Joe the Plumber's Book a Big Failure

This guy oozes with ugliness. He thinks he still has a year in the spotlight. I hope he's made some money for himself because once they're done with him, which will probably be much sooner than a year, he'll get a swift boot. I hear Miss California is his replacement.

Joe the Plumber Won't Let His Kids Near Gay People

Conservative mouthpiece Joe the Plumber says gay people are "queer" and that's not a slur, he says, and he doesn't let any gay person near his children. He calls himself a Christian but is just another loser tainting Christianity.

He's crossed the line of stupidity into otherworldly ignoramus-ville. 
What a slime bag. I can't believe conservatives propped up such a worthless piece of you know what. Thanks Sarah. 

But you know he's just saying what all good conservative Christians think. That's one of the reasons why I shy away from religion. Mostly, people abuse it and twist it for their own self-righteous purpose. 

Christians such as JTP abuse their religion much in the way that terrorists abuse Islam. They have so much in common and don't even know it.  
What I'd like to know, is what can we do with all the really stupid people like Joe the Plumber, who muck the world up with their ignorance. How can we make sure that JTP's children don't grow up to be like him.
Here's his interview in Christianity Today.

Joe the Plumber War Correspondent Heads to Israel

No, he's not serving his country. He's serving the conservatives and will rail against the Palestinians. This by way of ABC:

Toledo TV: The world’s most famous plumber will travel to Israel to report on the fighting.

On the campaign trail he’s known as “Joe the Plumber.” When he heads to the Gaza Strip, he’ll be Joe Wurzelbacher, “War Correspondent.”

“If given the opportunity to do some good however minute it may be, or could be something really good, you gotta take that chance. You have to do it,” Joe Wurzelbacher.

Wurzelbacher will travel to Israel to report for the conservative website, pjtv.com. He intends to get the, often lost, Israeli reason for the offensive against Hamas.

He actually says "average Joe":

"I get to go over there and let their “Average Joes” share their story, what they think, how they feel, especially with world opinion, maybe get a real story out there,” Wurzelbacher said.

Perhaps, his mind will expand. Well, it is the year of hope isn't it?

Joe the Plumber Lashes Out at McCain

Doesn't he know his 15 minutes are up? Doesn't he realize he was merely a pawn?

Politico: Joe Wurzelbacher lashed out at former GOP presidential nominee John McCain Tuesday, the man who made Wurzelbacher famous as “Joe the Plumber.”

Wurzelbacher told conservative radio host Glenn Beck that he felt “dirty” after “being on the campaign trail and seeing some of the things that take place.”

Recalling a conversation he had with McCain about the $700 billion financial industry bailout in September, Wurzelbacher said: “When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen.”

“I asked him some pretty direct questions,” he continued. “Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive — they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.”

Joe the Plumber is Broke Wants You to Buy His Book

Instead of plumbing, Joe the Plumber was soaking up the limelight. Now he's broke and has a quick fix book coming out that he hopes people will buy.
I guess you can't blame a guy for trying to pay off his back taxes.
More on his "book" that comes out in December, when he'll be long, long forgotten.
He's got one publisher and is looking for others. This is what Joe says (This is why he didn't actually write the book):

"I am not going to a conglomerate that way we actually can get the economy jump started. Like there is five publishing companies in Michigan. There's a couple down in Texas. They are small ones that can handle like 10 or 15,000 copies. I can go to a big one that could handle a million or two. But they don't need the help. They are already rich. So that's spreading the wealth to me."

Thank you, thank you, thank you my fellow Americans for rejecting this sort of idiocy.

Joe the Plumber Trying to Get Book, Music Deals

This guy, who now has a publicist, is an absolute idiot, even more so than Palin. McCain has let us all down with his joke of a campaign. Five more days!

Joe the Plumber's Toilet Clogged

Can this election end and put me out of my misery. What a creep:

Raw Story: The all-out effort from John McCain's presidential campaign to scare voters into backing the Republican candidate continued apace on Tuesday as McCain surrogate Joe the Plumber agreed that a Barack Obama presidency would mean the "death of Israel" and end democracy in America.

