Those #^&!*$% Socialist Veterans

Actual Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, I-VT, knows that compared to single-payer systems Medicare and VA, the public option being proposed for health care reform is capitalism on steroids.

So yesterday, Sanders had a little fun with Senator John McCain, R-LOSER.

Heather at Crooks and Liars:

Bernie Sanders gives John McCain an uncomfortable moment asking him if the VA is socialized health care, and if he or anyone else in the Senate is advocating doing away with it. Sanders is exactly right. It is not the job of the Senate to protect the private health insurance industry. It's a shame the best we may get out of the Senate is a public option and that we don't have a few more Bernie Sanders out there fighting for real health care reform.

See the video here.

Keith Gets McCain Wrong

I worship Keith Olbermann. For the last two years of the Smirky-Darth maladministration, Countdown is the only thing that's kept me marginally sane.

But in his Special Comment Monday night, Keith got one thing wrong. Dead wrong.

Senator, of all the things I don't like about you or your campaign I have never thought you a racist. As imperfect as was your moment with the Minnesota woman, mumbling about Arabs, I thought it was the finest moment of your campaign.

I believe that you feel as I do – that racial hatred and prejudice have no place in this campaign, or in this country.

I hope that Olbermann said that just as a complimentary introduction to his plea to McCain to condemn the Ashley Todd racist hoax. I hope Keith, of all people, knows how cruelly false is the persistent myth in the media that McShame is this sweet old man whose loving heart is just broken by the hateful, vicious racism of his campaign.

No. Nameless nasty "others" have not hijacked McCain's planned campaign of respect and issues; the filth and obscenities are of McShame's making and McShame's approval.

McShame is not saying those vicious, hateful, racist things just because he's stressed out. He's saying those vicious, hateful, racist things because he can't believe he's getting beat and beat bad by that uppity ni**er.

Stress doesn't cause people to do or say things out of character; stress causes people to reveal their true personality.

When I'm stressed, I freak out and scream obscenities. That's because my basic personality is obscenity-screaming freak.

When John McCain is stressed, he spews vicious, racist attacks. That's because John McCain's basic personality is vicious, racist thug.

John McCain is a vicious, racist thug. His campaign proves it.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

The True Face of the McCain/Palin Campaign

Many years ago, I struck up a conversation at a conference with a citizen of a third-world nation struggling to establish democracy. He was shocked and disbelieving at the failure of more than half of eligible voters in the U.S. to actually exercise their right to vote. I'll never forget what he said:

"If we had the right to vote in our country, not a single person would fail to do so."

Right here in the United States of America, McCain/Palin supporters are trying to intimidate eligible voters - their own neighbors - from exercising their right to vote.

The Washington Times, a self-described conservative paper, reported today on a polling site in North Carolina where "a group of loud and angry protesters who shouted and mocked the voters as they walked in." The voters were mostly black, and the "angry protesters" were "nearly all were white."

Stop and think about that for a second. In the United States, in the 21st century, we have Republican activists protesting a presidential election. McCain/Palin supporters have taken to heckling, mocking, and shouting at people who want to participate in the democratic process. Literally.

And when they're not trying to intimate voters at polling places, Republican activists are slashing voters' tires, kicking journalists to the ground, attacking middle-aged women going door to door on Obama's behalf, and vandalizing ACORN offices. And, of course, the unabashed racism is common.

The mind reels.

And the stomach churns.



Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots..

Now the Real Fight Begins

Josh Marshall explains why even double-digit leads may not be enough to save Obama's election from McCain's last-ditch strategy, which boils down to this:

Message: "He's a terrorist ni**er!" Tactic: "Newly-registered Democrat? Sorry, no voting for you!"

If you're thinking to yourself that there's little more than two weeks before election day and Obama has a solid lead in the polls, don't be so sure.

Yes, it looks good for the Democrats. But you need to play close attention to the McCain campaign's final weeks' strategy under and just above the radar. McCain's final strategy relies on two pillars. The first is aggressively playing to voters' fears of electing a black president. Make no mistake: not just his campaign in a general sense, but McCain himself and his top handful of advisers, are banking on the residual racism in a changing America to get them over the finish line. The second is an aggressive use of innuendo to convince casual voters that Obama is in league with Islamic terrorists bent on killing Americans.

SNIP

Many people say, well ... all this stuff just hasn't worked. But the truth is that the really corrupt and vicious part of McCain's effort only comes now because it's only in the last couple weeks that you can pull stuff that the press won't get to call you on before election day -- after which it doesn't matter. Will it take Obama down? So far McCain's gutter campaign has hurt him more than helped. But there's no reason to be sure it will continue that way. And many Obama supporters, sure the election is basically wrapped up, appear ready to slack in the stretch and let McCain smear and cheat his way into office.

