So, now that your last-ditch Super Delegates scam is not going to happen, I suspect you'll start whining about MI and FL. Because whining and changing the rules are really all you have left. Maybe you can have Albania vote in the primary - they like the Clintons.
You sound like that "Comical Ali" dude from Iraq, talking about victory as US tanks were rolling in the background.
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I'm no economist, but...
I fail to see how Goolsbee's quote discredits what Obama is saying about going after price gougers. He's not saying price gouging doesn't happen. The snippet you present says that the time to go after price gougers is not during a crisis (like hurricane Katrina), but some time after it, when gas stations take twice as long to lower prices even though their costs of operation have gone down and don't justify high prices.
It's a little irresponsible to play this kind of "gotcha" blogging just to be able to put a sexy headline accusing Obama of pandering on the Salon homepage, don't you think? Any input, Joan Walsh?
Maybe you should leave the economic topics to Andrew Leonard. He seems to have a better grasp of how to present balanced, thoughtful opinions on this type of stuff.
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But economics experts are elitist!
They know more than I do about economic stuff! That makes them elitist! I only want to trust people who drink beer and throw back shots, not highfalutin' "economists" with their fancy degrees and supply and demand curve charts.
We can't afford to have an elitist in the White House. We need down home regular folk like Bill & Hillary Clinton back in there! They're just like me!
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Cheap shill here at Salon. Should be reporting the Kantor scandal
This old news post is just another Clinton campaign distribution.
They sure as hell won't be distributing this:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/05/02/972175.aspx
Say it ain't so, Mickey. Oh, he already lied and did. Dude, you just can't use those words in any context. There's just no explanation or justification that's is going to save you. It's over. Beyond the pale.
Koppelman's out of it. This won't get any coverage here until it's way out and he'll try to downplay it. This post has a strong chance of being deleted as well.
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Windfall profits
Aren't going to be taxed:
1) Because oil companies are publicly traded.
2) Large institutions and pension funds have huge stakes in said companies.
3) The value of those shares is contingent on said windfall profits.
Obama, Clinton (who also floated this idea), Goolsbee and your mother all recognize what would happen if you cut the windfall profits of oil companies. That's why there's no political movement towards that front (from either side) and its also why there shouldn't be.