So Doug LaMalfa (R) has agreed to a debate with Jim Reed (D)...finally...after saying he wouldn't. Is it because he feels too much pressure to do so from grass roots conservatives, Tea Party activists and even the GOP opponents LaMalfa went up against in the primaries? Lets see what these folks have been saying about LaMalfa:
Randal Faulkner, Tea Party activist, Shasta County RCCC member-elect: "While LaMalfa talks the walk, he does not walk the talk. Why do many Republicans, like myself, not trust LaMalfa? It's simple. His actions and those of his staff have proven untrustworthy time and time again. While conservatives, like myself, don't agree with Reed on some very important issues, we do agree with much of his beliefs. And Jim Reed is a straightforward honest man." 9/23/2012
Former Republican candidate for CA-01 Pete Stiglich: LaMalfa "might want to reconsider his decision acting like Dianne Feinstein."
Aaron Park, California Republican Assembly officer: "Doug LaMalfa by his actions and choices has forfeited the right to any Republican support. When truly judged by his actions Doug LaMalfa represents the type of Republican that cost the GOP the House and the Senate in 2006. No ethical or moral Republican voter should ever seriously consider voting for Doug LaMalfa under any circumstances. That is why this Conservative Republican Leader is advising any Republican voter in the 1st Congressional District to withhold their vote from Doug LaMalfa." 8/8/2012
"Concerned Conservative Citizens for Responsible Representation" has an entire website dedicated to "unraveling" LaMalfa's "political scandal coverup" (accessed 10/10/12).
Oroville Mercury-Register: "Butte County League of Women Voters frustrated by forum non-participation." Dave Gilliard, LaMalfa spokesperson: "If Doug LaMalfa is 300 miles away at noon, he can't come to a debate at 5."
Redding Record Searchlight: "The 1st Congressional District forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Redding Area had been in the books since August. LaMalfa, who was in Redding on Thursday afternoon, said he was unable to participate because of long-standing, pre-scheduled events that he was obligated to attend."
Chico Enterprise-Record: "The disturbing trend of local Republican candidates not showing up for debates is a disservice to voters." Excuses given by Doug LaMalfa are "a crock."
Redding Record-Searchlight: "Unlike most candidate forums this election cycle, this one will not have an audience, and it will not be televised live. … Reed had not let up on his challenge to LaMalfa that he debate him at more forums, as late as Tuesday releasing a missive that accused the Republican of ducking debates.
Caving to criticism, LaMalfa's campaign releases their candidate to debate-on October 19th, not to be aired until October 25th.
But will it be an actual debate?
There won't be an audience and the debate won't be aired until days later on the local PBS station only: on 9.1 KIXE-HD at 9:30 p.m., Oct. 25, 10:30 p.m., Oct. 26 and 4:30 p.m., Oct. 28; and on 9.3 KIXE World at 8:30 p.m., Oct. 31.
Here is Jim Reed (D) in this YouTube video below talking to a group of people AFTER Doug LaMalfa (R) was a no show:
More after the orange gnocchi thingy below...
We still have no idea about LaMalfa's platform, other than he will get rid of ObamaCare.
That's it.
With no stated platform, what is LaMalfa hiding? Does he truly have no platform? Will Doug LaMalfa use the "Gish Gallop" debate technique that Mitt Romney used in the first presidential debate?
Here is a link to Gish Gallop debate style: http://rationalwiki.org/...
Duane Gish, a Creationist, developed this style of "debating" which disallows any debate to occur at all. It is based on lies, distortion and dishonesty. As you saw Romney do, in his first "debate" with President Obama, Mitt lied about the very things he has been campaigning on since he won the candidacy to represent the GOP. Gish Gallop technique is intended to make your opponent look like they are the liar by simply denying everything you yourself have said in your own campaign speaches...then sprinkling in more and more non-truths and false non-facts on top of that as the "debate" continues. This is the reason Romney was named "the etch-a-sketch candidate" by his fellow GOP candidates during the Republican primaries.
In other words it's all nonsense.
That's the whole strategy...use total nonsense to distract the audience and the moderator away from anything real that can be discussed or debated. If your opponent attempts to factually talk about what you've proposed, just lie by denying it. Then make up a total lie about your opponent's position. This is a technique specifically used to disallow any debate from beginning.
