Is Tax Policy Important To You? And What About Character Traits Like Honesty And Integrity?

In all the hubbub over McCain's reckless selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate and Bush's slash-and burn, though, alas, retroactive, denunciation of Neocon lunatic John Bolton, it is slipping past the zeitgeist that the increasingly deceptive and shady McCain campaign is attempting to literally brainwash the American public by constantly repeating blatant lies about Barack Obama's tax proposals. Today's Washington Post didn't call McCain a lying sack of shit but... almost. Their editorial is titled Continuing Deception and the subtitle makes it clear what sort of deception is continuing: "Mr. McCain's ads on taxes are just plain false."

There is a serious debate to be had in this presidential campaign about the fundamentally different tax policies of Barack Obama and John McCain. Then there is the phony, misleading and at times outright dishonest debate that the McCain campaign has been waging-- most recently with a television ad.

The two candidates have very different positions on taxes. Mr. Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and cut them substantially for low- and middle-income taxpayers. He would cut taxes for more households, and by a larger amount, than Mr. McCain, who would give the greatest benefits to wealthy households and corporations.

These are disagreements rooted in divergent views about the role of tax policy: the importance of reducing inequality versus the importance of encouraging investment. Mr. Obama has the wiser and more fiscally responsible of the plans, on balance, but this is by no means a one-sided debate between evil, tycoon-hugging Republicans and good-hearted Democrats. Higher taxes do have consequences for the behavior of both individuals and corporations. Listening to the candidates debate and defend their actual plans would be a useful exercise.

Instead, the McCain campaign insists on completely misrepresenting Mr. Obama's plan. The ad opens with the Obama-as-celebrity theme-- "Celebrities don't have to worry about family budgets, but we sure do," says the female announcer. "We're paying more for food and gas, making it harder to save for college, retirement." Then she sticks it to him: "Obama's solution? Higher taxes, called 'a recipe for economic disaster.' He's ready to raise your taxes but not ready to lead."

The facts? The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that the Obama plan would give households in the bottom fifth of the income distribution an average tax cut of 5.5 percent of income ($567) in 2009, while those in the middle fifth would get an average cut of 2.6 percent of income ($1,118). "Your taxes" would go up, yes-- but not if you're someone who is sweating higher gas prices. By contrast, Mr. McCain's tax plan would give those in the bottom fifth of income an average tax cut of $21 in 2009. The middle fifth would get $325-- less than a third of the Obama cut. The wealthiest taxpayers make out terrifically.

The country can't afford the tax cuts either man is promising, although Mr. McCain's approach is by far the more costly. We don't expect either side to admit that. But neither side should get to outright lie about its opponent's positions, either.

I suspect a banner headline across the Post's front page, "John McCain Caught Lying About Taxes Again," would go a long way towards the Post's consistent policy of allowing shameless McCain shill, David Broder, set the tone for the paper's fawning coverage of the most ruthless and untrustworthy political hack to ever seek the White House.

Oh, and if you'd like to see how you, personally, would fare under an Obama presidency, here's a website that allows you to enter your income and find out how much you will pay in taxes if Obama wins in November. It's a better way of finding out where you stand than by watching ads supervised by Karl Rove, the man who brought on 8 years of George W. Bush and his policies. And, along those lines, here's a report from everyone's favorite tax expert, Brian Deese:

Republican Party Propaganda Writer Andrew Ferguson Dissects McCain's Platform

Officially Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor of the neo-fascist Weekly Standard, but he's been a notorious shill for the Bush Regime for many years. Yesterday the NY Times published an Op-Ed by him that examines the McCain Party platform. He starts with an unpleasant dose of reality about what it was like for the platform writers: "This one must have been no fun at all. Republicans this year faced a special difficulty, of course. Every American who’s not a Republican can’t stand them, a complication that robbed the platform writers of several traditional techniques." He then follows with why the platform writers were up that special creek without any paddles. "If your party holds the White House but not Congress, you blame Congress for the country’s precarious position. If you hold Congress you blame the White House. But what if, for most of the previous eight years, you’ve held both the White House and Congress, and things are still a mess?" The solution? Join the parade and do what everyone else is already doing: blame Republicans.

The writers distinguish between the grossly incompetent and corrupt Republican officeholders in Washington who created the mess and the terrifically thoughtful and luminous “grassroots Republicans” who sent the corrupt Republican officeholders to Washington in the first place. (We are to assume, needless to say, that John McCain and Sarah Palin are as grassrooted as Republicans can be.)

“The American people believe Washington is broken... and for good reason,” the draft concedes, without conceding too much. Special interests rule, expediency triumphs, congressmen are indicted. No need to mention any names.

Instead, the platform goes on, “As grassroots Republicans, we demand a return to our party’s core principles.” Such a revival, the platform implies, will fix just about everything.

OMG! No wonder John Boehner, House GOP Leader couldn't wait to go running to the media and announce that tomorrow's convention sessions are being called off! Bush and Cheney, who might expect to not feel too much love, had already joined scores of Republican senators and congressman declaring they're staying as far away from the "festivities" (which many see as a wake for the GOP) as possible. Boehner added that "It is doubtful there will be any kind of program tomorrow night." So aside from Bush and Cheney, what will the TV-viewing American people be missing out on? I think two of their biggest stars, Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA) and Rick Perry (TX) had already backed out, one to make believe he's handling a budget crisis and the other to make believe he's keeping Gustav at bay. And the ones who were to speak-- basically the far right ideological lunatics who have brought so many problems to our nation in the past seven and a half years-- freaks like Mitch McConnell (KY), Richard Burr (NC), Norm Coleman (MN, who has told everyone who would listen that he wouldn't even be going if it was in any other state but his own), John Ensign (NV), Joe Lieberman (CT), Boehner himself (although I think he is scheduled for Tuesday, along with Howdy Doody and Marsha Blackburn as well), Michele Bachmann (MN), Tom Cole (OK), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL, who fancies himself, by dint of birth, the next president of Cuba), Thelma Drake (VA), Mark Kirk (IL), Kevin McCarthy (CA), and a pathetic gaggle of wanna-be candidates like Chris Hackett (likely to be the only GOP challenger to win this year, since he is going up against a Democrat, Chris Carney, who votes like a Republican), Erik Paulsen (MN), Cynthia Lummis (WY), and Jay Love (AL).

One Republican incumbent pointedly not invited to speak or get anywhere near the platform is radical right maniac, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, one of only 11 members of Congress who voted against giving aid to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans on September 8, 2005. All 11 were far right Republican ideologues, of course, and this brings us right back to Fergusons' Times Op-Ed, claiming the platform, like McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, has a kind of "devil-may-care flavor."

“Republicans,” the platform says, “will attack wasteful Washington spending immediately,” even though they can’t. They can’t impose anything on anybody, either, but nevertheless “we will impose an immediate moratorium on the earmarking system.”

Powerlessness opens up a limitless future. It has the fierce urgency of not right now.

As for the core principles, they’re the same ones you’ll remember from back when the Washington Republicans were violating them: less regulation, smaller government, an end to bureaucratic “social engineering.”

But the urge to stick their fingers into other people’s business is too much for even Republicans to resist, as the Bush years have shown. The draft platform condemns the current tax code for its endless complications, for example, and then proposes several ways to make it more complicated: a tax-free Lost Earnings Buffer Account and a Farm Savings Account, more elaborate tax-free accounts for education and medical expenses, credits for people who don’t get health insurance at work and enough alternative-fuel tax incentives to make T. Boone Pickens hop up and down in anticipation.

It has something for everyone, the way platforms do, leaving the impression of a government that is not so small, not very limited, and busy, busy, busy.

The platform is also comprehensively solicitous, specializing in the political equivalent of narrowcasting-- “narrowpandering” might be the term-- which hits a bull’s-eye with a tiny constituency and leaves the rest of us puzzled. “We support the Native American Samoans’ efforts to preserve their... land tenure system.” Make fun if you want, but somewhere in Samoa at least one Republican is very happy.

One passage nicely summarizes the Republican approach to government, at the dawn of its long exile from power-- bold and feckless, all at once. In a section on “Technology and Innovation,” the platform’s authors look to the heavens. They write, “As a symbol of that commitment, we share the vision of returning Americans to the Moon as a step toward a mission to Mars.”

McCain Salutes The Troops-- And The Rest Of Us

I'm hearing anecdotal evidence-- lots of it-- that Republican-leaning American servicemen in Iraq are mighty pissed about McCain's choice of pot-smokin' Little Miss Sunshine to be backup Commander-in-Chief. But then I read she's undergoing a crash course in all things foreign one day this week from Neocon lobbyist Randy Scheunemann. Ostensibly this is to prepare her for her debate with Joe Biden. It's far worse that it's also preparing her-- just in case many unlikelies happen-- to take over the running of U.S. foreign policy. You see, aside from being McCain's chief foreign policy advisor and a notoriously corrupt lobbyist-- most recently credited with encouraging Georgia to start a war with Russia that helped no one but Vladimir Putin and possibly McCain-- Scheunemann is also credited with being one of the 3 or 4 men most responsible for dragging the U.S. into attacking Iraq. He's the president of the treacherous, and probably treasonous, Neocon group the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and was a major player in the shady neo-fascist conspiracy, Project for the New American Century. He is a very close associate of Iranian spy Ahmad Chalabi and routinely sells access to top right-wing American officials like Cheney, McCain and Condoleeza Rice. And he's explaining the world outside of Wasilla to someone one heartbeat-- one very old heartbeat-- away from the presidency. The GOP has lost its mind to a pack of medievel religious fanatics.

John Kerry was on with George Stephanopoulos this morning who made the point that McCain's attempt at proving he's a maverick only shows, once again that he's dangerously erratic. Kerry:

With the choice of Governor Palin, it's now the third term of Bush-Cheney, because what he's done is he's chosen somebody who actually doesn't believe that climate change is manmade. He's chosen somebody who has zero-- zero-- experience in foreign policy.

The first threshold test of a president of a nominee in choosing a vice president is to prove to the American people that the person that you've chosen can fill in tomorrow, that they come with the requisite experience to lead the nation in foreign policy and in national security.

You know, she may be-- I mean, I'm sure she's a terrific person. I'm not attacking her. I think John McCain's judgment is once again put at issue, because he's chosen somebody who clearly does not meet the national security threshold, who is not ready to be president tomorrow.

...Do they think Clinton supporters supported Hillary only because she was a woman. For Heaven sakes, they supported Hillary because of all the things she's fought for, because she fights for health care, which John McCain doesn't support; she fights for children and children's health care, which John McCain voted against; she fights for a windfall profits tax on the oil company, which John McCain opposes.


I mean, for Heaven sakes, the people who supported Hillary Clinton are not going to be seduced just because John McCain has picked a woman. They're going to look at what she supports.

The fact that she doesn't even support the notion that climate change is manmade-- she's back there with the Flat Earth Caucus. And I don't see how those women are going to be fooled into believing-- I think it's almost insulting to the Hillary supporters that they believe they would support somebody who is against almost everything that they believe in.

What Was McCain Thinking When He Decided On Palin?

McCain certainly had his heart set on Lieberman as a running mate but the religionist powers inside the shrinking tent said they'd walk if he dared. He was too much of a coward, and too driven to get his hands on the White House, to call their bluff. It was then that the Secret Service went out and started guarding Pawlenty and his family. But at the last minute, McCain made history instead: he chose the least qualified, least prepared person in the history of American politics to run as vice president for the man most likely to die before he finishes his term than anyone else ever running for president; yes, someone worse than Dan Quayle. The choice of Palin, someone McCain didn't know and his team didn't bother to vet, over his closest crony and co-conspirator, says more about McCain than about the hapless wretch he picked, someone who is liable to not even make it as running mate all the way to November. Although there was no polling on Palin-- a complete unknown-- the religious right pols promised to deliver the group-think evangelical masses if McCain chose her. The only "vetting" done, was checking with a cabal of right-wing religionists.

