Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Neither Joe the Plumber nor I…

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  • …is called “Joe” by friends*

  • …has a plumbing license*

  • …came to the McCain rally in Defiance, Ohio (see below)

  • …is any good for McCain’s chances to win the presidency

  • …pays real estate taxes (I rent) *

  • …would turn down a book or record deal *

  • …would do better under McCain’s tax plan than Obama’s. *

What do you have in common with Joe the Plumber?

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    • Unless you’ve forgotten, it was John McCain who pulled JTP out of obscurity and into the probing gaze of the media and every curious person on the planet. And JTP has relished the attention. Where is your evidence that the Obama campaign is responsible for this?… oh that’s right , facts are inconvenient for you.
      You people have been trafficking in lies and innuendo for years because it’s what you know how to do. Let’s hope that Tuesday’s election will be one more nail in that sad history.

      • No, Barack Obama went to the guys HOUSE and asked him if he had a question.  Then when the answer called into question Barack’s commitment to capitalism for all the world to see.  The power of the state government of Ohio was used to look into Joe’s personal life, including all of the things Sabutai says above.  

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        p>You guys were upset that the Government was listening to terrorist’s phone calls, because your phone sex session might get taped, and you support the willful and unlawful use of government resources to look into a private citizen’s life for political gain.  

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        p>Four days to stop the thugocracy.  I’m getting back on it.

        • There’s a big difference between Obama’s taped encounter with JTP on a walking tour through his neighborhood and McCain’s broadcasting his name to the nation.
          No one here has said anything in support of the “unlawful use of government resources to look into a private citizen’s life”. McCain opened the door to whatever media attention has been focused on JTP. Show us where the Obama campaign has had anything to do with this, either encouraging or participating in the scrutiny much less in doing anything unlawful. Your insinuations are entirely baseless.
          Try what you will over the next four days, but I hope that that what happens on Tuesday will be nothing short of a complete repudiation of your exhausted party and the repulsive strategies that you support.

          • story was already in the press before the debate. McCain was right to seize on it to show Obama’s redistributive tendencies.  The Obama marxist thugocracy is coming.  We must stop it.

            • I got news for you: the “thugocracy” already came.  It came in 2000.  It spent the last 8 years favoring ideology and loyalty over science and reason.  And it screwed the country up.  

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              p>Questions to ponder:

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              p>The highest marginal income tax rate was 90% in the 1950’s and 50% for most of the 1980’s. Were we a Marxist country during those times?

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              p>Does moving the highest income tax bracket from 36 to 39%, which is what is was for the booming 1990’s, constitute socialism?

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              p>Were the stimulus checks mailed out under G.W. Bush socialist?

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              p>Was McCain’s public proposal of the day to buy out bad mortgages at full value socialist (talk about wealth redistribution!)?

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              p>Marxist. Socialist. Liberal. Closet homosexual. Terrorist.  Closet Muslim. Effete.  

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              p>Keep up the name-calling; all we hear is blah blah blah.

              • Some say you can tell whether the spaghetti is done by throwing it on the wall. If it sticks, it’s done. Over in Eabo Clipper’s kitchen, the former opposition researcher is trying to cook up tempting one-liners to use against Democrats. The wall that he throws his whole wheat penne rigatoni against is white with blue blue trim. It is called Blue Mass Group. If one of his tosses is particularly sticky, hard to swat down — even if of dubious truth, he has learned something: Throw more of that!

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                p>Come to think of it. Those brown things he’s throwing may not be whole wheat penne rigatoni.

                • Eabo Clipper does not pop up in every thread making the same points over and over. He’s not a troll in the classical sense.

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                  p>When he posts one of his brown tosses, the best first response is to pause, think. Compose at least two response in your head. Weigh them. Hone them. Then post the catchiest, most incisive response you can. Be dismissive. Be factual. Barb it with humor. Take no prisoners.

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                  p>That’s how we keep our walls clean. Think of it as a little exercise in polemics.

      • Helen Jones-Kelley, the woman who used state resources in an effort to do harm to an individual citizen based on his political viewpoint, is an Obama devotee, and has donated the max to his campaign.

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        p>And, no, there is no evidence that The Lamb himself ordered her to abuse her position.  And I never said that he did, pal.  But clearly, the zealot Jones-Kelly, committed her perfidy with the intent of benefiting her messiah.

        • The only part of your initial statement that I take issue with is “if you embarrass [Obama]…”

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          p>Do you really think Joe Wurzelbacher has been an embarrassment to Obama? Well, I reckon maybe you do. But based on the polls, I’d say that nobody who wasn’t solidly in McCain’s camp feels that way. Those of us on the left think Joe’s doing a great job of embarrassing McCain – not showing up at rallies, etc.

