7 years ago, Bush was in the White House, and Republicans had the majority in the Senate and the House.

True, but not relevant to the Student loan thing. Sigh. I must - once again - step in and provide the actual facts for this issue.

The year is 2007. The Democrats control both the House of Representatives, and the Senate. This Democrat congress passed a law which implemented a phased decrease in student loan rates. Every year the percentage dropped from its ORIGINAL rate of 6.8%. So in reality, the 3.4% current rate has not even been "the rate" for a year. The law that the Democrat congress passed was written so that the rates would return to normal in 2012. For the record, Barak Obama was a Senator at the time of the vote, but did not attend the session to actually cast his vote because he was campaigning. The law as it is written was designed and passed by Democrats. Not the GOP. Also for the record, the CURRENT congress (GOP) passed a resolution to keep the 3.4% rate but the Democrats are threatening to veto it. Guess the 3.4% rate isn't THAT important to them...

As far as Obama on Fallon goes? Cool? Thrb. Only if you're a trained seal that has no intellectual capacity except to clap for your kippers. I watched the bit and the whole thing was awkward, stilted, and made all the participants look desperate rather than 'cool'. 'Cool' doesn't go out and try that hard to be cool. Cool is cool without having to slow jam. And Obama isn't cool. He's cold. If he wants to put on a clown nose, go on Fallon and do stupid human tricks in a desperate attempt to shore up his plummeting poll numbers in the youth vote then go ahead. He'd have done better to be less of a disaster for 3.5 years so he wouldn't have to play damage control today.

Parenthetically, this "College Bubble" has been coming for a long time. The value of a 4-year degree has been plummeting, while college costs have been going through the roof. Rather than redesign thier business model, colleges have - like the Post Office - desperately been trying to peddle student loans as a means of maintaining the status quo. Like the Housing Bubble, the Education Bubble cannot be sustained and is on the verge of popping. Let it blow now. Let the loan rates go back to where they were in the first place. Students should not be taking about loans to go to school anyway. I worked my way through undergrad school on part time jobs and living on Hamburger Helper for 5 years. I biked everywhere I went, and my only possessions were thrift store junk I picked up when I could afford it. When it wwas all over I graduated, got a job, and slowly worked my way up with hard work, diligence, and frugal living. That's how you get an education - and not just a 'college' education but a LIFE education. Who ever established the STUPID practice of telling students to borrow thier way through college? Yup. Democrats and Liberals.

Everything but private businesses, right?

How is there equivalence between a private company that earns wealth by producing good and services that people buy because they want them versus thousands of government agencies that remove wealth involuntarily from taxpayers? Apples and oranges. Regardless, the CFO of most companies would beg to differ that there is no accountability for money on the corporate level. I've seen it first-hand. The finance departments of your average corporation rake you over the coals for purchases as small as fifty bucks and you have to account for every penny.

Now, if you are merely carping about CEO salaries and the relative 'value' they have that's another matter entirely. But I disagree with the attempt to put Federal waste and Corporate waste in the same boat. Any corporation that runs its finances like the Federal Government would be bankrupt in a day.

Seeing this warmed the cockles of my heart. The GSA's shenanigans are an easy target though. This same exact kind of item by item grilling should be repeated for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, The Department of Education, The Department of Defense, The USPS, and every single one of the hundreds of agencies and departments in the entire Federal Government and then repeated at the State and then the Municipal level. No exceptions. Bar none. It's easy to just do this one time with one eggregious violation. Now let's do it with EVERYTHING.

There's no nice way to say it. Boy, are you Trog-Lib-Dytes stupid. Any bit of propoganda the Obama campaign craps out their crusty, diseased sphincters you will run up to and dreamily start licking up and loudly proclaiming it is the most delicious chocolate ice cream you've ever had. You embarrass yourselves every time you start brainlessly running around, regurgitating whatever foamy diahrrea come back up after eating the DNC's sewage. Honestly - how can you guys really be this dumb? Do you really believe there is any commonanity in ANYTHING Reagan (one of the most aggressive tax cutters ever) ever said and anything Odumbo says? You're like a bunch of drowning men desperate for a life-preserver, who will grasp at an anvil because youv'e got nothing else to hold onto. Pathetic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/president-obama-quoting-reagan-out-of-context/2012/04/11/gIQAaOsZBT_blog.html

"On a superficial level, Obama is echoing Reagan’s anecdotes when he speaks of the Buffett Rule and tax fairness. But it is misleading for Obama to suggest that Reagan was “pushing for the same concept” — and to label the Buffett Rule the “Reagan Rule”-- when the former president actually barnstormed the country to argue on behalf of a broad-based tax cut that reduced taxes for the wealthy, the middle class and the poor while greatly simplifying the tax system."

