If the 9-9-9 plan got a B-, then getting a B+ is not very impressive.

"Decreasing the burden" means less revenue. How is he going to balance the budget?


Total BS. The capital GAINS were never taxed, only the starting capital. Why should a speculator's income not be taxed like everyone else's?

Still, it is the least silly plan I have seen yet. Huntsman is the only one who seems to be taking this seriously.

This "double taxation" is a Republican myth

For an investment in stock, any dividends paid to the investor are "new $" income to the investor.
When the investor sells that stock, the "capital gain" is the selling price
minus the purchase price and fees incurred during the transaction cycle.
The same is true on purchase of equipment, real estate, REI's, etc.

Anyone that proposes that "capital gain" is different from ordinary income
is saying one $US dollar is different from another $US dollar,
... and guess who says that... the people that don't earn their living or extra $ from salaries or wages.

Capital gains should be taxed at the same rate and right along with ordinary income.
.

I am embarrassed to say I first opened this article when I misread it's title. :o

But it turns out there are two interesting aspects to the article.
First Gingrich's camplaign plans, and then there is the sausage-making aspects
of a candidate even getting on various states' ballots for the primaries.

NY Times
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
December 20, 2011, 4:26 pm

Gingrich Heads to Virginia for Ballot Push

and then there are the challenges to get on the state ballots...

and besides all that:

Gingrich is slipping in the polls, and racking up negative comments from conservatives
who say he is:— a man who can “bring us together, and alienate the hell out of us,”.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul may actually be looking for a win in Iowa...Romney, not so much.
.

Gingrich to gay Iowan: Vote for Obama

done and done mr gingrich

looks like somebody doesn't want to represent all Americans...

Wow!

I admire his honesty. I wish more politicians would show their true colors like that. It would make our job as voters much easier.

How to determine a politician's "true colors". Wow, that is really our job as citizens if we are to make an informed choice. I think they're all honest, that is, even if they're making contradictory statements, then they're honestly flexible/nuanced/flipfloppy/openminded--fill in the blank. I find Gingrich's statement surprisingly plain, but I wonder how it will be spun. And the spin matters. I can imagine that it could be ignored, or dismissed as joking or otherwise discounted.

V's post above is appropriate to both Gingrich (above) and Ron Paul (below)

Now, as Paul appears heading towards a win in the Iowa caucuses.
several headlines are appearing with derogatory subtexts.
But it appears to me that these articles are based on controversial
Newletters published under Ron Paul's name in the 1980's.

The Atlantic
Michael Brendan Dougherty
12/21/11
The Story Behind Ron Paul's Racist Newsletters
Dec 21 201

The article goes on to discuss how others view those Newletters,
particularly as they are not now as "relevant" as they were in the 80's.
.

Speaking of dogs that won't be in fights:

Gingrich and Perry fail to collect enough signatures to qualify to be listed on the ballots in Virginia.

Gingrich (and probably Perry, too) can have write-in campaigns, of course. But this seems like a bit of a blow to their campaigns. One effect working against them is that write-in candidates are not as likely to succeed, usually because they're just... not on the ballot, they're not known. They require more work on the part of the voter. These two candidates don't have that problem though, they are known, but will they be remembered? Another effect, the Republican party has chosen to allocate their delegates proportionally, so maybe they can gather some scraps even if their chances of winning are reduced.

You have to wonder what's wrong with Gingrich's and Perry's campaign staff that they can't even get organized enough to get 10,000 signatures on a petition to be placed on the ballot. If they can't accomplish a simple thing like that, how are they going to react to the far more complex duties of the presidency?

That story makes me sicker than the pepper spray murder story.

Organization trumping money, isn't that a good thing in politics? Granted, paying people to collect sigs is probably what most do but 10 thousand out of a population of 8 million seems like a low threshold.

Maybe this contributed to the problem...

Are GOP candidates likely to gain the US Presidency in the Nov '12 national
election with pledges such as this in their political history ?
Or, are they only getting their jollies in whipping up the fever
of the far right wing of the Republican party.

NY Times
By ERIK ECKHOLM
December 22, 2011

Republican Presidential Candidates Embrace Granting Legal Rights to Human Embryos
And besides all that:

http://www.goddiscussion.com/87963/r...op-candidates/
God Discussion
December 24, 2011
By God Discussion Reporter

Ron Paul signs Personhood USA pledge, joining four other GOP candidates
IMO, a candidate signing this pledge is asking to be rejected by the general electorate.