For weeks, advisers close to the campaign said, Mr. McCain had wanted to name as his running mate his good friend Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat turned independent. But by the end of last weekend, the outrage from Christian conservatives over the possibility that Mr. McCain would fill out the Republican ticket with Mr. Lieberman, a supporter of abortion rights, had become too intense to be ignored.

Would they have abandoned him if he actually picked a mainstream conservative instead of a radical right loon from the fringes of American politics? According to this morning's Washington Post many conservatives still distrust McCain. And the article was written by the most pro-McCain shills in the entire national press corps, David Broder. He dredges up some Fox TV interviews from 2000:

Karl Rove, the manager of the Bush campaign, dismissed McCain as someone whose "legislative accomplishments are few and far between, because he cannot work well and bring people together and persuade them of a positive issue." Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), on his way to the leadership of Senate Republicans, said most of his colleagues thought that while Bush was "a bridge builder, Senator McCain is a bridge burner."

Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform and a pivotal figure in the conservative movement, told the New York Times at about the same time that while President Ronald Reagan fought the liberal establishment, John McCain "kowtows" to it.

After that Broder goes climbs back into his residence up McCain's ass, interviewing a gaggle of shills like Lindsey Graham and Vin Weber about the greatness of St. McCain.

McCain is a disgusting old man and a freakish lech. Did he pick his "soul mate" based on the same way he picked his two wives-- because she was a beauty pageant contestant? Ruth Marcus at the Washington Post doesn't always get it, but she sure sees right through McCain on this one. "
The spin on McCain's choice of the Alaska governor is that it reinforces his maverick credentials. I see it the opposite way: It undermines them. McCain looks like any other calculating politician, willing to do whatever it takes to win." And why does he keep fingering his wedding ring while his eyes wander all over her torso?

Dobson Fails To Get Satan To Rain On Obama's Parade But McCain Ready To Turn Gustav Into A Photo-Op

I've said for months that in mid-October when McCain's numbers are still struggling to get into the low 40's, he'll go with the ultimate strategy: the Manchurian candidate will try tarring Obama as the anti-Chist. I've been told they've thoroughly tested this strategy in small backward towns in Tennessee and Kentucky and that it works fairly well on people with 2-digit IQs, much of the GOP's southern base. I still don't see how that's going to get McCain's numbers from, say 38-39 up above 45. But you probably already saw McCain's One video. To a sane person it looks like a joke. To the Buy Bull thumpers, it's deadly serious. They even have their crazed websites up and e-mail chains going.

One of the worst of the charlatan preachers fleecing the 2-digit IQ flock is Jimmy Dobson, head of a GOP Front operation called Focus on The Family. Although they have now scrubbed it from their website, one of Dobson's more heinous lieutenants, Stuart Shepard, a former weatherman turned crooked religionist, tries persuading church-goers to pray for rain on the night Obama gave his acceptance speech in an outdoor arena. God must have heard and overruled Satan, because it was the most beautiful night of the year. And Dobson was foiled. What kind of a man asks God to send torrents of rain so hard that it will block out network TV coverage so no one will be able to see or hear Obama's speech during the convention? Shepard defended his nutty video in an interview with KOAA. Anyway, the actual video they scrubbed is below.

Maybe God was pissed off enough that He decided to send Gustav towards America, just in time to disrupt the Republican Convention in St Paul. First McCain was thinking he could turn the coming disaster in his favor by using it as an excuse for Bush to not show up at the Convention, because, after all, Bush has always been so concerned about victims of hurricanes. Last time there was a big one, in fact, he and a certain Arizona senator were so busy eating birthday cake that they didn't bother doing anything at all while the residents of New Orleans were drowning.

Since then, though, McCain has been talking about scrapping the convention altogether (or at least postponing it until Rove can run another week of negative ads smearing Obama) and staging some kind of show of concern by the Forces of Evil for the folks who get hit by the Hurricane God is sending to show how much he disapproves of Republicans. Yes, they're hoping to "turn Republicans into Red Cross-type volunteers who would help collect donations, food and goods for storm victims."

McCain, who just made the most cynical choice of running mates in American history, showing absolutely zero regard for the good of the country, yapped on Fox about his campaign motto being "America First" and how "helping people during an emergency will take precedence over accepting the nomination... It wouldn't be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near-tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster." SO instead McCain will go down to the Gulf Coast and try to capitalize on the problems while getting in the way-- seriously in the way-- on rescue operations. He's really a disgusting excuse for a human being. He did the same thing when there was flooding in Iowa. Does McCain think natural disasters are sent solely to provide him with opportunities for campaign backdrops?

It is genuinely revolting to think of a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane as a marketing op, but this is, after all, a country run by a man who let himself be photographed carrying a fake turkey to feed soldiers in Iraq. So I wonder if the Obama team has given any thought to what a spectacular PR coup this will be. And the bar for Republicans to "succeed" is particularly low. All Bush needs to do is to ensure that less than 1836 Americans end up drowning in their own waste, as they did the last time a hurricane struck during a Republican presidency to declare Operation Hype The Hurricane a triumph.

Meanwhile, brutally authoritarian-type police sweeps of the Twin Cities are seeing round-ups of potential protesters already-- kind of like Communist China's response to peaceful protesters at the Olympics. There is a problem with postponing the convention, though. If they change the date, does that mean that all the Republican senators and House members who had "previous appointments they couldn't get out of" that week, can now come? I mean would it really be a Republican Convention without Gordon Smith, Susan Collins, Ted Stevens, Pat Roberts, Mike Johanns, Roger Wicker, John Sununu, Liddy Dole... not to mention half the Michigan Repug congressional delegation? And of course there's the Larry Craig problem. They finally persuaded him to stay away from the city where he so grievously disgraced himself and exposed their collective hypocrisy, but the following week, he'll be in court in St. Paul for another appeals hearing. So... would he actually miss the convention and the parties (and the party boys) if he was actually in town? McCain better decide what's gonna be worse, Larry Craig or Gustav.

Too Bad JibJab Did Their Latest Video Before Anyone Outside of Alaska And Idaho Had Ever Heard Of Sarah Palin

Yes, it's future celeb Sarah Palin in her Idaho dorm room

OK, I'm taking a 12 hour break from discussing the historic Sarah Palin nomination... starting... now. Although I do want to point to one last story before the 12 hour cease fire kicks in: Jim Vandehei and John Harris' 6 Things The Palin Pick Says About McCain. They say he's desperate and according to Republican and Democratic insiders he "could easily lose in an electoral landslide;" he's willing to gamble-- bigtime; he's worried about the political implications of his age; he's not worried about the actuarial implications of his age (so what happened to "Putting America First?); he's worried about his conservative base; and he's an asshole (although they phrase that one slightly differently).

Our Blue America congressional candidates contest is off to a great start. Please go over and vote for your favorite candidate. It just takes a buck and the winner gets $5,000. So far Russ Warner (D-CA) is way out ahead. And then, if it strikes your fancy, treat yourself to this hilarious, non-partisan music clip:

Apparently Palin Is As Bad A Vetter As Is McCain

But, alas, there IS substance... and is it ever extreme!

The TV report below on Palin's ethics problems in Alaska was aired on August 14th. Was McCain's so-called vetting operation so lame that they missed this? I mean it was on the biggest TV station in the state. And as for Palin's earth-shattering approval ratings... well 87.8% of people who took this poll think she's lying about Trooper-gate. And McCain is trying to sell her to the American public-- despite her thin resume and lack of qualifications-- based on her being a supposed squeaky clean reformer? In fact, her flippitty-floppitty relationship to the Bridge(s) to Nowhere doesn't fit in with the McCain meme and it's all very public so their attempts to just paper over it with blatant lies isn't going to work. McCain's operation is looking more and more like the gang that can't shoot straight.


There's another part of the whole Trooper-gate scandal that a sharp vetting team would have picked up on-- or even a dull vetting team. It's now apparent that there was no vetting team other than Lindsey Graham ascertaining that she hunts moose at 3AM and Ralph Reed giving McCain the thumbs up from the lobbying and religionist right communities.

After Palin fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan on July 11, she replaced him with an appointee, Chuck Kopp, who was nearly as awful as John McCain's pick as his running mate. And two weeks late he resigned too! Why? Apparently an unvetted 2005 sexual harassment complaint!

Kopp's decision to resign came after spending hours with the governor Friday. Thursday night, asked if he was considering stepping down, he said: "No, not at all. I've had an enormous outpouring of support from people across Alaska, from people down in Juneau right now, from people in the Anchorage Bowl area, from southwest Alaska in the Bristol Bay Borough and in the Lake and Peninsula Borough, and, of course, the Kenai Peninsula and Southeast Alaska. It's been a nonstop stream of support. I'm very encouraged. Things are going well at work."

"I'm positive and I'm encouraged," he said Thursday night.

Kopp came under increasing scrutiny from the governor after he acknowledged this week that a 2005 sexual harassment complaint while he was chief of Kenai Police resulted in a letter of reprimand from the city. The governor learned of the reprimand when the public did during a press conference that Kopp held Tuesday.

...Kopp and Palin entered the governor's conference room, read their statements, then departed three minutes later. Neither Kopp nor the governor would answer questions after reading from their prepared notes.

..."The recent media firestorm has been detrimental to the Department of Public Safety mission, the citizens of Alaska and my family," Kopp said. "While I have been portrayed in a negative light, my personal worth is found in the person of Jesus Christ, and not on the one who accepts or rejects me."

Said Palin: "This has been a tumultuous week in the Department of Public Safety, and as your governor, I apologize.

"This is in the best interest of Alaska at this point."

Meanwhile, the first polls on McCain's ill-starred choice of Sarah Palin yesterday came out today-- and contrary to what the GOP probably hoped, she scored less well with women than men. Here's a finding from Gallup: Among Democratic women-- including those who may be disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination-- 9% say Palin makes them more likely to support McCain, 15% less likely." They also polled Obama's acceptance speech Thursday and found that Americans viewed it positively by significantly greater margins than they viewed either of George Bush's convention speeches, or, for that matter, speeches acceptance speeches by John Kerry, Al Gore or the Republican candidate most similar to McCain, Bob Dole. 58% had a favorable impression and 35% graded it "excellent." The latest Gallup tracking shows Obama at 49% and McCain at 41%, and it includes registered voters on Friday who had already heard about McCain's terrible running mate selection. Most Americans are still unaware of Palin's extreme political positions and her ethical problems in Alaska. Once that starts sinking in, McCain's polling numbers are expected to sink back into the 30s.

It's Only America At Stake As Irresponsible John McCain Plays The Wildcard

The crack McCain team-- are they on crack?-- has rushed up to Alaska to see how deep the doo doo is that surrounds Palin. One wonders why they didn't do this carefully and systematically over the last two months-- or even last week? Although Walt Monegan, the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner she fired when he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, has already started talking, they also want to get the nitty gritty from Alaska GOP chairman Randy Reudrich, who seems to have come to the conclusion that Palin should probably be impeached. And then there's Andrew Halcro, who knows a lot-- and has written a lot-- about why Palin fired Monegan.

So why was Walt Monegan fired out of the blue? Why would Governor Palin send a surrogate to fire her Public Safety Commissioner and then not have a decent explanation for the public? And why would Monegan's replacement be telling people three days before Monegan got fired, that he was going to become the new Commissioner of Public Safety?

Walt Monegan got fired for all of the wrong reasons. Walt Monegan got fired because he had the audacity to tell Governor Palin no, when apparently nobody is allowed to say no to Governor Palin.

Monegan said no, he couldn't cut his budget because his State Troopers were already being stretched to the limit and public safety suffering. He said no, he couldn't cut his budget because fuel costs for planes, boats and patrol vehicles soaring, while crime in rural Alaska was putting more demands on the Troopers transportation system.

But more alarming than any budget battle, Monegan said no to firing a State Trooper who had divorced Governor Palin's sister because the guy was being maliciously hounded by Palin's family.

And not just that; Monegan's firing came after his Colonel had to reprimand the governor's office for meddling in department personnel affairs.