The Ohio plumber, who has no license and is actually named Samuel Wurzelbacher, spoke at a McCain campaign event in Columbus Monday. A McCain supporter asked if "a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel." JTP hardly batted an eye.

A McCain Palin win would be a sad day for America, indeed.
McCain's got amateurs running his campaign. Joe the Plumber. Sarah Palin. Give us break, already.

Later Tuesday afternoon, Shepard Smith pressed Wurzelbacher on his comments, reminding the woefully misinformed McCain backer that Obama has consistently voiced support for Israel. Pressed several times to explain how he could agree with the conclusion that Obama would lead to the death of the Jewish state, Wurzelbacher was unable to come up with any good reasons aside from Obama's position in favor of negotiating with rogue regimes such as Iran.

"You don't want my opinion on foreign policy," Wurzelbacher said. "I know just enough to kind of be dangerous."

The Fox news reporter actually defends Obama from this low life. His 15 minutes are so over. Can't wait til these amateurs disappear.

Joe The Plumber's Ego Inflated

I'd say his ego hasn't yet realized that after this election, his 15 minutes will be up. I wonder if he'll pay his taxes before he runs for congress.

CNN: Could Joe the Plumber become Joe the congressman?

Joe Wurzelbacher, the most famous plumber in America thanks to John McCain and Sarah Palin, told conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham Friday he's considering a run for Congress in 2010.

That would pit Wurzelbacher against longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur for Ohio's 9th district on the state’s northern border, which includes Toledo and Sandusky. "I'll tell you what, we'd definitely be in one heck of a fight, Marcy Kaptur definitely has a following in this area," he said of the possibility. "But, you know, I'd be up for it."

What it Means to Spread the Wealth Around

Early voting

Everybody has to pay taxes for schools and roads and all that.

The question is who should pay more? Should the people who earn $40K, $50K, $60K pay more or should the person making $250K and higher pay more?

McCain supporters (and all republicans) believe, like Bush, that the people and corporations making beau coup bucks should pay the least taxes. The logic is they create the jobs for the rest of us and that they earn their wealth, therefore they should pay less in taxes. They believe the more money they make, the more they should keep.

That's what I call greed. Why should the middle class pay a disproportionately higher amount of taxes? Not everybody can be a business owner.

What have the wealthy corporations done with their tax breaks? It hasn't benefited the economy as a whole as far as I can tell. Take a look around. 

The Bush-McCain tax cuts aren't really for small businesses, as McCain touts. They're for big business.

But McCain can't campaign on that. He can't say: I'm going to decrease taxes for big business! Can you imagine how that would go over? 

People would see through that, so he pretends that he's campaigning for small business, so the average Joe in Pennsylvania is impressed or hoodwinked, depending on how you look at it. The majority of small businesses don't make more than $250K.

Obama wants the tax structure to be fair so that the middle class can catch up. Incomes have gone down while the price of everything has gone up. Bush's tax structure has helped create a bigger divide between those who hold all the wealth and the rest of us.
 
McCain wants to extend the Bush tax cuts and then some. Republicans believe that the so-called job creators trickle down the wealth, therefore it's better that they get reduced taxes so that they can create more jobs.

The other argument is that they deserve reduced taxes because they earned more wealth. They worked hard.

Doesn't the person making $50K earn it too? Don't they work as hard?
Here is a side by side comparison of Obama and McCain's tax plans and what they mean to your salary.
CNN does a fact check on McCain running around saying Obama wants to take from the rich and give to the poor.

But that's not what it is. It's realigning the tax structure so that it's fair, so that the middle class can keep more of their money. 

This is what Obama means when he says spread the wealth around. That's a nuance lost on many who'd rather cry socialism or communism, which is not what it is. When the radical right cry Socialist! Liberal! Communist! it's all part of the plan to paint Obama as the unAmerican scary guy.

