So how many of these claims are true.

[weemadando]

On the surface it seems like a reasonable ad, but some of the claims in it come off as a little hinky.

That said, give it airtime on every damn network and hope that some other people wake the fuck up.



Seriously America, it's that time again. Don't fuck it up.

[Nathan the noob]

I'm confused what view are you endorsing. The view that the GOP, obviously the party being attacked in this ad, are you supporting the accusations made in this add, or denying them. Some of the wording is a bit akward, but the ad gets the point across and I think that it will indeed inspire others to not vote for the GOP. Buy I don't think that the solution is not to vote for the Democratic party either. I think that each election should be viewed on a case by case basis. but keep this ad in mind when voting for senate or Representative seats.

[weemadando]

Thanks noob.

I was just questioning how cleanly a lot of the statement in the ad come through.

[Rogue 9]

Thanks noob.

I was just questioning how cleanly a lot of the statement in the ad come through.

Loud and clear to me. The ad is clearly designed to appeal to American blue-collar workers, which makes sense as the blurb at the end says it's sponsored by the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.

[weemadando]

Thanks noob.

I was just questioning how cleanly a lot of the statement in the ad come through.

Loud and clear to me. The ad is clearly designed to appeal to American blue-collar workers, which makes sense as the blurb at the end says it's sponsored by the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.

OK, maybe I need to be clearer. I'm talking about statements like the banking crisis one and their relative truthfulness.

[Rogue 9]

Thanks noob.

I was just questioning how cleanly a lot of the statement in the ad come through.

Loud and clear to me. The ad is clearly designed to appeal to American blue-collar workers, which makes sense as the blurb at the end says it's sponsored by the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.

OK, maybe I need to be clearer. I'm talking about statements like the banking crisis one and their relative truthfulness.

Oh. The bank bailout was initiated under the Bush administration, though there was a Democratic Congress. Everything the ad mentions at least started under Bush (though Obama has continued some of the economic bailouts and so forth), though the fact that the executive and legislature were controlled by opposing parties in the last two years does muddy the issue.

I'll post more about it later if someone else doesn't pick it up; I should sleep.

[Knife]

Meh, some of that stuff could be contested, and yet over all the ad hit's the nail on the head. Even if you say the Democratic Congress did some of that stuff under a Republican President, lets be frank; those are stock and trade GOP ideas the Dems folded to.

[Broomstick]

I like the ad and would like to see it widely broadcast. I agree with 99% of it.

That said - I don't vote on strict party lines. I actually do the research on candidates, exhausting as that is. The result is that I am voting mostly Democrat this time, but in certain races where the Democrat on my ballot is engaged in felonious activities I will, yes, be voting Republican. For example, the Democrat for Lake County Indiana Assessor no longer possesses a valid driver's license due to having multiple licenses in two states, and registering her vehicles in a state other than the one she lives in. Yes, it's on appeal, but she's been declared a non-resident of Indiana which means she shouldn't even be on the ballot for an elected office in this state. On top of that, it appears that she has been FORGING the signature of her father for YEARS in order to fraudulently claim senior citizens tax deductions to which she is not entitled. It is not even clear if the person who's name she is accused of forging is even dead or alive, she may have been perpetuating his existence past the grave for her own benefit. Did I mention she is currently on a property tax board? Fuck no, I am not voting for that criminal bitch. Her opposition may be Republican but he comes without the ethical toxic cloud around him.

In other words, kneejerk is bad.

But yeah, I'm not voting GOP this year, especially with all the stealth Tea Party assholes on the ballot, even if I am making a few exceptions in selected cases.

[Liberty]

I don't generally vote on party lines, but I have to say, this time I just might. This is because a vote for the Republican Party this year is a vote for the tea partiers, and a vote against the Republican Party is a vote for relative sanity. I have yet to see an exception, and frankly, I can't imagine one.

[Ariphaos]

The 'every major banking crisis since 1900' one

Panic of 1907 - Teddy Roosevelt
Start of the Great Depression - Herbert Hoover
Savings and Loans Crisis - Reagan and Bush Senior
Mortgage Crisis - Bush Junior

It's true, all those were republican presidents, though democrats have been complicit in a lot of it.

[Kyler]

Seriously one of the best political adds I have seen in years. Thanks for the post.
Only flaw is that they let one guy talk too much.

The Democratic Party should have shortened it and played is across the country for the past few weeks to help in the elections.

[HarrionGreyjoy]

The 'every major banking crisis since 1900' one

Panic of 1907 - Teddy Roosevelt

Minor point: comparing Theodore Roosevelt's fiscal policy to that of the modern GOP is a little bit... odd.

I'll grant the other three.

[KrauserKrauser]

Can't you just as easily malign a Democrat controlled Legislature?

At least for the last two, you had a Republican in the White House but solid majorities in both houses for the Democrats. Last I checked the President might provide direction but the Legislature determines what bills in what form actually go to the floor.

[TimothyC]

Republicans had solid majorities in both the 60th Congress and the 71st Congress. YMMV.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Can't you just as easily malign a Democrat controlled Legislature?

At least for the last two, you had a Republican in the White House but solid majorities in both houses for the Democrats. Last I checked the President might provide direction but the Legislature determines what bills in what form actually go to the floor.