The mainstream media keeps talking about how wildly popular she is in Alaska. And maybe she is. Or maybe they're just happy she's not as overtly corrupt-- and headed to prison-- like most of Alaska's other top office holders. The Republican corruption up there goes way beyond just Ted Stevens and Don Young, even if they profited most from it. Nevertheless, Alaska newspapers don't seem as enthusiastic about McCain's choice as the TV news anchors are all indicating. Many, in fact, are now worrying that the choice has shown incompetence and unbridled willingness to put the country's best interests in jeopardy for a couple of imaginary polling points.

In an editorial, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner points out that Palin "has never publicly demonstrated the kind of interest, much less expertise, in federal issues and foreign affairs that should mark a candidate for the second-highest office in the land. Republicans rightfully have criticized the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, for his lack of experience, but Palin is a neophyte in comparison; how will Republicans reconcile the criticism of Obama with the obligatory cheering for Palin?…Most people would acknowledge that, regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation's when he created the possibility that she might fill it. It's clear that McCain picked Palin for reasons of image, not substance."

The Anchorage Daily News is the biggest newspaper in the state (by far) and they're not detecting universal celebration for their native daughter's ascension to national prominence. "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? said [State Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla]. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

More from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Lately her reputation within the state has been bit by allegations of mixing political and family business, and by mistreating one of the state's premier marine mammals. Palin's catch-phrase of "openness and transparency" has been tarnished by revelations that staff members tried to have Palin's former brother-in-law fired from his job as an Alaska state trooper. Also, the governor of the only state with polar bears has adamantly opposed listing the animals as a threatened species, despite strong evidence that global warming has devastated their sea ice environment off Alaska's coast. Dermot Cole, a longtime columnist for Alaska's second largest newspaper, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, called McCain's choice of Palin "reckless" and questioned her credentials. "Sarah Palin's chief qualification for being elected governor was that she was not Frank Murkowski," Cole said of her enormously unpopular predecessor, who lost favor with Alaskans in part because of unpopular budget cuts. "She was not elected because she was a conservative. She was not elected because of her grasp of issues or because of her track record as the mayor of Wasilla."

Her lies and flip-flips on the notorious Bridge to Nowhere aren't going over all that well in certain parts of the state either. Kate Golden in the Juneau Empire noted that some in Ketchikan recated to the nomination with concern and ire: "In her acceptance speech as McCain's running mate Friday morning, Palin held up her opposition to the bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina-- the 'bridge to nowhere'-- as an example of 'the abuses of earmark spending.' …When campaigning in Ketchikan in September 2006, Palin promised Ketchikan residents the bridge."

And, obviously, it isn't just in Alaska, where thoughtful newspaper editorial boards are scratching their heads with dismay at McCain's bizarre choice. The Denver Post pretty much sums up how most everyone across the country is reacting:

Palin an odd choice for VP; Alaska guv's inexperience is glaring-- and a probe into the firing of her public safety chief is due just before Election Day: "I served with Hillary Clinton. I know Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of mine. You, Sarah Palin, are no Hillary Clinton." Sorry to steal Joe Biden's thunder, but we didn't want to wait for the vice presidential candidates' debate to say the obvious. Yes, John McCain, who argues with a straight face that Barack Obama's 12 years in the Illinois legislature and U.S. Senate aren't enough to qualify him to run for president, has picked a running mate who just two years ago was serving as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, population 5,470. In short, the presumptive Republican nominee, an Old Soldier in all senses of that term, drafted the political equivalent of the Unknown Soldier as his co-pilot. McCain's pick of Palin jettisons his attack that Obama isn't ready to lead and looks more like a desperate "Hail Mary" campaign tactic aimed at female voters.

Perhaps playing on McCain's gambling problem, the Detroit News calls his choice a roll of the dice-- for us. The Kansas City Star judged the pick by the same criteria that they had earlier applied to Obama's choice of Biden. "[T]he most important question in evaluating a vice-presidential pick is whether that person is prepared to step into the Oval Office. Palin, with no national political experience and only a couple years in the Alaska governor's office, is a very tough sell for the Republicans on that score. McCain's age-- he turned 72 on Friday-- certainly doesn't help. The Republican presidential candidate has emphasized the importance of military and national security issues, and taken shots at Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama the Democratic presidential nominee for having only four years of experience in the U.S. Senate. Yet McCain now suggests that someone halfway through her first term as governor is "exactly who this country needs" only one step away from the presidency." And the Tampa Bay Tribune just flat out calls it a risky choice "that stunned even some party leaders who fear that voters will have trouble imagining the former beauty queen as commander in chief, if it should ever come to that." The Bangor Daily News called it puzzling and concluded that the "pick makes no sense." What you read all over the country are descriptions like "not ready" (and here), "risky" (and here), "lack of experience," and inexcusable.

David Gergen, on CNN, pointed to McCain's stark, bare hypocrisy: "But what surprises me so much is, that John McCain again and again and again has said the transcendent issue of our times is the fight against terrorism and that we live in a dark, dangerous world. And the most important thing is to have a commander in chief that's ready. So, here to reach out-- and he's criticized Barack Obama as not being ready-- to reach out to Sarah Palin who has no national security experience, no national security exposure, and say you're my standby and I'm 72 years old and I've had some bouts with melanoma, I think that's a very large gamble and I wonder how it's going to play out with the American people."




UPDATE: MORE REPUBLICANS DISMAYED WITH McCAIN'S HORRIBLE CHOICE

The denunciations are coming in so fast and furiously that I can't even keep up with them. Right wing shill Charles Krauthammer calls McCain's pick "near suicidal" from a tactical point of view. Noah Millman, who's not even opposed to Palin says "she's totally unqualified to be President at this point in time. If McCain were to die in February 2009, I hope Palin would have the good sense to appoint someone who is more ready to be President to be her Vice President, on the understanding that she would then resign and be appointed Vice President by her successor." And Mark Halperin at Time sums it up nicely for all of America: "McCain has failed the ultimate test that any presidential candidate must face in picking a running mate: selecting someone who is unambiguously qualified to be president."

New Blue America Contest Starts Today

Today's the first day of a week-long Blue America contest, I'd like to invite you to participate in. Some of our candidates have been endorsed by the DCCC's Red to Blue program, which makes it easier for them to access institutional Democratic money-- big donors, labor unions, single-issue groups, incumbents, etc. And some haven't. Blue America wants to spotlight nine of our House endorsees this week who may eventually wind up in the program but who need campaign cash to compete effectively now. These are the nine:

Sam Bennett (PA-15)- Lehigh Valley
Debbie Cook (CA-46)- Orange County
Larry Joe Doherty (TX-10)- northern Austin to Brenham and Katy
Alan Grayson (FL-08)- Orlando
Jared Polis (CO-02)- Boulder and Westminster out to Eagle County
Dennis Shulman (NJ-05)- northern New Jersey from Bergen and Passaic around to Warren County
Annette Taddeo (FL-18)- Miami-Dade from Miami Beach and Coral Gables down to Key West
Russ Warner (CA-26)- northeast L.A. suburbs from Rancho Cucamonga to Arcadia
Barry Welsh- (IN-06) east central Indiana centered on Muncie

We're counting votes at a just launched new ActBlue contest page. Whether you donate a dollar or $20 or $2,000 to the candidate of your choice, it counts as one vote-- although you can certainly vote for as many candidates as you'd like. The candidate who gets the most votes gets a $5,000 Blue America check. The winner will be announced on Saturday, September 6th.

We're discussing the candidates and the contest over at Firedoglake (in the comments) today between 11am and 1pm, PT.

Did McCain Just Throw A Dart At A Boardful Of Republican Pols To Come Up With Palin?

Campaign ad by Jesus' General

Palin endorsed Pat Buchanan in the 2000 GOP primary (and this year preferred both Willard and Ron Paul)-- over of John McCain. And McCain doesn't even know her-- neither do any of his close associates. Lindsey Graham seems to think that she's qualified for a job that puts her a heartbeat away from the presidency because "she hunts moose at 3 in the morning." He's one silly, silly goose, giggling like a little girl.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a very conservative and distinguished Texas senator who McCain passed over to pick the little known and extremely inexperienced favorite of religious extremists, said that she doesn't know anything about Palin but implied that since the state of corruption among Alaska Republicans is so intense, it's probably better that she doesn't know anything about her!

She's just a fresh new face for the same old failures. Is it a gimmick? Is this John McCain's best judgment? He may feel invincible but he's old and in bad mental and physical shape. Was he just thinking about how it would enthuse evangelical ground troops or was he thinking about what would be best for the United States of America? Give me a break! He's been running all over the country like a chicken without a head screeching that Obama is too young and not ready to lead? And Sarah Palin? Did he ever even talk to her? Did anyone vet her? This is scary. And it's not about Palin; it's about McCain. He's lost his mind.



The Palin split in the Republican Party is lining up like this: the Neocons think McCain just shot himself-- and their cause-- in the foot. The religionist extremists, bigots and lobbyists love her. David Frum (like lots of Americans) asks, "If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?" Ralph Reed, the embodiment of religionist extremist, corrupt lobbying and bigotry, is "beyond ecstatic... This is a home run. She is a reformer governor who is solidly pro-life and a person of deep Christian faith. And she is really one of the bright shining new stars in the Republican firmament.'' Yeah... Spiro Agnew meets Dan Quayle with a dash of Harriet Miers.

Other Republicans-- not the Ralph Reeds, not the grasping lobbyists or the giddy silly ones like Lindsey Graham-- ones for whom "Country First" is more than just a cheap campaign slogan, are uncomfortable with this choice, not just because Sarah Palin may turn out to be the next Tom Eagelton but because it throws into very serious contention the state of McCain's ability to lead. We just came through 8 years of George Bush being persuaded he was always right because he was always sure. Many people now see he was never either. This McCain selection, the most important indication of his ability as a head of state, is looking like it could be indicative of a reckless old man who thinks he can make snap judgments without thinking things through. Many thoughtful Republicans, realizing she wasn't vetted, are coming to the conclusion that bold isn't necessarily smart. McCain has a sordid history-- one he has gone to great lengths to keep from the public view-- as a reckless, high-stakes gambler. That's not what this country needs. He's not right for the presidency.


UPDATE: MY BRILLIANT FRIEND DANNY

He's a truly wonderful writer but when it comes to technology... not so much. He couldn't figure out how to post this in comments, so I figured I do it for him. And I added a link to AmericaBlog that is truly amazing

Oh, why all this wondering what happened with the Palin selection? It seems quite simple: John McCain was listening to a newscast whilst falling asleep, which could be at any time, and heard someone say ...."and presidential candidates often tend to consider a running mate from a Big State, someone likely to put him over the top in a tight race...."

  And John McCain jumped up and said to himself, "Big state, big state...hmm."  
  He then asked a flunky for that handy NatGeo Atlas that he uses to see,for example, where North Dakota is compared to South Dakota; and besides the colors are pretty.

  "Now I'll see for myself what the BIG states are, and by the way, who left this goddamn book open to the Caucasus? I hate fucking caucuses anyway, everyone is always taller than me, ah, here we go...

  "Say, this Alaska is SOME big state!! Bigger than asshole Texas and frigging Montana put together, if you ask me! Whoa, didn't I meet some Marian-the-librarian from Alaska once, like within the last year?

  "I knew it! Go now and find out where she stands on abortion-- WHAT?! she has five children including an enlistee and AND a little tiny Mongoloid that she let be born?!

 "Get her on the phone! Bring her here,wherever the hell we are. Better yet!--ask Cindy to pick a house. And bring me there, and her, what's her name?  Now!"

Nick Liebham Takes On FISA Traitors While Charlie Dent... Punts

Barely a day goes by when I'm not on the phone with either a congressional candidate or one of their staffers. Yesterday my first call, at around 6AM, was from Sean Millan, the somewhat over-wrought campaign manager of rubber stamp Republican Charlie Dent (R-PA). He wanted to let me know that Charlie thinks Adam LaDuca is "an idiot." The Pennsylvania College Republicans executive director, LaDuca, has been exposed as a virulent racist and now Dent's campaign, in an hysterical "he said/she said" dispute is claiming he's not on their staff. I suggested to Millan that Charlie, already in trouble with Lehigh Valley voters for his complicity in energy policies that have led to $4/gallon gasoline (while he scarfed up $75,831 in "donations" from Big Oil), should denounce LaDuca's racism, sexism and homophobia and sound a little like a statesman instead of a 5th grader in a spat with a playmate. He said he'd e-mail me; still waiting.

