Sam is a weasely liar who tries to deflect and mislead and move goalposts when caught out, as evident here.
(By the way, if you actually look at the changes in the deficit when the Democrats controlled the Presidency and Congress, you’ll see the opposite of “the stops coming out and spending going wild.”)
Wow - his doctors don’t admit to criminally covering up health concerns about the President? Watch this video of an expert looking at the 1984 debate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDK--X0qOmg
Wow! Are you recanting your admission that your claim was false? I’m not surprised, but here’s the post:
Jesus. This is beyond surreal. I’m beginning to think you may be just nuts. You remind me of the definition of a fanatic - someone who can’t change his mind, and won’t change the subject.
Is that good enough for you? The fact that you would choose this as an example of my ‘weaselly lying’ simply suggests to me that you’re detached from reality, just as your repeated desire to revisit our NASA brouhaha, in which you were clearly wrong.
I also linked to a video of his speech in 1992 at the RNC, in which he is clearly in full control of his faculties six years after Dio said he was showing signs of Alzheimers.
As for his debate performance - you do know that it’s possible to have a bad debate without having Alzheimers, right?
And you clearly don’t understand what ‘controlling the purse strings’ means - it means Republicans had control of Congress, and a Democrat was in the White House.
The amazing thing is that you have to dig so far into the minutiae of my posts in order to try to catch me ‘lying’. Your gotchas come down to nitpicking and parsing sentences. In the meantime, this board is full of people on your side uttering complete untruths constantly. Like Dio’s claim that 1% of the people have 99% of the wealth, or that Reagan quadrupled the deficit, or your initial claim that Reagan slashed the space program, or DanBlather’s claim that not a single instance of a farm being sold off because of the tax liability (which he refused to cite when I asked him to). It’s mind-boggling.
Okay, let’s try it this way: how much less should we get back on our tax returns? Which leads to, what should the tax rates be? I don’t think you believe it should be the same for everyone, so please describe what you think would be wise, taking into account both the debt we have and the need we have for jobs. Hell, just start with the estate tax, which is where this started.
Now why don’t you see if you can withhold your righteous spittle and whining and man up with some thinking. And please read this.
Reagan’s doctors are not valid cites. They are full of shit. We all know what we witnessed of at the 1984 debate and on other public occasions.
Just beacuse he could could give an interview in 1992 doesn’t mean anything. Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease. People have good days and bad days in the early stages.
You show pictures of girls with big fake boobs to gay guys in an attempt to seduce them away from the dark side, don’t you, magellan?
It’s just not going to work. Honestly. I’m not buying into your tax cut fetish. The bill in question is a Jobs bill. There’s no call to be putting more money into your rich uncle’s pocket over getting the job market back on its feet. Or is the later something you don’t want to see happen? Do you need the economy to continue to fuck over regular Americans until next november or so? Oh, you conservatives are the wily ones, aren’t you?
Still no answer. As expected. You spout platitudinous shit, then when questioned to explain your position, you run away frothing at the mouth for being asked to explain yourself. :rolleyes:
Good thing I cited doctors other than his own then, isn’t it? You haven’t even bothered to read the cites, have you?
Are you sure you don’t have Alzheimers? Who said anything about an interview? Hey gave a speech at the Republican National Convention. I linked to the video of it. Didn’t watch it, did you?
I think that you will find the the people who inherit your money may benefit from the estate tax. I expect that the tax will end up with a $3.5M exemption and then a flat 50%. That would mean there would be no tax at all on the first $3.5M. Even better, since the basis of the investments will be reset to the price when you die, your descendants will save a bundle of capital gains taxes. If we get rid of the estate tax rules your kids would get the stock at it’s original basis and would have to pay capital gains when they sell it. But I agree with you bigger point that everyone should pay some taxes. The best way to do that is make sure there are as few poor people as possible. We don’t want the poor to have food,housing and medical care provided to them by the govt, we want to get rid of the poor. Best way I know is improving education, addressing the onerous burden that college grads face , and making sure people make a living wage. The minimum wage is way too low, and the way that healthcare is set up companies are hiring PT employees so they don’t have to pay benefits. So what we have are the low paid people who do pay taxes subsidizing those who are lucky enough to gave tax-free medical insurance provided by their employer. Any sort of emergency may force those poor people in to public shelters where it becomes difficult to escape from the cycle of poverty.