It makes the person who is being factual look to be confused, ignorant and a liar themselves. It is nothing but smoke and mirrors used by snake oil salesmen to continually confuse and distract in order to avoid any discussion of substance until the allotted time for the "debate" has expired.
Duane Gish has been characterized as using a rapid-fire approach during a debate, presenting arguments and changing topics very quickly. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, has dubbed this approach the "Gish Gallop," describing it as "where the creationist is allowed to run on for 45 minutes or an hour, spewing forth torrents of error that the evolutionist hasn't a prayer of refuting in the format of a debate" and criticized Gish for failing to answer objections raised by his opponents.
The reason I wonder if Doug LaMalfa (R) will use this technique is because he has NO platform and thus will likely simply claim everything Jim Reed (D) says is false without stating what he, LaMalfa stands for.
Jim Reed will honestly tell us about his platform. He will want to tell us how his differs from LaMalfa's platform. But it's impossible to debate a phantom such as LaMalfa who won't state a platform and who's road signs simply claim "He's one of Us."
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The only thing we know for sure...facts:
So we are then left to use the current GOP platform of the past third of a century to understand the dogma Doug LaMalfa follows and believes in...since it's worked to his personal advantage so well. It's the agenda he will adhere to and even expand if elected to the House of Representatives.
Ever since 1980 the GOP has run on the platform of smaller government, less taxes, less regulation and smaller deficits. In theory this sounds really great! Who wouldn't think so? But in reality it favored the very wealthy by far. Of course, that's the very reason it became known as Trickle Down economics. This economic theory advocates that if the wealthy are given even more money than they already have they will use that newly gotten windfall to create new businesses or expand existing businesses. It's the "top down" approach.
After one third of a century of this GOP platform being tested in the real world, the results are in. We have a whopping 32 years of experience to now fully understand what Trickle Down economics produced for America and it's citizens.
The TRUTH is, while the GOP has pounded this as their blueprint for governance, they have NOT followed their very own platform at all, as in NOT ONCE since George H. Bush defined it as "voo-doo economics" (he was spot on, by the way).
WHY? Because it can't possibly work in reality. You can't do what the GOP has done for 32 years, which is to decrease revenues while simultaneously increasing debt. And by increasing debt, I mean like never before in the entire history of the country!
The GOP has inflated our national debt by HUGE leaps and bounds every time they've run the country. They don't follow their own professed economic policies. That means only one thing - they lied, have been lying and continue to lie.
Remember when a reporter asked Vice President Dick Cheney about the huge deficit increases occurring during the George W. Bush administration, he visually showed disdain then arrogantly stated, "deficits don't matter?"
The wealthy did not invest in creating new businesses that hired more Americans. They invested in ways to make more money for themselves by spending their extra windfall investing in Wall Street, hedge funds and investing in companies overseas in emerging markets where profits could be made more quickly compared to investing in existing American companies. In other words, they invested in themselves to make more money for themselves rather than creating new American businesses and creating more American jobs.
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Deregulation:
The wealthy also used their new windfalls to pay for lobbyists in Washington to grease the wheels of Congress to do away with laws that had been in place to regulate how business was conducted in America. They worked ceaselessly to deregulate these laws that had been created in the first place in response to abusive business practices of the past that had clearly made it quite difficult for those not already wealthy to get ahead. The wealthiest Americans had created systems that kept wealth within their class while creating business practices that blocked others from advancing themselves.
All business regulation laws had been created in response to abuse of the middle class and working people by the wealthy and corporations. They weren't created to stop progress in America by the already successful and affluent...but rather to allow for more progress and innovation in America by creating a business climate to give determined, hard working middle class Americans the ability and opportunity to get ahead themselves by ending road blocks created by the wealthy and corporations that thwarted that.
Regulation laws were enacted to end problems created by unregulated business practices of the past that had caused ruinous results for the banking system, the entire world economy and disabled equal ability for all to compete fairly in business. In other words, regulation laws were a response to serious problems that existed that disenfranchised middle class Americans.