But it wasn't just the Dent menagere on the phone spinning its shady relationships with seedy characters. I had some long conversations of a more substantive nature with Democratic candidates who didn't shun speaking about tough issues facing Americans. One was with a southern California candidate we haven't talked much about, Nick Liebham, who's opposing revolving door lobbyist/congressman Brian Bilbray in the northern San Diego suburbs. Across a broad array of issues Nick is a thoughtful and committed Democrat with an excellent chance to send Bilbray back to K Street. But the part of cour conversation that really got me going was his lawerly take on Bush's FISA legislation. I didn't have my recorder on but he told me he had said basically the same thing to Lucas O'Connor at Calitics a couple months ago and he sent me the link:

As somebody who has been a prosecutor and dealt with the 4th Amendment, I can tell you that this happened to have been the one amendment in the Bill of Rights that all the Founding Fathers could agree upon; that in order for the government intrusion there had to be probable cause signed off on by an independent magistrate that says you may have committed a crime. I find the entire FISA process to be constitutionally dubious. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be made constitutionally valid but I think that anytime you have wiretaps involved... that deals with an American citizen, you've gotta have a court sign off on it. The only question in my mind is whether or not that has to be done prior to there warrant being executed or whether or not there is some grace period. There is no doubt in my mind that the executive branch itself cannot act as both overseer and executioner (of warrants or wiretaps). That, I think, is constitutionally impermissible; I think it's a violation of the judiciary's proper role of interpreting laws.

As a former prosecutor [and] law clerk in the US Attorney's office in the Major Frauds and Economic Crimes section... I've never heard of anybody being given immunity when you don't know what they've done. It's not how the immunity process works. You don't say to somebody 'Whatever you've done, don't worry about it.'... It's unthinkable to me as a lawyer and as somebody who will have... sworn to uphold the Constitution that I could ever support that.

What a tragedy that Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer, both Democratic leaders who have received huge pay-offs from the telecom industry-- this year Emanuel was the #1 recipient of their bribes in the entire House ($49,950), even more than GOP telecom shill Eric Cantor ($34,200)-- led 105 Democrats across the aisle, most of them well-bribed by the telecoms, to join the Republican rubber stamps in passing this horrendous legislation.

Throwing Gas On The Fire Of Republican Discontent-- OH-02... Time For Mean Jean Schmidt To Leave Congress

Mean Jean Schmidt has been a complete puppet for Big Oil. She doesn't even charge a lot for her services. Other congressional shills-- from both political parties-- have been paid massive amounts of money to vote the way Schmidt does. But Big Oil only threw her $9,100 in return for having never opposed them on anything-- not on cutting their corporate taxes ($13.6 billion in tax breaks for the most profitable corporations in history), not on sabotaging every attempt to increase fuel efficiency standards, not on irresponsible footdragging on the development of alternative energy, not on cracking down on price gouging, and not on supporting any efforts to force Big Oil to drill on the millions and milliosn of acres they current lease from the federal government. Mean Jean is what you call a patsy.

And crazy. Her idea of energy policy is to make up stories about China drilling under Florida from Cuba and stealing American oil. She embarrassed the Republican leadership with her wild and false claims and finally Florida's Republican Senator Mel Martinez had to step in and explain that her bizarre charges were an "urban myth." If he was unfortunate enough to actually know Mean Jean, he'd know most of her public pronouncements are what polite society might call "urban myths."

Anyway I was really happy to find out today that Victoria Wulsin's campaign is about to run the TV ad below all over southern Ohio starting on the opening day of the Republican Convention. If you can spare any change, please consider making a donation to her campaign so she can run the ad lots of times. Recent polling shows that only half the Republicans in the second district are considering voting to re-elect Schmidt. Overall, the poll found that only 33% approve of her performance in Congress and only 36% are prepared to re-elect her.

So Far McCain's First Executive Decision Is Going Over Like A Lead Balloon-- What A Contrast With Obama's Choice Of Biden!

Even the far right GOP propagandists are having a hard time swallowing this one. Jonah Goldberg (might as well start at the bottom of the barrel): "She may not be ready for primetime. The heartbeat-from-the-presidency issue is a real one." Yeah, might be. Sharing the bottom of that barrel with Jonah is Ramesh Ponnuru, also writing for National Review. He's trying to play down what a terrible choice she is but he's clearly very worried:

Inexperience. Palin has been governor for about two minutes. Thanks to McCain’s decision, Palin could be commander-in-chief next year. That may strike people as a reckless choice; it strikes me that way. And McCain's age raised the stakes on this issue.

As a political matter, it undercuts the case against Obama. Conservatives are pointing out that it is tricky for the Obama campaign to raise the issue of her inexperience given his own, and note that the presidency matters more than the vice-presidency. But that gets things backward. To the extent the experience, qualifications, and national-security arguments are taken off the table, Obama wins.

And it’s not just foreign policy. Palin has no experience dealing with national domestic issues, either. (On the other hand, as Kate O’Beirne just told me, we know that Palin will be ready for that 3 a.m. phone call: She’ll already be up with her baby.) 

Tokenism. Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?

Compatibility. It doesn’t seem as though McCain knows Palin well. Do we have much reason to think they would work well together? 

Debates. Maybe, as Jonah said the other day, Biden will look like a bully going up against her-- and maybe she’ll shine. But I can think of a lot of other picks who would have been lower-risk.

I am not even sure that the pick will have quite the galvanizing effect on conservatives that it seems to be having now as it sinks in. The concerns I’ve mentioned here-- about her readiness and her credentials-- are the kind of thing that many conservative voters take seriously.

Also over at National Review Katherine Jean Lopez was harsh:

As much as I loathe Obama-Biden, I can't in good conscience vote for a McCain-Palin ticket. Palin has absolutely no experience in foreign affairs. Considering both McCain's advanced age and the state of the world today, it is essential that the veep be exceedingly qualified to assume the office of president. I simply don't have any confidence in Palin's ability to deal effectively with Iran, Russia, China, etc. I certainly will not cast a vote for Obama-Biden, but nor will I vote for McCain-Palin. Looks like I'll either sit this one out or vote for Bob Barr. Why, o, why, didn't McCain listen to Rove and just pick Romney?

The worst of the McCain shills-- well not counting staffer David Broder-- in the legitimate media, A.P.'s resident rightist loon Ron Fournier, tries minimizing Palin's lack of credentials by comparing her to Obama. He writes what many Americans are saying, that "it's a recognition of how vulnerable McCain is despite polls showing it's close." People recognize that this important decision-- especially important-- was frivolous and made not with the good of America in mind but strictly in terms of superficial political considerations. McCain really comes across as a crass, grasping hack... which makes sense, since that's exactly what he is. He just doesn't always come across that way, thanks to his media pals like Fournier and Broder.

The only people who seem overjoyed by this awful choice are the religious extremists, who seem especially excited that Palin is a notorious homophobe.

...[W]hen conservative leaders heard the news this morning at a meeting at the Council for National Policy, one attendee told me that there is "nothing but elation. People are giddy. They are energized and they now believe that in fact this campaign has the ability to win this election."

My comments are below but first some more reaction. This from Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council:

Senator McCain made an outstanding pick from the choices that were on the table. Sarah Palin clearly addresses the issues so many conservatives are concerned about. It balances out the ticket. She's also really a checkmate for the Democratic Party because folks who were looking to make history for Barack Obama can make history by voting for John McCain in seeing the first woman elected to the vice-presidency. It was a very strategic move by John McCain.

This from one of the key Evangelical leaders out there, Mat Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel:

"Absolutely brilliant choice. John McCain could not have chosen a better vice-presidential nominee that Gov. Palin. She is attractive, articulate, conservative, pro-family, pro-life, and pro-marriage. John McCain hit this one out of the ballpark."

Many observers feel that Palin's selection will strengthen Obama's bounce from the convention. The new Gallup poll numbers show a steady climb from a 45-45% tie before the Convention to a 49-41% Obama v McCain split... before Obama made his incredible acceptance speech last night at the highest rated (TV viewer-wise) convention in history.

Over at Time Mark Halperin wonders aloud if McCain's pick was bold or disastrous. And desperate. Since she's already being referred to as "Dan Quayle with a pony tail," Halperin remarks that "those who point out that George H.W. Bush was able to win despite Dan Quayle's presence on the ticket forget that the country was much more solidly Republican at the presidential level back then than in today's 50-50 America."

And last but not least, is the fractured GOP hierarchy. It will take a few days-- or at least hours-- before we find out how angry Rove is about this choice and how vulnerable GOP members of Congress think it could impact their own races. But already, the Washington Post claims that the Pawlenty and Romney camps are fuming, feeling like they were made to look foolish and then humiliated as props in McCain's self-centered and irresponsible media hype. "Two senior Republican officials close to Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty said they had both been rudely strung along and now 'feel manipulated.'"

"They now know that they were used as decoys, well after McCain had decided not to pick them," one Republican involved in the process said.

Who vetted this hack? She may be good at avoiding Kudlow's questions but even with a Republican shill like him she still manages to come off sleazy and incompetent:




UPDATE: OOPS... PANTS ON FIRE ALREADY?

When I first saw that video above, I thought Palin looked like a weasel. That brother-in-law stuff looked fishy right away. And sure, enough, the Washington Post has an exclusive interview with the Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, the guy Palin fired. It looked like McCain's crack team on vetters didn't talk with him before settling on Palin. I wonder who they did talk to. Her pastor?

Monegan told the Post that Palin "repeatedly brought up the topic of her ex-brother-in-law, Michael Wooten, after Monegan became the state's commissioner of public safety in December 2006. Palin's husband, Todd, met with Monegan and presented a dossier of information about Wooten, who was going through a bitter custody battle with Palin's sister, Molly. Monegan also said Sarah Palin sent him e-mails on the subject, but Monegan declined to disclose them, saying he planned to give them to a legislative investigator looking into the matter." Alaska's the most corrupt state in America and they run it like a one-ring rural circus. Fine; it's up to them. But what the hell was McCain thinking?

McCain-- Like Hope... But Different

Let's take a short break from celebrating Sarah's celebrity and listen to a different take on a musical treatment you might recall from last February. After all, it's John McCain's birthday today (sorry to bring Sarah up again.)

The Hail Sarah Pass Open Thread

Picking Sarah Palin was a real desperation move on McCain's part-- and it's going over badly. I'll keep updating all day. Even Rahm Emanuel gets this one right:

"After trying to make experience the issue of this campaign, John McCain celebrated his 72nd birthday by appointing a former small town mayor and brand new Governor as his Vice Presidential nominee. Is this really who the Republican Party wants to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency? Given Sarah Palin's lack of experience on every front and on nearly every issue, this Vice Presidential pick doesn't show judgement: it shows political panic."

And it's no wonder McCain was so antsy about leaking out an "exciting" name to get the attention off Obama. Over 38 million people watched Obama's speech last night.

Nielsen Media Research said more people watched Obama speak than watched the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the final "American Idol" or the Academy Awards this year. Obama talked before a live audience of 80,000 people in Denver.

His TV audience nearly doubled the amount of people who watched John Kerry accept the Democratic nomination to run against President Bush four years ago. Kerry's speech was seen by just over 20 million people.

Obama's audience might be higher, since Nielsen didn't have an estimate for how many people watched Obama on PBS or C-SPAN Thursday night.