The problem to a large degree is that trying to compare each party across time gets somewhat dicey. Both parties have basically switched sides a few times. For example, the democrats were the socially regressive anti-regulation assholes at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, with the republicans being progressives on both economic and social issues... by the time the depression hit, the parties had switched places economically, and by the 1950s were beginning to switch places socially as well.

Combine that with the rightward shift in our politics since St. Reagan and you end up with the clusterfuck that is US political discourse today.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Can't you just as easily malign a Democrat controlled Legislature?

At least for the last two, you had a Republican in the White House but solid majorities in both houses for the Democrats. Last I checked the President might provide direction but the Legislature determines what bills in what form actually go to the floor.

They deserve to be maligned, malingled, and mongled, but not for the same thing.

Republicans were the driving force behind this cluster, the Democrats were the spineless doormat that let it happen. That's not much better, but it isn't the same.

Assign blame where blame's due, and in the ways that it is due.

[Bakustra]

Can't you just as easily malign a Democrat controlled Legislature?

At least for the last two, you had a Republican in the White House but solid majorities in both houses for the Democrats. Last I checked the President might provide direction but the Legislature determines what bills in what form actually go to the floor.

The problem to a large degree is that trying to compare each party across time gets somewhat dicey. Both parties have basically switched sides a few times. For example, the democrats were the socially regressive anti-regulation assholes at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, with the republicans being progressives on both economic and social issues... by the time the depression hit, the parties had switched places economically, and by the 1950s were beginning to switch places socially as well.

Combine that with the rightward shift in our politics since St. Reagan and you end up with the clusterfuck that is US political discourse today.

That's more than a little misleading. In the Gilded Age, the Republicans were what we would consider right (pro-business, laissez-faire) on economic issues, but the Democrats were occupying a position (agrarianism) that nowadays is essentially extinct as a distinct stance. The left on economics at the time were the small progressive movements and the socialists.

[KrauserKrauser]

Not only is it misleading, it completely ignores the fact that the Dems under Reagan and the Dems under Bush 2 are effectively the same party.

The Democrat Party pre-JFK and post-LBJ I can agree there being some effective differences as the party effectively went from a Good-ole boy Southern party to the NE Elite, flip flopping with the Republicans (to a degree, just generalizing here).

There was no such massive change between Reagan and Bush 2, they were effectively the same party for the S&L crisis and the Real Estate bubbles. If Bush gets blamed for the real estate bubble, why doesn't Clinton get blamed for the Internet bubble?

[aerius]

There was no such massive change between Reagan and Bush 2, they were effectively the same party for the S&L crisis and the Real Estate bubbles. If Bush gets blamed for the real estate bubble, why doesn't Clinton get blamed for the Internet bubble?

Clinton's government didn't do anything to cause it. Bush gets the blame because the bubble either wouldn't have happened or been nearly as bad if certain key regulations hadn't been thrown out under his watch. Removal of leverage limits, allowing NINJA loans, and several other things were done by his government. Clinton didn't do anything like that to enable the internet bubble, that one more or less happened on its own.

[PainRack]

Clinton's government didn't do anything to cause it. Bush gets the blame because the bubble either wouldn't have happened or been nearly as bad if certain key regulations hadn't been thrown out under his watch. Removal of leverage limits, allowing NINJA loans, and several other things were done by his government. Clinton didn't do anything like that to enable the internet bubble, that one more or less happened on its own.

Greenspan low interest rates in the early parts of the nineties and refusing to raise them until the possibility of inflation?

[Phantasee]

I thought the repeal of Glass Steagall Act was in 1999?

[Stormin]

I thought the repeal of Glass Steagall Act was in 1999?

A quick search shows that it was repealed with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley(warning, Wikipedia) act in 1999 and was signed by Bill Clinton.

[aerius]

Clinton didn't do anything like that to enable the internet bubble, that one more or less happened on its own.

Greenspan low interest rates in the early parts of the nineties and refusing to raise them until the possibility of inflation?

The internet bubble was caused by mass investor delusion and hype more than anything else, interest rates had little if anything to do with it. What happened was that in the early stages in the mid 1990's, the internet business sector really was doubling in size every 6 months or something absurd like that, which was clearly not sustainable for any lengthy period of time. But everyone thought it was and the media started reporting it that way so everyone and his uncle started dumping investments into any company that had anything remotely related to internet business, and the less scrupulous people founded "internet companies" so they could fleece investors and make a quick buck. Problem was by the late 90's the internet biz was no longer growing nearly as fast, the cashflow & profits weren't there to support the investments, and not long after that the entire sector went kaboom.

I thought the repeal of Glass Steagall Act was in 1999?

It was, Gramm-Leach-Bliley repealed the last parts of Glass-Steagall. That's what allowed commercial banks to start playing with structured finance crap but the real killer was in 2004 when Hank Paulson got all the leverage limits removed. Before that they were limited to a 12:1 leverage ratio or thereabouts so there's only so much crappy derivatives and mortgage papers that they could load up on, and thus a limit to how many mortgages & crappy loans they could hand out. Once those limits were removed, they could hand out an unlimited number of both and load up on $100 trillion of derivatives, and they did all that and more.