Weathervane McCain Can't Catch A Breeze

Okay America, and you Democrats in the House, ( you know, the ones who are to blame, but not really, except deep down on the same level as Dick Cheney's undisclosed location), John McCain is mad. he forgets sometimes why he is mad, or what he is mad about, but, he's steaming. He may actually suspend his campaign again!. Funny how he always does that right before a debate, this one being the Palin/Biden VP debate which Palin has spent all day today cramming for.
But don't accuse McCain of grandstanding. Just because he didn't contribute anything to last Thursday's meeting with the president, doesn't mean he won't take credit for a bailout, even when it doesn't pass. I guess McCain is the only one in Washington who thinks he's leading his party on it.
All in all, it's hard to say whether John McCain is fast tracking the Straight Talk Express into irrelevancy, or just trying to make it into the Guinness Book Of World Records for saying "Country First" the most times in a week.

Suspend The Election?

In a not-to-good sign for John McCain, he has suspended his campaign to focus on an economic bailout for Wall Street criminals who are trying to using the treasury to extort $700 trillion dollars from the American taxpayer. This proves that McCain is unfit to be president as he is unable to focus on more than one thing at a time, because I'm sure that as president, crisis will crop up in order and not happen simultaneously.
But is he really suspending his campaign because he needs to find a new campaign manager whose firm wasn't being paid $15,000 a month to lobby for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Or is it because Grandpa "I-Really-Need-To-Be-Educated-About-The-Economy" McCain is falling behind in the polls? Senator "Keating Five" McCain also wants to postpone Friday's debate with Sen. Barack Obama (which was to focus on foreign policy) so he can get as much grandstanding mileage out of the current woes as he can. If he was really serious, he would have done something about this last week, or better yet, three years ago, when people began defaulting on their mortgages.
Grandpa McCain yells at you to get off his lawn

Is this a precursor to suspension of elections altogether? Why else would US troops be deployed in the US as crowd control "for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.”. I've bee trying to avoid this tin-foil hat stuff, but seeing a small unit on my way home from work today, it started me thinking:
(WARNING:Paranoid Conspiracy Theory)
Is this just the emergency George W Bush needs to invoke NSPD-51, effectively making him a dictator? Forget a terrorist attack, when people wake up and realize that they're being ripped off by the corpocracy, d'ya think they're just going to sit there and give up their money?

Uh Duh

Somebody gets it. I wish it was one of our leaders, but really it was Iranian president (which would make not a dictator, you ignorant slut)Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
“The US government has made a series of mistakes in the past few decades. First, the imposition on the US economy of heavy military engagement and involvement around the world . . . the war in Iraq, for example. . . These are heavy costs.”
McCain-Palin must feel that the economy hasn't been run far enough into the ground, because now they want war with Iran. Maybe it will go as well as Afghanistan. But that's one sure way of distracting people, starting WWIII.

Stupidity Is The Republicans Answer To Everything

Brother James called last week and introduced me to a new feature at Grand Rapids Press.com. Registered people have been allowed to post online responses to readers letters to the editor. I have been there a lot lately because face it, the concern trolls have gone and we spend most of our time preaching to the choir.
It was while reading this letter that I became truly appalled, and yet, somewhat smugly satisfied that I had evidence that we are a nation of idiots.
The author of this letter seems to think that education is a bad thing, especially among political candidates, and even lauds Sarah Palin's naivete.
As Denny Bennett of Plainfield Township writes:

Many articles/comments suggest Sarah Palin's education and experience are less than desirable. An alternative perspective might be worth some thought.
Most people would agree our country is a mess. Our country's leadership consists of many Ivy League elitists, having degrees from Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Berkeley, Princeton, etc. Wouldn't you think America would be running like a Rolex with this massive intellect supposedly in control?....
Perhaps it's time to skim the contaminated nerds from the political punch bowl and demand, shall we say, qualified as opposed to over-qualified politicos....
We need to search for a smarter gene pool and get away from the academic stuffed shirts. It is painfully obvious, especially in politics, being highly educated does not always make one smart.
Sarah Palin and others like her might be what America needs. Sometimes less is good.