Although the McCain campaign is busily re-writing history to make Palin sound like she opposed the corrupt earmarks that have landed Ted Stevens and Don Young in hot water-- particularly their "Bridge to Nowhere" that McCain is always railing against-- Palin was always a big supporter of the Bridges to Nowhere and all the criminal pork Young and Stevens were bringing back to Alaska. In 2006, when she was trying to make the leap from runner up in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant and mayor of Wasilla (population 8,471) to gubernatorial contender, she was asked how she felt about the Bridges to Nowhere. According to the October 5th, 2006 Anchorage Daily News she replied. "I do support the infrastructure projects that are on tap here in the state of Alaska that our congressional delegations worked hard for." In fact, she then started complaining that the federal money for the two horrible projects weren't coming in fast enough!

In fact, Palin has always been a pork-crazed maniac, the kind of straw man McCain loves to bash on the stump. This year Alaska received nearly $100 million more In pork than any other state ($379,669,715). According to the Senate Lobbying Disclosure Database, Palin employs the lobbying firm Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates to seek earmarks for the state of Alaska. You think the vetters missed that when they were looking into her past? If so they also missed this: According to that same Senate Lobbying Disclosure Database, Palin paid the lobbying firm of Hoffman Silver Gilman & Blasco to lobby on behalf of the City of Wasilla while she was mayor and according to Citizens Against Government Waste, in 2000 the City of Wasilla received a $1 million transportation earmark for the Wasilla Intermodal Facility for bus and bus related facilities while Wasilla's Life Quest Community Mental Health Center gobbled up a $500,000 earmark, same amount as the town's emergency shelter, although less than the $600,000 earmark for the Wasilla city bus facility. Meanwhile Wasilla received a $1 million earmark for the Wasilla Regional Dispatch Center, a $1.5 million earmark for water and sewer improvements, and a $2.6 million transportation earmark for an alternative route project. And back then only 5,000 people lived there. Now that's pork. So, as inexperienced as she is about everything else, she sure knows how to rook the federal government out of boucoup taxpayer dollars. I wonder if McCain will still be screamin' and hollerin' about earmarks and Bridges to Nowhere now that she's on his ticket.

My friend David said this reminded him of Bush's ill-fated choice of Harriet Myers for the Supreme Court. "They can't judge women... (Or pick women judges... ) They're at a loss when they have to leave the country club and cigars and hang with" real people. Jonathan Singer goes further and sees Spiro Agnew in her.

It has been forty years since someone as inexperienced as Sarah Palin has been put on a national ticket, and surprisingly enough there are some real similarities between Palin and her unprepared predecessor, Spiro T. Agnew, who also had been governor less than two years at the time Richard Nixon picked him to be his number two and who also had a corruption problem lingering in the background that would end up causing his running mate problems.

...But the comparisons between Palin and Agnew do not end there. Just as a corruption scandal from Agnew's time as Maryland Governor plagued him throughout his Vice Presidential tenure-- in the end forcing him to resign-- so too does Palin have a corruption problem brewing in the background. What's more, her corruption and abuse of power problem is one easily understood by voters: She allegedly attempted to have fired a state trooper in a custody battle with her sister.

...Do we really need to put another wildly inexperienced, purely political choice into the White House, only to see issues from that candidate's past potentially stain the Vice Presidency?

On To The Nutter Event-- McCain Throws A Hail Mary Pass

Not Britney; not Paris-- it's the GOP VP nominee, Sarah

Republicans were horrified by Obama's eloquence and by his effectiveness in delivering an analysis tying their policies-- and John McCain's championing of those policies-- to the dissatisfaction most Americans feel about the direction the country is headed. And offering his clear and compelling vision about how the country can proceed. McCain media surrogates like David Brooks in the NY Times and Charles Babington at A.P., as well as the hyperbolic far right McCain blogging brigade and the wind-up extremist propaganda rags like the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the National Review came out swinging, if limply and ineffectively, to trivialize it. The Republican Party official response was incoherent, banal and quickly forgotten as they quickly floated the idea of postpoing their own convention (ostensibly because God sent Hurricane Gustav to plague them, although Rove thinks he needs to run a few million dollars in more negative campaign ads sliming Obama) before McCain can face the nation without being laughed off the stage.

McCain will take the stage today and introduce Sarah Palin, his surprise VP nominee. He's following Obama's appearance before a sold out house of 80,000 people at the Denver Bronco's Mile High Stadium with a little show of his own at the Nutter Center-- what name could be more appropriate?-- in Dayton. The Nutter rally, which hold 12,000 people but is unlikely to even reach half capacity, kicks off McCain's sadly pathetic "Road to the Convention tour" of Little League fields and minor league stadiums where he'll be offering 4 more years of disaster at the homes of the Washington (Pa.) Wild Things of the Frontier League, and the River City Rascals of O'Fallon, Missouri. Even though the vaunted McCain hype machine is promising to unveil the running mate, interest is minimal, excitement is nonexistent and they can't give the Nutter tickets away.

While many thought that Seamus was strapped to the roof of the family car, and what has been widely feared in the fractured and severely divided party-- that they're being saddled with flip flopping vulture capitalist Willard Romney-- turned out to be incorrect. Pawlenty, once thought to be the only hope of many Republicans to stop the pushy Willard, ended the sham this morning and admitted he's not #2. So... turned out to not be someone from James Wolcott's list of sad-sacks. What did Willard in-- aside from how thoroughly McCain detests him?

Last week McCain's campaign delighted in running ads featuring Hillary Clinton campaigning against Obama in the primaries. They certainly knew the Democrats had prepared similar ads featuring himself and Romney bashing each other. I always liked this one, where Willard did the Democrats' job for them:

“I understand he’s anxious to try and see if he can’t get the topic away from the economy. But I’m going to remind him of his statements time and again about his lack of understanding of the economy,” Romney said. Reporters asked the presidential hopeful several questions on a range of topics, but he brought back most to his rival, John McCain going after him on his lack of experience and understanding of economic policy.

“I simply don’t think, I simply don’t think that the people of Florida are gonna say the nominee of our party ought to be a person who on more than one occasion has expressed lack of understanding of our economy at a time when the economy is the number one issue that people are talking about here in the state of Florida.”

And it wasn't just Floridians that Mitt warned about what a disaster McCain would be. Here he is telling people in the battleground state of Michigan, which Rove claims-- rather incongruously-- that Romney will help McCain capture in November, that McCain will be a catastrophe for the economy:

"I know that there are some people who think, as Sen. McCain did, he said, you know, some jobs are leaving Michigan and they're not coming back. I disagree. I'm going to fight for every single job, Michigan, South Carolina, every state in this country, we're going to fight for jobs and make sure our future is bright," said Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts whose family has deep ties to Michigan.

I guess the oft-repeated lines of attack Romney used to define McCain, had something to do with why McCain says his skin crawls when he's in the same room with Romney, who he personally detests. He's a little prickly and didn't appreciate hearing variations on these themes every day:

Republican Mitt Romney wound up his Florida primary campaign on Monday with his most bitter criticism yet of rival John McCain, saying three signature bills the Arizona senator pushed in Congress aimed the country on ''a liberal Democrat course.''

The former Massachusetts governor said the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law ''hit the First Amendment'' with its controls over advertising spending.

He labeled last year's failed McCain-Kennedy immigration bill ''the amnesty bill'' for a provision that would have allowed illegal immigrants to remain in the country indefinitely. And he said a 2003 McCain-Lieberman energy cap-and-trade bill would have increased energy costs for the average Florida family of four by $1,000.

''If you ask people, 'look at the three things Senator McCain has done as a senator,' if you want that kind of a liberal Democrat course as president, then you can vote for him,'' Romney told campaign workers who would be manning his phone banks before Tuesday's primary vote. ''But those three pieces of legislation, those aren't conservative, those aren't Republican, those are not the kind of leadership that we need as we go forward.''

Palin will be a more difficult target. It's funny that for all McCain's carping about Obama's supposed lack of experience, Palin really has none whatsoever. I mean, talk about a "readiness gap!" Of course, she had more judgment than McCain himself-- having praised Obama's energy plan. (She has now tried to scrub her praise for Obama's energy plan from her website, very 1984 creepy.) CNBC, which had been all gung ho on Willard was in shock. "This is utter madness, absolutely insane," said political analyst Greg Valliere, who then ran down McCain's age and all of his health problems. "This woman makes Dan Quayle look reasonable." When asked about Valliere's assessment, John Harwood responded, "[it's] basically a nightmare scenario for the Republican ticket." On the other hand, this will sure up McCain's recent slide in Alaska.

Does anyone know if the rumors about the Rubi Girls warming up the crowd for McCain at the Nutter Center are true? Supposedly Giuliani persuaded Jonathan to do a few numbers. Only in Dayton or on the whole Road to the Convention Tour?

McCain Prepares To Roll Out The Announcement Of His Running Mate-- As Though Anyone Could Care Less

Wolcott: A gay Metamucil ad

The only reason anyone remembers who Barry Goldwater's hapless running mate was is because his daughter, Stephanie, is a star morning host on liberal talk radio. It's highly unlikely that a decade from now anyone will know who ran with John McCain. But the brain trust behind McCain figured they'd hold down Obama's bounce and steal his thunder my making the announcement today. The drama is killing me. Not.

Supposedly at 11, he's doing a conference call with a sad array of true believers, the GOP's equivalent of the SS leadership-- the Grover Norquists, Pat Robertsons, Adam LaDucas, and Ken Blackwells. After that yawner... well, the name will leak out while the call is still in progress. Although the biggest Republican Party shill in the blogosphere is doing the Kaine/Obama routine with Tim Pawlenty, I can't believe McCain has the guts to go against what the Bush Regime and Rove are demanding: Willard. Yes, for once I agree with Utah reactionary Senator Bob Bennett, who's betting on his fellow cult member. He says the Kay Bailey Hutchison thing is off-base because women who feel strongly about Hillary "aren't inclined to vote Republican." You think? I'm sure McCain will enjoy reading this:

Sen. Bob Bennett predicts John McCain will choose former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate because he "fills all the holes in McCain's resume."

James Wolcott waxed poetic on the utter lack of excitement-- the sheer dullness-- wrapped up in McCain's selection. "No one," he writes, "being mentioned caused me the slightest worry. Even the long shots lacked dramatic coup value." The run-down:

Mitt Romney. An enamel figurine whose darty eyes betray anxiety whenever he's out of his depth, which is more often than not. He's already proven what a clay-feet campaigner he is, and if he couldn't fend off Mike Huckabee, how could he out-duel Joe Biden's shark grin?

Joe Lieberman. We saw what a lethargic, uninspired veep candidate he was in 2000 and he hasn't exactly picked up speed with age. His Joementum has pretty much come to a dead halt. Together on stage, he and McCain would look like a gay Metamucil ad.

Tom Ridge. A boring pundit's idea of a "solid pick," but even pundits don't want to be that bored.

Kay Bailey Hutchison. Boring beyond the call of duty, and not exactly a robust camera presence. Too moderate a persona to excite the jackal "base."

Meg Whitman. You can't mock Obama's thin political resume and then slot her on the ticket. Would she really be prepared to assume presidential duties were McCain to suffer a Fred Sanford setback? It would be a symbolic pick whose symbolism would wear off in 48 hours.

Carly Fiorina. Another CNBC CEO type with zero political flair. I don't recall her tenure at HP ending in a ticker tape parade and she's so dry and corporate in interviews that she makes Mitt Romney look like Alec Baldwin.

Tim Pawlenty. Who, what? Didn't he just barely squeak by in his last election in Minnesota? He seems to me the Republican counterpart to Mark Warner, one of those talked-about phenoms who light passes through at the first major exposure (Warner's keynote, what a snore). Yes, he would bring a youthful note to the ticket, but you can't fill a vacancy with a vacancy.

Eric Cantor. Even more of a nobody than Pawlenty and a nastier piece of work. Congressman and deputy minority whip, Cantor looks like the pricky proprietor of the Jerk Store; essentially an unregistered Israeli lobbyist with a domestic voting record to make Grover Norquist quiver with delight. Would make NRO's Corner happy but have everyone else running for the hills.

Now Fox "News" is trying to drum up some drama by pushing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the only Republican in her state not destined for a bribery trial. Anyone think they'll just cancel the whole thing?