Read the whole thing.

Then get out the checkbook and give 'till it hurts. Lace up those walking shoes and start knocking on doors. Fight like we're ten points down and $100 million behind, because given what the wingnut freakazoid racist fear-mongers have in store for the next 16 days, we are.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Time to Have the Talk

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but with any luck, this MoveOn version of those stupid anti-drug ads will prove far more effective than the originals.

We've all seen the signs in those we love--the abandonment of hope, the furtive worry about skin tone, the sleeplessness and sudden loss of teeth. But it took MoveOn to step forward and attempt an intervention.

SNIP

In pitting the wisdom of the young against the stubbornitude of the old, MoveOn was surely inspired by Sarah Silverman's hilarious Web vid "The Great Schlep," which instructs young Jews to guilt-trip their grandparents in Florida to vote for Barack. The Obama campaign itself is pushing a nudge-your-family effort --not comedic, of course, but sprinkled with some of the do-and-don't tips that Barack seems to swear by ("Don't feel defensive. Stay calm, cool and collected").

SNIP

The McCain/Palin campaign has indeed become a kind of hillbilly heroin for the masses, or at least for their base. Right now, the GOP ticket has just two things going for it: that a fragile majority of people still believe McCain is better than Obama on national security and terrorism (if on little else), and they're white. Fear and racism are addictive, and anybody who's taking them together should never drive heavy machinery like the American electoral process.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

McCain Tax Lie Detector - Fast and Easy!

The Obama-Biden campaign has a widget up on their site that lets you find out how much of a tax cut you'll get in an Obama-Biden administration.

Just fill in your income, choose your filing status, check which deductions you have and voila! Takes about 30 seconds.

So when McCain starts lying about Obama's tax plan tonight, you've got the truth right at your fingertips.

Republican Marriage Envy

Remember how during the Clinton impeachment, we all suspected that what was really motivating the repugs' foam-at-the-mouth derangement was Fellatio Envy?

Now a piece at Huffington Post on the Obama's marriage makes we wonder if one thing driving John McCain's obvious anger at the Democratic nominee is envy of the strong, healthy relationship McCain himself has never had.

One of the greatest benefits of an Obama presidency is hidden in plain sight: the relationship between Michelle and Barack. They provide a great role model of a healthy relationship, at a time when such models are sorely needed.

SNIP

Michelle and Barack do something we've never seen before in a presidential couple: they actually look directly at each other when they're speaking to each other. They also laugh at each other's humor, and they allow their sexual attraction for each other to be visible. Contrast that with other presidential marriages, in which the sexual attraction to each other was not visible but their sexual attraction to others became highly visible ... Michelle and Barack talk openly about their feelings for each other. They're real.

SNIP

Over the last fifty years there's been a parade of not-so-great relationship models in the White House. They range from idol-worship (Nancy's perpetually-adoring glaze, oops we mean gaze, at Ronnie) to the sternly maternal façade of the first Mrs. Bush ... We've witnessed White House marriages strained to the breaking point by secrets.

SNIP

Have you ever seen the current occupant of the White House speak, much less listen, to his wife in public? For example, do we ever get to hear from the real Laura Bush, the one who disagrees completely with the far-right views of her husband on such matters as women's reproductive rights? No, because she's been muzzled, like most of her predecessors, and sealed off behind the glazed smile of the Perfect Presidential Wife.

It's high time we got to see an honest, loving, real relationship in the White House. If you're like us, you probably don't want to spend the next four years hearing how much the perfectly-coiffed Mrs. McCain has spent on her outfit, which of their nine houses they're weekending at or which of their thirteen cars they're wheeling around in.

SNIP

The question is: are we as a nation ready to end our national addiction to duplicity, phony adoration and Stepford wifedom in the White House? If not, we're going to get what we deserve.

The authors never say so explicitly, but isn't it obvious that the McCain marriage is about as far from role-model healthy as possible? Hard to imagine Barack offering up Michelle as a participant in a stripper contest the way John did Cindy, but even harder to imagine ever seeing a glimmer of genuine warmth between the McCains.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Scorched Earth Tactics

Let's say you're competing with a co-worker for promotion to director. You've been there longer, have more experience. You had some big achievements early on, but lately you've been treading water, coasting on your reputation.

Your competing co-worker is younger and less experienced, but she's sharp and full of ideas, and has brought in new business while saving the company money. The other people who work there respect you, but they really like her.

The big boss hasn't announced the promotion yet, but you can read the writing on the wall: you're losing to the upstart new girl.

You could keep competing, sharpening your arguments for yourself, maybe come up with some new ideas of your own, but you know it's no use.