CNN: Obama explained his tax plan during the roughly five-minute exchange — telling Wurzelbacher that the tax rate on the portion of his income that was more than $250,000 would be increased from 36 percent to 39 percent. But he also mentioned that his plan includes a 50 percent small-business tax credit for health care and a proposal to eliminate the capital-gains tax for small businesses that increase in value. Obama said his tax plan, which he said focuses on bigger breaks for people making lower incomes, would be good for the economy. "If you've got a plumbing business, you're going to be better off if you've got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you," he said. "Right now, everybody's so pinched that business is bad for everybody. And I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Wurzelbacher said, "The reason I ask you about the American Dream, I mean I've worked hard. I'm a plumber. I work 10, 12 hours a day and I'm buying this company and I'm going to continue working that way. … I'm getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American Dream."

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, October 16, Wurzelbacher said he had misunderstood Obama's plan and that the company he wants to buy makes well less than $250,000 a year — which Obama says means his taxes would not be increased.

The Verdict:
Misleading. McCain's remark was an oversimplification of a five-minute-long conversation. Obama replied in great detail about his tax plan, and the "spread the wealth" remark was one small part of the conversation.

Questions About Joe The Unlicensed Plumber

NYT: On Thursday, he told the Associated Press that he felt like Britney Spears.

“I’m kind of like Britney Spears having a headache,” he said. “Everybody wants to know about it.”

Unlike some other states, Ohio does not have a formal statewide licensing system for plumbers. But the city of Toledo and other municipalities do, Mr. Joseph said, and Mr. Wurzelbacher has not met those requirements.

“All contractors are licensed, and he does not have a license, either as a contractor or a plumber,” the union official said, citing a search of government records. “I can’t find that he’s ever even applied for any kind of apprenticeship, and he has never belonged to local 189 in Columbus, which is what he claims on his Facebook page.”

According to public records, Mr. Wurzelbacher has been subject to two liens, each over $1,000, one of which — a personal tax lien — is still outstanding.

Could it be Joe the Plumber was paid by the McCain camp? If he's just a regular guy, I feel sorry for him. But you can't feel too sorry for him, because he didn't waste any time slamming Obama. As it turns out, he'd get a tax cut under Obama. He needs to get on board with the rest of the licensed plumbers who have endorsed Obama. More hurtin' for Joe from his hometown newspaper.

Mr. Wurzelbacher is registered to vote in Lucas County under the name Samuel Joseph Worzelbacher.

“We have his named spelled W-O, instead of W-U,” Linda Howe, executive director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, said in a telephone interview. “Handwriting is sometimes hard to read. He has never corrected it in his registration card.”

The records, she said, showed he voted Republican in the March primary.

Mr. Wurzelbacher told Ms. Couric that his encounter with Mr. Obama was a matter of impulse.
“Neighbors were outside asking him questions, and I didn’t think they were asking him tough enough questions,” he said. Read more

As this post points out, let's keep in mind that Obama brilliantly answered Joe the Plumber.

Joe the Plumber Has No Sway

Update from the Toledo Blade: Poor Joe the Plumber has no license and apparently, he needs one. The downside of being in the limelight.
Joe the Plumber slams Obama the next President for his "socialist" view on morning TV. When someone says "socialist" that usually means they vehemently oppose Obama.
The McCain camp is eating it up, trying to make the most of it. Who's Joe voting for? Duh. Does it matter? Nope. He doesn't seem to have had any sway, except for the people who already oppose Obama profusely.
Here's another thing, we all have to pay taxes so why is it that some republicans believe that the people at the tippy top should get the most tax breaks? That doesn't make any sense. They're the ones who know all the loopholes.
They have money invested so that it grows without anyone lifting a finger. They're the ones with 7 houses and 11 cars. Why shouldn't the people at the middle get more of the break so that we can stabilize the divide between the very rich and the rest of us. Maybe the tax structure needs to change every now and then. 


More on Joe from Joe:

CNN: “You notice John [McCain] continues to cling to the notion of this guy Joe the plumber,” Biden said on NBC’s Today show. “I don't have any Joe the plumbers in my neighborhood that make $250,000 a year that are worried.”

“The Joe the plumbers in my neighborhood, the Joe the cops in my neighborhood, the Joe the grocery store owners in my neighborhood — they make, like 98 percent of the small businesses, less than $250,000 a year,” said the Democratic VP nominee. “And they’re going to do very well under us, and they’re going to be in real tough shape under John McCain.”

