Vote McCain . . . Or He Might Lose

SRSLY?  Is that all they got now?  After picking Palin merely because she looked the part . . .

"The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best — that’s your V. P."

And now clinging to the idea that the economy failed McCain, when the truth was that McCain failed to lead on the economy . . .

America was in crisis. Perhaps with the Bush theory in mind, Steve Schmidt had advised McCain to “go in all the way” on the financial crisis so as to reveal his candidate’s true character. But given a chance to show what kind of president he might be, McCain came off more like a stymied bystander than a leader who could make a difference.

Am I right that all they really have left is to say if you don't vote for the Republicans, the Democrats will win?

Well, No Duh!

I've been pretty disgusted with GOP induced gridlock since Gingrich, GOP excesses under Tom Delay and Bush's Rubber-Stamp legislature, and GOP filibusters giving a nominally Democratic controlled Congress a bad name.  I absolutely welcome our new Robot Overlords from the Blue States. 

Anyone worried about liberal excesses is simply fear-mongering and desperate.  This is the Democratic Party, not the vanguard of some socialist revolution.  A herd of cats has more synchronicity.  Is there any doubt that most of the new Democrats from Red Districts and States will merely add to the power of the real power-brokers in Congress, the Blue-Dogs? 

Yes, theoretically a united Democratic Party could, and should bring sweeping changes to this nation.  That's a good thing, right.  The word "Change" is on all the campaign literature from both parties.  So . . . Bonus!  After months of the "me too" tactic of adopting Barack Obama's central theme (by McCain and by Clinton before him), why should anyone be fearful of a lot of change in a short amount of time?  You don't think Hillary and the Republicans were being disingenuous, do you? 

Other than driving the GOP's bankrupt ideology to the Hospice, Democrats aren't all that united on much.

The Blue-Dogs already proved they could side with like-minded conservatives in the other party to pass just about anything they want -- and despite the hype, Obama is more practical than he is ideological in these things.  (see e.g. FISA)  The check, the balance you're looking for is the reasonableness of the majority of law-makers we send to Washington now that so many of the whack-jobs have been outed and will soon be gone.  (And Jack Murtha, that means you too.  Sorry big guy.) 

We Americans have more in common than those things that have been exploited to divide us.  Those wedge issues the Atwaters/Roves/Schmidts have used to gain power are contributing directly to our demise as a nation.  It has to end or it will be the end of us all.

We've got serious problems to solve in this country.  Now is not the time to indulge in the silly one-up-manship and gridlock that has defined Washington for the last 20 years.  Enough is enough. 

Ohio Poll And Job Numbers

Obama - Plus 11.5% ?  Plus 14% ?!?  Holy Crap!
Jobs - Minus 7.2% ?  Minus 434,000 ?!? Oh Shit!!

Something stinks with all those numbers.  Not that I don't believe them.  I'm no expert on statistical analysis or unemployment calculations.  It's just that numbers like this usually only exist in some alternate universe.  A figment of a bizzaro imagination.

Look folks, whatever the "experts" say, we've been in a recession for a year now, and we've got a year or two more of the same crap facing us.  Most recessions last no more than 8 months and aren't even declared until they're over.  This one's much harder to obscure.  We aren't so much running with the "hot chick" as running from the ugly one when it comes to our choice in new leadership. 

Ohio, perennial grand prize in the presidential sweepstakes, is right in the middle of our economic woes.

Yesterday, Chrysler eliminated it's entire second shift in Toledo's Jeep plant, over 825 jobs half a mile from my blue-collar bar that caters to these guys and the factory workers and tool-n-die workers, drivers, broom pushers and upholstery makers who supply the place, adding to a steep rise in unemployment claims which were already in recession territory.

When you consider the employer-matched taxes, health insurance premiums, unemployment and workers compensation payments each Jeep employee represents on top of their salary, a modest estimate of the economic effect of losing those jobs is about $90,000 per worker, or almost $75 Million of Toledo's economy was just wiped out.  The mayor said in no uncertain terms the Jeep layoffs, "reflect the disastrous economic policies of the Bush presidency." 

Mayor Finkbeiner announced a three-day shut down of all nonessential government business to try to claw the city out of debt knowing it's tax revenue will be another million or two less than projected with the lay offs.  It was bad before, it never felt like we recovered from the first "W" recession.  Now I feel like I'm at ground zero of the collapse of the real economy.  I remember the feeling, having lived outside of Youngstown, Ohio when the steel mills closed in the late seventies.  (Hey, it's not my fault, dammit.)

