October 21, 2012

"Tragically, it seems the president feels boxed in by his blackness."

"It has, at times, been painful to watch this particular president’s calibrated, cautious and sometimes callous treatment of his most loyal constituency... African-Americans will have lost ground in the Obama era."

Email from Tavis Smiley to NYT reporter Jodi Kantor, quoted in "For President, a Complex Calculus of Race and Politics."

69 comments:

Tim said...

Race baiters are gonna race bait.

Strelnikov said...

On the other hand, without it he's not only not elected President, he can't be elected dog catcher. It's unfortunate alright - for all of us.

Geoff Matthews said...

Can we just say that socialism hurts black america?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Anyway, back in the real world, Ohio's largest newspaper, with a conservative editorial bias, backs Obama for being the candidate less beholden to both the ideological promiscuity of Romnesia and extremist attempts to undercut agreements on controlling the debt.

Sorry to interrupt any fixation on 2008's campaign issues with real news. Carry on.

campy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I wonder if Mitt has to ask for permission from Alex to be a moby again during the last debate.

wyo sis said...

Obama is disappointing everyone. Has disappointed everyone.
Liberals made the mistake of looking at Obama as electable, and forgetting that he also needes to be capable.

edutcher said...

He's boxed in by the deadly combo of vanity and incompetence.

Losers always sing, "Shut up and deal".

Sam L. said...

Walks a line carefully. That ain't the way I seed it!

I think he's played this for all it's worth, and not it's all used up. For everyone. It is destroyed, and the ground is sown with salt. It's over. All the ladies have sung,the fat, the thin, the medium; nothing left but the wailing and lamentations from MO.

KCFleming said...

Mr. Obama rarely dwells on race with his visitors or nearly anyone else."

Funniest line in the whole article, next to the phrase "Vigilant about not creating racial flash points..."

They gonna put y'all back in chains!

Dark Eden said...

Why am I racist today?

Sam L. said...

Now, not "not", in line 2.

edutcher said...

O Ritmo Segundo said...

Anyway, back in the real world, Ohio's largest newspaper, with a conservative editorial bias, backs Obama for being the candidate less beholden to both the ideological promiscuity of Romnesia and extremist attempts to undercut agreements on controlling the debt.

The Plain Dealer is Conservative?

Shirley, you jest.

Sorry to interrupt any fixation on 2008's campaign issues with real news. Carry on.

Well, now we know where shilol's hiding.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Liberals made the mistake of looking at Obama as electable, and forgetting that he also needes to be capable.

The preceding was an interesting dispatch from a land where "capable" = "convinces teabaggers not to trigger a lowered credit rating or to play politics with jobs bills".

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Tragically, I can imagine Obama in the Rose Garden delivering a soliloquy on his inner turmoil.

You'd want to work in the theme of hybridization, somehow.

Tim said...

Trolls are gonna troll.

Anonymous said...

lol.

Whitey-hating, low-rated talk show hostin', professional parasite Tavis Smiley whines that the reason why shit is bad for black people is because Obama is trapped by evil whitey and therefore, once again, all darkie problems are whitey's fault.

Tell that 3/5ths to go fuck himself and go back to hanging out with his loathsome buddy, Cornell West.

Seeing Red said...

Getting the Democrat Senate to give him a budget would have been a sign of being capable......

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Teabaggers are gonna teabag.

Dante said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
KCFleming said...

Boxed in, or briefed?

Dante said...



It's not surprising two axiomatically contradictory beliefs would make it hard to paint a picture of unity, let alone to act as if one is acting in unity. I suppose one can pay off donors to give out Obama phones. Maybe that will work.

What a tragedy we hired a person as president of the united states with this inherently flawed contradiction of thought.

kcom said...

"On the other hand, without it he's not only not elected President, he can't be elected dog catcher."

Without that he's simply John Edwards lite.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

...inherently flawed contradiction of thought.

But not such inherently flawed contradictions of thought as:

Revenue decreases help cut the deficit...

