Thursday, October 16, 2008

Joe the Plumber?

Grampaw McSame shamelessly invoked the name of Joe the Plumber from working class Toledo Ohio in last night's debate no fewer than 21 times, using him as some kind of example as to how Obama's economic policies will be the worst thing for the country since the Great Depression, how they will drive poor Joe into poverty, take his kids away, repossess his big screen tv, wreck his car and kill his dog. And that's just for starters.

Got that? Twenty-one times. If we'd had any clue that Joe the Plumber would figure that prominently, we could have included him in our Debate Drinking Game instead of "my friends", which got short shrift last night.

So who the fuck is this Joe the Plumber guy anyway? His full name is Joseph Wurzelbacher, and beyond that bit of knowledge, the trail grows cold quickly.

In fact, it appears that no one seems to know for sure. He doesn't have a business license in Ohio -- he doesn't even have a license to be a plumber in Ohio -- he doesn't have a listing in the Toledo area yellow pages or white pages, and he's not even registered to vote!

None of that is stopping the CPM from eating this shit up like the slavering ravenous curs that they are.

So, aside from the inconvenient fact that his citing $250,000 a year profit(?) from the business he's about to buy fits so very neatly into Obama's cutoff point for raising taxes, is he genuine?

Short answer: No fuckin' way.

Consider this odd "coincidence". Joe Wurzelbach is a close relative of Robert Wurzelbach of Milford Ohio. Okay, I can hear you yawning, but here's the clincher: Robert Wurzelbach of Milford Ohio is the son-in-law of ... Charles Keating!

And you remember Charles Keating, don't you? Grampaw was one of the infamous Keating Five (which in fact would have been the Keating Four without his eager participation).

Joe the Plumber and Charles the Crook.

So it seems sort of, I don't know, obvious that Joe was a McCain stooge when he confronted Obama at that ropeline, and he remains one now. Despite the desperate fawning being lavished on him by the CPM at nearly every turn.

Okay Joe the Plumber, you've had your fifteen minutes of fame. Now go on and buy that plumbing business that you've always dreamed of. Oh, what's that you say? You don't actually have the estimated one million dollars that a business that has that kind of profit would cost? Maybe your buddy Charles Keating can help you out. He must have a lot of cash to throw around, now that he's not using it to bribe US Senators.

And, as Steve Young asks, "if he's really a plumber, where's the ass crack?"

See also here, here and here for more exposure of Joe the Plumber, and Steve, here's your answer.

7 Comments:

jae said...

One of the comments at Eisenstadt's blog has done a little research:
comment number 39 by: keepemhonest
October 16th, 2008 at 10:36 am

Joe the Plumber’s plumbing license EXPIRED in 2002.

Hard to BE a plumber with an EXPIRED LICENSE!

Go to the below link & type in Joe’s last name “Wurzelbacher” & find out how many Wurzelbacher’s WERE and ARE licensed as a plumber in Ohio …
http://elicense1-lookup.com.ohio.gov/SearchCriteria.asp

You’ll need to type in:
Board: Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board
Last Name: Wurzelbacher
State: Ohio

Results: the ONLY Wurzelbacher is Lawrence NOT JOE (must be Joe’s first name) and Wurzelbacher’s license EXPIRED in 2002.

So Joe isn’t registered to vote AND Joe is NOT a licensed plumber.

PS: According to the Ohio Website:
You must hold a state license do Electrical, HVAC, Refrigeration, Plumbing, or Hydronics to work in Ohio. General construction contractors may need to be licensed at the local level. Check with the city or county for licensing information and requirements.

To find out if a tradesman holds a license in Ohio, click on http://www.com.state.oh.us/dic.

License Renewal
Licenses are renewed each year.
It will cost $60 to renew and you must show proof of insurance ($500,000 liability minimum) and have completed continued education requirements. Continued education requirements:
Plumbing, Hydronics, HVAC, Refridgeration - 10 hours total per year
Electrical - 10 hours total. 5 of the 10 must be in code.
If you are a multiple license holder, you are still only required to complete 10 hours for CE total.

Farnsworth68 said...

Thanks Jae. Now all we have to do is convince members of the Moron-american voting block to read those pages...
Oh, wait. First we'll have to teach them how to read...
And before that, we'll have to teach them how to think...
Oh well... Here's hoping that they will all think that the election is on Wednesday this year.
--The F Man

Thermblog said...

The fact is that Obama revealed himself as a socialist; no amount of smearing can alter that.

The response here and indeed by the Obama campaign itself, is testament to the vacuity of today's left.

Farnsworth68 said...

Big fucking talk for a Canadian, TB. Since you don't really have a dog in this fight, your opinion doesn't really count for much.
"Vacuity of the left"? What are you, nucking futz? The only vacuity that I see is coming from the right.
And Obama is a "socialist"? Yeah, about as much as Der Monkey Fuehrer. And that rings a little hollow coming from a Canadian, who has reaped the benefits of "socialized medicine" pretty much his whole life.
And don't bother coming back with any kind of dumbass rebuttal. You know your medical system is far superior to the US in nearly every aspect.

Thermblog said...

FW:
What are you, nucking futz?
I will not deny, that epithet has been applied to yours truly.

you don't really have a dog in this fight I deg to biffer. The USA is the world's biggest and most successful economy. It just sneezed and the whole world got a cold. Even more importantly, the USA is the only guarantor of freedom for the West. What happens there is of supreme importance to me.

(On a personal note, I am in Canada by chance. It was nearly the US or Australia. On 9/11 I felt that I and WE were attacked, not "some other country.")

I'll give two reasons why I call BHO a socialist: he just used the phrase, "spread the wealth," a real give away. Sure western countries do this but we should ever be on a path to foster opportunities for the less fortunate rather than simply take it from the producers. (The US leads the world in private generosity anyway.)

Barry also let it slip during the Hillary debates when he said raising capital gains taxes was a matter of fairness, after it was pointed out to him that historically this had resulted in a lower net take for the government.

Farnsworth68 said...

Okay, it's time to go back to school: Socialism encompasses a whole hell of a lot more than a throwaway phrase about "share the wealth", but I guess I can't expect people to really "get" or appreciate nuance in today's political climate. It's easier to denigrate your opponent with slanderous catch phrases than it is to engage in a reasonable dialogue.
Let's see a source for that claim about taxes. In the 1950s in the US, a period of economic growth unparalleled in history, the top marginal tax rate was ... 90%.
And somehow we managed to muddle our way through, didn't we?

Thermblog said...

Yes socialism has a wide variety of meanings. My concern is the direction in which BHO inclines.

The case of the tax rates was cited by the moderator at the debate and Barry did not query it. I'm not going to research it because I've seen it in operation in Canada in recent years. It just is. In Canada in the 90s we had 2 major provinces run by our NDP - probably slightly to the left of Barry's public persona*; they ran both economies into the ground in short order. When conservatives got in after and lowered taxes, things improved rapidly.

When the marginal rate was 90% it kicked in only over $400k and that would be a lot more today. I bet the money wasn't going on welfare either; it was being used to build infrastructure and thus provided jobs.

I truly believe that redistributing wealth by simply giving the poor money, is usually very destructive to a society. I agree that a rich society should take care of the underprivileged but it has to be done with great care, Our current society has no capacity to exercise this care.

* I said persona because I truly don't know where his heart lies. He really has demonstrated an amazing ability to adopt convenient positions often at odds with each other and get away with it.