Of course, the way it works is exactly the opposite of what the government should be doing.  When all those city-workers lose three days pay, they'll buy less which hurts all the area's small businesses.  We sell a fair amount of Budweiser to guys off work from the city garage down the street -- who will be buying just that much less.  A municipality that cannot run a defict really has no choice, I know.  But knowing that doesn't mitigate the suck.  This will be exactly the opposite of economic stimulation.

But we're a blue county here in Northern Ohio, solidly Democratic.  My Congress woman, Marcy Kaptur, is a netroots hero who voted against the Wall Street bailout, both times, because once again Washington's fix was to help the millionaires and not people who work for a living.  The fact that bad
things are happening in the Rust Belt doesn't phase GOP election strategy.  They only care about the voters who live closer to the River than the Lake.

Nevertheless, the overall Ohio unemployment data has got to effect John McCain's chances here.  There are five Ohio counties that have over 10% unemployment right now -- all but one are outside of the Lake Erie watershed and each voted strongly for Bush in 2004. (Tables and maps available here.)  Huron in Northern Ohio, Van Wert in the West, Pike, Meigs and Morgan counties in the South and Southeast have the worst jobs outlook in the state right now.  Believe it or not, the numbers say this won't matter as much as you might think, not everywhere.

It could be enough to push Obama over the edge, but some red counties in Ohio are just plain stubborn.  Here's why.  Back in September of 2004, Pike county, Bush country, had a 9.5% unemployment rate.  Meigs was at 9.6% and Morgan boasted 9.8% out of work.  None are really that much worse now at 10%+, a point or so higher in these Appalachian foothills.  Despite tumbling over they abyss they were only looking into four years ago, they'll vote for McCain.  Watch. 

I think the economy will, however, make a difference in a northern county like Huron whose unemployment was high enough at 6.7% in '04, or in western Van Wert which only saw a 4.9% jobless rate when they voted for Bush.  These folks don't know what hit 'em now that they're in double digits.

Of course outside of Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati there are few "red" zones with large population centers in Ohio, and the vote counts in the urban centers were very close last time.  Van Wert county, on the other hand, is one of the least populous, so it's nothing to get excited about if it switches to the Democrat on the heels of doubling it's unemployment rate (even though it would be noteworthy and very welcome if it went blue).  

Huron county is another story, half-way between the Cleveland and Toledo metro areas it would be a healthy addition to the blue column -- but they don't have an especially high concentration of voters there either, but it's even more welcome to join the reality based community. 

As for the big red counties, the Dayton metro area (Montgomery county) is witnessing a 7.8% unemployment rate, 1.3% more than in October of 2004.  That translates into 17,700 people on the streets then compared to 21,300 now.  To give you an idea how that compares to Van Wert county, there were only 14,827 total voters there in 2004, less voters in Van Wert than job hunters in Dayton. 

Huron county turned out 25,557 voters in 2004.  Today there are more people scouring the help wanted ads in Hamilton county (Cincinnati) which had 23,500 unemployed in October of 2004 (5.6%) and just barely went for Bush.  Now there are nearly 3,000 more people looking for work there (6.3%) who are not only bitter (whether they cling to guns and religion or not), but who have family and friends depending on them who are equally pissed off at the way the Republicans have mis-managed everything economic.  Just these slight downturns in the Southwestern Ohio metro centers may have a much more dramatic effect on voter sentiment than more rural areas facing unemployment rates they haven't seen in generations.

Columbus, much like Washington DC, really doesn't have a workforce that makes anything -- except trouble and paperwork for the rest of the state.  While higher than four years ago, they still are around the national average when it comes to joblessness.  It's more about the availability of enough working voting booths there than working people.  If everybody in Franklin county who wants to vote, gets to vote -- they go blue.

Loyal GOPers, bless their deluded souls, have a built-in excuse for losing this one.  Somehow, "mysteriously," the economy tanked.  But this is an economy of their own making.  I will never forget Bush's second Treasury Secretary Snow, a Toledo native for Pete's sake saying outsourcing was a good thing back in '04, and that new jobs were coming to Ohio.  What bull!

The sad part, for the Republicans anyway, is that despite all of this John McCain actually had a chance to win on this issue.  He had a real shot at owning the economic argument.  No really, he did. 