You start spreading rumors about the woman who's about to become the new director. She never talks about her personal life - what's she hiding? Remember the money that disappeared last year? Wasn't she friends with the accountant who got fired for it? She's always pretending to "help" other people, but she's really stealing their work. If she were director, she'd destroy this place. Headquarters would shut us down and fire everybody. Do we really want to take that risk?

You know it won't work - she's getting the promotion. But now that you've got everybody suspicious and worried and angry, there's no way she'll ever be a success. She's going to fail. What you've done might destroy the company, too, but what do you care? The company rejected you for promotion - fuck it.

Or maybe the atmosphere will get so poisonous from your rumor-mongering that the big boss decides that promoting anyone would cause so much dissent that it would hurt the company, and just cancels it.

Ridiculous? Look around; it's happening right in front of your eyes.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Behind the Debate

In case McCain's faux-calm debate performance fooled you into thinking he's running an issues campaign, here's Keith Olbermann from Monday night to remind you what McShame/Failin' are really all about.



Cross-posted at Watching Those We Chose.

Now THIS would be a Debate

The Rude Pundit on what Obama should say to McCain tonight.

X-rated, but here's a censored taste:

"I faced down Bill and Hillary Clinton, Johnny Mac. They pulled all that shit on me. They raped and beat me like new prison meat. Do you honestly think that your gimpy ass and that dimwitted attack c**t with you are gonna lay a hand on me?

Read the whole thing.

Quote of the Day

On the contrast between Obama and McCain:

This is like choosing between an orgasm and a punch in the throat.

--Daniel Chun, at Huffpo.

The Real McCain

You've heard all the stories of boozing and gambling and adultery. You've heard the rumors about the uncontrollable temper. Maybe you've even heard whispers about his betrayals in VietNam.

But you don't know what a sleazy, selfish, backstabbing, destructive, irresponsible prick John McCain really is until you read the devastating profile in Rolling Stone.

The whole thing is well worth your time, but here are a few highlights:

Don't Laugh at Him

McCain was not only a lousy student, he had his father's taste for drink and a darkly misogynistic streak. The summer after his sophomore year, cruising with a friend near Arlington, McCain tried to pick up a pair of young women. When they laughed at him, he cursed them so vilely that he was hauled into court on a profanity charge.

Pulling Rank

That December, McCain crashed again. Flying back from Philadelphia, where he had joined in the reverie of the Army-Navy football game, McCain stalled while coming in for a refueling stop in Norfolk, Virginia. This time he managed to bail out at 1,000 feet. As his parachute deployed, his plane thundered into the trees below.
By now, however, McCain's flying privileges were virtually irrevocable — and he knew it. On one of his runs at McCain Field, when ground control put him in a holding pattern, the lieutenant commander once again pulled his family's rank. "Let me land," McCain demanded over his radio, "or I'll take my field and go home!"

Running Away From a Crisis

The fire blazed late into the night. The following morning, while oxygen-masked rescue workers toiled to recover bodies from the lower decks, McCain was making fast friends with R.W. "Johnny" Apple of The New York Times, who had arrived by helicopter to cover the deadliest Naval calamity since the Second World War. The son of admiralty surviving a near-death experience certainly made for good copy, and McCain colorfully recounted how he had saved his skin. But when Apple and other reporters left the ship, the story took an even stranger turn: McCain left with them. As the heroic crew of the Forrestal mourned its fallen brothers and the broken ship limped toward the Philippines for repairs, McCain zipped off to Saigon for what he recalls as "some welcome R&R."

Breaking the Code

But the subsequent tale of McCain's mistreatment — and the transformation it is alleged to have produced — are both deeply flawed. The Code of Conduct that governed POWs was incredibly rigid; few soldiers lived up to its dictate that they "give no information . . . which might be harmful to my comrades." Under the code, POWs are bound to give only their name, rank, date of birth and service number — and to make no "statements disloyal to my country."

Soon after McCain hit the ground in Hanoi, the code went out the window. "I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital," he later admitted pleading with his captors. McCain now insists the offer was a bluff, designed to fool the enemy into giving him medical treatment. In fact, his wounds were attended to only after the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a Navy admiral. What has never been disclosed is the manner in which they found out: McCain told them. According to Dramesi, one of the few POWs who remained silent under years of torture, McCain tried to justify his behavior while they were still prisoners. "I had to tell them," he insisted to Dramesi, "or I would have died in bed."

Dramesi says he has no desire to dishonor McCain's service, but he believes that celebrating the downed pilot's behavior as heroic — "he wasn't exceptional one way or the other" — has a corrosive effect on military discipline. "This business of my country before my life?" Dramesi says. "Well, he had that opportunity and failed miserably. If it really were country first, John McCain would probably be walking around without one or two arms or legs — or he'd be dead."