You Think Obama Just Won The Presidency?

Earlier I mentioned how s pack of bloodthirsty Cossacks chased my grandfather out of his small village when he was eleven years old. He hid in a forest and then he left Russia and came to America. Watching Barack Obama take the stage tonight brought tears to my eyes and all I could think of was "can this man save us from a national nightmare that has brought our country closer to authoritarianism and absolutism that my grandfather fled from when he arrived in NYC penniless and alone at the age of twelve.

I want so much for him to rise to the challenge of the catastrophic mess we're being left. I want him so much to be Franklin Roosevelt. And what I heard tonight allows me to believe that that's more than just a hopeless dream.

I'll append the YouTube to this as soon as it's ready. Meanwhile, here are some of the lines that made everyone I talked to so far-- and apparently the MSNBC anchors-- that Obama just added 10 points to his bounce. It won't surprise me if the GOP decides to put its convention off so they can run a week of negative campaign ads smearing Obama before they dare face the American people.

1- This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news. 

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes. 
 
Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land-- enough!  This moment-- this election – is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: "Eight is enough." 

2- ...the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time.  Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time?  I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change. 

3-The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives-- on health care and education and the economy-- Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors-- the man who wrote his economic plan-- was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."
 
A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

4- Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement? 

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

5- For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy-- give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is– you're on your own. Out of work?  Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps-- even if you don't have boots. You're on your own. 
 
Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America.

6- Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

7- America, now is not the time for small plans.
 
Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance. I'll invest in early childhood education. I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American-- if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.
 
Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

8- And just as we keep our keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

9- We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans-- Democrats and Republicans-- have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

Meanwhile, Associated Press has decided to create its own "news" in the service of electing John McCain. They should be ashamed.

If you missed it, here's 45 minutes of history:

Al Gore Rocked The Stadium

Al Gore was excellent tonight. You can read his whole speech here. You should.

My favorite lines for anyone without the attention span it takes:

1- Eight years ago, some said there was not much difference between the nominees of the two major parties and it didn’t really matter who became President.

Our nation was enjoying peace and prosperity. Some assumed we would continue both no matter the outcome. But here we all are in 2008, and I doubt anyone would argue now that election didn't matter.

Take it from me, if it had ended differently, we would not be bogged down in Iraq, we would have pursued Bin Laden until we captured him.

We would not be facing a self-inflicted economic crisis, we would be fighting for middle income families.

We would not be showing contempt for the Constitution, we’d be protecting the rights of every American regardless of race, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation.

And we would not be denying the climate crisis, we'd be solving it.

2- ... John McCain, a man who has earned our respect on many levels, is now openly endorsing the policies of the Bush-Cheney White House and promising to actually continue them, the same policies all over again?

Hey, I believe in recycling, but that’s ridiculous.

3- With John McCain’s support, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have led our nation into one calamity after another because of their indifference to fact; their readiness to sacrifice the long-term to the short-term, subordinate the general good to the benefit of the few, and short-circuit the rule of law.

4- If you like the Bush/Cheney approach, John McCain's your man. If you want change, then vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

5- Barack Obama is telling us exactly what he will do: launch a bold new economic plan to restore America’s greatness. Fight for smarter government that trusts the market, but protects us against its excesses. Enact policies that are pro-choice, pro-education, and pro-family. Establish a foreign policy that is smart as well as strong. Provide health care for all and solutions for the climate crisis. 

6- Instead of letting lobbyists and polluters control our destiny, we need to invest in American innovation. Almost a hundred years ago, Thomas Edison said, “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”

7- ...the last eight years demonstrate that the special interests who have come to control the Republican Party are so powerful that serving them and serving the national well-being are now irreconcilable choices.

8- We can tell Republicans and Independents, as well as Democrats, why our nation needs a change from the approach of Bush, Cheney and McCain.

After they wrecked our economy, it is time for a change.

After they abandoned the search for the terrorists who attacked us and redeployed the troops to invade a nation that did not attack us, it’s time for a change.

After they abandoned the American principle first laid down by General George Washington when he prohibited the torture of captives because it would bring, in his words, “shame, disgrace and ruin” to our nation, it’s time for a change.

When as many as three Supreme Court justices could be appointed in the first term of the next president, and John McCain promises to appoint more Scalias and Thomases and end a woman’s right to choose, it’s time for a change.

You think the Republicans will have someone like Al Gore to speak for them? Hillary Clinton? Bill Clinton? Bush is looking for an excuse to not even attend the St. Paul HateFest. Tonight Barack Obama and the Democrats filled 75,000 seats in Mile High Stadium. McCain is begging people in Ohio to come to get a glimpse of his ticket; 10,000 seats and they'll be lucky to get 5,000.

My friend Danny, who first turned me onto The Ramones, long before they recorded their first album, thinks Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer gave a great speech and that Obama should have made him his running mate. Here it is:



Sandy Pearlman just called me from Ashland, Oregon to ask me to add his name to Danny's sentiments about Schweitzer.

Has Mitt Strapped Seamus, The Family Dog To The Roof Of His Car For the Drive Out To St. Paul?

Secret Service agents gave away the fact that Obama had picked Biden as a running mate. They just did it again... kinda. Willard's the one. But I'm not banking on Romney because of a search of his sister's bathroom for a listening device. I'm banking on the fact that Karl Rove is running the McCain camp for the powers behind the Bush Regime and that they decided on Romney months ago and have shoved him up McCain's ass. McCain instinctively hates Willard's guts-- the way any red-blooded American detests a spoiled, pampered empty suit-- but McCain is incapable of raising the kind of money he needs to run the kind of smear offensive against Obama he knows is his only shot at getting elected. Bush and Rove have told him-- in less and less ambiguous terms-- that unless he picks Romney, the money dries up. Even before Obama's speach tonight, the bounce has started becoming apparent. Today's Gallup poll shows him 6 points ahead, 48-42%, based on a 3-day moving average. Even McCain's sister-in-law, who presumably knows something about him, has announced she's voting for Obama. Kathleen Hensley Portalski, who lives in Phoenix, where McCain has several of his dozen or so homes, said, "I'm voting for Obama. I think his proposals to improve the country are more positive and I'm not a big war believer." McCain's nephew, Nathan, a 45-year-old aerospace machinist, is also voting for Obama. "I wouldn't vote for John McCain if he was a Democrat. I would not vote at all before I'd vote for him."

Presumably Nate and Katherine won't be celebrating tomorrow. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the publication of Gone With the Wind and the birth of John McCain in Panama. While Democrats plan to celebrate McCain's birthday in battleground states, McCain is hoping to steal a little thunder from the Democratic Convention by announcing-- unless he changes his mind again-- that it isn't just Democrats who can have an historic moment announcing the nomination of an African-American candidate but that the Republicans can announce... the first Mormon on a national ticket. Exciting? Well, sure-- if you like the idea of a job killing machine.

Right now the most exciting things anyone can expect at the St Paul HateFest look like Rove's lament that "the Republicans can't seem to get a break" regarding God hating them and sending hurricanes to foil them. (Katrina, which first exposed Bush and McCain as the heartless brutes most Americans never realized they were, was bad enough, but now Hurricane Gustav is headed their way-- so much so, though, that Bush is using it as an excuse to not even come to the ill-starred convention.) Oh, and the other is that while McCain is accepting his nomination, Jack Abramoff, virtually the only crooked Republican lobbyist not currently on his campaign staff-- he would be but he's in prison-- will be sentenced for the crimes McCain fought so hard to cover up. I sure hope MSNBC has a split screen!

Anyway, time to start counting how many houses Romney has. In fact, the newest of Mitt's several homes isn't far from a couple of McCain's southern California getaways. Romney may wake up in November and find he has a new congressman, Democrat Nick Leibham who is running against corrupt lobbyist/Bush rubber stamp Brian Bilbray. Nick looks forward to running against the billionaires club that the GOP represents. He told us today that "with more than a dozen homes between them, John McCain and Mitt Romney may know a little something about real estate, but their economic proposals would be a disaster for America." Amen to that!

And never forget, the Mittster's valient squeal, "Never surrender," when he decided to stop spending all his money on a presidential bid that never caught fire, and... surrendered:

Fun At The DNC

Transsexual escort Allanah Starr heading for St Paul

All my friends are at the Convention. Well... all my friends are in Denver; that would be a more accurate description. They keep telling me about how easy it is... meeting nice women (and not the kind that are flocking to St Paul). I'm sure the cash-rich Blue Dogs from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party are using their checks from AT&T and Big Oil to hire hookers but normal folks... well, they're just meetin'. Last night Letterman featured the top ten Democratic National Convention pickup lines.

10.Wanna form a more perfect union?
9. Something's rising and it's not the national debt
8. I'm stiffer than John Kerry
7. Let's go someplace and release our delegates
6. Care to join the wife and me for a little 'bipartisanship'?
5. I'll make you scream like Howard Dean
4. Now that's what I call a stimulus package
3. I 'm gonna Barack your world
2. Wanna pretend we're Republicans and have gay bathroom sex?
1. Hi, I'm John Edwards

Top Ten Extras

11. Play your cards right and I'll get you in to hear the speech by Illinois State Comptroller Dan Hynes
12. How'd you like to be on the cover of National Enquirer?
13. Has anyone ever said you look like a young Madeline Albright?
14. Where does a guy go to get Spitzer'd?
15. Wanna see a nude photo of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson?

Is Wasserman Schultz Changing Her Tune?

Darcy Burner and Annette Taddeo, Democratic netroots heroines

First Florida's corrupt mini-Party Boss, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, announced that although she is co-chair of the DCCC's flawed and distrusted Red to Blue program, she would continue supporting her right-wing Republican buddies in Miami-Dade, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart Brothers. She even dragged Kendrick Meek into her mess, persuading him to help her stab the 3 viable Democrats, Annette Taddeo, Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez, in the back. The reaction from grassroots and netroots Democrats was immediate... and scared the crap out of Wasserman Schultz. Meek, telling her she's on her own, publicly embraced all three Democrats, donated to their campaigns and has been helping them with their campaigns. Wasserman Schultz, under pressure from the DCCC and from Democratic activists, gave in on the Diaz-Balarts and endorsed Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez.

But in the most Democratic-leaning of the three Miami-Dade districts, DWS dug in. She declared she was sticking with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, even though Ros-Lehtinen is one of the most extremist opponents of women's choice in Congress-- no rape, no incest, no life of the mother; if your grandfather rapes you when you're 12 and you're going to die in childbirth, Ros-Lehtinen (and, by extension, her ally DWS) says grin and bear it and trust in God and a good time in Heaven.

Apparently Wasserman Schultz has taken a look at some of the recent polling in south Florida and has also seen the gigantic strides the Democratic Party registration drives have made there. Suddenly it's looking like Annette Taddeo, who Wasserman Schultz has kept off the lucrative Red to Blue list, is going to win her race with the help of grassroots activists, labor unions and Emily's List. While even Steny Hoyer's PAC has donated generously and enthusiastically to Taddeo, DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen is looking more and more like a doofus by the day. Has he and Hoyer and Meek tried to remind Wasserman Schultz she's a Democrat and no matter what kind of dubious financial arrangements she has with the corrupt Ros-Lehtinen, her job at the Red to Blue program mandates that she help elect Annette Taddeo, not protect a repulsive anti-family Bush rubber stamp? Maybe.

Although Wasserman Schultz succeeded in keeping Annette off the stage at the Denver convention when other challengers were spotlighted, she was unable to keep Annette's exuberance and energy from winning over Florida Democrats at the convention. I was shocked to see Wasserman Schultz finally take a baby step away from her unflinching support of Ros-Lehtinen today in the Miami Herald.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who earned the ire of the netroots for saying earlier this year she wouldn't get involved in the three South Florida congressional races, just gave the 3 candidates an enthusiastic go-get-em from the stage.

Rallying the faithful from the stage at the Florida delegation's breakfast, Wasserman Schultz proclaimed big wins for the Democrats. "Raul Martinez is going to beat Lincoln Diaz-Balart," she said to cheers. "Joe Garcia is going to beat Mario Diaz-Balart and Annette Taddeo is going to beat Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

"We have 66 days left," Wasserman Schultz said. "Let's work our butts off."