Military spending increases help cut the deficit...

Laying off government workforce has more than a marginal effect on budgeting and doesn't increase unemployment...

Opposing cuts to Medicare is a way to ensure its cost-effective preservation... But not voucherization...

gadfly said...

"Tragically, it seems the president feels boxed in by his blackness."

Tragically, the president, along with Tavis Smiley, are boxed in by their xenophobic attitude toward skin color. Racism begins at home.

Anonymous said...

lol @ O Ritmo:

Here's a fact for you, boy:

Every time the income tax has been cut since the 1920s, revenues have gone up.

Fact.

Now spin, little hamster, spin!

Lyle said...

If he had seriously attacked violent crime and out of wedlock births among a certain subset of African-American men... he'd have gotten a ton of support from the political right.

He chose to do nothing though. His community organizing skills went wasted. He couldn't or wouldn't stand up to the likes of Sharpton and Tavis Smiley.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Opposing jobs bills (that lack giveaways to favored lobbies) is a great way to show your concern for the unemployed...

Lowering the credit rating is a great way to address debt...

Badmouthing the president for an attack on a consulate whose security you voted to cut shows how much you care about security...

Voting for deficit-spending that Bush signs while not in a recession is better than voting for recovery spending that Obama would sign...

Increasing the amount of unspent capital among the most profitable industries will stimulate the economy...

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

This one's for the whore...

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Here are some sources from the less ideologically promiscuous conservatives:

I used the phrase "charlatans and cranks" in the first edition of my principles textbook to describe some of the economic advisers to Ronald Reagan, who told him that broad-based income tax cuts would have such large supply-side effects that the tax cuts would raise tax revenue. I did not find such a claim credible, based on the available evidence. I never have, and I still don't.

[...]

My other work has remained consistent with this view. In a paper on dynamic scoring, written while I was working at the White House, Matthew Weinzierl and I estimated that a broad-based income tax cut (applying to both capital and labor income) would recoup only about a quarter of the lost revenue through supply-side growth effects. For a cut in capital income taxes, the feedback is larger--about 50 percent--but still well under 100 percent. A chapter on dynamic scoring in the 2004 Economic Report of the President says about the the [sic] same thing. [Greg Mankiw, 7/2/07]
-- (Top adviser to Romney).

Romney issued a 59-point economic plan with fanfare last September. The platform contradicts landmark findings on monetary and housing policies published in 2011 by his top two economic advisers: Glenn Hubbard, the dean of Columbia University's business school; and N. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard University professor and the author of the nation's most widely used college economics textbook. [National Journal, 1/19/12]

(Same)

BERNANKE: I don't think that as a general rule tax cuts pay for themselves. What I have argued instead is that to the extent the tax cuts produce greater efficiency or greater growth, they will partially offset the losses in revenues. The degree to which that offset occurs depends on how well-designed the tax cut is. [Joint Economic Committee hearing, 4/27/06, emphasis added]

More where those came from, but there's no reason to assume that a whore isn't also a liar.

Anonymous said...

Ritmo laughably believes the Plain Dealer is conservative.

As I said last night, I don't believe dead tree media endorsements matter very much at all these days, but since Ritmo brought it up, the Chicago Jewish Star endorsed Romney. The Orlando Sentinel, a paper that endorsed Obama 4 years ago, endorsed Romney.
Al Gore's old newspaper, The Tennessean, endorsed Romney.

Carry on. And - blessings.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

I am so sick of the left's obsession with race and skin color.

It’s all there to mask and hide the left’s failed ideology. Failed ideologies have no color.

Gahrie said...

The preceding was an interesting dispatch from a land where "capable" = "convinces teabaggers not to trigger a lowered credit rating or to play politics with jobs bills".

Those damn Tea Party people and Republicans were certainly causing problems for President Obama his first two years in office........

And as for the last two years, the American people deliberately neutered President Obama in the mid term elections based on what he did the first two years.

Roger J. said...