He could have parlayed that campaign "suspension" gimmick into a true maverick moment, rejected the bailout on principle alone as passionately as did Marcy Kaptur, but for entirely different reasons -- earmarks -- and spent the last two months lambasting Bush for his financial fecklessness without fear of damaging his support with the conservative base since there is no definition of conservatiism that can be applied to Bush's fiscal policies.

What a douche.

Obama: A Bigger Maverick than McCain (or Palin)

[cross posted at E Pluribus Unum]

Republicans loooooooooooove to ask "Who is Obama, really?" Here's the answer: He's the guy who (for the last two years of intense media scrutiny) expertly ran a $400 million campaign that knocked Bill and Hillary Clinton off their pedestals and secured the nomination of his party -- and more importantly, pulled the party together when it was all over. McCain himself should have the balls to acknowledge that (by his own definition) that makes Obama the biggest maverick of all time -- and someone who has shown that he can "reach across the aisle" (see "Powell, Colin" below). Obama is a force to be reckoned with and hardly a mystery man -- unless you've been hiding in the garage since 2006.

The truth is that the electorate should be asking, instead, "who is Sarah Palin, really?" She showed up 7 weeks ago, having been touted as the person who "stood up" to the sitting governor of her own party (and I defy you to even name him) and somehow this qualifies her to be president. Why? Because she's a maverick and a reformer. But really -- have you listened to her talk? We just got done having a president that talked like Palin. What did we learn? That words mean something and you can judge a person by the words they use. We don't need another president like that.

McCain now says "I am not George Bush." He might as well add "Sarah Palin is."

For the life of me I cannot understand why McCain picked Palin -- the maverick -- when it's obvious that he gave away his biggest argument against Obama in so doing. Think about it: compare Obama's last two years of public life with Palin's last two years and tell me, honestly: who is better prepared to be president? Then when you've got your answer ask yourself this question: WTF was McCain thinking?

Fact is, Palin, in all her mavericky glory, hasn't worn well in the 7 weeks she's been on the national stage. The sad truth is that the more the electorate finds out about Palin, the less they are impressed with her qualifications and (more dangersously to the point) the less they like her. She's tanking McCain's campaign and (judging by the steam coming out of McCain's ears during their joint interview last night) McCain knows it. Colin Powell (and how's THAT for reaching across the aisle?) isn't the only Republican who is shocked that McCain thinks she's qualified.

The good news for McCain? The electorate's #1 negative perception about him is no longer that he'll be like Bush. So, yes, they believe McCain is a maverick. The bad news? The electorate's #1 negative perception about John McCain is Sarah Palin.

The Moment You Waited All Day For

The (late) Friday Docu-Dump.

Cindy McCain Releases Tax Returns

You just don't know how much those of us assigned to the Friday blog roundup circuit just love this stuff. After a full day sorting through all the end of the week round-up posts, the linky news you should know but aren't worth an entire post about stuff, those damn cats you see every damn Friday, and the inevitability that you will be Rick-Rolled again and again; you just know there's gold to be mined (and great stuff on the SciFi channel to be missed) when a steaming pile of official-looking, number-filled, mind-numbingly dull reams of paper are pushed out to the public late on a Friday.

Welcome to my world.

Only the most stallwart souls would venture beyond this disclaimer ...

There is no new information on this tax return beyond the actual amount of Mrs. McCain’s income and taxes paid, because all other details of her personal and family sources of income and assets are already public.

Hmm... make my day. Caution of course is in order before clicking the link. It feeds you directly into the lair of the enemy, John McCain's website.

http://www.johnmccain.com/mccainfinancial/... which proivdes a pdf link to Cindy's returns and a summary of John's taxes which were previously disclosed.

SUMMARY OF TAX RETURNS

Taxes Paid:

For 2006, Senator McCain paid $72,771 in federal income, alternative minimum, and self-employment taxes (LINES 57 and 58) on taxable income of $215,304 (LINE 43), which is a 33.8% tax rate. View

For 2007, Senator McCain paid $84,460 in federal income, alternative minimum, and self-employment taxes (LINES 57 and 58) on taxable income of $258,800 (LINE 43), which is a 32.6% tax rate. View

Ya wanna know what's funny? Since Obama would only raise taxes on those making over a quarter million a year, and only tax the excess of that at a marginally higher rate -- if Senator McCain makes this year what he made last year, $258,800, he'd only pay extra on the $8,800 above $250,000. McCain want's that taxed at 35% and Obama bumps it up to 39.5% That makes the "wealth" Obama wants McCain to share equal to only $404.80.

