DebateGate

A ‘direct link’ between mental illness and Bush support

Posted By Carpetbagger On 28th November 2006 @ 10:24 In General | 23 Comments

This probably won’t come as a big surprise to any of you, but it’s nevertheless helpful to have empirical data on the subject. (via Tom Tomorrow)

A collective “I told you so” will ripple through the world of Bush-bashers once news of Christopher Lohse’s study gets out.

Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

In this case, Lohse isn’t saying that conservatives are inherently psychotic, only that “psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader” like Bush. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be,’” Lohse said.

Apparently, it’s not an entirely new phenomenon — Lohse also noted a 1977 study by Frumkin & Ibrahim found psychiatric patients preferred Nixon over McGovern in the 1972 election.

What’s more, it’s not just limited to mental health; Rakfeldt, who backed Lohse’s study, found another noteworthy correlation.


The study used Modified General Assessment Functioning, or MGAF, a 100-point scale that measures the functioning of disabled patients. A second scale, developed by Rakfeldt, was also used. Knowledge of current issues, government and politics were assessed on a 12-item scale devised by the study authors.

“Bush supporters had significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry,” the study says.

Raise your hand if you’re surprised.

Tags: Bush, mental illness, psychotic


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I wish our government was stocked full of guys like this.

Cohen to leave state seat Friday
Commercial Appeal: By Bartholomew Sullivan and Richard Locker
November 28, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Congressman-elect Steve Cohen will resign his state Senate seat on
Friday to save taxpayers up to $280,000 and avoid a second set of special elections
early next year, he said Monday.

Gov. Phil Bredesen on Monday set Jan. 25 for the special primary election to replace
former state Rep. Henri Brooks, elected to the Shelby County Commission in August.
Once Cohen's seat is vacated, a primary election on the same date will narrow the
field to succeed him. The districts share 15 precincts.

After 24 years, Cohen said he is leaving the Senate sooner than he'd hoped to and
with "mixed feelings."

He leaves for Boston today for a series of seminars at Harvard University for new
House members.

Cohen's decision to resign his legislative seat this week will spare taxpayers the
cost of an extra special election -- upwards of $280,000.

"It will save considerable money, and it's my responsibility," he said. "I've seen
so many public officials who have not taken into consideration the public
pocketbook."

Bredesen on Monday ordered a special election to fill the House District 92 seat
vacated by Brooks on Nov. 8. Because of the timelines set out for legislative
replacement elections, Cohen had to resign by this Friday in order for the special
election for his Senate District 30 seat to be held on the same dates as the House
district elections.

Shelby County Administrator of Elections James H. Johnson said that about 80 to 85
percent of House District 92 falls within Senate District 30, so if the four
elections -- one primary and one general election for each district -- could be held
concurrently instead of on separate dates, there would be further cost savings. He
said the last special election for a state Senate seat cost about $280,000. Special
elections are paid for by the state.

"We could probably hold both elections for about $290,000, primary and general,"
Johnson said.

Bredesen set the special primary election for Jan. 25 and the general election for
March 13. Under state law, the primary must be 55 to 60 days after the governor
issues the writ of special election and the general election within 100 to 107 days.


Under state law, the Shelby County Commission is now in a position to appoint an
interim state representative for House District 92. It will be free to give notice
of the vacancy in Cohen's District 30 seat on Dec. 4 and make an interim appointment
Dec. 18. In the case of the Senate seat, the interim appointment selected by the 7-6
Democratic majority on the commission is likely to be a Democrat and a vote to
retain Senate Speaker John Wilder, D-Somerville, as lieutenant governor in early
January.

The interim lawmakers will serve until their successors are elected in the special
general elections March 13, at which time the election winners will take their seats
in Nashville.

Contact Washington correspondent Bartholomew Sullivan at (202) 408-2726. Nashville
Bureau chief Richard Locker can be reached at (615) 255-4923.

 If this has already been posted, my apologies.

Ben Stein and Warren Buffett agree that the rich are not paying the same percentage as me.
 


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November 26, 2006
Everybody's Business
In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning
By BEN STEIN
NOT long ago, I had the pleasure of a lengthy meeting with one of the smartest men on the planet, Warren E. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, in his unpretentious offices in Omaha. We talked of many things that, I hope, will inspire me for years to come. But one of the main subjects was taxes. Mr. Buffett, who probably does not feel sick when he sees his MasterCard bill in his mailbox the way I do, is at least as exercised about the tax system as I am.

Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.

Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

This conversation keeps coming back to mind because, in the last couple of weeks, I have been on one television panel after another, talking about how questionable it is that the country is enjoying what economists call full employment while we are still running a federal budget deficit of roughly $434 billion for fiscal 2006 (not counting off-budget items like Social Security) and economists forecast that it will grow to $567 billion in fiscal 2010.