In this day and age does anyone even still take a daily ne

wspaper? Let alone care what their editorial board thinks? There may still be few fishwrap luddites out there, the editorial endorsements have all the weight of a spider web. (I would have said hummingbird, but Chip Ahoy would be on me like white on rice)

Michael K said...

Who complained about shiloh's absence ? Now we get spammed with this:

"Revenue decreases help cut the deficit...

Military spending increases help cut the deficit..."

shiloh doesn't know the difference between tax revenue and rates. Doesn't know the difference between cutting the military and "spending increases"

Talk about low information voters ! What about low information trolls ?

wyo sis said...

Go ahead and say it Roger. I'd like to see the newest on hummingbirds and their feeders.

Paul said...

"Tragically, it seems the president feels boxed in by his blackness."

You mean boxed in by his inexperience, nativity, inability to even want to do the job (that is hard work, not speeches), poor selection of subordinates, and generally a huge ignorance of what being President means, right?

In actuality he just is so much a 'affirmative action' president he blames all his calamities on others yet all his successes are his.

So in a way he is right, his 'blackness' is boxing him in. He was giving so much all his life due to his blackness he can't cope with a real job.

Tim said...

Trolls can beg for a tea-bagging, but it ain't ever gonna happen, no matter how much they want it.

Chip S. said...

One thing I'm always confident about is that no NYT article with the phrase "a Complex Calculus" in its title will involve actual calculus.

It is likely to involve imaginary numbers, however.

LilyBart said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
LilyBart said...

I am soooo sick of all this focus on race. We're more divided as a country than at any time in my life.

And Af-Americans have 'lost ground' economically because this President's economic policies have failed.

We're never going to be succesful if our strategy is to confiscate money from the productive and our goal is to live comfortably out of our neighbors' pockets. Go out and try to be productive yourself. And vote for government that limits its intrusion into the market, not government that tries to take over the market.

"Socialism just brings suffering to a higher level"

"Eventually, you run out of other peoples' money"

What do you think will happen to the poor and elderly when China won't lend us any more, and the money-priting has failed-and resulted distructive levels of inflation that makes us all poorer? Think about it.

furious_a said...

Boxed in, or briefed?

Well, since the President skips his daily intel briefs for golf/fundraiers...

Anonymous said...

Note how O Ritmo can't even offer a response to a basic fact from history. All he offers is a google search...which yields left wing talking points that don't even rebut a very basic fact:

Every time income taxes have been cut since 1920s, government revenue has increased.

Why does O Ritmo want the government to have less money to perform it's Glorious Operation?

LilyBart said...


Note how O Ritmo can't even offer a response to a basic fact from history

He's (or she's?) not interested in honest debate of any kind. It mystifies me as to why he's paid any attention.

Rusty said...

O Ritmo Segundo said...
Teabaggers are gonna teabag.

10/21/12 10:30 AM

I think you need to talk to Palladin or Titus. I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Rusty said...

whoresoftheinternet said...
Note how O Ritmo can't even offer a response to a basic fact from history.


Ignore idiots. There's a communicable component to stupid.

Chip S. said...

You want facts? OK, take a look at at the first column of this table, paying particular attention to the entries for 2001-2004.

It's logically possible to endorse Romney's tax plan w/o believing in fairy tales told by trolls.

cubanbob said...

Ritmo firing half of the federal civilian workforce is a start. They produce nothing of value and their UI is a lot less expensive than their salaries and benefits and pensions.

Vouchers for medicare are at worse not any worse than Zerocare. Doctors aren't exactly rushing up to sign new medicaid and medicare patients as it is and when this disaster is fully implemented even less will be taking those assignments. Ten years after Zerocare is fully implemented if you want prompt medical care it will be fee for service, everything else will be on the long waiting list.

jacking up taxes to do what? to try to maintain unsustainable spending levels isn't going to help the credit rating, if anything it will worsen it.

National security is a core responsibility of the government, your entitlements isn't.

In the end, unsustainable spending cannot continue and the entitlement state will be curtailed.