That's right people. Barack Obama is a socialist because he wants McCain to chip in an extra Four Hundred Bucks a year. Don't believe me? Do the math yourself after looking at the non-partisan Tax Policy Center's analysis.

The impact of the tax code on economic activity under each candidate’s policies would differ in several important ways. Under Senator McCain’s proposed policies, the top marginal rates (35 percent on individual income and 25 percent on corporate income) would be significantly lower than under Senator Obama’s plan (39.6 and 35 percent, respectively). McCain’s reduced individual and corporate rates could improve economic efficiency and increase domestic investment, but the larger future deficits would reduce and might completely negate any positive effect. In contrast, Senator Obama’s proposed new tax credits could encourage desirable behavior, particularly if the childless EITC and payroll tax rebate encourage additional labor supply among childless low-income individuals. However, he would also direct new subsidies at an already favored group—seniors —and an already favored activity—homeownership—which could probably be better directed elsewhere.

I'm again amazed how we can polarize the nation over a lousy 4.6% raise on someone who gives away a hundred grand to charity anyway -- his and Cindy's private foundation of course. This shit is unbelievable sometimes.

Joe John The Plumber Senator's Taxes

• McCain Tax rate: 35% on the excess John makes over $250,000 equals $3,080 on $8,800.
• Obama Tax Rate: 39.6% on the excess John makes over $250,000 equals $3,476 on $8,800.
• Difference between plans? You do the math.

Not only is John McCain a creepy old coot with delusions of rationality, he's a cheap old fart too.

If I may be so presumptuous, allow me to be so bold as to quote myself:

Since Ronald Reagan took his last nap in the White House Situation Room, we've been fighting over a marginal difference in tax rates of about 12 points, give or take. That's all. Twelve lousy percentage point are the cause of all the demonization and hyperbole that warrant the GOP calling Democrats commies and us self-righteous liberals justify painting conservatives as heartless fascists. (Okay, there are other reasons they are a bunch of hate-mongering thieves, but let's stick to taxes for now.)

Back in Eisenhower's day the top bracket paid 90 frickin per-cent! Now the top pays what? 35%? Less since that rate doesn't apply to the first $175,000 you earn.

Hey Joe, you not-really-a-plumber. Kiss my ass.

Oh, and how much did Cindy McCain make last year? Who knows. Who really cares anyway. She's as rich as sin and never broke a nail doing dishes let alone working an honest day in her life -- yet pockets over $4 Million a year, mostly in rent and dividends. Hail to the Thief -- Obama, the modern day Robin Hood who'll squeeze another couple of sawbucks out of her skinny ass and that ne'er do well husband of hers when he takes over.

Alright, Enough Of This Stupid Narrative

Increasingly I'm seeing the center right and way-out wacky right punditocracy announce this sort of meme as they write John McCain's political obituary:

Previous to this economic free fall -- and after his transformative vice-presidential choice -- McCain was about tied in a race he should have been losing by a large margin. The public clearly had questions about Obama's leadership qualities. But the McCain campaign also proved itself capable of constructing an effective narrative: Obama as lightweight celebrity, McCain as maverick reformer. Until history intervened.

I fear this unchallenged pernicious revision of recent events will become the accepted conventional wisdom, the zombie lie of the Fall of 2008 as our children and great grandchildren study this epic period in the fall of the conservative movement.

Ever so briefly, on the heels of an outrageous and dangerous stunt when he vaulted the flaky and clearly unqualified Sarah Palin onto the national stage -- the McCain campaign achieved what is commonly known as a convention "bump" in the polls.

As the name implies, bumps are temporary and level off.  McCain's Palin bump succeeded in deflating Obama's convention bump before it could cycle out, principally because the Palin announcement came so quickly on the heels of Obama's fantastically well received speech in Denver's old Mile High Statium.  With the intensity of the Clintons drama peaking interest for the Villagers (Will they really mean it when they endorse Barack?) and the novelty and natural curiosity about the Thrilla from Wasilla, fence sitters of either stripe began to weigh in as expected. 

But McCain's peak poll numbers never surpassed Obama's pre-Convention levels.  If you look at Pollster.com's trend lines, McCain only crossed above Obama for a couple of days and then headed south.   In other words, at McCain's most artificially inflated best, all he could accomplish was to break even with Obama's "normal" poll results before his Convention ballooned his numbers.  I don't call that a tie.  The few days that McCain polled above Obama as the Republican Convention ended were more of a statisical abberation than any significant change in voter sentiment. 

