Barack Obama

The latest ApostAZ podcast is now available: Episode 011 Atheism and Feces-Free Thought in Phoenix! Go to meetup.com/phoenix-atheists for group events! Shyness, Group News,Election Post-Mortem, Email from Shawn of Tough Questions Podcasts, Winter Solstice, Musings on Rhetorical Debate Styles, Ridiculous Marriage Amendment.My comments: Duane Gish was vice president of the Institute for Creation Research. Nice listener email on the FLDS members pretending to be truck stop hookers–I like the listener feedback. Obama opposes same-sex marriage. On proving a negative, please see this and/or this.

John Hinderaker of the Powerline blog writes: Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.I find it difficult to imagine the amount of delusion and cognitive dissonance that can produce such a paragraph. George W. Bush is the man whose spoken words have produced multiple books of “Bushisms," and multiple years of “Bushism” calendars with a quotation for every day of the year. The Sadly No blog responded to this paragraph with a series of YouTube videos vividly depicting Bush gaffes. I prefer this Andy Dick contribution: ...

Day one steps are closing Guantanamo Bay, ceasing and prohibiting torture, ceasing and prohibiting extraordinary rendition; steps for the first 100 days include ending warrantless spying, watch lists, the Ashcroft doctrine on FOIA requests, monitoring of activists, the Real ID Act, the abortion gag rule, the death penalty, and faith-based initiatives. At least one of Obama’s transition teams is, at the very least, reviewing Bush’s executive orders for constitutionality, which covers some elements of the above. Most, however, have been implemented by act of Congress, which will require Congressional action to repeal. ...

Newsweek reports some interesting tidbits from behind the scenes of the election process in both the McCain and Obama campaigns: Both the McCain and Obama campaigns had computers compromised by “a foreign entity or organization [which] sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps’ policy positions.” And that entity was successful in collecting such data, apparently. Palin’s shopping spree was more extensive and expensive than has previously been reported: “While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards.” The spending was allegedly tens of thousands of dollars more than reported. McCain rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and although she wanted to speak in Phoenix along with McCain for his concession speech, this was vetoed by McCain’s campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt.The Secret Service reported “a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied."Palin attacked Obama about his connection to William Ayers before the campaign had finalized its plan about that issue–McCain had not given his approval, and a top advisor was resisting it.Hillary Clinton was on much better terms with McCain than with Obama, and McCain feared that Hillary Clinton would be named as Obama’s VP, and was glad when he chose Biden.There are lots of other interesting bits in the article, as well.

Former George W. Bush press secretary Scott McClellan says he’s voting for Obama: “From the very beginning I have said I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done and I will be voting for Barack Obama and clapping,” McClellan told new CNN Host D.L. Hughley.

This is no doubt not a representative cross-section of McCain and Palin supporters, but it’s a disturbingly ugly set of them. It’s fortunate that most of the worst comments are from the older generation–I hope that younger people are less likely to hold such views. McCain has shot down such remarks from supporters when they’ve been made in his presence, to his credit. (And yes, this is from Aljazeera.) UPDATE: Here are more bigoted McCain and Palin supporters in Johnstown, Pennsylvania: UPDATE (October 20, 2008): Sarah Palin says if she heard such bigoted comments she’d shut them down: “What we have heard through some mainstream media is that folks have hollered out some atrocious and unacceptable things like kill him,’ " Palin said, referring to a Washington Post story two weeks ago about angry supporters at a Palin rally in Florida. “If I ever were to hear that standing up there at the podium with the mike, I would call them out on that, and I would tell these people, no, that’s unacceptable."She goes on to break with McCain by supporting a U.S. Constitutional amendment to oppose gay marriage and claim that “Faith in God in general has been mocked through this campaign, and that breaks my heart and that is unfair for others who share a faith in God and choose to worship our Lord in whatever private manner that they deem fit." UPDATE (October 21, 2008): And here’s another video, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (same link provided by Hume’s Ghost in the first comment), of McCain and Palin supporters entering Lehigh University (the school where intelligent design advocate Michael Behe is a professor): UPDATE (October 22, 2008): And be sure to check out this woman’s reasons for voting for McCain, at the Secular Web. UPDATE: And more videos of McCain supporters heckling early voters (most of whom were from an Obama rally) in West Virginia. UPDATE (April 10, 2026): Google seems to think that this calling out of bigoted and ignorant statements from 18 years ago itself constitutes “dangerous or derogatory content” in 2026, which is absurd. These videos are hosted on YouTube, Google’s platform, so if they have a problem with the content they should take down the videos. UPDATE (April 13, 2026): My request for a review was unsuccessful. Here’s the policy that Google claims is being violated by this 18-year-old blog post in 2026 (a time when the rhetoric has become far, far, worse, including from the president of the United States): “We do not allow content that:incites hatred against, promotes discrimination of, or disparages an individual or group on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization.harasses, intimidates, or bullies an individual or group of individuals.threatens or advocates for harm to oneself or others.relates to a current, major health crisis and contradicts authoritative, scientific consensus.exploits others through extortion."It is absolutely absurd to think that the content of this blog post does any of these things. ...