The writer, obviously confused, is either trying to pin the current economic mess on "nerds" like Barack Obama, or thinks George W. Bush, with his college "C" average, is an intellectual (well, the writer is from Plainfield Township, not known for it's fine academia itself) and thinks we'd be better off with someone less educated.
Another writer "stardreamer" posts a response to another writer's letter entitled Not Better Off

we have had eight years of educated experienced people, and it has done nothing, give me someone out of the washington loop. Biden same old ideas, Obama, his shows up but doesn't bother to offer ideas or even vote. Give me a Palin/McCain ticket, she has shown she will interrupt McCain to present her voice;

The problem is not that we have had educated people running things, the problem is that too many politicians are enabling crooks. The recent bailout of our financial markets is just one more example of why larcenists are in charge of our government. And sure, it takes a pretty smart criminal to pull off a scam like this, but it takes someone smarter to catch them, and a nation of idiots to blindly support the status quo.

So It's Come To This.....

All hail the corpocracy!! While millions of Americans were facing foreclosure on mortgages and losing their homes, Congress, both Democrats and Republicans sat idly by and allowed it to go on as if it were perfectly sane and normal, or oh well, should have never taken that mortgage in the first place.
God forbid anyone should regulate a bunch of criminals and John McCain thought deregulation was so super that he proposed it for our health care system as well. And while CEOs walked away with platinum parachutes, Congress was busy giving immunity to telcoms for breaking the law by spying on us, and feeding the military-industrial complex by funding the war in Iraq, very little of it going to the people actually putting their lives on the line.
Now, if Congress had taken a sliver of what it's going to take to save the financial district, and used it to help Americans hold on to their houses, this whole mess could have been averted, but Congress only has use for you two days a year: April 15 and the first Tuesday in November.
There are some who call the bailout of Lehman Brothers, et al, socialism, but socialism would imply that society as a whole would benefit from the action. And I think having a former banker standing on the corner, dirty and unkempt, with a spray bottle and rag offering to wash passing motorists windshields would do the country better than to have them retreat to their Ivory Towers with their security goon squad making sure that line between us and them is never breached while we are forced to work harder to pay off the debt they incurred.

McCain's Tax Plan Rejected By His Economic Guru

John McCain on Alan Greenspan:

"Get ol' Alan Greenspan -- whether he's alive or dead. And um if he's dead, we'll put dark glasses on him and prop him up like they did at 'Weekend at Bernie's.'"

winkandanod at Washington Monthly:John McCain, of all people, should not reference "Weekend at Bernie's."

The potential karmic/ironic blowback is just too strong.
Perhaps this is why Greenspan rejected McCain's tax plan
(Cross-posted at The American Insurgency)

After The Election

While the right-wing propaganda machine begins making spurious claims concerning Iran's role in 9/11(because they worked so well with getting people riled up to invade Iraq) and the US shipping military equipment ill suited for Afghanistan's mountains regions to Afghanistan, one has to wonder, is an invasion of Iran George Bush's October surprise to help John McCain win the election?
The US has already began military operations in Pakistan with out that government's approval, now the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has called for military operations in Pakistan's tribal regions along the Afghanistan border, virtually a declaration of war. This will in effect have Iran encircled by the US army, in Iraq to the west, Afghanistan to the northeast, and Pakistan to the east. But is the Bush/Cheney (or Cheney/Bush, if you prefer) administration, so eager to confront Russia in Georgia, that eager to start all out war with Russia in Iran right before the election? After all George Bush will attack Iran if he is told.
The notion that the American people will fall in line with another war is somewhat ridiculous. If they would, the Bush administration wouldn't be sneaking round in Pakistan, hoping the majority of television watchers are too obsessed with the new television season to be concerned with the machinations of the Bush Doctrine. Even the new GOP VP pick isn't familiar with the Bush Doctrine. (While most citizens can be forgiven their ignorance on this issue, somebody running for the second most position in our political structure shouldn't need a journalist to define it for her)
A war with Iran will drive crude oil prices even higher than they are already, which is something the GOP doesn't need blamed on them right before the election. There's no way to spin the whole off shore drilling as a solution to a permanent perpetual war mongering effecting gas prices. However, after the election, no matter who wins (although, the GOP will do anything to suppress the voting rights of Democrats and ensure a Republican president), the Bush regime will surely make it's move against Iran.

O Brother!

JUNIOR
Well people like that reform. Maybe
we should get us some.

Pappy whips off his hat and slaps at Junior with it.

PAPPY
I'll reform you, you soft-headed
sonofabitch! How we gonna run reform
when we're the damn incumbent!