Joe is in line to get a tax cut under Obama but he doesn't care. By saying the word "socialist" he's saying I'm with McCain.

McCain the Economic Easter Bunny

The Nation: McCain clung to the fading vision of Reaganomics as seen through the lens of George Bush, defaulting again and again to a lexicon of tax cuts for the richest, empty promises of trickle-down prosperity, fantasies of spending freezes and the certainty of deeper deficits and greater dysfunction in a federal government.
For McCain, ultimately, it was all about those tax cuts -- for plumber Joe Wurzelbacher in Ohio who wants to start a small business and, though he did not mention it, for corporations that earn more in a quarter than the GDPs of more than a few sovereign nations.
"The whole premise behind Sen. Obama's plans are class warfare, let's spread the wealth around. I want small businesses -- and by the way, the small businesses that we're talking about would receive an increase in their taxes right now," growled McCain. "Who -- why would you want to increase anybody's taxes right now?"
Obama chose to respond as an adult. More. 

Meanwhile, Karl Rove finds his own data to conclude Obama hasn't closed the deal.

In the campaign's final two weeks, voters will take a last serious look at both presidential candidates. The outcome of the race isn't cast in stone yet.

Barack Obama holds a 7.3% lead in the Real Clear Politics average of all polls, but the latest Gallup tracking poll reveals that there are nearly twice as many undecided voters this year than there were in the last presidential election. The Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll (which was closest to the mark in predicting the 2004 outcome -- 0.4% off the actual result) now says this is a three-point race.

This week also brought a reminder that Sen. Obama hasn't closed the sale. The Washington Post/ABC poll found 45% of voters still don't think he's qualified to be president, about the same number who doubted his qualifications in March. You can read more if you want. The rest says Obama is bad. McCain is good.

Here's the even more distorted take on the debate from right wing mag Town Hall. It seems this columnist saw a different debate.

Town Hall: McCain scored big with the Joe the plumber exchanges, and with the campaign tactics exchange. Obama looked angry and stumbled repeatedly as he tried to cope with what he really told Joe the plumber --guaranteeing the replay of the clip again and again and underscoring Senator Obama's flexibility when it comes to facts-- and with what John Lewis said. Obama's answer on ACORN was a jaw dropper and opens the door to the MSM, as does the Ayers exchange. McCain drove this home without going overboard. Repeatedly returning to Joe the Plumber was key for McCain, and by the last half hour Obama was petulantly telling Joe what the "right thing to do by his employees" was. John McCain then spoke directly to Joe and put a bright line around Obama's "spread the wealth" line, and the "fundamental difference" between the campaigns. When Senator McCain slipped and called Senator Obama "Senator Government," he scored when he didn't even intend to. That's the sort of thing that marks a great debate for McCain, when even his verbal flub advances the key message.
McCain accomplished more in just the first half of the debate than he did in the first two debates total, and the second half was just as good for him. "Spread the wealth" is now the Obama brand, and that can move the polls. So too can the drilling exchange ("I so admire Senator Obama's eloquence.") Senator McCain was animated and informed through-out, and Sebator Obama on the defensive on many occasions, including the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act." Catholic voters watching this exchange could not be comfortable with the Obama dodges. "Another example of the eloquence of Senator Obama," countered McCain. "That's the extreme pro-abortion position in America," McCain replied to Obama's winding explanation.

There are polls out that say no one really cares about Ayers. I think even fewer people know about Acorn. I can't even follow the wingnut line of logic on Acorn.
Salon:

John McCain promised to kick Barack Obama's "you know what" on Wednesday night. He hinted that he'd bring up former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers and worse. Instead McCain bludgeoned Obama with Joe the Plumber, and the effect was more farce than fierce.

McCain mentioned the now-famous plumber, Joe Wurzelbacher, an apparently wealthy Toledo businessman who complained he'd pay more taxes under Obama's plan, more than he talked about Sarah Palin or Osama bin Laden, by far. Midway through the 90-minute conversation, Obama was addressing Joe the Plumber, too. And it was clear by then that McCain had lost three straight debates.

Debate transcript
Debate fact check