The highest McCain ever reached was 50% - 51% average for the first week of September and then settled back down as we got to know just how awful Palin is, confirming the suspicion that her pick was just another gimmick, another in a long line of stunts where McCain pulled a tactically unexpected move that neither worked out for the greater strategy of the campaign or the best interests of the nation.

By the time the economy hit crisis proportions, Obama had climbed back to his highest pre-convention numbers and McCain was moving straight down, a trend that has reinforced itself dramatically as the headlines were dominated by the Wall Street bailout.

But to be clear, McCain's "bump" never reached Obama's highs, and Obama's post convention dip never went below where he had consistently been all summer.

Real Clear Politics' gathering of the polls of this critical "bounce" period for both campaigns, the period from the end of the Democratic Convention to the end of the Republican's tells the story.  RCP had Obama +8, +9, +1, +7, +6, +8 and a tie on the eve of the Republican Convention (from 8/25 - 9/5).  Only one post-RNC poll (9/5 - 9-11) put McCain higher than any lead Obama obtained (USA Today/Gallup: McCain +10 on 9/5-9/7) while those others that gave McCain a bounce had him only at +5, +3, +5, and +3.  Three other polls the week after the RNC showed that McCain had eaten into Obama's numbers, but either merely tied him or were just short, Obama +1.

Lehman Brothers went bankrupt on September 15th and the mega insurance company AIG was bailed out on September 16th.  By this time, Obama was back at the tie, or +2, +5 range, and McCain again back to his underdog status.

Was McCain still in "striking distance?" Sure.  But spare me the McCain as a victim of circumstances canard.  He was losing, as he had been right along.  What the financial crisis did was crystalize a close but losing effort into a lost cause.  The fact that this will be a rout I'll chalk up to Wall Street, but I'll never buy in to the idea that history was somehow unfair to Johnny "Ace" McSame, stealing his moment in the sun. 

McCain needed much more than a gimmicky side-kick as his game changer.  What we'll never know is if he would have dived into the muck of character assassination if he hadn't gotten as desparate as he is now.  Maybe it would have worked in a world that hadn't imploded as we were all glued to CNBC's stock ticker, but then again, would he have gone there without it? 

Judging by the blowback, it probably wouldn't have worked anyway.

McCain Pals Around With Sadaam Lobbyists

Hey, can we play the guilt by association game too?  How 'bout this little item?

BOOM!

William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to
head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on
behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions
against his regime.

Live by character assassination, die by character assassination.

Note that this isn't some guy who did bad things 40 years ago, or sat on some GOP funded charity board with the candidate.  Timmons works for McCain, Right. Fricking. Now!

Let's go clog up the intertubez with this sludge for a while.  The smears directed Obama's way are starting to smell stale.

I Guess incitement To Violence Polls Badly

Cuz it sure took long enough for McCain to step back from the Abyss...

UPDATE: Indeed, [McCain] just snatched the microphone out the hands of a woman who began her question with, "I'm scared of Barack Obama... he's an Arab terrorist..."

"No, no ma'am," he interrupted. "He's a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements."

(HT: David Kurtz at TPM)

Whaaaa?

You almost have to admire the complete rejection of liberal leaning reality when the McCain Campaign comes out with something like this. (HT: Steve Benen):

Instead of acknowledging the real differences that exist in this
election, Barack Obama is using America’s economic crisis to deflect
legitimate criticisms of himself and his record.

Ahh yes, the genius of Obama is clear now, resistance is futile, all your votes are belong to us . . .

How dare Obama pander to small businesses, offering a rescue plan for increased loans through the Small Busniness Administration's disaster loan program to help Main Street when John McCain was rushing out with his own call for suspending mandatory withdrawal from 401(k)'s by the folks in his bridge club. 

(Nice idea that retirees over 70 aren't forced to realize a loss on those withdrawals, as long as they can afford to eat or pay for medicine without tapping into their savings and can live off something else.  Doesn't do much good for people who count on those withdraws as part of their fixed income though.)

We have been "distracted" by the oncoming Depression instead of paying attention to Teh Awesum McCain/Palin smear, jeer and puppet dinner theater in the round.  And it's all Obama's fault.  Him and that pinko media of his aren't doing nearly enough to assassinate Obama's character.