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          p>And can you really say that if the parties were flipped, if Obama had himself a John Q. Public to repeatedly cite, that some McCainiac in government wouldn’t run similar database queries?

          <

          p>And really, to the extent that the government needs people to pay taxes and pay patrimony and alimony, etc., I’m not prepared to say that Jones-Kelley was wrong to run these checks. Her sin was revealing the information, not doing the look-up. I’d expect somebody, hopefully in the relevant gov’t department, to keep tabs on such stuff regardless of one’s 15 minutes of fame, but the information needs to remain as private for Joe as it is for everybody else.

    • I also know that if I didn’t have the license required to work at my chosen trade and owed back taxes, I wouldn’t be doing myself or my chosen candidate any favors by appearing on TV whining about taxes.

      • Perhaps he can work under his boss without a license.  Which brings up another point.  Why does one need a license anyways to do a trade. I find that an anathema.  Licensing is just a way for the government to get a vig.  And if there aren’t anymore licenses, well you can always stuff some dough up a state senator’s bra.

        • Mr. Wurzelbacher said he works under Al Newell’s license, but according to Ohio building regulations, he must maintain his own license to do plumbing work.

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          p>Link

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          p>Eabo, don’t you hate when those straws just keep getting shorter and shorter?  Damn facts… they’re so biased!

        • I can see why a copier repair person wouldn’t need a license, but I sure as heck want the person working on something which could destroy my house to have some level of certification.

        • Licensing = consumer protection.

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          p>A license is a credential that helps weed out craftsman from incompetents and those who want to take advantage of people. It also gives the consumer leverage. If a licensed plumber does a poor job in your home and messes up your property, you can uses her license number to track her down and see if there were similar complaints, and, losing one’s license would have a significant impact on income, so a plumber has extra motivation not to screw customers who might lodge a complaint that could result in revocation of the license.

          <

          p>It’s also nice to know that things like convictions and, for people like you, Eabo, immigration status is taken into account when granting licenses.  Isn’t it nice to know that the person you hire to come fix your toilet is not a convicted felon and is also a legal resident, Eabo? Or would you rather take your chances?

          <

          p>

  2. Keep telling yourself that Sabutai.  Everybody pays real estate taxes.  you in the form of increased rent.  Others in direct payments.  My aunt tried to use that line on me to chastize me for my support of question 1.  My share of real estate taxes is exactly one third of $4300.  Your’s is whatever the real estate tax on your property is divided by the number of units in your dwelling.

  3. my name really is Joe. I actually used to like doing plumbing work yrs ago, but unlike Joe I dont look forward to doing more of it.   I have a cousin that is a plumber, but his name is not Joe or Sam.  I have a license — it’s  just not in plumbing.   I’ve been bald before.     The idea of me making a record would be as disastrous as the McCain campaign

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    p>

  4. which are easy to pronounce and spell when people stop, listen to it’s pronunciation, and use phonics.  They also start with letters way back at the end of the alphabet, guaranteeing a childhood full of ‘end of the line’ situations.

  5. And we both have relatives who donated to and are voting for McCain.

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    p>We both may change our middle names to “the”. I want to be known as one of the following: tblade the Blog Commentor; tblade the Moonbat; tblade the Enchanter; tblade the Great; or tblade the under-employed student. I may open it up to voting later on the website that my publicist launched to promote my budding country music career.

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    p>Which reminds me, both Joe and I are probably lousy country musicians.      

    • So much more power conveyed in that name. Plus, you wouldn’t need to bring another guy to carry the Holy Hand Grenade.

      <

      p>”Three, sir!”

  6. I mean, I know in this case we have somebody who has been critical of Obama so it is extremely partisan. But in general, don’t you think people should be able to ask questions and not be concerned about such treatment. We all have been it situations where “questions are encouraged” and yet when some fool asked a tough question they are attacked. Not surprisingly the questions often subside if not just stop. Now Joe appears to have some skeletons in his closet but who doesn’t? If I had a burning question for Gov Patrick while he attended a Town Hall forum should I be careful of asking a “tough” question since my tax bill might be questioned or my house may have some zoning issue or I have some delinquent loans… NO!! I should be able to ask anything I want with no concerns for retribution in any form, whether it comes directly from the Gov, his staff, the local politicians or from the abyss. This type of thuggery may be common for union halls and Communist/Fascist nations but it should not be present in American political elections. Otherwise, don’t expect too many questions from the common folks!

    • First off, I think your singling out union halls and communist/fascist countries as those who partake in thuggish treatment shows your political bias isn’t really being kept in check.