When I mentioned on these panels that we should consider all options for closing this gap — including raising taxes, particularly for the wealthiest people — I was met with several arguments by people who call themselves conservatives and free marketers.

One argument was that the mere suggestion constituted class warfare. I think Mr. Buffett answered that one.

Another argument was that raising taxes actually lowers total revenue, and that only cutting taxes stimulates federal revenue. This is supposedly proved by the history of tax receipts since my friend George W. Bush became president.

In fact, the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton’s merry rule. It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush’s tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say). Only by the end of fiscal 2006 did income tax revenue surpass the $1 trillion level again.

By this time, we Republicans had added a mere $2.7 trillion to the national debt. So much for tax cuts adding to revenue. To be fair, corporate profits taxes have increased greatly, as corporate profits have increased stupendously. This may be because of the cut in corporate tax rates. Anything is possible.

The third argument that kind, well-meaning people made in response to the idea of rolling back the tax cuts was this: “Don’t raise taxes. Cut spending.”

The sad fact is that spending rises every year, no matter what people want or say they want. Every president and every member of Congress promises to cut “needless” spending. But spending has risen every year since 1940 except for a few years after World War II and a brief period after the Korean War.

The imperatives for spending are built into the system, and now, with entitlements expanding rapidly, increased spending is locked in. Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt — all are growing like mad, and how they will ever be stopped or slowed is beyond imagining. Gross interest on Treasury debt is approaching $350 billion a year. And none of this counts major deferred maintenance for the military.

The fourth argument in response to my suggestion was that “deficits don’t matter.”

There is something to this. One would think that big deficits would be highly inflationary, according to Keynesian economics. But we have modest inflation (except in New York City, where a martini at a good bar is now $22). On the other hand, we have all that interest to pay, soon roughly $7 billion a week, a lot of it to overseas owners of our debt. This, to me, seems to matter.

Besides, if it doesn’t matter, why bother to even discuss balancing the budget? Why have taxes at all? Why not just print money the way Weimar Germany did? Why not abolish taxes and add trillions to the deficit each year? Why don’t we all just drop acid, turn on, tune in and drop out of responsibility in the fiscal area? If deficits don’t matter, why not spend as much as we want, on anything we want?

The final argument is the one I really love. People ask how I can be a conservative and still want higher taxes. It makes my head spin, and I guess it shows how old I am. But I thought that conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren. I thought it was the conservative view that there should be some balance between income and outflow. When did this change?

Oh, now, now, now I recall. It changed when we figured that we could cut taxes and generate so much revenue that we would balance the budget. But isn’t that what doctors call magical thinking? Haven’t the facts proved that this theory, though charming and beguiling, was wrong?

THIS brings me back to Mr. Buffett. If, in fact, it’s all just a giveaway to the rich masquerading as a new way of stimulating the economy and balancing the budget, please, Mr. Bush, let’s rethink it. I don’t like paying $7 billion a week in interest on the debt. I don’t like the idea that Mr. Buffett pays a lot less in tax as a percentage of his income than my housekeeper does or than I do.

Can we really say that we’re showing fiscal prudence? Are we doing our best? If not, why not? I don’t want class warfare from any direction, through the tax system or any other way.

Ben Stein is a lawyer, writer, actor and economist. E-mail: ebiz@nytimes.com.



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Chavez vows to beat the "devil"
Sun Nov 26, 2006 5:52 PM ET



By Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez on Sunday promised hundreds of thousands of supporters he would win a resounding victory in his December 3 reelection bid he describes as a challenge to Washington.

The former soldier and self-styled revolutionary is favored in the polls to beat rival Manuel Rosales after building a solid political base through a social development campaign financed by oil revenues.

Chavez supporters flooded Caracas thoroughfares waving flags and banners, congregating in different parts of the downtown a day after Rosales sympathizers held a similar march to close his campaign in the capital city.

"We are confronting the devil, and we will hit a home run off the devil next Sunday," said Chavez, who ruffled feathers in October by calling President Bush the devil in remarks at the United Nations.

"On December 3 we're going to defeat the most powerful empire on earth by knockout," Chavez said.

Donning red like most of his supporters, Chavez delivered a two-hour speech marked by his signature combination of fiery leftist rhetoric and crowd antics typical of pop music concerts.


He spent nearly ten minutes trying to see which of four groups of demonstrators could cheer louder -- then told them all to be quiet.

"Whoever talks first will turn into a donkey," he thundered, only to break into his unmistakable giggle.