Don't you see it now?  Isn't it all quite clear?  Obama and his co-conspirators throughout Wall Street right down through every fly-by-night lender and ne'er-do-well home owners in every hamlet in America conspired to engineer a world-wide economic catastrophe in order to hide Obama's connection to to the sinking of the Lusitania and make John McCain look bad.

Those democrats have no shame.

DOW under 8000.  Damn You Jimmy Carter!!!

A Message From Your BlogBot Overlord

Kos found it.  You should watch it.  37 seconds of reality.

Free Advice

Senator McCain:

The time to define your opposition under your terms has long past.

Remember when all your buddies were wondering why you were wasting time after you'd clinched your party's nomination and the Clinton/Obama factions were in a fight to the death?  Remember how they said you should take advantage of that time to define your potential opposition, amplifying the attacks Hillary and Barack were flinging at each other?

Remember all those guys you fired before bringing in the filth merchants who destroyed your chances for the White House eight long years ago?

You should have listened to them.  Now, it's too late, way too late to change voters' impression of either you or Senator Obama.

To My Dear Friends In Michigan

John McCain has a message for you:

It's not you, it's me. I'm just not that in to you.

I'll call you . . . soon. I promise.

In the mean time, can I have my CD collection back?

Love,
John

It’s Official

Irony is dead:

Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process.

R.I.P.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

Letterman: Something Smells

I guess Dave Letterman has joined the "In The Tank" crowd.

Letterman simply rips McCain a new one in this montage of last night's show, catching him with Katie Couric instead of on Dave's couch. Now unless Katie has enough cash to fix the economy . . .

To be fair, unlike the New York Times, Letterman never pretended to be "by any standard a journalistic organization." The guy calls his production company "World Wide Pants" for goodness sakes.

I can't wait until Barack wins this thing. Then I can go back to simply finding McCain mildly annoying instead of despising him.

The McCain Health Care Privitization Nightmare

Krugman notes
that Social Security wasn't the only thing that McCain was going to "fix" by throwing the whole system into Wall Street's prudent hands.

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation. ~McCain (pdf)

So what was that again about everything being Obama's fault?

I'm not so clear on how that all works either. If we make health care more affordable and available to us peons, just how do the bankers short-sell our treatment protocols on the derivative market? Can you still leverage a hostile take-over of my kidney transplant?

High finance can be so confusing.

Tundra Twit Strikes Again

Lemme get this out of the way up front:

Arrrggghhh!

Are--rrrrhhhh Sarah Palin or John McCain fit to lead?  Of course not. Hell, they're unfit to speak.  It must be exhausting being the guy who has to follow after them, explaining what they really meant to say so what they said doesn't sound near as stupid as we heard. 

Remember that skinny Senator with the funny name that McPalin said never accomplished a thing and is too partisan to ever reach across the aisle like the wrinkly white-haired guy and too beholden to the special interests to really hold the government accountable like the Bridge Killa from Wassilla?

Well, the story is that Caribou Barbie wants to "put the government’s checkbook online so that people can see where their money’s going."

Which is cool.  I completely agree with the Republicans on this.  So does Barack Obama.  In fact, Obama likes it so much he already did it.

I guess that proves it.  Moose is not brain food.  Hmph,"hasn't lifted a finger" indeed.

Guys, can we get a ruling on this?

In 2006 and 2007, Obama teamed up with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn to pass the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, also known as “Google for Government.” The act created a free, searchable web site – USASpending.gov — that discloses to the public all federal grants, contracts, loans and insurance payments.

In June of this year, Obama and Coburn introduced new Senate legislation to expand the information available online to include details on earmarks, competitive bidding, criminal activities, audit disputes and other government information.

Palin might also have noted that her running mate, John McCain, was an original co-sponsor of the 2006 transparency bill that became law.

I dunno who's worse on that team. He's so out of touch, feeble-minded and unprincipled it would be laughable if he weren't so dangerous -- dangerous to the point he and his team would rather risk an international incident than admit being a bit hard of hearing (I can relate) or unsure of the name of the Prime Minister of every NATO ally.  Pride goeth before the fall and all that.

OTOH, she's so out of her league I'd feel sorry for her if she hadn't come out of the box pissing me off. They're both too stupid to breath.

CNN UPDATE: A campaign spokesperson insisted that Palin
was referring not to that specific proposal, but rather to "that kind
of transparency in general."