O Brother, Where Art Thou? by Joel and Ethan Coen

How indeed! It seems that one of the planks in the Republican platform this year is reform. Yeah, and when the junkie in charge of the medicine cabinet says he's going to fix things, he doesn't mean with a hammer and saw. And yet, there are people who are stupid enough to buy it, because like Junior O'Daniel, they are dim and thick and incurious.
The themes of the recent convention were all hypocritical in their own right, reform, service prosperity and peace.
Peace?
McCain has already suggested he may reinstate the draft, hardly something we'd need in a time of peace. And McCain was the one who was pushing for an invasion of Iraq on the morning of 9/11. With McCain's incompetent and poor VP pick has stated that war with Russia may be needed, and the imbecile-in-chief is sending special forces into Pakistan, there is no "peace" in the Republican agenda.
It's as if they just took buzzwords that resonate well with American voters and didn't put anything behind them. It's pointless and meaningless, like applying the term maverick to a politician who voted with the president over 90% of the time.

Give Them Something To Think About

So Adam McKay thinks the Democrats are going to lose this thing. Typical Democrat defeatist attitude, we can't win when the odds are stacked against us. I say if you feel that way, you're probably right, self-fulfilling prophecies and all. There is a way and it's a s simple as ythis:

If Sarah Palin couldn't protect her daughter from guys who wanted to screw with her, how's she going to protect us from terrorists who want to screw with us?

The RNC spent a lot of time and flag waving reminding us all of 9/11. But what they didn't tell us was that the whole thing could have been avoided if a president, their president had been a little more vigilant. We all know about the August 6 2001 PDB delivered to President Bush. If he had done his job as Commander-In-Chief, there would have been no tragedy on that day. He allowed the terrorists to screw with us.

If Sarah Palin couldn't protect her daughter from guys who wanted to screw with her, how's she going to protect us from terrorists who want to screw with us?

Sure, teenage pregnancies happen in the best of homes and is a fairly common occurrence. Teenagers always have and always will engage in premarital intercourse, it's a fact of life. Their hormones are beyond their control at that age, and they feel they are invincible. But just like the Republicans have sent our troops to face the enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq without sufficient body armor, Sarah Palin sent her daughter into an age old battle with out adequate protection.

If Sarah Palin couldn't protect her daughter from guys who wanted to screw with her, how's she going to protect us from terrorists who want to screw with us?

Barack Obama has stated that in this campaign, families should be left out of it. And under normal circumstances, that would be fine. But we're not dealing with human beings here, we're dealing with neocons. People with no conscience, because a conscience stands in the way between doing what's right, and fulfilling an unreal agenda. People who will do anything to win, which is why they always do. And if the situations were reversed, they'd make a field of hay from it, all to serve their own program: endless tax cuts for endless profits made from endless war. And to further their plan, they need to sell us their superiority in matters of national security.

But, if Sarah Palin couldn't protect her daughter from guys who wanted to screw with her, how's she going to protect us from terrorists who want to screw with us?

So ask your friends, your family and your neighbors this question. Put it to your co-workers, acquaintances, strangers you may meet. You may not get an answer,but you're sure to start them to thinking. And once they do that, the rest will fall in place.

Why Not Me?

Much has been made of the qualifications of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and while most Republican arguments are typically spurious, it started me to thinking: why couldn't I be elected president?
I've been interviewed by the foreign press in a country that the US may be at war with very quickly.
Also, I would not exploit a national tragedy for political gain. I believe that while all Americans may love their country, there are times when they feel it is heading in the wrong direction.
I do not attend church, so I don't listen to the ravings of a power mad demented lunatic preacher over stepping his tax exempt status. I hear no voices in my head, God Satan or any other than my own, which only pops up to tell me what an idiot I've been when I make a mistake. Since even I realize how grating the sound of my voice can be, I try not to make any mistakes at all.
I am far from an elitist. I live in an apartment complex, don't eat much arugula, and drive a Chevrolet. It doesn't even have a CD player in it, just a cassette deck and a radio. The closest I've come to rubbing elbows with celebrities was when I urinated next to Butthole Surfers lead singer Gibby Haynes in the basement bathroom of ST. Andrew's Hall. And that was like, twenty years ago.
As a consumer, I understand the need to stick to a budget. If there is something that I want, I understand that I have to bring in extra revenue to do so, or do with out. Therefore, I would slash our defense spending in half, knowing that by doing so, we would still spend more than any other nation on defense. One way to cut spending is to stop starting so many wars. Rather than tough talk a country like Iran, which is fulfilling it's obligations under the NPT, I would encourage them to continue on with their use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, as long as they continue to follow IAEA guidelines.
And if there are those of you who are paranoid, and feel that the US should bully other nations to bend to our will, I will raise your taxes so you can feel comfortable knowing that freedom isn't free, and you're doing your patriotic best to waylay your paranoid fantasies.
As president, I would understand the subtle differences between Shi'ite and Sunni. I actually know how to use the internet, so it would not be a mystery to me. I will not change my positions on issues for political expediency, rather, I will make decisions based on close examinations of the facts. Nor will I attempt to curb any investigation into wrong doing on my part, or anyone in my office, and unlike the McCain camp, I am always willing to talk to the media.
Unlike John McCain, I was born in the USA. And unlike Sarah Palin, I am not racist or sexist.
In short, your vote for me would get you the most honest government we've had in at least eight years, maybe sixteen, so why not?