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Game changer:
Citibank’s 1998 affiliation with Salomon Smith Barney, one of the largest US securities firms, was permitted under the Federal Reserve Board’s new interpretation of the Glass–Steagall Act by Alan Greenspan. In retrospect it should never have been allowed to occur. In this sudden new interpretation of the Glass-Steagall act, investment banking and commercial banking where allowed to be brought together again at Citibank.
One year later the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 ended the Glass-Steagall law that had regulated the banking industry in response to what the banking industry had done to create the Great Depression in the 1930's. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 again permitted Wall Street investment banking firms to gamble with depositors' money that was held in affiliated commercial banks. This time we were assured the banks would self-regulate themselves...a repeat of the 1930's wouldn't happen again.
Well it did happen again.
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The big shift in American financial solvency...how true assets were drained away to hide fantasies of imagination:
The George W. Bush tax relief acts of 2001 and 2003 paved the way for financial ruin for America. Right after these windfalls were given to the wealthiest among us, things happened quickly towards this end. Now the wealthiest had huge whopping windfalls to gamble with in financial markets.
It actually only took five years for our financial world to reach a ruinous crises that threatened to bring the world another Great Depression.
In 2003 a Goldman-Sachs hedge fund manager came up with a new idea creating CDO's (Collateralized Debt Obligations). CDO's were brand new "investment vehicles" that leveraged the highly risky schemes created by the investment side of banks by selling that risk in large bundles to the commercial side of banking....because all of a sudden they could just do that because they just decided to do that. These investments were pure gambles with no regulation at all. With no regulations, the banks just made up whatever suited them at the time. CDO's bundled mostly investments that were total losing propositions with a handful of potentially fruitful ones.
They were then sold as triple AAA rated investment opportunities. This was a dishonest, complete bald-faced lie. It was a Wall Street and
Banking industry pyramid scheme.
They were absolutely terrible, extremely dangerous vehicles in which to invest. Because they were given the highest and safest AAA rating, retirement funds for city workers including police departments, fire department and school districts bought them. Because they were sold as the best, most sound investments, states and municipalities bought them to use as collateral for doing all the things local and state governments need to do. Retirement fund managers invested in them for their clients' retirement income...all because they had the highest, safest investment rating of triple AAA.
But, again, with no regulation, banks could just make stuff up that had no basis in truth or reality. "Trust us, we know what we're doing," they told us.
The Glass-Steagall law required each side of the banking industry to be kept separate...which was in place for the express purpose of not allowing commercial assets with real intrinsic value...mortgages and retirement and savings accounts...to be used as collateral for risky investment gambles that have no intrinsic value at all.
The "game in banking" became who could sell these "crap, worthless investments" the fastest to other banks...which also leveraged their ability to buy these CDO's using real commercial assets. Round and round these truly worthless "investment vehicles" were traded among banks. Each time they were sold, they were sold for higher prices. Each round of this meant an exponential decline of any possible value that could ever be realized some day...in some fairy land of the future...AND simultaneously created exponential increase in the risk of all of this vanishing in a moment...in the reality based future.
The "value" of these "investments" kept increasing purely by sheer magic!
What banks were selling to each other now was 100% risk containing nothing of any true intrinsic value at all. They all pretended it was all OK because they also bought "insurance" that would pay off the "profits on paper" these worthless assets were falsely generating should these investments in nothing go bad.
This "insurance" against failure had nothing at all to back it up either because the banks themselves just made these "insurance policies" as well. This was made up "fake insurance" insuring the "fake profits" made by these "fake investments."
There was no way to pay off the trillions of dollars worth of leveraged capital, if it was lost. It was all fairy dust. This charade had gotten so out of control that banks were even selling these CDO's and the insurance backing them in case they failed...from themselves to themselves.
And every time they were sold, what they were sold for was locked in as "fake profits" only on paper...by way of simply changing numbers in data bases. Nothing was real. The banks knew what they were doing was fake and kept doing it. They knew there was no actual wealth being generated because nothing of value was being produced. It was all pure fiction!
The hedge fund managers and wealthy investors were getting rich! But it was a total illusion created by delusional hedge fund managers...and they all knew it. The only thing to do was keep playing the game because that's all it was...a game and nothing more. And they thought they could just keep it all secret and keep doing this forever. No one would ever find out, right?