It is a low threshold. It is the same threshold that, say, Perry and Paul were able to surpass. It is the published rule that everybody who cared about knew about. What galls me, what seriously turns me off about Gingrich is his PATHETIC moaning about the "failed system" has disqualified him. He reminds me of the peasant crying about being oppressed in Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

His blaming the system for his own failure, his demonstrated willingness to blame the violence inherent in the system fills me with dread. We have co-equal branches of government, buddy. You should know that. And it is the definition of the judicial branch to decide, by using their JUDGEMENT, what the meaning of a law is and how it applies and the constitutionality of a law. Not the President, signing statements be damned.

Gingrich scares me more than any of the other candidates. And that is saying a lot!

His constant failure to accept responsibility for his own screw ups is particularly scary. His statement about his affairs ... "things happened in my life that were not appropriate...". No Newt, things didn't happen - ... YOU ... DID ... THEM.
And now this BS with signatures. He's been in Washington for decades. he knows the rules and procedures. Either he didn't get his team organised to get the signatures, or (I hope this is the real reason ...) they couldn't find 10,000 people willing to sign for him. "Failed system" my arse.

That sort of evasion of responsibility, combined with the narcissism, treachery, self-indulgence and manipulation, makes me wonder if he is a high functioning sociopath.

actually, I misspoke. It is a threshold that ROMNEY, not Perry, and Paul have passed.

***

Gingrich also scares me, I believe he is smart. And he's a master politician. But I really really don't agree with his ideas. I believe he could get a lot of bad stuff done, like having the federal marshals drag the justices of the supreme court down to congress. just.. evil shit like that.


He could be President, but that would be a bad, very bad thing.

um... that write in plan? Looks like someone, myself included, didn't do sufficient research. Because it's against the law. There will be no write in candidacy in the Virginia primary election.

sorry Newt.

original article still in tab:

same article same link hours later:

fuck that "will of the voters" shit, so overrated!!!

thank goodness it will actually be illegal to vote they way some people want to!!!

sadly there are two candidates left, i was hoping for just one, choice is an illusion!!!

Wow. What kind of "democracy" they running down there?

I'm guessing you forgot your sarcasm smiley, but I've been wrong before....

Let me take the bitter out and address your point about choice. I *AGREE* with you, that we voters should be able to vote the way we want to vote. Why in the world would such a law be in place? In Washington (...*sigh*, my Washington, that is) there was a big brouhaha about the state primary elections. The fight was between the established political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and the Libertarian Party (apparently these Parties are actual legal entities, with real interests) and... I forget who the other half of the lawsuit, the State of Washington, or some band of angry peasants... doesn't matter.

The point was that we, the people, wanted an open primary. I should be able to vote for whomever I like, anywhere on the ballot, including write-ins. The Parties strenuously opposed this! And they won. Our primary elections allow ONLY Party choices. (Note, this is not exactly what is happening in Virginia, as that has to do with who appears on the primary ballot, not who you may choose in a primary, but closely related.) The point of the lawsuit by the Parties was a successful effort to CONTROL who would be allocated the state's delegates. It's all about the PARTY'S control of the process. I haven't followed Virginia legislation, but I'm certain the highlighted part of the law that precludes write-in candidates in primary elections was put there by and for the Parties.

Please note that this does not pertain to the general election. Not only may a voter cast their ballot for either *party* ticket, but write-ins are also allowed. This "poison pill" is just for the primaries, so they can decide who can be called the Party's candidate. In WA, this prevented our largely blue state from voting for the most stupid, least likely to win red primary candidate (there's a term for this kind of defensive voting which escapes me at the moment).

I am not in favor of this Party only system for the primary election. I agree, it fucks over the small d-democratic process. I believe a proportional distribution of delegates, and eventually electors will dilute this poison.

V, let me disagree with you in these last 2 paragraphs... and talk only about the primaries.

It's sort of like the Boy Scouts of America. It seems some organizations should be open to all,
but because they are legal entities they have the right to say who can and who cannot be members.

Consider a minor party wanting to put forth it's candidate in accord with
it's own mission statement or ideals or preferences or whatever

But then the alternate (nefarious) approach of the local major party decides to flood
the primary selection process with it's own larger number of votes.

Tough, they say! The election is open to everyone to vote as a "small d" democracy.
And in the long run, bye bye minor parties.

Lamplighter, I welcome your disagreement. Good thing too, because we have one here.