The Hero at Home

If heroism is defined by physical suffering, Carol McCain is every bit her ex-husband's equal. Driving alone on Christmas Eve 1969, she skidded out on a patch of ice and crashed into a telephone pole. She would spend six months in the hospital and undergo 23 surgeries. The former model McCain bragged of to his buddies in the POW camp as his "long tall Sally" was now five inches shorter and walked with crutches.

By any standard, McCain treated her contemptibly. Whatever his dreams of getting laid in Rio, he got plenty of ass during his command post in Jacksonville. According to biographer Robert Timberg, McCain seduced his conquests on off-duty cross-country flights — even though adultery is a court-martial offense. He was also rumored to be romantically involved with a number of his subordinates.

Uncontrollable Anger

Several years later, during another debate over servicemen missing in action, an elderly mother of an MIA soldier rolled up to McCain in her wheelchair to speak to him about her son's case. According to witnesses, McCain grew enraged, raising his hand as if to strike her before pushing her wheelchair away.

"Bush on Steroids"

The myth of John McCain hinges on two transformations — from pampered flyboy to selfless patriot, and from Keating crony to incorruptible reformer — that simply never happened. But there is one serious conversion that has taken root in McCain: his transformation from a cautious realist on foreign policy into a reckless cheerleader of neoconservatism.

"He's going to be Bush on steroids," says Johns, the retired brigadier general who has known McCain since their days at the National War College. "His hawkish views now are very dangerous. He puts military at the top of foreign policy rather than diplomacy, just like George Bush does. He and other neoconservatives are dedicated to converting the world to democracy and free markets, and they want to do it through the barrel of a gun."

Promoting the Iraq Myth

That December, just as U.S. forces were bearing down on Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, McCain joined with five senators in an open letter to the White House. "In the interest of our own national security, Saddam Hussein must be removed from power," they insisted, claiming that there was "no doubt" that Hussein intended to use weapons of mass destruction "against the United States and its allies."

SNIP

Over the next 15 months leading up to the invasion, McCain continued to lead the rush to war. In November 2002, Scheunemann set up a group called the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq at the same address as Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. The groups worked in such close concert that at one point they got their Websites crossed. The CLI was established with explicit White House backing to sell the public on the war. The honorary co-chair of the committee: John Sidney McCain III.

In September 2002, McCain assured Americans that the war would be "fairly easy" with an "overwhelming victory in a very short period of time." On the eve of the invasion, Hardball host Chris Matthews asked McCain, "Are you one of those who holds up an optimistic view of the postwar scene? Do you believe that the people of Iraq, or at least a large number of them, will treat us as liberators?" McCain was emphatic: "Absolutely. Absolutely."

Today, however, McCain insists that he predicted a protracted struggle from the outset. "The American people were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach," he said in August 2006, "which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking." McCain also claims he urged Bush to dump Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "I'm the only one that said that Rumsfeld had to go," he said in a January primary debate. Except that he didn't. Not once. As late as May 2004, in fact, McCain praised Rumsfeld for doing "a fine job."

Compromising on Principle

In the end, the essential facts of John McCain's life and career — the pivotal experiences in which he demonstrated his true character — are important because of what they tell us about how he would govern as president. Far from the portrayal he presents of himself as an unflinching maverick with a consistent and reliable record, McCain has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to taking whatever position will advance his own career. He "is the classic opportunist," according to Ross Perot, who worked closely with McCain on POW issues. "He's always reaching for attention and glory."

McCain has worked hard to deny such charges. "They're drinking the Kool-Aid that somehow I have changed positions on the issues," he said of his critics at the end of August. The following month, when challenged on The View, McCain again defied those who accuse him of flip-flopping. "What specific area have I quote 'changed'?" he demanded. "Nobody can name it."

In fact, his own statements show that he has been on both sides of a host of vital issues: the Bush tax cuts, the estate tax, waterboarding, hunting down terrorists in Pakistan, kicking Russia out of the G-8, a surge of troops into Afghanistan, the GI Bill, storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, teaching intelligent design, fully funding No Child Left Behind, offshore drilling, his own immigration policy and withdrawal timelines for Iraq.

From Tortured to Torturer

Then there's torture — the issue most related to McCain's own experience as a POW. In 2005, in a highly public fight, McCain battled the president to stop the torture of enemy combatants, winning a victory to require military personnel to abide by the Army Field Manual when interrogating prisoners. But barely a year later, as he prepared to launch his presidential campaign, McCain cut a deal with the White House that allows the Bush administration to imprison detainees indefinitely and to flout the Geneva Conventions' prohibitions against torture.

What his former allies in the anti-torture fight found most troubling was that McCain would not admit to his betrayal. Shortly after cutting the deal, McCain spoke to a group of retired military brass who had been working to ban torture. According to Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former deputy, McCain feigned outrage at Bush and Cheney, as though he too had had the rug pulled out from under him. "We all knew the opposite was the truth," recalls Wilkerson. "That's when I began to lose a little bit of my respect for the man and his bona fides as a straight shooter."