This game was rigged. There was no way the banks could lose. They set it up so that they would make all the "fake profits" no matter what. If, by magic, somehow it all worked...they'd make all that "fake profit." If it all failed, which it did...and was purposely set up to fail, they'd still make all that "fake profit."
What could possibly go wrong? It fell apart like a house of cards. Their scheme was revealed for what it was...all false...an illusion...smoke and mirrors. But no worries. It would cause such a calamity they'd turn to the US taxpayer to bail them out. Do you think they care at all? NO!
It caused the Great Recession of 2008 - 2010.
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Consequences of more deregulation:
Deregulation also allowed for all of our money that we all pay in taxes for the specific reason of pooling it together to then pay for the advancement of our entire society and for America's future...our future...our children's and their children's future...to be siphoned off from that intended goal and instead go directly to the wealthiest among us.
This is what now is currently happening to our higher educational system.
The portion of our communal pool of money, gotten from the taxes we all pay, that was always allocated to fund public colleges as it was intended to keep higher education affordable for the middle class (Chico State University is in LaMalfa's district)...started being allowed, by a change of law, to now fund private-for-profit institutes and colleges. This has made the owners of these private-for-profit schools fabulously wealthy while simultaneously slashing hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to our public colleges of higher education.
A great example is the AI (Art Institute) colleges you see advertised on TV all the time. AI is owned by Olympia Snowe (R) and her husband. They've made over $50,000,000 off of all of us by getting tax payer money siphoned away from it's intended purpose of investing in the benefit of the entire country and all of it's citizens. That $50,000,000 was redirected into their own pockets.
There is continued pressure to deregulate the EPA and Food Safety Inspection, etc. There is pressure to privatize public schools, prisons and Social Security. Hummm, I wonder why?
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So, after 32 years of trickle down economics, the results are very clear. More money went into the pockets of the very wealthy to begin with. They invested it in themselves -and to do so in even more extravagant ways - they deregulated the banking industry and Wall Street so as to super charge their investments in themselves.
And we - the middle class - paid for all of their exuberance to accrue money faster than ever before in history. The rest of us have suffered stagnation of wages, loss of jobs and destruction in value of our homes and retirement accounts.
And who got bailed out when this gambling casino pyramid scheme crashed? Wall Street and the Banks. The rest of us lost $15 trillion in all our wealth we worked for by working at jobs or running small businesses. The value of our homes and retirement funds plummeted.
Thirty two years of Trickle Down economics has resulted in this: socializing real losses caused by Wall Street and Banks and the very wealthy while privatizing fictional gains made by Wall Street, the Banks and the very wealthy.
Their loss became our loss, not theirs, though they caused it all to hit the fan. They kept all their false, truly nonexistent gains. Then they shackled us with all their loss, which we will have to pay back with interest. We were told we had to bail them out for the sake of the country. But what is the final actual end result of TARP, which was signed into law by George W. Bush? It was to bail out the gamblers on Wall Street so they could continue on with being the merry pranksters they are. They kept all the loot they made for themselves and the very wealthy. The financial fiasco is what they created, but for which they absolutely refuse to accept any responsibility. The fiscal responsibility was thrust on us, the middle class. We are left holding the bag. They continue to play the same way.
This is Doug LaMalfa's mantra
He has signed the Grover Norquist pledge which means LaMalfa will never do anything to increase revenue for our needs including paying down the national debt.
As you can plainly see in the chart below, the top 10% of wealthiest Americans made 63.7% of all income gains during this period of trickle down economics applied to our country. The top 20% made 75.3% of income gains:
And here is what happened to the income of middle class people during that time:
Keep in mind the Great Recession started in fall 2008 and cratering of ours and the world economy continued with job losses and continued loss in the value of retirement income vehicles and homes values until summer 2010. The fall out didn't simply stop once Obama became the President. Obama took steps to end the fall out!
Here is what has happened to the middle class' ability to save. If you can't save, you sure can't invest in retirement vehicles or invest in anything else. More than half of the middle class couldn't save money at the height of the Great Recession because of their diminishing income and loss in value of their homes and retirement nest eggs.
And here is what has happened to jobs in America since Obama became President. See how the acceleration of jobs being lost bottomed out and then reversed and has been in positive territory for 23 months now after Obama became President and took the action of implementing the stimulus? The jobless rate is currently 7.8%...that's lower than when Obama took office.