I'll take your last statement first. Bye bye minor parties. Presto, magico, the future is here. The minor parties ***are already gone***. Look at Buddy Romer. Because he doesn't have the endorsement of the Party, he's going nowhere. What is the value of a Party anyhow? Why is it desirable to have one, major or minor? Aren't we all supposed to be working for our collective good of the nation, for federal elections of course.

The ability to crush a minor party candidate as you outline is extremely likely, easy even. And that would suck for the minor party. But let me ask you this, why do we have primaries even? If there were a minor party, how many candidates for their party nomination would they likely have? By definition they're minor already. Might there be two competing Fraxion candidates vying for the Fraxious Party nomination? Maybe. How much can be lost?

I guess I'm just not a fan of the party line voting. In fact, Washington will have no primary this year. Bye bye minor party? Screw that, bring on the General Election. If I had to choose a primary system, I'd choose something like the "Montana Primary" where the top two vote getters advance to the general election, party be damned. But that didn't fly here either.

I'm voting for a person, a person will be governing, not a party. Or, at least I believe it should be the person, not the party.

I live in Virginia. I don't have any special insider information on this primary issue. The primaries I have voted in have always included the candidates I cared about.

One crazy thing though. When I vote in the special upcoming county board primary next month for the Democrats, I will have to sign an oath that I won't vote for any candidate in the general election other than the party nominee. It's completely unenforcable, but it irks me anyway.

Its more than unenforceable. It is unconstitutional. Is that a county voting requirement or a VA state wide one?

Its a VA Democratic party thing. I'm sure the R's have some stupid rules that are equally offensive.

It turns out that, in previous elections, the VA Republican Party has not checked the validity of signatures. If a candidate turned in 10,000 signatures it was assumed they were all valid, registered voters, and not forgeries at all.

In other words, theoretically, a team with a list and a bunch of Bics could assemble the 10,000 signatures for Alan Keyes in one pizza night.

If you check the information in ballot access petitions, you will generally be able to nullify a good fifth of them just for being incorrect. Ditto marks are not valid. Illegible signatures are not valid.

If you go further, you can remove another set where people have written their city instead of their polling location, or where they've gotten some aspect of the thing wrong. Go further and you can eliminate people not on the registered voters list, and obvious forgeries and such.

Eventually, if you have a lot of money and work hard at it, you can disallow half of the signatures for various reasons.

The policy for this election was that if you turned in over 15,000 signatures, they would not check them. And that is what Mitt Romney did.

Bonus irony: Rick Perry vetoed legislation to ease Texas's ballot access laws.

turns out I was wrong. It's not a "primary." It's a "caucus," where the party chooses its nominee. I don't know if you have to be a Democrat to vote in it. But they will check my name off a list.

I did not know VA uses caucuses. How many other states (besides Iowa) use caucuses rather than primaries?

It doesn't use caucuses for everything. We're having primaries for presidential candidates. This is a caucus for county board party nominations. It's totally local, so it will have a greater impact on my life.

Maddow made a REALLY important point on the show tonight. The governor of VA wants to be VP - but Gingrich CAN NOT constitutionally select a virginian. The Lt. Gov. is also Romney's head campaign guy in VA. But more than that - ONLY Romney and Paul are going to be on the ballot, apparently.

And, of course, you have to eliminate all the felons. :rolleyes:

Huh?

Article 2 section 1.

"The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not lie an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves." As in, the President and VP have to be residents of different states.

Gingrich resides in Virginia. Oops.


EDIT: sorry, my bad. The 12th amendment has precedence here. Which reads:

"The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves..."

so, same deal.

I understand that. What does that have to do with your quote of UT's post?

The process within the VA GOP seems to be fractured and fraught with infighting to at least some degree - I'm not alleging legal or moral wrongdoing, but there is at least a whiff of something fishy about the circumstances, beyond "well they should have had more signatures"

I just like that the GOP is doing to their fellows what the two major parties have consistently done to third party candidates over the years without a peep from the press. /schadenfreude

Ibram--that is so much blah blah blah, etc. I say this with respect to you, personally, but with eyerolling scorn for the actual players here. Do you really think Dick Cheney was from fucking Wyoming?

And that's how the Gingrich team completed their signature drive.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...rginia-ballot/

But don't blame Gingrich 100%; it's nearly impossible that it wouldn't happen, due to the prevalence of paid petitioners; and remember the Romney and Paul ballots are not being checked for this sort of thing, since they turned in 15,000.

Is someone who frankly commits fraud honest or dishonest?

lol

Sorry, I can't believe I missed this until today...