Write-In Lew Scannon For President

Republicans Attempt To Dupe The Television Watchers

I'll admit that I haven't been watching the RNC. To me it seemed to be too much like American Idol, all ceremony and no substance. Who wants to watch a bunch of white people cheer and fight to keep their tax cuts for the millions they've made defrauding the American taxpayer in little thing called the war in Iraq? Who wants to see a bunch of racists criticize Sen. Obama for being uppity? No, I'd rather write questionable blog posts based on satirical pieces I took as truth (see previous post).
But now, I don't feel so bad about being suckered in, not after I read that fake soldiers were used in a video shown at the RNC. I guess they couldn't use real soldiers because Obama nets more military donors than John McCain. I guess they remember who cut their benefits in a time of war. And that;s something that all the flag waving and questionable displays of patriotism can't cover up.

Even When It Was Palin's Fault I Knew It Was Really Hilary's

There was a time when the Republican party was all about personal responsibility. That was before the Clinton years where they could hang all their failures on. 9/11? It was all Bill Clinton's fault. The failing economy, the collapsing housing market and even Bristol Palin's teenage pregnancy are all part of the Clinton legacy.
Whoa! Back it up! Did Grover Norquist really say "If it wasn't for Hillary’s long time support of loose morals and whipping up women to think they can make decisions about their own bodies, none of this would have happened"? I guess this means that the McCain plan to woo disenfranchised Clinton supporters by naming a female VP has backfired, and so, it's back to the familiar right wing punching bags. If it were true that Hilary's behind the Palin pregnancy, wouldn't Chelsea have a brood of about ten little puppies by now? What feminists advocate is woman taking responsibility for their own bodies to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, not casual sex without precautions. Clearly the blame lies squarely with Sarah Palin for not teaching her daughter proper morals, or how to engage in premarital sex without damning consequences. Or maybe by acting as a baby machine herself, Gov. Palin set a bad example that all women really are good for is pleasing a man and squeezing out babies.
And no, the media is not out to get Sarah Palin, they just know that Americans salivate at a good tawdry and juicy story, and are milking it for all it's worth. Oh, unless you were talking about the fact that Palin wants the investigation into her alleged wrong doings called off.

Maverick Thinking Or Pretzeled Logic?

WALLACE: ....... You've run an ad charging, perhaps accurately, that he got help buying his home from a convicted felon.

What happened to your pledge to run a respectful campaign?

MCCAIN: Oh, I think it's respectful. But first of all, I also at that time asked Senator Obama to go to town hall meetings with me. We could appear in front of the American people the way Barry Goldwater and Jack Kennedy had pledged to do.

I'll tell you, that changes the tenor of a campaign, I know because I've done them in the past. And unfortunately Senator Obama refused to go to town hall meetings with me and appear before the American people so we can both answer their questions and comments.

There's a bruise on my sternum from when my jaw dropped following John McCain making this statement that, in effect, McCain has a right to go negative because Obama refused to do townhall meetings (which McCain prefers, and does well at)with McCain. Is this over reaction? Well how about John McCain canceling a scheduled appearance on Larry King Live because a journalist on CNN insist Tucker Bounds answer a question concerning Sarah Palin's lack of experience versus Barack Obama's, which McCain felt "crossed a line". Yeah, the line between propaganda and actual journalism. You would think being a maverick, McCain wouldn't recognize any line to be crossed, but when you're a Republican you live and die by your double standards.
Consider these inflammatory remarks by Sarah Palin's pastor:

We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. ... Jesus called us to die.

No wonder the website with his speeches and sermons has been shut down.

The Party's Over Before It Even Begins

The McCain-Palin ticket plays out like one bad sitcom: He's the gruff but hotheaded senior senator from Arizona, she's his impossibly hot but shrewish(running)mate, can they learn to get along? Wackiness ensues!
In the meantime, the opening ceremonies for the Republican convention have been canceled due to Hurricane Gustav heading towards New Orleans. I guess one mass of hot air threatening the country was enough! Maybe no one will notice all the missing Senate Republicans, avoiding being branded by the brand the Bush administration completely destroyed, in part due to their police state tactics.