If Democrats are counting on the STUPID vote, you guys are a lock.

That's not what progressive means, in this context. A progressive tax system is one where you pay a (progressively) higher rate when you have more income.

The US Income Tax is a Progressive tax, exactly as you described and exactly what I said. Since our current tax code has the bottom 50% of wage-earners paying only 5% of the Income taxes, than that's a Progressive system. I nailed exactly what it meant. Whatever you're saying here sounds like a distinction without a difference.

I know that quite a few of your companies weasel their way out of paying any tax at all, but I don't know how many overall manage this.

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/accounting/papers/Hanlon.pdf

Yup. It happens. This particular study suggests that once a company becomes 'big', they find ways to jigger the system to the point where they are paying around 20%. Obama just dropped the corporate tax from a staggering 35% to a more realistic 28%. Hopefully that will make it so companies are compliant, rather than gaming the system to get around the "too high" rate that previously existed.

However, the real problem is in companies that are getting massive political payola. Every administration has companies like this. For Obama, it is sleaze-mongers like Immelt and GE who are pushing the bologna that is "Green Energy", which Obama likes - so he gives them so many tax breaks and subsidies that they paid ZERO taxes in 2011. Not to mention they also got massive subsidy payments on top of it. It is that kind of bogusity that ticks people off.

A reasonable corporate tax rate is fine. Set it at a decent level - say 22% - and get rid of the loopholes, subsidies, foreign incorporation, and all the other gimmicks. I dont' have a beef with "taxes" in general. I have a beef with taxes that are too high, and tax codes that encourage modern patronage.

No word on whether Mitt Romney ever attended the event...

I never got into Frasier. Frasier Crane was my favorite character on Cheers and the Frasier on Frasier was not the Frasier on Cheers

I've seen every episode of both shows, and the character is pretty much the same across the board. You described the Cheers Frasier as "professional, collected, pompous, arrogant at times". That's pretty much the same character in Frasier. There were some minor shifts along the way, but that happens when the character changes settings and a new cast is introduced. Frasier was still very much a 'class show' except instead of dealing with ex-sports jocks like Sam Malone and barflys like Norm and Cliff, he was dealing with his father, Roz, Bulldog, etc. But his behavior was very similar in both shows. To this day, still one of my favorite programs. When it was on its game (seasons 1-7) it was A+ material, and even in its decline it still was routinely better than most of the stuff on TV today.

you're never going to just accidentally wind up with a random sample whose demographics are exactly in proportion with the national demographics

Yes you can. You randomly contact 1,500 people or 2,000 until you have a large sample, and then you randomly select a proportion of them in order to arrive at a proper percentage of the national average. It's called oversampling, and it is a common, simple way to obtain the right sample while avoiding the far more opaque and dubious method of "weighting" data ex post facto.

This very poll oversampled African Americans so as to do a seperate analysis on the population. 199 out of 1,103. 18% of the results - which for the final analysis they'd have to reduce down to 12.8%. Presumably they did this, but thier internals are hidden so there is no evidence they did any data correction whatsoever. This is a common problem with leftist "research". They conduct a study, publish crazy results, and then claim they have done magical mystery data correction behind the scenes and just trust them on it. Well, 9 times out of 10 so far when you peek at the actual methdology, it is a blatant cooking of the books. Frankly, until they show me the raw data I don't believe a word of it and neither should you.

Putting it bluntly, obtaining a sample population as badly out of proportion as the ones in this poll as REPEATEDLY as they are doing it (see the link) can only be through a slanted sampling practice that is being done on purpose. Much like how NBC had to purposefully edit out the middle of the Zimmerman phone call.

If I was doing an opinion study that consistently and regularly was resulting in a sample population of 39% Conservatives, 37% Moderates, and 24% Liberals would you call it a fair sampling? Oh - and remember - I "PROMISE" (wink wink) that I'm doing all the proper data correction behind the scenes - don't you worry about it!

Guess what?