Opposing Views
12/15/11

Bwahahahahahahaa!! !!! !!!!

I would pay her NOT to endorse me.
OTOH, CNN lost a few more credibility points having her on and thinking anyone is interested in her opinion.

Here is the whole segment. Whew, I just lost a few more brain cells watching that.

Santorum has wheedled his way up to a near dead heat. Hint for GOP voter, if your candidate is too extreme for PA he is unelectable.

For the past several days the talking heads of the news media have done nothing
in the way of reporting issues or positions of the GOP candidates.
Instead it is all about polls and the horse race in Iowa.
Who is ahead in the polls ? Who is "surging" today ? Blah, blah, blah...

Romney thinks he's ahead, so he is out cracking jokes while his family does his campaigning.
Paul thinks he's ahead so he is taking his son on a bus ride thru Iowa.
Santorum thinks he's ahead, so he has the Duggar family out campaigning.
Huntsman is taking it easy until New Hampshire.
Perry is taking it easy until South Carolina.
Cain is taking it easy until his wife fixes dinner.
Bachmann thinks she is Margaret Thatcher.

Maybe one of them will be the GOP candidate for President in 2012.
... Mitt Happens !

Here ya go Lamp ...
Candidates lay out plans to trim federal debt

That link is only what the candidates, themselves, are saying.

No follow up questions or interpretation of impact or feasibility, etc

It's not about credibility, silly. It's about ratings. Just ask FNC.

Of course it is. What would you expect at this stage?

Gee really? And this was done with every other candidate from every other election? C'mon. They at least said something and acted like they have plans or thoughts or something...
Its better than all the other BS we've been hearing about lately.

Not that it matters IMO, this will be a landslide win for O. None of these people have a shot in hell at beating him.

President Obama today made an unprecedented “recess” appointment even though the Senate is not in recess – “a sharp departure from a long-standing precedent that has limited the President to recess appointments only when the Senate is in a recess of 10 days or longer,” according to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
It turns out that the action not only contradicts long-standing practice, but also the view of the administration itself. In 2010, Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal explained to the Supreme Court the Obama administration’s view that recess appointments are only permissible when Congress is in recess for more than three days. Here’s the exchange with Chief Justice John Roberts:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: And the recess appointment power doesn't work why?

MR. KATYAL: The -- the recess appointment power can work in -- in a recess. I think our office has opined the recess has to be longer than 3 days. And -- and so, it is potentially available to avert the future crisis that -- that could -- that could take place with respect to the board. If there are no other questions –

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Thank you, counsel.

Speaker Boehner called the appointment an “extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab,” and noted that the position “had not been filled for one reason: the agency it heads is bad for jobs and bad for the economy.”

Seems like a lot of whining to me. This is not unprecedented at all. How many did GWB jr make? What was unusual in all of this was the R's attempting to act like they were in session when they really were not. Just more procedural wrangling IMO.

This is the mock-the-stoopid-Republican-candidates thread.

There are plenty of sling-shit-at-Obama threads.

Carry on.

USA Today
1/7/12
Perry returns to the Republican race
StLouisToday.com
AP
January 7, 2012
Huntsman: 'Sane Republican' ready for his moment
Politico
JIM VANDEHEI and MAGGIE HABERMAN
1/7/12 7:01

Debate night undercard: Good Newt vs. Bad Newt
And besides all that:

The GOP candidate for President may be determined by a single driving question...

Nashua Telegraph
By STACY MILBOUER
Friday, January 6, 2012
Amherst 9-year-old reveals GOP presidential candidates’ superhero alter egos

NPR seems to be applying their own limited vision to the race, instead of reporting. I awakened to the Iowa results and heard #s 1,2,4,5,6, and 7 listed. I don't know if Paul is supposed to get disappeared again or if someone missed the removed from blacklist memo. Then yesterday they were beating up the Tea Party folks for not voting their self-interest by looking for a small government candidate. They simply don't get that the TPer's and a lot of us frankly are still pissed about bailing out banks and businesses whose behaviors were about to be punished by the marketplace. Now instead of breaking up to big to fail businesses we will get further pretend regulation and will protect business from competition and build stagnation. We missed an opportunity to demolish some very corrupt business models but instead we subsidize them. At least we can still buy a Chevy Suburban.:rolleyes:

:D That's the best BAZINGA I've seen this year.

thanky

Why Jon Huntsman has no prayer ...

And cut the pious baloney, Mitt.

:lol:!!