finknottle

Part of the problem is that there very few national-level surveys about immigration status. The article makes the assumption that there are 12 million illegal immigrants. Pew Research says the uninsured rate among illegal immigranst ia 59% - just over 7 million. 7 million out of 47 million is 15%. But 12 million is at the low end of the estimate. If you take a high-end figure of 25 million and keep the other assumptions the same, you get about 15 million. This is almost one in three. The numbers in play here are the number of illegal immigrants (12-25 million), their rate of uninsurance (I think it might be higher than .59), and the number of unsured (the census says 45 million). One (overly) simplified way to look at the impact: suppose there are 25 million uninsured illegal immigrants out of 50 million uninsured. The uninsured are paid for by increasing the premiums of the insured. If there are 250 million people paying for the 50 million, then their rates are 20% higher than they would be otherwise. But of the 20%, 10% goes to uninsured Americans (not so bad) and 10% goes to illegal immigrants (a source of the anger). But the greatest danger is the spiral effect - premiums are 20% higher than they should be. As more people drop off the roles, that rate increases further, causing even *more* people to forgo it.

On the contrary, this thread shows no such thing. It only has yourself and a few others insisting that racism is alive and well and ready to kill Obama. You havn't given anything to support that claim. You are doing precisely what I said - banging the drums of fear to validate your own skewed view of the country. When was the last time there was an assassination attempt on a high-profile figure in this country because of his race? Frankly, when you suggest that you have "sat and chatted with anyone who has hatred to those not white," and imply that their prejudice is strong enough to make them take action, I rather think you are making it up.

That's if they think like you do. Maybe they don't, and maybe they think an Obama term will be the same if not worse than a McCain term.

The only place I hear that is among my leftist friends fanning the cause of injustice. I know people who think blacks (hispanics, asians, men, whatever) are lazy (litter, can't drive, sexist, whatever) but I have yet to meet anybody whose prejudicial generalization doesn't take a backseat to indifference. But keep the myth alive, we are one president away from donning our white sheets!

That's what people keep saying, but I've never met anyone who couldn't handle it. Nobody seems to care about blacks being rich; or governors or mayors or congressmen or cabinet members or supreme court judges; or sports, movie and music stars; or doctors, lawyers, scientists, or accountants; or chiefs of police or school superintendents. So where are these people, and why aren't they shooting up their state assemblies now? Is it just the idea of a president that will prompt action?

There's a lot of people who haven't accepted the possibility that most people want desperately for a black candidate to become president but that if he loses it is because they don't like his particular positions, judgement, character, or whatever. No, if he loses it must be because of race. Or spitefull feminism. Whatever.

In the blogosphere the assassination attempt is being discussed as conclusive - I'm guessing that the mainstream news is holding back becuase there isn't anything substantial yet as to there actually being a plot. It sounds like nothing more than some guys with guns, going about their meth-lab business, and when one was questioned he said something about Obama and the convention in an attempt to explain their presense in Denver... But who knows - it's early.

As it should be. I am pro-choice, but the idea that the technical question of when life begins should hing on the over-analyzed doodlings of a bunch of 18th century landowners rather than on the consensus of modern society is absurd to me. Move it to the states, and let the voters decide as they see fit.

It's not the question itself, it is the phrasing and choice of words which determines how the exchange is to proceed. Is that difficult to understand, or are you like, umm, slow and retarded? (to give an example)

Unlike the houses gaffe or the economy-is-fine remark, I think the 'you little jerk' would have a positive bounce if it appeared in an attack ad. It is outrageous enough that it would encourage people to look up the exchange and see for themselves. IMO most would have the same response the poster did - they would wind up applauding McCain.

I think that if the kid felt bad, he got a good life lesson in ettiquete, one he should have figured out a long time ago. Asking your parents' friends how they are holding up health-wise is one thing. Phrasing the question with Alzheimers (or impotence, for that matter) will likely provoke a more testy response. IMO he was clearly a provocateur.

Not that it would ever happen, but off the top of my head - 1. McCain and Clinton are closer on foreign policy than Clinton and Obama. 2*. Untill recently, I would have said that there is more common ground on taxation and handling the economy between Clinton and McCain than Clinton and Obama. 3. They are close on the environment and global warming. 4. They have both long traditions of reaching out to hispanic voters. 5. They both work well with members of both parties in congress (a fact that is counter-intuitive to Hillary-bashers). 6. They are both adults. These are the themes that are likely to be important to the McCain camps strategy. The topics on which they differ, like abortion, are probably going to be downplayed nationally anyway. Ask yourself this - how well does Clinton align versus Lieberman, who is seen as a serious possibility? Pretty similarly, I'd say.