The Economist conducted a poll of 683 research associates of the National Bureau of Economic Research. 142 responded, of whom 46% self-identified as Democrats, 10% as Republicans, and 44% as neither. 80% of respondents, 71% of those who did not identify a political affiliation, and 46% of those who identified themselves as Republicans said that Obama has a better grasp of economics than McCain. (Only 23% of those who identified themselves as Republicans said that McCain had better understanding of economics.) 81% of respondents, 71% of the unaffiliated, and 31% of the Republicans said that Obama will pick a better team of economic advisors to run the country than McCain. The full results can be found at The Economist’s website. ...

McCain’s economic advisors: Doug Holtz-Eakin source Holtz-Eakin is a formerly respected academic and government economist who has been reduced to making distortionary arguments to paper over the massive deficit black hole McCain’s tax cuts would create. Arthur Laffer source Laffer is the originator of the Laffer curve, the fringe view that claims government revenue increases when tax rates are lowered. There is zero empirical evidence this is true at current tax rates. McCain has repeatedly said that he believes this foolishness, but Holtz-Eakin has said (also repeatedly) that McCain does not. Phil Gramm source Gramm is a lobbyist who was vice president of one of the investment houses most heavily implicated in the mortage industry scandal. As a senator he pushed for the banking deregulation that contributed to the current crisis. See more here. Kevin Hassett source Hassett has been widely ridiculed for writing the book Dow 36000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market in 1999, predicting that the Dow would hit 36,000 within five years, if not sooner. Donald Luskin source Luskin has been repeatedly named the Stupidest Man Alive by Brad Delong. See here for an example. I can attest based on my own interaction with him a few years back that in addition to being not the sharpest tack in the box, he is also an extremely unpleasant person. Nancy Pfotenhauer source Pfotenhauer is a pure distilled product of Koch Industries, an oil company which funds much of the right wing message machine. See here for details. Carly Fiorina source Fiorina was spectacularly fired from her previous job as CEO of HP. According to the Times, … Republicans say Ms. Fiorina is using the McCain campaign to rebuild her image after her explosive tenure at Hewlett-Packard. They also say it is hard to see why a woman widely criticized for mismanaging one of Silicon Valley’s legendary companies is advising and representing a candidate who acknowledged last year that he did not understand the economy as well as he should. Regarding Fiorina, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the senior associate dean for executive programs at the Yale School of Management, says “What a blind spot this is in the McCain campaign to have elevated her stature and centrality in this way. You couldn’t pick a worse, non-imprisoned C.E.O. to be your standard-bearer.”Obama’s economic advisors: Jason Furman (director of economy policy) source bio Austan Goolsbee (senior economic policy advisor), University of Chicago tax policy expert source Wikipedia website Karen Kornbluh (policy director) source bio Wikipedia David Cutler, Harvard health policy expert source Wikipedia website Jeff Liebman, Harvard welfare expert source Wikipedia website Michael Froman, Citigroup executive source bio Daniel Tarullo, Georgetown law professor source bio David Romer, Berkeley macroeconomist source website Christina Romer, Berkeley economic historian source website Richard Thaler, University of Chicago behavioral finance expert source Wikipedia Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary source Wikipedia bio Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary source Wikipedia bio Alan Blinder, former Vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve source Wikipedia bio website Jared Bernstein, Economic Policy Institute labor economist source bio James Galbraith, University of Texas macroeconomist source Wikipedia website Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve 1979-1987 source Wikipedia Laura Tyson, Berkeley international economist, Bill Clinton economic adviser source Wikipedia Robert Reich, Berkeley public policy professor, former Secretary of Labor source Wikipedia weblog Peter Henry, Stanford international economist source website Gene Sperling, former White House economic adviser source WikipediaMy comment on the Laffer curve–Laffer’s basic point is obviously correct, that there are points at which raising taxes further would cause revenues to decline and points where lowering taxes further would cause revenues to increase (most obviously at a 100% tax rate), but to the best of my knowledge he never did any empirical or mathematical work to show what the Laffer curve actually looks like and what factors play into it. If you don’t know the shape of the curve or where we currently fall on it, you don’t know without testing that raising taxes will reduce revenue or lowering taxes will increase revenue. Factcheck.org looks at the actual effects of some U.S. tax cuts in this regard. I do think that we can speculate that reducing U.S. corporate taxes (currently the highest in the OECD with the exception of Japan) could increase corporate tax revenue, given Ireland’s experience with just that happening. Multinational companies will do their best to book their profits in the countries with the lowest corporate tax rates, thus increasing the tax revenue in those countries. Of course, there are other factors, such as regulatory environment, cost of labor, risk of litigation, etc. ...