Whatthefuckever Dude.  Is that anything like "I didn't mean those specific WMD's in that specific country where we must fight those terrorists in general?"

This bullshitting beauty queen ran a PAC for the most corrupt, earmark abusing, indicted Senator they got.  In fact, while Palin was raising money for Ted Stevens and working with him to build a bridge from her tanning spa to Siberia, Senator Tubez put a secret hold on the Coburn/Obama Google for Government bill, before Palin even became Governor. (Props to Steve Reynolds)

Look it up, that's what the GoogleTubes are for. 

In fact, outting Stevens as the secret hold-out was probably the first and certainly only successful colaberation between Right Wing Blogistan and Left Wing Blogtopia (y!sctp).

Army Times Questions Honor Of Navy Fly-Boy

You can add The Army Times to the list of media outlets who are fed up with the lies and distortions spewing from the McCain/Palin campaign. (Hat tip Brad DeLong)

Has Sen. John McCain renounced his longtime antagonism toward the Army’s Future Combat Systems?

On Sept. 8, the Republican presidential candidate told a rally crowd in Lee’s Summit, Mo., about an Obama video message to a liberal advocacy group.

“He promised them he would, quote, ‘slow our development of Future Combat Systems,’” McCain said, according to wire reports. “This is not a time to slow our development of Future Combat Systems.”

Flashback to July, however, when his campaign furnished McCain’s economic plan to The Washington Post, declaring that “there are lots of procurements — Airborne Laser, [C-17] Globemaster, Future Combat System [sic] — that should be ended and the entire Pentagon budget should be scrubbed.”

In fact, McCain has long criticized the over-budget, behind-schedule FCS program. In 2005, he blasted the Army for allowing the program to balloon to $161 billion, and forced the service to rewrite the main FCS contract.

So where does McCain really stand? Some bloggers and analysts have suggested that he used the term “future combat systems” generically. Obama’s campaign maintains their candidate was speaking specifically about FCS, in which case McCain may be twisting his rival’s words.

Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute called it deceitful.

“McCain’s interpretation of Obama’s position is typical of the way in which the Republicans have twisted Democratic views in order to undercut their opponents and at the same time obscure the past positions of the Republicans,” Thompson said. “Future Combat Systems is the centerpiece of Army modernization. However, McCain has been more critical of it than anyone else in the chamber. Obama has been much more detailed and thoughtful in his comments about future military investment than McCain’s very superficial statements.”

Officials with the McCain campaign did not return phone calls and emails requesting clarification.

McCain misleadingly tried to eliminate the capital letters from what Obama said. McCain infers that instead of meaning a specific program,  Obama was advocating we slowing the development of any combat systems in the future, not the Future Combat Systems program.  See, you can't actually speak a capital letter.

FactCheck has more, including the video of Obama's message to Caucus4Priorities in question, a liberal group that advocates for lower defense spending.  FCS is now projected to be a $200 billion dollar budget buster of the first order, already five years behind schedule it's designed to completely replace all of our tanks, light armor and armored personnel carriers, develop new drones and requires writing 63 million lines of computer code.  It is considered "the most expensive Army weapons program ever" according to the Washington Post.

If that's not bad enough, it probably will swallow the defense budget whole:

The Congressional Budget Office expressed worries about the program’s costs, noting that, according to the Defense Department’s projections, FCS would account for about half of the Army’s entire procurement budget by 2015 (while the equipment that FCS would replace has never accounted for more than 20 percent). What’s more, the CBO estimates that the actual costs may be as much as twice what the Army projects.

See, trashing this money pit is just the kind of thing that McCain and Obama agree on -- much to the dismay of the weapons dealers and assorted warmongering neocons that have been running things the last eight years. But instead of showing how he's a nice mavericky, reach-around the aisle kinda dude -- McCain typically goes for being an asshole instead.

This is what he's all about now. Lies.

Saying Its Name

Andrew Sullivan gets beyond the lipstick:

So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W. Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald Rumsfeld quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead of what he knew was best for the country.

And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil.

My own personal motto, to keep direction in the moral fog of politics, is that all political choices are necessarily a choice for the lesser of evils. Never has the choice been clearer.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

I Know That eBay Plane Is No Big Deal

But I need to get this thing untwisted from inside my brain.

We know that Yukon and Yoda are on the campaign trail bragging about one of the GOP VP candidate's greatest accomplishments -- putting up the governor's $2.7 million executive jet on eBay.

