Meet the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear War The Real McCain

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Meet the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear War

The Real McCain

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

04/09/08 “Counterpunch” – – It’s November 19, 2004, a mere two weeks after the election that returned George W. Bush to power, and Senator John McCain has traipsed off to New Hampshire to give a speech calling for 50,000 more troops to be sent into the quagmire of Iraq, press flesh and raise money for an expected run at the presidency in 2008. John Sununu, former New Hampshire governor and Bush family consigliere, wryly quipped about McCain’s junket to the Granite State, “What took him so long?”

The press corps, already bored with Bush and election post-mortems, tags along. McCain’s the darling of the moment, the opinion press’s favorite senator, a media-made maverick, who was sedulously courted by both John Kerry and George Bush. McCain, true to form, flirted with them both and sniped at them both, but in the end remained wedded to the GOP, even as the party fell further under the sway of neo-cons and Christian fundamentalists that McCain publicly claims to abhor.

But that’s all part of the McCain profile. He is the senator of the hollow protest. McCain is nothing if not a political stunt man. His chief stunt is the evocation of political piety. From his pulpit in the well of the senate, McCain gestures and fumes about the evils of Pentagon porkbarrel. He rails about useless and expensive weapons systems, contractor malfeasance, and bloated R&B budgets.

But he does nothing about them. McCain pontificates, but never obstructs. Few senators have his political capital. But he does nothing with it. Under the arcane rules of the senate, one senator can gum up the works, derail a bad (or good, though those are increasingly rare in this environment) bill, dislodge non-germane riders, usually loaded with pork, from big appropriations bills. McCain is never that senator. He is content to let ride that which he claims to detest in press releases and senate speeches.

today’s toons…. 04.08.08

today’s toons….

More Awful Truths About Republicans

Did somebody say, “Not a dime’s worth? — thegunny, 419

http://www.flyoverpress.com

More Awful Truths About Republicans

Daily Article by Robert B. Ekelund and Mark Thornton | Posted on 9/4/2008

As the economic debacle facing Americans continues to materialize, those responsible are running for cover with ten Republican senators refusing to attend their own national convention. Four years ago we observed that the so-called “Republican philosophy” of small government, sound money, and balanced budgets was illusory in terms of the history and then-current policies of the Republican Party.[1] However, even we would never have guessed how awful the Republican Party economic policy would become. From mere mercantilism, the Republican Party is now flirting with comprehensive socialist economic policy and another Great Depression.

The Republican Party was founded on big government and economic intervention with roots in the economic platforms of Federalist icon Alexander Hamilton and Whig leader Henry Clay. Indeed, the term “New Deal” was coined in 1865 to characterize Lincoln and his Republican Party economic platform. Republicans became the “mercantile” party of big business, big government, external protection, centralized monetary control, strong restrictions on immigration, and aggressive foreign policy.

From FDR’s New Deal to LBJ’s Great Society, Democratic policies forced many free-market activists into the Republican fold. People like Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and of course Ron Paul, represent this free-market faction in the Republican Party. For example, free markets, deregulation, and balanced budgets became the Republican mantra (if not reality) during the Reagan administration. The orchestrated marginalization of Ron Paul is just one indicator that the free-market faction has been routed and that the mercantilists are firmly in control. In fact, as we endure the current economic malaise, we can note that the Republican-dominated Congress (1994–2006) and the administrations of George W. Bush have morphed Republican-style mercantilism into corporate socialism.

It Doesn’t Matter Who Wins

Hoping Against Hope for No Signs of Life

by Karen Kwiatkowski
by Karen Kwiatkowski

We now have Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin. If you are a voter, you will be thinking: “There are some great things and some awful things about both tickets, so how do I know which team will be best for the country?”

In case you missed it – the country is filled with 300 plus million people, many of whom are deeply in debt. Before they can even start to pay off that debt, they work 113 days each year to pay off their local, state and federal taxes. This legal plunder supplements local, state and national borrowing which has produced a kind of snowballing catastrophe, bankrupting municipalities and cities across the country, and creating a nation that owes an astounding $100 trillion dollars that it has little intention and less capability of paying back.

That’s pretty overwhelming. But there’s more! This same nation lays claim to an unsustainable military empire, and in pursuit of easy living and glory has warped its national culture and economy into an ungodly union of Spartan machismo and Bismarckian pre-fascism.

The icing on the cake is not that electoral systems are generally untrustworthy, as are the politicians themselves. The icing on the cake is that over 100 million Americans will actually show up to vote this November with a fervently held idea that the vote means national change of any kind.

Keeping this in mind – which pair of presidential hopefuls would be better? If it is true that a government that governs least, governs best, we need to choose the weakest, least imaginative and laziest candidate. We want a president and vice president who are able to happily accomplish the limited executive duties as set forth in Article II of the Constitution, and then lie back utterly exhausted, without a single creative idea about what they could do next.

Police tell owners: ‘We’re inspecting your guns’

Police tell owners: ‘We’re inspecting your guns’
WND ^ | August 21, 2008 | staff reporter

Posted on Wednesday, September 03, 2008 7:37:04 PM by Daffynition

Oklahoma police investigating the shooting deaths of two girls have told area residents with guns to bring them in for a test to determine whether they were used in the attack, sparking concern among those who own guns for hunting and self-defense.

The Mansourian Candidate

The Mansourian Candidate

Having written a book on intellectual fraud, Hoodwinked, and being something of a literary detective, I had no doubt on reading Barack Obama´s 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, that Obama did not really write it.

The style is above his pay grade, way above.

Berg v. Obama Update — Wednesday, September 3 Summons Reissued, Obama to be Served by Tomorrow

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Berg v. Obama Update — Wednesday, September 3