A McCain-Palin ad cites factcheck.org to claim that Obama has made false attacks on Palin–but the attacks haven’t come from Obama. McCain and Palin are appealing to factcheck.org’s accurate content in order to lie about Obama, and factcheck.org calls them on their dishonesty.

USA Today reports that the Biden family has given $3,690 to charity over the last decade, an average of $369 per year, on “modest” income that has ranged from a low of $210,797 in 1999 to a high of over $320,000 in 2005. Last year, they gave $995 on income of $319,853 (0.3%), their highest giving rate of the decade. A 2005 study of households with incomes from $200,000 to $500,000 per year shows average charitable giving of $40,746 per year. John McCain has given $202,000 to charity in the last two years, about 25% of his income–but of course he is married to a very wealthy woman who earned more than $6 million in 2006. Last year he gave $105,467 (half of what he and his wife donated as a couple) on income of $405,409, which would be more impressive if it weren’t just an even division of their reported expenses reported without the comparison figure of her income. The Obamas gave $240,000 to charity last year on income of more than $4.2 million (5.7%). In 2000, they gave $2,350 to charity on income of $240,726 (1%). Palin’s tax data hasn’t yet been released. There may be some tax problems lurking in her records. John McCain’s personal charitable giving appears quite generous, but it’s somewhat less so considering his wife’s much higher separate income and my suspicion that she effectively subsidized his charitable giving as the chief breadwinner and provider. The Obamas were very generous last year, but not so much in 2000. The Bidens, not at all generous. This seems to lend further support to the thesis that conservatives are more generous with their own money than liberals. My feeling is that most professionals earning six-figure incomes should be able to give 5-10% of their gross income to charitable causes without much trouble. The average figures for those earning $200,000 to $500,000 strike me as just about right. (UPDATE, 17 May 2021): The Bidens’ 2020 tax returns show much more generous charitable contributions: The Bidens donated $30,704 to 10 charities last year. The largest gift was $10,000 to the Beau Biden Foundation, a nonprofit focused on child abuse that is named after the president’s deceased son.But that’s on $607,336 in income, so it’s just over 5%. Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff gave just under 1.6%: ...