My solution? Raise minimum wage, fix the healthcare mess (that’s the way to help small business), pay off college loans in return for public service, and cut the defense budget by at least half. Pass the pay as you go bill and make progress on paying back the national debt. Fine companies who hire illegal workers and aggressively deport illegal workers.
You disagree with Sam’s opinion, one he backed up with expert cites agreeing with him. There are certainly people who agree with you and Dio on this, in defiance of the contrary expert opinions (which included doctors other than the president’s). But tell me again, how is that an example of Sam lying? The fact that he disagrees with you? This was an example of a lie, offered then buttressed with ambiguous cites when Sam was called on it? Really? :dubious:
I suddenly feel like one of his defense attorneys in this thread (not that he needs me), but this one is especially bizarre.
It’s not an example of a lie, it’s an example of anything Sam says needing to be fact checked. Sam said the following:
So, it is not the case that there is no evidence, absolutely zero evidence, no credibility as to whether Reagan showed indications of Alzheimer’s in the 1984 debate.
Even if you disagree with Dio’s assertion, do you think there’s no evidence, absolutely zero evidence, no credibility? Or do you just find that there is evidence but it is not compelling to you?
By the way, looking that one up reminded me that just recently, Sam Stone also claimed that Sarah Palin is now more popular than Barack Obama. That one needed to be fact-checked too, since it is wrong. Nevertheless, even though Sam acknowledged that a favorability rating is different from an approval rating, less than two hours later he again compared a favorability rating to an approval rating. That’s just deceitful. Sam’s a weasel.
Reagan was nuts enough before alzheimers. he had Joan Quigley an astrologist giving him advice in the White House. Nancy was a big believer and she and Quigley helped decide when and what to do. After he went mentally downhill, Nancy assumed a lot of power. Most handlers thought she was a controller and a bit power mad.
I read a few books on Reagan. His chief of staff and several insiders wrote 'tell alls". They talk of how carefully he had to be controlled because he would go off on tangents that could be embarrassing. His press conferences were deliberately narrow and focused because he could still learn his lines and because he was an actor, could still charm the people with his voice and folksiness.
When Reagan was Gov. in California he had astrologers exempted from the act he passed banning sooth sayers and fortune tellers from getting money for doing their predictions.
From a third party, for you to assign whatever weight you’d like, I think you’re picking a semantic nit; I think you’re letting your assessment be skewed because of the clear animus you seem to have for Sam. Again, FWIW (not much, I’m sure).
Sam already conceded that it wasn’t a great performance, but asked why we wouldn’t suppose that it was just a bad day, given later performances and the doctors’ cites he provided. The only “evidence” (unless I missed it) to the contrary was people saying that the performance seemed, through their eyes at least, indicative of declining mental faculties. So, yes, that is not zero evidence, since there are a sizable group who would agree. But I don’t think Sam would contradict that this perception exists. I read his statement to mean “no evidence offered beyond the gut feeling that you (and, perhaps, many others) have in viewing it, as opposed to the expert opinions I provided as evidence.” I think harping on things like, “So! There’s zero evidence then, eh? Liar!” is overreaction and picking nits.
Other doctors than his own would not be in a position to clear him of having Alzheimer’s. They’re full of shit too. They’re watching some video and saying, I see nothing wrong." That’s right up there with Bill Frist saying that Terry Schiavo was perfectly fine after watching the balloon video.
A speech is even less meaningful than an interview. All the insiders say he retained his ability to perform for the cameras and read from a teleprompter even when he didn’t know what day it was otherwise.