We also know that McNasty said she sold it on eBay for a profit even though Ms. Nasty couldn't get a buyer at the price they were asking and ended up selling it for $2.1 million through a broker instead. News has also arrived that they still owe another $50 grand for repairs or maintenance or some such nonsense.

This is the problem. They sell the thing at a loss, costing the State a Six Hundred Thousand Dollars write off plus commission and this maintenance thingy, and brag about it claiming they saved the State money.

"And eventually...a broker came in. We brought the broker in and said, 'Find a buyer.' We found a buyer. It went for 2.1 million bucks. And we did save the state dollars. And that jet, she never stepped in. And we got rid of the symbol of corruption in Alaska."

Huh?

No wonder these dickheads ran the economy into the turf. Must be some kinda supply-side thingy where you piss away over a half a million bucks and call it bargain. Yikes.

What About The Economy, Stupid?

McCain's topic tonight will be an Orwellian twist from the old warmonger: "Peace, safety and national security" focusing on his "life and record of challenging DC establishment" according the the guy who writes the scrawl on MSNBC. His theme, co-opted from the Obama slogan: "Change is Coming."

Note that AP, true to the jornamalistic ethics it has displayed lately (none) has reviewed McCain's speech two hours before McCain took the stage tonight -- based no doubt on advance copies of the text handed out to the media. That or they had a hand in writing it along with Bush's speech writers.

Prior to his acceptance, his wife, Tom Ridge and Lindsay Graham are to talk about his character, integrity and strength.

Not one word was said in the last three days about the economy by the Republicans, about a plan for securing jobs or making health care more affordable. None will be offered tonight.

We will hear how important it is to remain tough and steadfast in the face of adversity and that McCain is more than ready for the job. You won't hear a thing about our failing infrastructure, the high cost of education, the increased poverty rolls, rising inflation and unemployment. Not. One. Word.

He might talk about "fixing" Social Security and certainly you'll hear about not bowing to "elites," and amusingly from one of the oldest and longest serving members of the party that has ruled the nation for the last eight years, controlled the courts for decades, and has dominated our politics with fear and mismanagement at every turn -- that they will retake Washington.

What we need to do is reign in Wall Street and K-Street, and that will NEVER happen in a White House run by the incestuous lobbyist free-for-all that a McCain administration promises to be.



Don't talk to me about changing the way our government does business
when every one of his tax proposals benefits the big business interests
that have been catered to low these last 93 long months.

Don't talk to me about the integrity or strength of character of a man who would cow-tow to the religious extremist this week by picking a running mate whose views on a woman's right to control her own body includes forcing her to have the baby of a rapist -- even though McCain himself is no where near that extreme.

And most of all, don't tell me he'll be different from the impulsive fly-boy/cow-boy he wants to replace when all he wants to talk about is what happened after he crashed his fifth jet and decided the person best suited to be one shaky breath away from the big desk was the lady he only met once, knew nothing about, but polled well enough he rolled the dice to see if she'd boost his miserable performance in the contest so far.

Don't tell me it's raining when your pissing on my leg.

Thank You John McCain

Former POW (which does not stand for Pathetic Old Womanizer, dammit. Now Get Off My Lawn.) Senator John McCain deserves our thanks for getting America off the subject of the woman who the media thought would give Barack Obama problems and on to the topic of the woman who IS giving McCain problems. When the Democratic Convention was all over, it was all so obvious that the drama-starved punditocracy was pushing the Clinton/PUMA disruptor angle just for lack of anything else to talk about. "No Drama, Obama" is boring.

Did I mention McCain was a POW?

With Palin, it's all drama all the time. Everything's we learn about her is new, which is to be expected -- and everything new we learn is wierdly unexpected.

And we must also thank Senator McCain (P-OW) who, with help from Hurricane Gustav, gave the media something to obsess over besides how dull conventions are, why the first couple of days don't live up to the hype they've been giving them for the last year. They now seem to be so well entertained they hardly notice the GOP is even trying to put on a Convention to spotlight their message and candidates, rousing the faithful.

They are still having a Convention, right?

Oooh. Palin will be giving one of those speechy-preachy things, and so will McCain. I can't wait. Now that the kids are back in school I need to get my sleep pattern back to normal and will need the sedative. Good thing they bumped the "firery" Rudy 9u11ani for the mesmerizing Fred Thompson. Otherwise I might actually have paid attention.

So, how long before America's Hottest Governor has her first real press conference? That'll wake everyone up.