Rusty said...

cubanbob

I admire you patience, but you know as well as I do he doesn't listen. He just spouts "the narrative".

ORS
Another government employee clawing like mad to keep his perogatives.

Michael said...

Ritmo, stupid. When one cotes to cut security at Embassies the thought is that it would be at stations like Nassau and Panama City and Brussels. Only an idiotic administration would cut all security at all embassies, only a fool would beef up Bermuda and down size Benghazi

But keep the talking points rolling.

Michael said...

Votes, not cotes

Alex said...

Guys looks to me that Ritmo is panicking. Look at all the name-calling. Normally he pretends to be this big intellectual writing lengthy dissertations. Not anymore.

Gahrie said...

tragically, it seems the president feels boxed in by his blackness


Ironically, tragically or side-splittingly funny enough, It is President Obama and his Leftist tools who insist that his "blackness" is the most important characteristic, and one that defines him.

cubanbob said...

Rusty said...

What you said is true. What hasn't been said is that Romney is the best possible republican outcome for fools like Ritmo. He only looks conservative when compared to a communist. The libertarians and conservatives know he isn't one of them but he is infinitely better than Obama. The true fiscal conservatives and small government types have taken the W.F Buckley vow to vote for the most electable conservative possible and are working hard to do the same in in congress and at the state and local level. In time with enough of the in place there will be rollbacks in the welfare state and the size of government. Romney's job if elected is to get the policies in place to further economic growth and hence reduce the perceived need for expanded social programs. And right now, that is as good as the small government and fiscal conservatives can get. They won't make the same mistake this time as in the last election.

Rob said...

I am looking forward to the day we realize pigment is a poor way to categorize people.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Note how O Ritmo can't even offer a response to a basic fact from history. All he offers is a google search...which yields left wing talking points that don't even rebut a very basic fact:

He's (or she's?) not interested in honest debate of any kind. It mystifies me as to why he's paid any attention.


It takes a very special kind of fuckwit to dismiss the statements of conservative economists like Mankiw (Romney's own advisor) and Bernanke (a Bush appointee) as the stuff of left wing talking points.

I hereby redirect the challenge to the aforementioned ignorant fuckwits to provide evidence of two economists who believe that income tax cuts generate equivalent or greater revenue to what they cost. Evidence has already been shown that even conservative economists disagree with them, but like everything else, they just ignored that fact and dispensed the ad hominems instead.

It must suck being so wrong as them that their only option is deflection, obfuscation, and redirection. The evidence stares them right in the face, but their heads are too far stuck in the sand for them to perceive the clear daylight that shines off of it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Ok Chip. What I see is that revenue more than doubled in the eight years under Clinton since Bush raised taxes, as opposed to the twelve years it took to reach that point under Reagan-Bush.

Compare this to the paltry 15% growth in revenues in the eight years under W.'s cuts.

Sounds like your guys are just pro-debt and deficit spending.

Tim said...

"Sounds like your guys are just pro-debt and deficit spending."

Troll supporting the least experienced candidate ever nominated by a major political party and then elected president doesn't get the point.

Troll doesn't seem to understand $5 trillion was added to the national debt over the last four years by his failed president.

Troll seems to imply repealing the "Obama-Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich" will fix Obama's annual $1 trillion deficit.

Troll seems to also think his failed president, despite all evidence to the contrary, will somehow pull his head out of his ass, improve his performance by about 300%, and become a passably mediocre president in his second term.

Troll seems to think we're as stupid as he is.

Stupid troll.

Chip S. said...

Perhaps my last comment was unclear. What I was pointing out was that revenue from the personal income tax did in fact decline after the 2001 tax cuts. The claim by trolloftheinternet that this never happens is simply false.

Of course, it's also true that the tax cut was a response to the post-9/11 recession, so that tax revenues would have fallen to some extent anyway. This is why economists who discuss the response of tax revenues to tax-rate changes must necessarily discuss estimates of the causal response.