Yes, we do and yes we should. And we'll be watching how hard Wasserman-Schultz works on behalf of Democrats. If she doesn't, she's going to need all that right-wing Cuban money she normally hands out to other Democrats for herself in 2010. Or maybe she just enjoys the prospect of being the female version of Joe Lieberman.

Is John McCain Ready To Lead? Clearly Not-- Let's Look At Georgia

"I had just returned from Gori, which was still under the shadow of Russian occupation," wrote Wall Street Journal reporter Melik Kaylan dramatically this morning. Gori, Stalin's birthplace, has no Russian troops or checkpoints during the daytime. But there is the great big monstrous looming shadow of a voracious bear and if you hang around into the wee hours of the night... "if you stayed overnight after observers left, as I did with various locals, you could hear and glimpse the tanks in the dark growling back into town and roaming around. A serious curfew kicked in at sundown, and the streets turned instantly lethal, not least because the tanks allowed in marauding irregulars-- Cossacks, South Ossetians, Chechens and the like-- to do the looting in a town that the Russians had effectively emptied. Now that the Russians have made a big show of moving out in force-- but only to a point some miles to the other side of Gori toward South Ossetia-- they've left behind a resonating threat in the population's memory, a feeling they could return at any moment."

Yes, Cossacks! They chased my grandfather into a forest when he was a teenager and he hid in a tree before emigrating to America. Yesterday I introduced you to Svetlana, not Stalin's daughter, another Svetlana, a nurse who works for my doctor. She was trembling with outrage about the distortions in the America media about the conflict in the Caucasus. Svetlana places the blame for the flareup squarely on the shoulders of political hack and cynical opportunist John McCain (and well-paid Georgia lobbyist/McCain foreign policy czar and notorious Neocon Randy Scheunemann). When she referred to the deceitful and clueless American media, the Wall Street Journal is more in the deceitful camp than the clueless. They're on a mission: elect McCain.

The trope they're pushing: Saakashvili attacked first because he knew "the Russians had been planning an invasion of his country for weeks-- even months-- ahead of time" and because NATO didn't admit the little Neocon bastion. Oh... and how could a far right mouthpiece like the Journal not mention victory in Iraq? Scheunermann's paymaster-- and McCain's ally-- Saakashvili says "the invasion had to be done before the situation in Iraq got any better and freed up U.S. forces to act elsewhere-- a matter not simply of U.S. weakness but of increasing U.S. strength. 'If America thinks it is too weak to do anything about Georgia,' said Mr. Saakashvili, 'you should understand how the Russians see it, how much Moscow respects a strong United States-- or at least a U.S. that believes in its own strength.'" He must have forgotten to add: "Vote for John McCain."

Europeans are getting a less biased perspective on what's been going on with the nasty little war McCain incised so he would have something to talk about without mentioning that Obama is black. A couple of weeks ago we looked at a column in Britain's Guardian by Seamus Milne. Milne's column today, Georgia is the graveyard of America's unipolar world, is more disturbing-- and something American voters should focus in-- more than just Karl Rove's machinations in getting Willard named to the Republican ticket tomorrow... or whenever.

Milne writes about what McCain's self-serving Neocon publicity stunt has wrought:

If there were any doubt that the rules of the international game have changed for good, the events of the past few days should have dispelled it. On Monday, President Bush demanded that Russia's leaders reject their parliament's appeal to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Within 24 hours, Bush had his response: President Medvedev announced Russia's recognition of the two contested Georgian enclaves.

The Russian message was unmistakable: the outcome of the war triggered by Georgia's attack on South Ossetia on August 7 is non-negotiable-- and nothing the titans of the US empire do or say is going to reverse it.

...America's unipolar moment has passed - and the new world order heralded by Bush's father in the dying days of the Soviet Union in 1991 is no more. The days when one power was able to bestride the globe like a colossus, enforcing its will in every continent, challenged only by popular movements for national independence and isolated "rogue states," are now over. For nearly two decades, while Russia sunk into "catastroika" and China built an economic powerhouse, the US has exercised unprecedented and unaccountable global power, arrogating to itself and its allies the right to invade and occupy other countries, untroubled by international law or institutions, sucking ever more states into the orbit of its voracious military alliance.

Is John McCain ready to lead? Clearly, not-- not any more than George Bush was-- or will ever be. They walked hand-in-hand into the greatest foreign policy disaster of our time and McCain has learned... absolutely nothing. He is a captive or the worst elements of the Neocon forces that need to be excised from American politics as soon as possible.


UPDATE: CNN INTERVIEW PUTIN

The Moscow Times presaged what Putin told CNN about American neocons encouraging Georgia to attack South Ossetia and destabilize the Caucasus. Putin "accused the United States of orchestrating the military conflict in Georgia in order to boost the chances of a U.S. presidential candidate." You wonder which one? Hint: follow the money.

Tomorrow's NY Times also reported that Putin claimed the Republicans-- though not by name-- "needed a small victorious war." He's groping in the darkness; McCain doesn't care if it's a victory or not. He just wants trouble so he can try making the case that he's an old warrior who can protect us.

Chris Van Hollen Offers Change You Can't Believe In

Even Van Hollen gets it right sometimes-- Ashwin Madia (right)

DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) has a pretty progressive voting record that mirrors his pretty progressive Montgomery County congressional district. In the 2007-08 session he was the 77th most progressive member of the House (with a 96.73 score)-- no Donna Edwards (100 score), but way better than caucus members from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party like Nick Lampson (68.69), John Barrow (71.96), Chris Carney (79.65) or dozens and dozens of other so-called Democrats who have been as culpable as Republicans in supporting Bush's devastating policies and enabling the corporate agenda they get so well paid to support. But, like I said, Van Hollen's better than these guys.

In fact, Van Hollen abandoned his direct superiors, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel when they backed Bush on the wretched FISA bill that does such great damage to the basic tenets of the Constitution. Like most Democrats, Van Hollen voted no. He also voted no-- against Hoyer and Emanuel (two major war supporters)-- a few weeks ago when it came to continued no-strings-attached funding for the tragic and disastrous occupation of Iraq. Yeah, so Van Hollen's not a complete dickhead.

But he sure sounded like one on the radio this evening. Andrea Seabrook interviewed him for NPR and he's either more clueless than seems likely or he lied his ass off. His main point was to persuade listeners that for Barack Obama to be able to accomplish all the change he's promising, voters need to support the DCCC's candidates. Before we get into this year's batch of beauties, let's take a look at some of the candidates for change from 2006 who are now in Congress. Actually, before we even go that far back, let's take a little look at the candidates who were elected since the big DCCC push in 2006, the special election victors. There were four. One, a Van Hollen neighbor in Maryland, Donna Edwards, was not supported by the DCCC and, in fact, was very much opposed by them. There is not a single member of Congress who better personifies change than Donna Edwards. She defeated an old time corrupt hack who was serving the corporate interests that paid him off-- he has since disappeared into the bowels of K Street where he works passing out bribes as a lobbyist instead of getting them-- and already has the only perfect voting record in Congress. Look:



Instead the DCCC spent millions of dollars electing reactionary Democrats in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi, respectively Bill Foster, Don Cazayoux and Travis Childers. Each voted to continue the war in Iraq a few weeks ago; there's change you can believe in! The most reactionary of the 3 has been Childers. Looking only at the ProgressivePunch "Chips Are Down" scores, he claims a dismal 42.86. That's an awful lot of voting across the aisle with the Republicans on a pretty broad range of issues-- the 10th most of any so-called "Democrat" in Congress. And Cazayoux is the 14th worth-- with an equally horrendous 48.0 score. They make Bill Foster-- the 32nd most reactionary Democrat in Congress almost look like he might actually turn into a Democrat after intensive remedial work over the course of a decade or two.

Now in 2006, among the victors who, according to Van Hollen, are part of the change team, are freshmen Nick Lampson (TX- 28.91), Joe Donnelly (IN- 33.49), Brad Ellsworth (IN- 36.74), Jason Altmire (PA- 39.07), Heath Shuler (NC- 41.12), Chris Carney (PA- 42.52), Harry Mitchell (AZ- 47.20), Zach Space (OH- 47.89), Baron Hill (IN- 49.30), Tim Mahoney (FL- 50.70) and Gabrielle Giffords (AZ- 50.70). How does one interpret those scores. Well, they only represent tough substantive issues where there was a clear partisan divide. These freshmen voted with the Republicans more than with the Democrats. The only change they represented was one that gave Bush more Democratic support for his heinous agenda than he's ever had before.

But you can't really blame all this human detritus on Van Hollen. After all-- with the exception of Childers, Cazayoux and Foster-- these members were all part of the Rahm Emanuel/Steny Hoyer plan to keep the war in Iraq going. So let's look at the garbage Van Hollen is seeking to burden us with in 2008. When the DCCC asks you for a donation, some of that money will go to virulent anti-choice fanatics like Bobby Bright (AL), Paul Carmouche (LA), Don Cravins (LA), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA), to name the most notorious of the bunch.

Of course there are some excellent candidates-- some who have also been endorsed by Blue America-- but when the DCCC makes a choice between a grassroots progressive and a corporate shill, they almost always go for the corporate shill. Right now Van Hollen is working diligently to derail progressives like Steve Harrison in New York and Howard Shanker in Arizona. Yesterday their well-funded hack candidates Ethan Berkowitz (AK) and Suzanne Kosmas (FL) beat out genuine progressives. A few weeks ago Maryland conservative Frank Kratovil publicly admitted that if he's elected he will join the Blue Dogs, who are not just reactionaries but are also the most corrupt bunch of Democrats in Congress, swilling at the corporate troughs and voting against working families so they can support their special interest paymasters. These people are the polar opposite of change and they will work hard to prevent Obama from getting his program through Congress. And Van Hollen knows it.

Will Obama Get A Bounce Out Of This Convention?

John Amato told me there's a huge TV viewership. I notice it sounds great on radio when I'm driving around. A few days ago the National Journal polled a bunch of bloggers with the question "How big of a bounce-- if any-- will his convention give Obama?" This was before the really excellent speeches by Michelle Obama, Brian Schweitzer, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton-- let alone tomorrow's Obama speech. A plurality of bloggers-- me included-- picked 4-6 points. Now I'm thinking it could be even more, although sometimes I get in a darker mood and I agree with Chris Bowers that something's wrong-- I chalk it up to racism-- and there may be no bounce at all...

Here's how the normal bloggers pegged it:



And this is what the extreme right wing shills and GOP plants thought:



My friend Mike just watched Melissa Etheridge play at the Pepsi Center and he says she was incredible. But as for a bounce... he's worried. He-- like a lot of people I know-- says he'd "like to see the Democrats hit McCain harder. It seems they give him a pass on a lot cause he has white hair and was in prison."

I have a feeling that's because they want to appeal to independents, not the hard core activists. We'll see-- and in any case, next week's Republican HateFest in St. Paul should make the Democratic Convention sparkle in retrospect. The Republicans are seriously divided and their coalition is falling apart. A couple dozen members of Congress-- including big names like Senators Susan Collins, Gordon Smith, John Sununu, Pat Roberts, Ted Stevens, Chuck Hagel, Elizabeth Dole-- won't even show up and are praying their constituents don't remember that they're Republicans. Half the Michigan GOP members of Congress are "too busy" to come.

Charlie Dent Staffer, College Young Republican President Caught Inciting Racial Hatred

Yesterday, a young Democratic friend of mine from Pennsylvania was talking with me about his plans to run for Congress in a few years. Although he's currently working for the federal government in Washington, DC, his roots in his district are strong and deep. In fact, one of the biggest towns in the district, Kutztown, gets its name from his family. That town is also the home of a university and it is conceivable that my friend will one day be running for Congress against, Adam LaDuca the current fired president of that school's College Republicans (who is also the just fired Executive Director of the PA Federation of College Republicans).