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

McCain's Watergate

As Walnuts Depends flails around ever more desperately pretending he gives a flying fuck about the economic crisis Alan Greenspan calls "once in a century," something about his act seems familiar.

Bad mortgage loans, criminal behavior by bankers, John McCain balls-deep in the muck ... oh, yeah. The Keating Five Scandal.

Nineteen years ago, the Phoenix New Times exposed McCain for the amoral, sold-his-soul ambitious liar we clearly see today.

Substitute "Fannie Mae lobbyists" for Charlie Keating and "Wall Street meltdown" for Senate Ethics Committee investigation, and this piece could have run this morning.

You're John McCain, a fallen hero who wanted to become president so desperately that you sold yourself to Charlie Keating, the wealthy con man who bears such an incredible resemblance to The Joker.

Obviously, Keating thought you could make it to the White House, too. He poured $112,000 into your political campaigns. He became your friend. He threw fund raisers in your honor. He even made a sweet shopping-center investment deal for your wife, Cindy. Your father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was cut in on the deal, too.
Nothing was too good for you. Why not? Keating saw you as a prime investment that would pay off in the future.

So he flew you and your family around the country in his private jets. Time after time, he put you up for serene, private vacations at his vast, palatial spa in the Bahamas. All of this was so grand. You were protected from what Thomas Hardy refers to as "the madding crowd." It was almost as though you were already staying at a presidential retreat.

Like the old song, that now seems "Long ago and far away."

Since Keating's collapse, you find yourself doing obscene things to save yourself from the Senate Ethics Committee's investigation. As a matter of course, you engage in backbiting behavior that will turn you into an outcast in the Senate if you do survive.

They say that if you put five lobsters into a pot and give them a chance to escape, none will be able to do so before you light the fire. Each time a lobster tries to climb over the top, his fellow lobsters will pull him back down. It is the way of lobsters and threatened United States senators.

And, of course, that's the way it is with the Keating Five. You are all battling to save your own hides. So you, McCain, leak to reporters about who did Keating's bidding in pressuring federal regulators to change the rules for Lincoln Savings and Loan.

When the reporters fail to print your tips quickly enough--as in the case of your tip on Michigan Senator Donald Riegle--you call them back and remind them how important it is to get that information in the newspapers.

The story of "the Keating Five" has become a scandal rivaling Teapot Dome and Watergate. The outcome will be decided, not in a courtroom, but probably on national television.

Those who survive will be the sociopaths who can tell a lie with the most sincere, straight face. You are especially adept at this.

Last Friday night, on The John McLaughlin Show, which features well-known Washington journalists, the subject of the Keating Five was discussed. Panelist Jack Germond suggested that three of the Keating Five were probably already through in politics.

So you spend your days desperately trying to make sure you will be one of the survivors. You keep volunteering to go on radio and television stations to protest your innocence. Last week you made ABC's Nightline.

Not long before that you somehow managed to get James Kilpatrick, the national columnist, to write a favorable paragraph about you. Last Sunday morning, you made it to national television again; this time on ABC's This Week With David Brinkley. You smiled at the panel with your usual studied insouciance. Sitting next to you was Senator John Glenn of Ohio.

Brinkley, Sam Donaldson, and George Will were the interrogators.
It was a sobering scene. There you sat with Glenn, both sweating before the cameras, waiting to answer questions: two badly tarnished American icons.

No one forgets that Glenn was the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth. You won't let anyone forget that you were a prisoner of war. But you have played that tune too long. By now your constant reminders about your war record make you seem like a modern version of Arthur Miller's tragic failure Willy Loman.

Clearly, both you and Glenn sold your fame for Charles Keating's money.

It was a Faustian bargain. It was also a bad joke on the rest of us and a disaster for many old people who lost their life's savings to Keating.

The money was never really Keating's to give. But he never would have got his hands on it if you and the rest of the Keating Five didn't halt the government takeover for two long years while Keating's people continued their looting.

And now, the tab for the Savings and Loan heist must be paid from taxpayer pockets.

On Sunday, Senators Dennis DeConcini, Alan Cranston, and Riegle refused offers to appear on the Brinkley show. What must we make of that?

You, the closest of them to Keating and the deepest in his debt, have chosen the path of the hard sell. You may even make it out of the pot, but to many, your protestations of innocence taste like gall.

You are determined to bluff your way. You will stick to your story that you were acting to help a constituent and intended to do nothing improper. The very fact you attended the meeting makes you guilty, just as every man who entered the Brinks vault went to prison.