The economists Ritmo cited are all pretty sensible, and definitely not Krugman-type ideologues.

Now, having said all that, I'll say that none of this constitutes a critique of Romney's tax plan. Broadening the tax base in order to cut rates is widely recognized as a way to stimulate the economy. Even if tax revenues fall, the ratio of the debt to GDP can (and is likely to) fall b/c the potential growth of the economy right now is huge.

But overall I think rolling back Obamacare and Dodd-Frank is more important than tax reform as far as stimulating employment is concerned.

Sam L. said...

Obama Ritmo now reduced to swearing. Poorly.

Bummer.

Synova said...

A rising tide raises all ships?

What is the suggestion here? That Obama, because he's black, should have particularly benefited black citizens?

Yes, the last four years have been terrible for minorities, unemployment is far higher for black Americans than others, the overall situation more dire. This wasn't because Obama was cautiously, carefully, avoiding favoring blacks. It's because his economic policies are either ignorant or ideologically blinkered.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

TimTroll supports the most manipulative nominee for president ever and thinks that seniority is an excuse for incompetence.

TimTroll doesn't seem to understand that $2 trillion is what R-Money will add over the next few years or that there's a difference between spending in a recession and spending during an expansion.

TimTroll seems to defend giving away more unspent capital by not understanding that it both adds massively to debt and does nothing to aid recovery.

TimTroll seems to also think that his failed Congress, despite all evidence to the contrary, will somehow pull their heads out of their asses, improve their performance by about 300%, and become a passably mediocre Congress in their next class.

TimTroll seems to think we're as stupid as he is.

Stupid Timtroll.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

THanks Chip for bringing some honesty and intelligence to the debate. Others might not see the difference, but that's their loss.

As far as where we still differ, (or where I still have concerns), is:

1. If we're poised for substantial growth, that would be due to exactly the policies that remained in place - for which either a President Obama or a President Romney would now politically benefit. Romney's made a fortune by timing his exits and entries into and out of his LBO deals. This would be no different, so it depends on whether you think that doing the tough work of rebuilding an economy is worth stealing credit for or not.

Further, Romney's changed his position on his tax "plan" (or is it now a secret plan?) so many times that there's no point in critiquing anything but the least sensible/most self-serving proposals he's floated. Someone as intentionally opaque and chameleon-like as him doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Paul Volcker (also a conservative) disagrees with you on Dodd-Frank and Obamacare probably stimulates employment by increasing the pool of healthy, low-cost insured. It will certainly stimulate employment in the health care sector. Providing more efficient delivery of care the way only Obamacare is going to do has a variety of economic benefits - a case that I'm sure has been made over and over again. If you disagree and believe that less efficient delivery of care is economically desirable, perhaps you can point to some articles for why you think so. In the meantime, see if you can find one that substantively refutes this.

Thanks.

Alex said...

RitmoTurd said...

THanks Chip for bringing some honesty and intelligence to the debate.

but earlier:

Teabaggers are gonna teabag.

10/21/12 10:30 AM


LOL.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Failure's hard to hide.

Known Unknown said...

Another slowly dying pub



Known Unknown said...

Binders full of blackness!

Anonymous said...

@O Ritmo:

Ignore idiots. There's a communicable component to stupid.
---O Ritmo, lol. Talk about hoisting yourself on your own petard.

Again, O Ritmo: Every time the income tax rate has been cut since the 1920s, federal revenues have increased.

You have not contradicted this with any facts at all. You just keep trying to change the topic. Because lying is all you lefties have when it comes to reality.

Again, O Ritmo: why do you want your precious, precious One World Government to have less revenue? Do you honestly think that raising income taxes will increase revenue, despite blatant evidence to the contrary?

David-2 said...

Pogo said...
“Mr. Obama rarely dwells on race with his visitors or nearly anyone else."

Funniest line in the whole article, next to the phrase "Vigilant about not creating racial flash points..."


I think he's talking about the mirror universe Obama, the same place with the goateed' Spock.