This is a Hindu festival, but the site for this particular event is in that little place called Spanish Fork, Utah. Over 10,000 people attend this Hindu festival every year, and probably 95% of them are Mormons.

Women agree that this is a War on them or haven't you checked the poll numbers for women

It would be more accurate to say that LIBERAL women agree with these LIBERAL pundits that there is some mythical GOP "war on women". The so-called poll you reference is a single poll conducted by ABC was oversampled with LIBERAL women. The overall numbers show Obama having no significant lead (49 to 45 = insignificant) among women.

Still in denial?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postabcpoll_04082012.html

901. Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as (a Democrat), (a Republican), an independent or what?
Democrat Republican Independent Other (vol.) No opinion
4/18/12 34 23 34 5 3

Now - you tell me... Does 34% Democrats, 34% "Independants", and 23% Republican sound like any sort of representative sample? This poll's results were 100% unadulterated bullcrap, and they were used deliberately to reinforce the false claim that the Democrats are desperately peddling about this bogus, completely farcical "war on women". The whole "War on women" is a line of leftist propoganda that is being used as a distraction to try and talk about anything EXCEPT Barak Obama's record of failure, incompetence, and the REAL "war" in America, which is Odumbo's war on the economy with his stupid moron idiot policies.

Prejudice --pre-judging-- has been keeping people safe for thousands of years

Just to clarify - what you're really talking about are STEREOTYPES. Now - stereotypes are very useful. They allow you to quickly categorize things so as to rapidly develop a frame of syntax and context. However, PREJUDICE is where you judge people by the stereotype rather than from personal interaction with them to the point where your stereotype determines your decisions rather than the facts. Stereotypes are great. Prejudices are not.

And Cunk is an idiot. He proves that every time he opens his ignorant piehole. He's also prejudiced, and rather racist (a specific form of prejudice) to boot. Conservatives aren't prejudiced. Liberals are prejudiced - and guys like Cunk, Olbermann, Maher, and even folks here on the Sift prove it daily. Sad really.

I think this kind of thinking was actually quite dangerous. There are a LOT of people who are going to vote republican just because they want to vote against Obama.

The logic being that people will take an unknown crazy person over a KNOWN crazy person like Obama. Everyone knows who Obama really is now, as opposed to 2008 when they did no fact checking and just imagined up whatever they wanted and filled the empty husk that is Obama's soul with whatever BS they dreamed he would be. But after 3+ years of his "policies", everyone knows just who this crazed leftist mouth-breather is today - so they'll vote for Santorum or even Ron Paul over the waste of skin we've currently got. Hey - they're 3 years late to the Fact Party, but the GOP will take 'em.

Independants like me who knew thier head from a hole in the ground didn't vote for Obama last time around. This time around Obama is in massive trouble with Independants and Moderates and he becomes more and more shrill every passing day.

Which party saw no need for fairness in the media before that rule was changed?

No party ever decided that. JOURNALISTS decided that. Polls and studies have repeatedly shows that news agencies are rife with bias. From the editors that cobble together the stories, to the talking faces that report it, to the presidents that staff them - they're all tainted with bias. They work in news firms, then work for a politician, then jump right back into news again. They think they aren't baised just because they say they aren't. Then you confront them with evidence and proof of the bias and they look at you like you're from Mars. Try to get them to ADMIT the bias, and you might as well have accused them of clubbing baby seals with weapons made from the bones of puppies. But the bias is there, and it's totally obvious.

Not quite sure how comparing that to the US economy makes any sense. The US has the highest corporate tax rate on Planet Earth now. We have very high capital gains taxes (compared to global averages). Our income tax is so "Progressive" right now that the bottom 50% of taxpayers only pay 5% of the taxes. Over 75% of the Federal Government's 1.6 trillion dollar budget is dedicated to social programs for the poor.

Only way comparing it to the vid makes sense if if you contextualize it by stating that it is the GOVERNMENT that is deciding the screw the poor by the process of its own incredible incompetence, malfeasence, and mismanagement. Since only about 20 cents on the dollar comes 'out' of government versus what goes in, then yes - the U.S. Federal Government is entirely oriented around screwing the poor.

But of course, that's not what Prog-Lib-Dytes mean. To a leftist, the video means "tax breaks for the rich" ... (insert liberal talking point) et al.

How would voting for Romney provide a 'solution' to the reality that the American news media has surrendered all thier integrity, professionalism, and objectivity in favor of biased, agenda-based activism?