On the week days, I regularly listen to Neal Boortz. I rarely visit the web-site though. Anyhow, while surfing his web-site, I came across this: http://www.boortz.com/demsecrets.htm. I found it very funny, and somewhat true. Here is just a sample of what the article says,
**“The Democrats have begun their campaign to frighten voters before the fall elections. It’s nothing but a replay of past elections, the only difference being that they seem to be starting the scare tactics a bit early this year. I guess you can’t blame them. Nothing else has worked. The tried to hand the Florida election problems on Bush. No go. Then it was the economy, and that didn’t work either. They gave a stab at the “Bush is stupid” routine, but Americans aren’t buying it. Enron looked worse for Clinton than it did for Republicans, so the Social Democrats had to give up on that one too. So, it’s time to go back to Democratic roots. Try to scare the beejezus out of older voters. It’s worked in the past – so it will surely work this time.” **
Come now, what do ya’ think of that? And, what do you think of Mr. Boortz?
Here is just a correction for the site : http://www.boortz.com/demsecrets.htm
The tried to hand the Florida election problems on Bush. No go.
Wrong Bush. It was Jeb Bush’s dirty tactics that swung that one. Go do your homework about how tons of eligible voters were turned away at black (predominantly democratic) precincts. Of course, the Demos tried that amazingly treasonous “we’re invalidating all mail-in (predominantly military, thus republican) votes.” Frankly there are a lot of politicans out there I’d like to introduce to a bullet…
Then it was the economy, and that didn’t work either.
I don’t blame him entirely for that. Bad timing. 9/11, dot-com crash, etc.
- They gave a stab at the “Bush is stupid” routine, but Americans aren’t buying it.*
Who’s not buying it? The guy is not smart enough to be president. It’s become obvious that Cheney is running things behind the scenes.
As for Boortz, he’s quite often a gasbag. What do you expect. Guy makes his money from being a pundit/provacateur. And he’s certanly unabashed about wanting to make money.
-Ben
What’s your point? If your point is that nothing seems to stick to Bush, then you’re right. The reason is obvious, too- Bush made a deal with the devil. That’s why he rubber-stamped the executions of everybody on Texas’ death row, except for the worst serial killer in American history, who raped, killed, raped, and ate his own mother (among other people) in that order, while forcing his niece and nephew both to watch and to help. Now, Bush fails at everything he puts his hands to, and comes out better every time. I mean, think of all the businesses that have tanked under Bush’s control. Somehow, he always seems to make money out of the failures.
Do you have a better explanation?
If your point is that the Florida election wasn’t rigged (which, BTW, it clearly was,) or that the problems with the economy aren’t Bush’s fault, then that’s another bunch of questions, each of which deserves its own thread.
Are the Democrats trying to scare older voters? I haven’t noticed, but maybe they are.
If the democrats wanted to get serious, they’d get serious.
They’d run a television advert that shows pictures of blown up Iraqi children; caption says “If Gore had been elected, this child wouldn’t be in 14 pieces.”
The problem is, democrats are just republicans who only have one vacation home. Both parties suck.
Good one - the 2 party system sucks
How are the Dems scaring the bejesus out of old people?
From what was posted from the site it hardly looks like reputable political commentary. So to me this looks like an early smear campain from the Pubbies.
All these “secrets” and no cites?? He wouldn’t last long on this board.
I think Mr. Boortz’s slant and bias are fairly dripping from my computer screen.
I read his article. With some of his points, my reply was “Good!” Such as this one:
I say tax the hell out of any company who moves the factory to a Third-World to take advantage of tax breaks and slave-labor wages. Tax them to the point where it’s not profitable any more to take jobs out of this country.
Again, good! I sincerly hope that one of those new restrictions is that the school be accredited. I went to one of those private schools the vouchers would pay for. It was nothing more than religious indoctrination with a tiny bit of academics thrown in. My diploma will not allow me to enter a university. According to my state, I have been a drop-out since eighth grade, though I have a “diploma” to prove I graduated from this so-called school. Do I sound bitter? I am.
I sincerely hope no kid has to deal with that embarassment. Unfortunately, many of these schools aren’t worthy of the name. (Though not all-- my husband graduated from an excellent Catholic school.) Nor will all home-school parents educate their children properly.
Actually, I think that’s why they support abortion rights.
And that’s a bad thing because * why? * Is he suggesting that Good Conservatives know it’s best to value your job or possesions over your children?
Again, good! Child care providers *should * be strictly regulated.
Not any more. The new Department of Homeland Security comes to mind.
Yeah, God forbid anyone should be able to defend himself against slander. Balanced debate? {shudder} How horrible!!
For people who live paycheck to paycheck, taking time off to be with a sick husband or child, or to be able to breastfeed a baby through the first few weeks is impossible. They simply can’t go without the money. Should they go on welfare?
Boortz reminds me of a male version of Ann Coulter (debating style, not physical resemblance). Makes you embarassed that you somtimes agree with him. His main purpose seems to 'stir things up" rather than actually address problems and try to solve them.
But I think he is a self described “libertarian”, not a Republican. I’ve only seen him a few times, one of which was when he walked off the Donohue show (MSNBC a few months ago when that show still existed). But he does seem to fire at the Dems and not at the Pubs, so I don’t know what he actually is.
I would never tell a person not to listen to someone else, but if he’s your main source of news, you might consider branching out.