Following his speech, Chavez drove through the packed Avenida Bolivar standing atop a campaign vehicle, dancing to political jingles and occasionally reaching into the crowd to shake hands with supporters.

POLARIZED SOCIETY

The weekend, with massive government and opposition rallies choking the capital's streets, reflected the country's political polarization.

In the opposition stronghold of Altamira, Chavez supporters on their way to the march leaned out of windows waving posters of their "Comandante," and screamed "Viva Chavez."

Residents in expensive sports-utility vehicles honked their horns in protest and shouted the opposition slogan "Dare."

But a street cleaner and parking attendant held up their hands and spread their fingers, a symbol of Chavez's goal of sweeping 10 million of Venezuela's 16 million voters.

The demonstrations themselves were also markedly different, with Chavez's joking spontaneity contrasting with Rosales' emotional but stern and unsmiling appearance in the opposition's Saturday march.

Rosales in August united a fractured opposition movement that failed to oust Chavez through a botched coup and a grueling two-month oil strike in 2002 and a failed recall referendum in 2004.

Most polls give Chavez a wide lead, with one AP-Ipsos poll showing Chavez sweeping 59 percent of likely voters compared to only 27 percent for Rosales, who points to opposition-linked polls that show the race much tighter.

First elected in 1998, Chavez, a close ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro, has galvanized the nation's poor with promises of a revolution. But he has sparked outcries among middle class critics who call him an authoritarian.

The State Department describes him as a menace to regional democracy, though Venezuela remains the fourth-largest exporter of oil to the United States.

(Additional reporting by Saul Hudson)


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http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/zapruder.gif

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/11/21/obit.altman.ap/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Robert Altman, the caustic and irreverent satirist behind "M-A-S-H," "Nashville" and "The Player" who made a career out of bucking Hollywood management and story conventions, died at a Los Angeles Hospital, his production company said Tuesday. He was 81.

The director died Monday night, Joshua Astrachan, a producer at Altman's Sandcastle 5 Productions in New York City, told The Associated Press.

The cause of death wasn't disclosed. A news release was expected later in the day, Astrachan said.

The Carville Claims: A Closer Look
James Carville has been generating a wave of publicity in criticizing DNC Chair Howard Dean for not sufficiently funding competitive House races. He’s claimed the Democrats could have won another dozen seats if the DNC allocated more money in the campaign’s final weeks. The DNC has pushed back on Carville’s charges. Who’s right?

14 Democratic candidates lost by 2 points or less, but many of the campaigns were funded to the hilt by the DCCC. Lois Murphy certainly can’t blame her loss in PA 06 on inadequate funding; the DCCC spent over $3 million on her behalf. Patricia Madrid (NM 01) also had plenty of money – her razor-thin loss came because of an embarrassing gaffe at a debate. Mary Jo Kilroy (OH 15), Darcy Burner (WA 08), Phil Kellam (VA 02), Christine Jennings and Tammy Duckworth (IL 06) were all among the top-funded candidates by the DCCC. (In Jennings’ case, the money was funneled through the Florida Democratic party.)

And in some conservative districts, the DCCC strategically declined to spend money because they felt national advertising from Democrats would hurt their candidates. Gary Trauner, who narrowly lost to Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY AL), was the “victim” of such thinking.

That leaves 6 other races where more money could potentially have made a difference. Larry Kissell, who lost by less than 1 percent to Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC 08), certainly would have benefited from some cash; the DCCC didn’t give his campaign a dime. But it wasn’t a lack of DCCC funds, it was a lack of strategic foresight in this case.

Linda Stender did better-than-expected against Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-NJ 07), but the DCCC would have had to enter the extremely-costly New York media market. Without the benefit of Monday morning quarterbacking, would that have been a worthwhile investment?

The losing Democratic candidates that legitimately could have a beef are: Tessa Hafen (NV 03), Dan Maffei (NY 25), Victoria Wulsin (OH 02) and Eric Massa (NY 29). These candidates ran in the type of third-tier races where the DCCC was only able to fund late. The New York environment was uniquely favorable this year, and another week of attack ads against Rep. Jim Walsh (R) perhaps could have brought him down.

Tessa Hafen was a late-emerging candidate who benefited from a mini-scandal surrounding Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV 03). An earlier investment here could have helped take Porter down. And, because of her historically Republican district, Rep. Jean Schmidt managed to avoid the September attacks that her Republican counterparts received at the hands of the DCCC.

There’s realistically only four – certainly no more than six seats – that perhaps could have been won with extra cash. Extra money could have made a small difference, but certainly not to the degree that Carville has been suggesting. Dean may have made strategic blunders in the past, but his fiscal responsibility here seems like the wiser course. [JOSH KRAUSHAAR]


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