You insist that an accounting firm Keating hired told you Lincoln was sound. Alan Greenspan, who Keating also hired, wrote a report saying it was sound. Why shouldn't you believe the people Keating hired? You were, after all, fellow employees.

Perhaps you might silence your own conscience about all this someday.

Just keep telling everyone that it was your wife's money invested in that shopping center with Keating and that you knew nothing about it.

Keep saying that cynical newspaper people don't understand that every move you make has always been for the enrichment of Arizona . . . the education of our Native Americans on the reservations . . . for the love of the elderly in Sun City and Green Valley.

Keep telling them that it wasn't that you were bought off but that Charlie Keating got special help only because he was one of the biggest employers in the state.

Just keep sitting there and staring into the camera and denying that Keating bought you for money and jet plane trips and vacations.

So what if he gave you $112,000? Just keep smiling at the cameras and saying you did nothing wrong.

Maybe the voters will understand you took those tiring trips to Charlie's place in the Bahamas in their behalf. Certainly, they can understand you wanted to take your family along. A senator deserves to travel on private jets, removed from the awful crush of public transportation.

You sought out a master criminal like Keating and became his friend. Now you've discarded him. It shouldn't be surprising that you are now in the process of selling out your senatorial accomplices.

You're John McCain, clearly the guiltiest, most culpable and reprehensible of the Keating Five. But you know the power of television and you realize this is the only way you can possibly save your political career.

The Senate, the voters of Arizona, and the press all forgave McCain for his criminal behavior (yes, accepting bribes is a crime for elected officials.) McCain has spent the last 19 years apologizing and swearing he's learned his lesson.

But his ludicrous lying, spinning, and flip-flopping like a fish on a boat deck over the last week proves McCain is still the venal punk who eagerly sought and accepted bribes from a banker.

He obviously hasn't learned from history. But it's not too late for voters.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Are You Rich Enough for McSame's Tax Cut?

If you're middle class, congratulations! Both presidential candidates say they're going to give you a tax cut.

Or not. Seems McCain's definition of "middle class" is slightly different from Obama's definition. By, oh, about a factor of five.

According to a recent Gallup poll, fifty-three percent of Americans expect their federal income taxes to increase if Barack Obama is elected president.

The truth: The Democratic candidate's plan would cut taxes for roughly 95 percent of American families, reports the non-partisan Tax Policy Center.

How much would Obama save you? Check out ObamaTaxCut.com, a project of AlchemyToday.com, to use a nifty new tool that lets you calculate exactly what the Obama tax-cut would be worth to you.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

John McCain as Gay Stalker

Confused by Walnuts Depends' claim that all of his filthy, despicable, dishonest, lying attacks on Barack Obama are really Obama's fault because he refused to follow McCain around the country on his grampa town hall tour?

Fear not! The Rude Pundit explains it all.

In The Rude One's inimitable sexual metaphor style, of course. Only R-rated this time.

Nailing the Crisis on McCain

So far, Obama has done a pretty good job of using the latest financial crisis to call attention to the utter inability of Walnuts Depends and Caribou Barbie to propose, much less achieve, changes to our profoundly dysfunctional economy.

But it cannot be emphasized enough how much McCain, his current advisors and the current leadership of the republican party are directly and personally responsible for creating an anything-goes financial environment that would embarrass the original robber barons.

At The Nation, Robert Scheer details the involvement of McCain BFF Phil Gramm.

As with any Ponzi scheme, the perps, who included the legislators as well as the bankers who exploited the loopholes they provided, expected to bail long before the bubble burst. The role of the legislators, Republican-led but with far too many Democratic running dogs, was critical to the success of the scam.

The mortgage swaps distancing the originator of the loan from the ultimate collector were made legal only as a result of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which former Senator Phil Gramm, R-Texas, pushed through Congress just hours before the 2000 Christmas recess. Gramm, until recently co-chair of the McCain campaign, also had co-authored the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which became law in 1999 with President Bill Clinton's signature. That gem, which Gramm had pushed for years with massive financial industry lobbying, destroyed the Depression-era barrier to the merger of stockbrokers, banks and insurance companies. Those two acts effectively ended significant regulation of the financial community, and no wonder we have witnessed an even more rapid and severe meltdown in housing values than during the Great Depression.

Not surprisingly, Gramm was rewarded for his service upon retirement as a senator and as head of the Senate Banking Committee with a top position at the Swiss-based UBS bank, which is close to drowning in the subprime mortgage nightmare he helped create. These folks have no shame, as was evidenced when the senator's wife, Wendy, was named a director of Enron, whose roiling of the energy market had been made possible only through yet another provision of Gramm's Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

While neophyte Palin can claim ignorance of such matters, that would be particularly difficult for McCain, who as a senator consistently lined up with Gramm in his deregulation crusade. Clearly McCain had not learned much from his previous involvement with the savings-and-loan debacle about the risks to consumers in unregulated banking.