Oh, and I suppose the actions of a $100 million heiress would be different if he were a guy of modest means who wasn't married when they first met. Yeah, people never get divorced, especially rich people. I don't care if he's a saint, that is always a pre-nup and separate finances situation.

The newspaper accounts I read made a point of explicitely describing the ranch as trust-held, and did not do so for the others. I find it easy to believe that the others are not, from the perspective of her protecting her assets in the event of a divorce, since she paid for them out of her own money. I would think that anything in the trust would either be not recoverable or else would be subject to division.

He couldn't get out of them entirely. Don't forget he had originally agreed in principal to a series, which his campaign then got whittled down to two in minimal-exposure timeslots... (the 4th of July and the height of the Olympics, if I recall correctly)

Pray tell, what would have been a better answer? How would you have answered in his place? I think it was pretty good thinking-on-his feet. That in itself helps answer the question, and shows (I suspect) why Obama is afraid to meet with him in town hall settings.

But, but, but - you would be *speculating* on the future circumstances of the speculators. A tax on you and all your house!

Everything I've read says that they are all in her name, except the ranch/estate thing that is in Arizona. What I find surprisingly - and I didn't see anything that spells this out - is that that would seem to include his Arlington condo. In passing, this is not that surprising. In fact, it is heartening - the guy has been in congress all his life, and *shouldn't* be independently wealthy. In fact, his income is basically what you would expect it to be - not much more than a senators base salary at 350k. http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/20...n-releases.html The surprising thing is how much of his income he donates to charity: 28%. Contrast that with Clinton, 10-15% of 15-20 million, and Obama, 6% of 1-4 million. In fact, during the 7 years previous to that (before Obama began his run) his charity giving averaged 1% on 250k for the first 5 years and 5-6% on 1-1.6 million the last two. Not that I pay much heed to it, but 6% is unusually low for a politician making over a million dollars, particularly one with his positions. http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/20...a-releases.html

Ok, I've found the most cogent explanation yet as to why he couldn't answer: John and Cindy McCain keep their finances separate, and file separate tax returns. She bought all the property - it is all in her name (except the ranch, which is owned by a family trust). So technically, he doesn't own a house. Or, he could say four - that's the number he shares with her. You really cannot say he owns the others - if the McCains divorce, they are clearly hers and not his. Where it gets complicated is in the Arizona tax code - couples are not allowed to consider their property as separate. The value of your spouses property (when you separate finances) enters your tax return as a line item. So John never even sees these properties listed - he is just handed a number by the accountant. And that's why his first impulse was to say 'I'll have to ask my accountant.'

As others have pointed out, M&M is not about delivering real analysis - that's what the guests are for. Their role is to provide colorfull entertainment and the guide the flow of the show.

I hope not, for an entirely different reason. He was a disaster at DHS.

That's different. The democrats are hooking up with girls.

'it' isn't a requirement. People release them or they don't, depending on how much the media clamors for them, which in turn depends (ideally, but not always in fact) on how much relevance they think there is. A case could be made (though I wouldn't make it) that Michelle's are more relevant because (1) she plays a greater role as a policy advisor to her husband than does Cindy McCain, and (2) Michelle and Barack's professional lives are much more intertwined, with her lobbying the government on behalf of the hospital, her hospital having given a contract to his campaign manager, their both having been prominantly connected lawyers with overlapping connections, etc. Cindy and John McCain's professional lives are completely separate, as far as I know. My first impulse as I started to write this was to say neither are of interest. But I'm now pursuaded by my own devils advocacy.

No. Does that bother you?

I think there is a basic problem with an implicit assumption here - Ok. Dehumanizing terrorists/radicals/sepratists whatever is not a big issue for a government, who ultimately just wants the problem to go away. Sometimes they demonize them, and sometimes they don't. But it is never in the terrorists/etc interest not to dehumanize their opponents. The survive on fanatical devotion and contributions from the sympathetic. You can't expect people to give up their lives for a cause when you allow that the opposition is potentially reasonable and might come around some day. A terrorist movement that does not justify its motivation by painting its opponents as beyond redemption will eventaully be seen (by would-be sympathizers) as merely criminal.