Here is a chart of the DOW Jones...the stock market. Pretty impressive come back since the Great Recession of 2008-2010!
Don't you think the country is headed in the right direction? We need to continue moving forward in this direction for the benefit of the vast majority of all of us!
Another result of trickle down economics is EVERY GOP ADMINISTRATION has increased our national debt as never before in the entire history of our country.
But Congressman Paul Ryan made the mistake of telling the truth about the Romney campaign by stating this when debating Vice President Joe Biden.
RYAN: "Mitt—what we’re saying is, lower tax rates 20 percent, start with the wealthy, work with Congress to do it."
So there you have it...The Romney Ryan economic plan is to first lower the tax rate 20% right off the top for the wealthy. Of course, Paul Ryan also stated his plan will drop total spending to 20% of GDP while simultaneously increasing spending on the military by $1 trillion. Mitt Romney claimed the total amount of money the government will receive in revenue will "be the same because we'll close loopholes."
It is telling that the only loop hole Romney has specifically spoken of closing is the home mortgage interest deduction. This is the only actual deduction a middle class person with a job has, other than the deduction for dependents. Mitt has not mentioned one single tax loophole that will be cut for the wealthy. And there are bunches of tax loopholes that only the wealthy can claim. Romney knows! He is very dedicated to using every one of them available to the super wealthy. He's tried on several occasions to claim loop hole tax deductions that in fact don't exist.
I have a very simple question for Romney and Ryan: If, as you claim, the amount of money the government will receive in revenue is to remain the same as now, why do the wealthiest Americans get another 20% tax cut and how do you pay for that?
Oh, I have more follow-up questions:
Truthfully, what loop holes for the wealthy, such as yourself, are you going to close?
During the first presidential debate, Romney specifically stated the amount the middle class would pay in taxes wouldn't change under his plan. Mr. Romney, just what is your financial plan to make that so?
Romney has stated he want's to end capital gains taxes entirely, thus lowering his personal tax rate to 0.2%...as close to zero as you can get. Mitt, just how then are you going to contribute to pay for all the things our government needs to do?
How are you going to do all of these things you say you will institute while simultaneously increasing spending on the military by $1 trillion?
Why do Romney/Ryan intend to start by only lowering the tax rate on only the very wealthy at first?
This appears to be just what it is. This is voo-doo economics on full display. It doesn't add up...not at all. It is a figment of imagination. It is a fantasy. It is a bald face lie.
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I bring all this up only because, since Doug LaMalfa (R) has no stated or written platform other than to end ObamaCare, we are left with nothing but the legacy of the GOP's stated platform...a platform they've never actually truthfully followed since the days of Ronald Reagan...with which to go by to determine just where Doug LaMalfa stands.
That GOP legacy now wants to again take America in the same direction they did during the George W. Bush years, but this time they plan on ending Medicare, privatizing Social Security and end women's right to have control over their own healthcare and family planning.
They strongly favor continuing to further gut regulations that exist to keep all of us safe and healthy while also thwarting any attempt to curb even more reckless gambling of our money by the heartless, greedy Wall Street folks and Banks by repealing the Dodd-Frank bill.
This is Doug LaMalfa's true agenda. It's the reason he won't state a platform and why he won't debate Jim Reed:
Keep in mind how well the GOP Trickle Down economics scheme has worked for him. Doug LaMalfa (R) has made over $5,000,000 in farm subsidies...government hand outs. And he gets more and more government money each and every year...money which we each pay in taxes goes straight into his bank account.
And you can be sure he loves the way the system works for him and his ilk. He wants more of the same. He wants to make sure you keep giving him, and other multimillionaires, millions of dollars every year while he continues to make sure you - middle class Americans - get less and less in order to pay him to remain an increasingly richer multimillionaire. Of course Doug LaMalfa wants to keep things radically skewed in favor of the the very rich just as they are. He's one of them. He wants to keep getting his free money from the government every year - and even more if he can help pass new laws that allow for that.
And he knows full well, the only way to get more for himself in this way is to take more away from the middle class.
Now, that is the kind of arithmetic he understands because it adds up perfectly for him!