McCain served as chair of Gramm's abortive 1996 presidential campaign, and Gramm returned the favor, providing critical support for McCain with the hard-line Republican base, including the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. It was assumed in the business press that Gramm was the front-runner to be Treasury secretary in a McCain Administration. Gramm left his role as the top economic person near McCain only after he made an embarrassing statement blaming the current economic downturn on "whiners," an awkward reference to the victims of his disastrous legislation.

Republicans have been waging class war on working Americans for more than a 125 years, and except for the presidencies of those two class traitors Theodore and Franklin, pretty much succeeding.

Succeeding in no small part because every time a liberal objects to the latest attack on the middle class, the dems shush her, terrified they'll be accused of waging "class warfare."

As the immortal Molly Ivins wrote: "What do they think the republicans are playing? Mah Jong?"

Way past fucking time for Obama to say it like it is: Republicans in general and John McCain in particular have one economic policy and one economic policy only:

Strip working people naked and give everything they have to the parasitic rich.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Judge: Palin a Child Abuser

Sarah Palin is a child abuser! A judge says so!

What's that you say? The judge actually said that Palin's constant harassment of her ex-brother-in-law "amounted to a form of child abuse?" And that's not the same thing as calling Palin herself a child abuser?

Really? You think calling Palin a child abuser is a distortion of the truth? Kind of like saying Obama wants to teach three-year-olds to have sex when the truth is that he might have supported a bill (which never passed) requiring existing sex-education classes to include how to avoid predators?

Picky, picky! A judge criticized Palin using the term "child abuse" - that's not in dispute. Nor is the fact that an Illinois Senate committee on which Obama served approved a bill that included the term "sex education."

Yet television stations all over the country are running McCain/Palin ads that falsely accuse Obama of wanting to teach three-year-olds how to put on condoms.

So I'm calling Caribou Barbie a child abuser. And I'm going to keep calling Miss Alaska runner-up a child abuser until the Obama campaign starts fighting fire with fire.

(X-rated Rude Pundit excerpts follow.)

Unless the Obama campaign starts throwing shit at McCain, it will be over. Yeah, Obama wants to change politics, but ask anyone who has ever tried to subvert a system: you gotta do it from the inside. And if you cringe at the idea of Obama stepping into the muck and mire of post-Atwater poltics, then ask yourself: will he get more done by keeping his shoes clean and losing?

The truly aggravating thing is watching opportunity after opportunity pass by the Obama campaign. Here's some advice to them: you are not living in subtle times. You are living in an era in our nation where people only react if you use a fucking mallet, not a stiletto, to get your point across.

SNIP

So, dear Obama campaign, you have to use the word "lie." You wanna make an ad about the Bridge to Nowhere? Call McCain and Palin's assertions "lies." People don't give a fuck about "exaggerations" or "misleading statements." That's lawyer talk. Don't you get it, you stupid fucks? You call the Bridge to Nowhere statement or the plane-on-E-bay line a lie, you say it everywhere you and your people go, and then the McCain campaign has to prove it's not a fucking lie. That's the way this cocksucking game works. The honorable part is in not being a fucking liar yourself.

Goddamnit. Every fucking election the Rude Pundit can remember the word "lie" has been out there, low fruit, ready to be plucked, but the Democratic candidates are just too pussified to reach for it. John Kerry went down in flames because he didn't call out liars.

And it's not only the issue of lying. Go after their personal weaknesses. You should be making ads that imply McCain is too old to be president. And if you're criticized for it, you gotta say, "I think it's up to Senator McCain to demonstrate he has the necessary energy for this job."

Stay angry. Again: The McCain campaign just said that Barack Obama wants to teach 6 year-olds how to fuck. That deserves a little more of a response than it's "perverse" or whatever shit the Obama campaign just put out.

You want the best route? Here it is: emasculate John McCain. Use Palin to cut his nuts off. Constantly say shit like, "Am I running against John McCain or Sarah Palin?" or "If the Republicans wanted her to be president, they should have nominated her" or "Maybe Republicans are used to a vice president that runs the show" or whatever. Make McCain have to defend himself. Turn him into Palin's bitch. It'll make him insane. And if there's one thing that Republicans hate most about women, it's the perception of the castrating bitch telling men what to do (see all the shit about Hillary Clinton).

In other words, Obama campaign, as so many others have advised, go on offense, and that means you have to offend.

And Sarah Palin is a child abuser.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Unfit for Any Office

Beyond the worse-than-Bush policies, past the lit-fuse temper, more than the war-is-always-the-answer philosophy, one thing above all proves John McCain is unfit to serve in any elected office, much less that of president.