This is true. Reagan was never a particularly intelligent person to begin with. He certainly was not a great thinker, and he was highly superstitious and credulous. He thought Biblical Armageddon was a real thing that was really going to happen, for instance. He never had any great ideas, never demonstrated any complex thought or comprehension. He was really never anything more than a performer. He wasn’t much different than Sarah Palin as far as brains, though he lacked her personality disorders.
So, when Reagan’s doctors say he didn’t have Alzheimer’s in 1984, they’re not reliable because they’d lie to cover up the fact that they missed it. When other doctors say he didn’t have Alzheimer’s in 1984, they’re not reliable because they’re not his doctors…they just watched video of the debate and they can’t tell from just watching a video and not examining him.
But when you claim that Reagan was suffering from Alzheimer’s in 1984, you know that because “he visibly showed signs of his mental decline during that 1984 debate”.
Actually, I have a strong animus for Sam’s posting style, since it so often relies on posting misinformation in a blustery pompous fashion. Sometimes it is clearly mendacious, sometimes it is willful ignorance, and sometimes it may be honest mistakes. It is so frequent and so skewed, however, that for me he has worn out the benefit of the doubt.
People of varying expertise, including at least one expert in cognitive functioning. Of course, I’m not suggesting that his opinion of a videotape proves that Reagan had Alzheimer’s, but it does prove, as far as I’m concerned, that in 1984 people watching the debate saw signs of Alzheimer’s, which was Diogenes’ contention.
Again, expert opinions exist that the 1984 debate performance did show evidence of Alzheimer’s. Watch the video of Dr. Gottschalk in the link I posted.
Perhaps that’s fair. I still think it’s evidence that when Sam makes a statement, like “There’s absolutely no evidence” of something, that the first thing to do is open up Google and do a fact-check.
I don’t know. Like I said, I’m not inclined to extend any more benefits of the doubt.
I know you haven’t signed up for Sam Stone’s defense team, but have you any opinions about the issue of Sarah Palin’s being more popular than Barack Obama, or of the repeated comparison of favorability ratings to approval ratings, or the Fred Phelps photo, or the statement that “Recent history has taught us that whenever either party gains control of all branches of government, the stops come out and the spending goes wild”; or the claim that instead of what he actually said, he instead said “the only time in recent history where there was a sustained reduction in the size of government as a percentage of GDP was when Congress was controlled by Republicans and the White House by a Democrat.”? How about his recanting a prior admission of error? That’s a new one!
Not quite. I’m actually saying that me and all the doctors and everybody else in the country knew Reagan was in decline before he left office, and any doctor who says otherwise is just lying.
ETA, why is it that medical experts who say they “see no evidence of Alzheimer’s,” (which is not the same as saying he couldn’t have still had it, by the way) are supposed to be accepted as Gospel, while those who say they DO see signs of cognitive decline are dismissed out of hand?
Well, that seems to be fairly difficult to disprove.
Partly, because if it’s true, Reagan was showing visible symptoms of Alzheimer’s 20 years before his death, which is a really long time. Alzheimer’s usually progresses faster than that. Partly because there’s not really much evidence for it. Looking at his letters, looking at his diaries, there’s not really much evidence of cognitive impairment. Partly, it’s because the people making the claim he did have Alzheimer’s in the 80s have the burden of proof. And it’s partly because the people making the claim tend to be opposed to Reagan anyway, so there’s a question of motive there. Are they saying Reagan had Alzheimer’s as president just because they didn’t like his actions as president, or to discredit his presidency?
I voted for Reagan. I wasn’t hoping for him to go senile, but I know what I observed.
As far as I’m concerned, his mental decline mitigates his own culpability in the runaway corruption of his administration. If he was in full command of his faculties, I would think less of him, not more.
For someone who keeps ducking questions by claiming that taxes are out of scope of a jobs bill discussion, you seem to want to bring up the Iraq war a lot (a war that Hillary and Kerry voted for, if I’m not mistaken… but it’s the conservative’s war, of course).
To pretend that tax policy is not unavoidably entwined with job growth is to show your ignorance on how macro economics works.