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      p>Here’s why JTPs treatment is fair, if a bit exaggerated:
      1–He lied about himself and his situation.

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      p>2–He didn’t ask a tough question, he tried to play “gotcha.”

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      p>3–McCain really put him in the spotlight; he would still be annonymous if McCain didn’t talk about him so much in that debate.

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      p>4–He’s played along. You must admit his actions following the debate and in the last few days (rally appearences, not ruling out run for Congress, hiring PR reps) aren’t representative of a recluse.

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      p>I mean, c’mon, do you expect it won’t be an issue that a guy that asks a tax question, and who is then mentioned numerous times on national tv is not going to be questioned about the fact that he hasn’t paid his taxes?

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      p>Do you expect that a guy that asks about buying a plumbing business and is then mentioned numerous times on national television is not going to be questioned about the fact that he has no intention of buying a plumbing business and doesn’t have a plumbing license?

      <

      p>There have been a lot of people who have asked tough questions in any number of campaign events over the last two years. You really don’t understand why you don’t hear about them, but you hear about Joe the Plumber?

      • What you don’t seem to understand is that there is something inherently wrong, whether you are a in-the-tank reporter or a state employed zealot, with ferreting through a persons private life for no purpose other than to humiliate,  just because he asked a question, that you solicited, and now find impertinent.

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        p>The defense that “he became a public person” through the act of posing the question, or that he was “recognized by the campaign”, and that that somehow justifies a research and destroy mission by the press is pure jive and ragtime. Utter nonsense.

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        p>The behavior of the press, the campaign, and the blogs in this matter has been thuggish, bullying, and hypocritical.  

        • The licensing question is public information as is not paying your real estate tax.  I’m not sure about the income tax question.

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          p>After McCain brought him up, reporters called the officials in JtP’s state and asked for this information.  Because this is public information, those officials had to tell the reporters the information.  It wouldn’t take much digging to find it.  The officials didn’t call the Press, the Press called them.

          <

          p>As to what JtP and I have in common…..I wouldn’t have gone to that McCain rally either.

        • Above, you admit that “there is no evidence that [Obama] ordered her to abuse her position.”

          <

          p>Yet here you are, saying that Jones-Kelley “ferreted through [Joe’s] private life” because he asked a question “that [Obama] solicited and now find impertinent.” Stick to the facts, please. Obama solicited the question; Jones-Kelley found it impertinent.

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          p>It’s on Jones-Kelley’s head; but you keep trying to assign blame to the campaign. As if, were Jones-Kelley a McCainiac, she wouldn’t have done the exact same thing to an Obama supporter. Doesn’t matter who the candidate is; it matters who Jones-Kelley is.

          • I should have used the possessive form, as in your guy. Lazy, hurried typing without proofread.

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            p>I have never implied that Obama himself began the campaign of character assaaination against Mr. Wurzelbacher. It was clearly undertaken by the zealot, Jones-Kelley and bootlickers in the press and the blogosphere.

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            p>The campaign gleefully piled on, however, as both Obama and Biden have mentioned Joe the plumber, and mocked him in stump speeches. Obviously, they too took issue with the question.

        • The question was calculated, as was the use of JtP by the campaign. And JtP gladly took a role as a public figure to try to help McCain. The guy was running for the spotlight. When you seek attention you get it. And you deserve it.

      • I disagree that (3) makes his treatment “fair”. He apparently wasn’t in on the fact that he was going to be the center of the debate. I don’t think you can hold that against him.

        • The McCain camp chose to make him a central figure in the race. I think once he’s a central, public, involved person it’s not unfair for people to call him on his lies and deception.

    • I only started caring when JTP stayed on my tv screen as a McCain lackey.  Once you make yourself a campaign spokesperson, you’re part of the process.

        • Deciding to marry someone is a fairly major choice. You have a lot of freedom in who you marry, and that choice says something about you. And every spouse has some influence over their partner, so their views are most certainly relevant. If Obama had married a member of the Black Panthers or McCain had married a member of the KKK, it would definitely be relevant. The fact that Sarah Palin did marry a secessionist is relevant, particularly since she has expressed support for the Alaskan secessionist cause.

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          p>Spouses are chosen. Other relatives are not. Parents, siblings, cousins, in-laws, etc are not fair game because they were not chosen by the person and they do not necessarily have any influence over the person (I disagree with my parents and sisters on most political issues). Children are a little trickier because parents are responsible for raising their children, but children will do things that their parents don’t want them to do. I think it is a good thing that the official campaigns did not attack the candidate’s children, and it would have been better if the blogs and media had also stayed away from that.

          <

          p>So go ahead and bring up any relevant facts you want to about Michelle Obama. Just don’t make things up or attack her just for the sake of it.

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