Josh Marshall cuts to the point:

John McCain is running a campaign almost entirely based on straight up lies. Not just exaggerations or half truths but the sort of straight up, up-is-down mind-blowers we've become so accustomed to from the current occupants of the White House. And today McCain comes out with this rancid, race-baiting ad based on another lie.

SNIP

This is ugly stuff. And this is an ugly person. There's clearly no level of sleaze this guy won't stoop to to win this election.

SNIP

Winning and losing is never fully in one's control -- not in politics or in life. What is always within our control is how we fight and bear up under pressure. It's easy to get twisted up in your head about strategy and message and optics. But what is already apparent is that John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes. So let's stopped being shocked and awed by every new example of it. It is undignified.

What can we do? We've got a dangerously reckless contender for the presidency and a vice presidential candidate who distinguished her self by abuse of office even on the comparatively small political stage of Alaska. They've both embraced a level of dishonesty that disqualifies them for high office. Democrats owe it to the country to make clear who these people are. No apologies or excuses. If Democrats can say at the end of this campaign that they made clear exactly how and why these two are unfit for high office they can be satisfied they served their country.

Kevin Drum goes further, pessimistically speculating that McCain's record-breaking campaign of lies may have already destroyed the ability of the next administration to accomplish anything - regardless of who wins.

John McCain has obviously decided that he can't win a straight-up fight, so he's decided instead to wage a battle of character assassination, relentless lies, and culture war armageddon. So what happens on November 5th?

If McCain wins, he'll face a Democratic congress that's beyond furious. Losing is one thing, but after eight years of George Bush and Karl Rove, losing a vicious campaign like this one will cause Dems to go berserk. They won't even return McCain's phone calls, let alone work with him on legislation. It'll be four years of all-out war.

And what if Obama wins? The last time a Democrat won after a resurgence of the culture war right, we got eight years of madness, climaxing in an impeachment spectacle unlike anything we'd seen in a century. If it happens again, with the lunatic brigade newly empowered and shrieking for blood, Obama will be another Clinton and we'll be in for another eight years of near psychotic dementia.

Am I exaggerating? Sure. Am I exaggerating a lot? I don't think so. McCain, in his overwhelming desire for office, is unloosing forces that are likely to make the country only barely governable no matter who wins. This would be very bad juju at any time, but George Bush has so seriously weakened the country over the course of his administration that we don't have a lot of room for error left if we want to avoid losing the war on terror for good and turning America into a banana republic while we're at it. We need to start turning the ship around now.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Repugs: Presidency a Joke

The "discarded flags" lie is just the latest proof that the repugs do not take this election or the presidency itself seriously.

As TPM reader LT wrote:

It really looks like the Republicans think that the Presidency, and election to it, is some kind of a joke. That it's a game which anyone can play at, so it doesn't matter if they grab a governor who is a political neophyte already embroiled in controversy on every front. It's a joke, so it's fine to ridicule and bully your opponent, fib, stall investigations, etc.

The "seriousness" (or "seriously?") narrative is the kind that could sway swing voters: independents don't want drama in their ticket -- they want people who can get down to business. They want a ticket that treats voters like sober adults, that treats an election to the Presidency seriously. McCain spokespeople say it's "Not about the issues?" What, so it's a high school popularity contest, then?

Yes, of course it is. Because since at least 1980, the repug candidates, the campaigns they run and the maladministrations they oversee are plainly not about issues or governing or even national security.

It's about power: obtaining it, wielding it in a way that enriches themselves and their cronies, and keeping it.

If they thought that nominating Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy on a platform of monthly virgin sacrifices would keep them in power, they'd do it.

With Senator POW-POW-POW Depends and Governor "You'll Keep That Fetus And Like It Young Lady" Caribou Barbie, we're just about there already.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Real Heroes Don't Brag

It's a truism among veterans that those who did the most talk the least. There are exceptions, of course, but here's the point: If John McCain were not a celebrity, but just a new guy telling war stories in a VFW bar, the bragging he did Thursday night would have been taken by other veterans as typical bullshit from a wished-he'd-been-there.

At TPM Cafe, M.J. Rosenberg puts it perfectly.

You would never know it from the media coverage but John McCain is not one of America's greatest war heroes. He is a former POW who survived, heroically. He deserves to be honored for that heroism.

But one thing distinguishes McCain from other war heroes, the kind whose heroism changes history rather than their life stories.

America's two greatest war heroes were Ulysses Grant and Dwight Eisenhower. Grant saved the union. And Ike saved civilization.

And neither one ever bragged about their experience. (Can you imagine Ike smacking down Adlai Stevenson by saying that while Adlai ran a nice medium-sized state, he was the Supreme Allied Commander who ran D-Day, defeated Hitler, and liberated Europe?).

Impossible. Like Grant, Eisenhower did not brag.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.