Attempting to scare voters? Dear Lord, no! Only Democrats would do that. Oh, hang on a second, we just went to orange alert again…
It’s early, but this “oops, we can’t find the weapons and maybe our Iraq intelligence was bad” thing ain’t going too well for Bush. And he’s far from invulnerable.
Yeah, everyone accepted his election as TOTALLY legit. 
The man cheated, and got off the hook because 1) Democrats didn’t pursue it, and (more importantly 2) September 11. He wasn’t really accepted as a leader until then.
Yeah, the economy is just fabulous. Yeah, that’s not all his fault, but he hasn’t done anything to fix it. And the public sure doesn’t like the tax cuts for the wealthy as the deficit balloons. This is probably Bush’s weakest issue - he’s just as weak on the environment, but I think that inspires less passion overall.
People thought Bush was stupid before he was elected, and it had nothing to do with the Democrats. It was due to his amazing talent for malapropism and apparently weak grasp of the words and concepts of his native language.
This was a scandal that hit both sides of the aisle, for sure. But Ken Lay wasn’t Clinton’s best friend, and Clinton didn’t appoint an Enron employee Secretary of the Army and let the company play a huge role in his energy policy.
I think if you’re elderly and a non-millionaire, you’ve got something to worry about here.
Funny you should mention that. As far as physical resemblance goes, Ann Coulter reminds me of a male version of herself.
Boy, is that Boortz site a riot!
I am not a Republican but have always been pretty conservative politically. But in reading that rant I think it’s the Democrats who have their heads on straight. Maybe that’s a secret pro-Democrat site. The arguments that Boortz makes are so transparent and specious that they serve to point out the reasonable nature of the Democrat agenda.
Excuse me for a moment: I have to re-read P. J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores to feel normal again…
Remind me of this again when Ted Kennedy declares an Orange Alert for the Fourth of July long weekend. When that happens I accept that the Democrats are trying to scare the public.
I didn’t think Democrat-bashing was a Great Debate.
Esprix
We do need more of P.J., don’t we?
Do the Dems have a P.J. equivalent?
Well, you’ve gotta admire someone who makes the effort to get the young folks involved.
But seriously, which killer are you referring to here?
Al Franken is one; Molly Ivins is another.
Below, I add a little commentary to a few of the deceptions by Boortz, who really is such a complete and utter crackpot idiot that I can’t believe the OP actually linked to this tripe. It may be a new low here on the SDMB. It is also ironic that he is accusing the Dems of fear-mongering when his whole thing is basically a fear-mongering diatribe about what the Dems are going to do.
This 96% number sounds somewhat less dramatic once one notes that these top 50% have an 87% share of the income (see here). It is also worth noting that the federal income tax is the most progressive tax we have (outside of the soon-to-be eliminated estate and gift tax, which is a smaller player at any rate) and that things change once you add other federal taxes (such as the payroll taxes into the mix) and even more once you add in state and local taxes which are generally regressive (see here).
Well, maybe they should do this! One of the interesting thing to come out of the Social Security privatization debate is a claim by libertarian and conservative organizations that the social security system as a whole is regressive (see here)! Now, this is somewhat a matter of assumptions since the system involves intergenerational transfer and the results you get depend on how you “discount” the money over time or whatever.
Well, the most intelligent among us understand that if you allow some people to pay less tax than other people then this is in effect a subsidy for these folks…or at least for the particular thing, in this case, home ownership.
Having said this, I seriously doubt that the Dems will eliminate the mortgage interest deduction. See next point.
One problem with Boortz is he seems to believe that the poor have some incredible power over the Democratic Party. That is just completely and utterly idiotic. For one thing, the poor are probably a constituency that the Dems can pretty much take for granted…and it seems that they have been doing so. (It is true that they have to appeal to the middle class but I already noted that Boortz used deceptive statistics to make it look like the whole bottom 50% is paying very little in taxes which is very far from the truth.) For another, the poor don’t vote in very great numbers. For still another, the poor don’t make big fat campaign contributions! I mean, how stupid is this guy?!?
A more realistic view is that we have two political parties in this country: the party that is mainly for the rich and the party that is 100% completely and utterly for the rich.
Well, where is the evidence that there is any increasing level of “income redistribution”, especially at the top. Of course, with Bush, we are going towards a flatter income tax distribution with particularly large cuts at the top. But even in the absence of that, the fact is that the only reason the share of taxes paid by the top 1% has increased dramatically in the 1980-2000 time frame (it went up by a factor of almost 2) is that their share of the income has gone up by almost a factor of 2.5. In other words, the rich are paying a greater share of the taxes because they are getting a greater share of the income, not because they are being taxed more heavily! And, the top 1% has done fabulously in the time period from ~1980 to 1997 with their after-tax real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) income increasing by >150% (i.e., a factor of 2.5). By comparison, the after-tax income of those in the middle quintile only went up by about 10% in real terms (see here).
Montgomery County Maryland is one of the wealthiest counties in the country - Bethesda and Chevy Chase is way liberal Democrat.
Oh yeah…Another question about this idea of rich people running elsewhere to base their businesses: Where are they going to go exactly? Certainly, most of our fellow first world nations have more progressive taxation and a less inequitable distribution of wealth than we do. While it is true that some of the less wealthy nations might be attractive, this is probably true more for their low wage rates than their low taxation of the wealthy. Does Boortz really believe we should be competing with poor nations to offer the most generously low taxation of the rich?