The Pennsylvania Progressive has done yeoman's work in helping LaDuca get his Republican message out to everyone in Pennsylvania so that no one is in doubt as to what the College Republicans, both at Kutztown University and throughout the commonwealth, are all about. Let's take a look at some of this year's Facebook postings on the young Republican's site:

From Facebook:  Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 6:41pm
Obama and McCain, what a wonderful matchup for this November, right? Wrong. On the contrary, it features one man of honor and intellect, someone who doesn't care WHAT people think of him (that would be McCain) against a man with nothing more than a dumbass with a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would.)

4:25pm on August 1st, 2008
I'm sure his penis is bigger than mine too? Want to discredit the biological fact that blacks have larger lips than a white boy like me, might as well discredit all of them! :) See, now watch. You will say I am discussing such obscene things (blah blah blah)...it's all in humor

August 1st, 2008
Biologially speaking, the larger set of lips can be traced to a few different areas. First of all, it is to be noted that not ALL blacks have larger lips than whites (just like there are some white who actually have quite large lips.)

So here goes: one is that poorer Africans generally have been found to breastfeed. The placement of the lips on the mother's breast creates a larger lip that separates from the gum more clearly than a white's.

Another thought is that, since thick lips are a dominant phenotype to thin lips and that this genetic trait is found more often in blacks/African Americans.

A third still, is that lips are a type of air conditioning for the body. As warm air passes over the moist lips, the air is cooled before going into the lungs. This helps keep the body cool in general. People with ancestors who had come from warmer climates (such as Africa, Cuba, Central America, and the like) generally have larger lips.

I don't remember the source of number 2. I had learned that in a high school biology class. Number 3 I had read in a Western Kentucky Univ. biology lab.

11:42pm on August 1st, 2008
And man, if sayin someone has large lips is a racial slur, then we're ALL in trouble.

Friday, August 1, 2008 at 3:54pm
I made the comment in a prior note "Juuust the Two of Us..." that Obama had "lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami..."

I have had two people now get cranky at me for it, and while I will not flat out retract the story, let me explain this comment. First, a little history on lips and poking fun at people.

While supposedly seen as an insult, it is biologically, physically obvious that blacks/African Americans have lips, of which are larger than a white cracka's like mine.

How this is taken to be offensive, I would not know. Everyone makes fun of McCain for his age and point that he's as shiny as a queball. That would seem like age discrimination to me. Or what about George Bush's ears being so large he looks like Dumbo (and many times takes on the persona of the name itself.)

That is like saying "that man must be Jewish because of his schnoz." I have friends who are Jewish and poke fun all the time. Who cares? So ya have a big nose, it's who you are. And I wore blocks in my shoes when I was little because I had club feet.

Much like I poked fun at a fellow employee for HIS lips (because he was black.) The gal and guy (respectively) couldn't have cared less. Perhaps it's because we are friends and have a mutual understanding we're just bustin' eachother's chops.

6:23pm Monday, Jan 21
There's a lot that many don't see for MLK Jr's hypocrisy. This is why I listed him as a pariah, a fraud, on my facebook status. He supported affirmative action (which does NOT provide equality), he was an adulterous man (as opposed to his Rev. status!)...and the like...see the next few notes (including this one) for more ideas. He stood for a lot, but he also stood for very little.....

6:31pm Monday, Jan 21
MLK had some interesting ideas, but he promoted themin all the wrong ways, for all the wrong reasons, and while being perhaps one of the largest pariahs in American history.

And all of America has fallen for it. Just like those who believe Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will finally bring together the racial divide in the country. Last time I checked, the reason the racial divide exists is BECAUSE of these two men, the ACLU, and their followers. Just about all of America is not racist. And in human nature, we are all apt to be wary of things (and people) that are different. But to call it, at this point in time, racist, would be a gross misnomer. So if Al and Jesse, the ACLU, and their followers want to change HUMAN NATURE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL INCLINATION, they better look a lot farther ahead than raising millions of dollars for their own sick pleasure

Rather than go on with this-- although you can read more of the sexist, homophobic and racist Republican rantings at The Progressive Pennsylvania site-- I'd like the small handful of anti-Obama racists from West Palm Beach to take a look at what they're joining as they march firmly over to the McCain camp. (LaDuca, by the way, is the Kutztown University campaign coordinator for McCain's Pennsylvania campaign... big surprise. It's where racism lives.)


UPDATE: DENT DENIES ANY KNOWLEDGE OF LaDUCA

I called Sean Millan, Charlie Dent's campaign manager, and he categorically denies that Adam LaDuca is a paid staffer and says he's never heard of him. I can't get a comment out of anyone in Dent's DC office.


UPDATE TWO: WHERE DO YOUNG REPUBLICANS GET THIS SICK RACIST MINDSET?

Well... from old Republicans, their mentors and role models, of course. WorldNetDaily is a Republican Party propaganda operation and Craig Smith's feature, "The Hip-Hop President," is one of the most racist Republican tropes of the season.

I can see it now. Air Force One decked out with "22s" and spinners. Maybe even a set of hydraulics. Watching the hip-hop president in the Oval Office with his baseball cap on backward coping a gansta lean in the big chair. Should be really pimp, don't you think? Cool man, real cool. Instead of giving away presidential cuff links to guests, as is the custom, he will offer "bling bling."

I imagine a whole group of special advisers to the president sitting around the Oval Office discussing policy. Kanye West, 50 Cent and maybe even Eminem (to keep the diversity thing going), all sharing their life experiences with the prez to assist him in understanding his "peeps."

No more press conferences or State of the Union addresses will be necessary. He will text message any comments he has to his public and his pals in the media. When it comes time for the State of the Union, he can just post it on his blog and cc the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post. The first interactive, full-bandwidth prez. How 21st century.

After a few months on the job, he can refer to his cabinet members as his "bitches." Hey don't get angry at me. Take a listen to any hip-hop song, and that is the type of endearing language you will hear. A group of playas that have no respect for the country. The same country that affords them a lifestyle most people only dream of, and all they can do is endlessly complain about it. Barack is very good at putting America down. Just like his hipster homeboys. Remember that hip-hop is a culture, not a color. It's a mind set and a way of life – one that is chosen not inherited. It has been slowly infiltrating every class and race in America for years. A culture that has led people to believe they deserve more. That America somehow owes them something. And because they think they have been ripped off in some fashion, they are angry.

This morning the phone rang at 6:30 AM-- not 3 AM, but still...-- and it was George McElwee, Charlie Dent's chief of staff. He was reading DWT and wanted to let me know that, despite his claims, young Adam LaDuca, doesn't work for the campaign. "I've never heard of him," he claimed. There was no discussion of the racism, homophobia and sexism LaDuca, the Executive Director of the PA Federation of College Republicans, has spent the last year publicly propagating on a Republican website or why Republicans feel that virulent racism is a legitimate part of the political discourse. Maybe that's above his pay-grade and Lehigh Valley residents should ask Charlie Dent about it when they see him.

Will The Last Few Racists In The Democratic Party Go Join Their Brethren In The GOP Now?

Friday is McCain's birthday. He was born, in Panama, the same year Gone With The Wind was published-- when people were still getting over the psychological devastation of the Civil War. His family's military tradition goes back to their disloyalty to the United States in defense of slavery. Of course, the media will never discuss that, only made up stories about Obama being a Muslim. And they certainly do want to discuss the handful of spoiled, loud-mouthed Hillary-haters so angry about not getting their irrational way and so desperate for a "respectable" rationale to mask their ugly, vicious anti-Obama racism. If Hillary's brilliant speech last night didn't persuade them, nothing will-- just like nothing will persuade any racist bigots in the KKK to vote for him. Let the media go on and on if that's what they want to talk about. Democrats need to move on and celebrate that the party has lost a handful of sick old racists. We're stronger and better off without them. Racists belong in the GOP; it's their natural home.

A friend of mine, who is very much not a racist, just called. In her early 60's-- though she looks like she's 40-something-- she was the most dedicated Hillary supporter I know. She never wavered in her absolute devotion to Hillary (and to Bill). After Hillary lost the nomination battle she tuned out on the election, having decided to not vote in November. Today when she called it was because she was brimming over with enthusiasm first and foremost for Hillary's speech last night, but also for her discovery of Barack Obama. She certainly intends to vote in November-- and it isn't for 4 more years.

"I believe what she said last night. I'm voting for Barack." Apparently, so are all but a few psychopaths at the Convention. Like I said, the Democratic Party is no place for any self-respecting racist-- or even a self-loathing racist. This is the historic moment. Look in the mirror; look hard. If you're filled with hatred for colored people... McCain beckons. Go to him. You'll feel right at home.

Is John McCain Too Reckless To Lead?

Ron Paul supporters welcome the Hate Fest to St Paul

The theme of the St Paul HateFest seems to have shaped up into a two-tiered outreach:
1- Obama is not ready to lead
2- Obama is _______ (fill in anything a reactionary or bigot hates most)

The giveaway? The spate of vicious, false, negative, fear-mongering campaign ads, all approved by Karl Rove and his boy McCain. As McCain backers Lieberman and Miss Lindsey point out in today's Wall Street Journal, Obama's goal of world cooperation and peace are virtually the opposite of McCain's vision of global anxiety and war.

Yesterday I went to see the doctor for my annual physical. I'm deathly afraid of needles but the nurse who always draws my blood, Svetlana, I trust so thoroughly that I am never afraid. Remembering that Stalin's daughter is named Svetlana and that Stalin was from Georgia, I asked the nurse for her thoughts on the tense situation there. The normally mild-mannered, good-humored and witty intellectual let loose with a stream of invective that shocked me... and all directed at McCain and his Neocon lobbyist/advisor Randy Scheunemann. Svetlana doesn't read blogs but she was well aware that the Neocons goaded Saakashvili into taking rash action against South Ossetia to instill fear in Americans, who, they hoped would then turn to what the Republicans seem to think is a "proven" foreign policy expert. (Somehow being held captive in a North Vietnamese prison makes McCain, a bumbling idiot who has never gotten anything right regarding foreign policy, an "expert" in their minds.)

I didn't ask Svetlana if she's a citizen or not, so I don't know if her rage at McCain's cynical, self-serving and extremely dangerous interference in her old country would turn into another vote against him. But I did notice her frustration that the U.S. media-- particularly the cable Infotainment industry-- has completely distorted what is going on in the Caucasuses.

Ilan Goldenberg at Democracy Arsenal has come up with a good response for the Obama campaign to this Republican line:

John McCain. He was a cheerleader for George Bush and Dick Cheney's war in Iraq. He has said we should bomb Iran. He's willing to get into major escalations with China and Russia. He thought war with North Korea was inevitable. He even called Germany and France our "adversaries." Is that who we want leading our country? John McCain too reckless to lead.

Mississippi conservative Republican Senator Thad Cochran explained why he wouldn't vote for McCain during the GOP primaries. He said that "the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." Cochran has known McCain and worked with him for decades. Like many of his less outspoken colleagues, he knows how reckless McCain is and how unfit he is for the presidency.

And, although Cochran is far from alone among Republicans who fear that McCain has the wrong temperament to be president, and is a danger to America because of his rashness, more Republicans oppose him because of what they see as his shaky moorings on lifestyle issues. Today Robert Novak dragged himself from his deathbed to warn McCain about picking another irrational warmonger, Joe Lieberman, as his running mate. He says Lieberman is McCain's first choice. The only thing stopping him is the veto power the religious right has over GOP politics, especially over anything the thoroughly distrusted McCain wants to do.

Reports of strong support within John McCain's presidential campaign for Independent Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman as the Republican candidate for vice president are not a fairy tale. Influential McCain backers, plus McCain himself, would pick the pro-choice liberal from Connecticut if they thought they could get away with it.

...McCain's top strategists argue that the Bush coalition that won the last two presidential elections is dead and must be replaced by a new one that extends to the left, as Lieberman would. Bush strategists disagree, asserting that McCain is getting around 90 percent of the old Bush vote and can win the election with a few moderates added in.

They claim 90% support from the Bush coalition but that is very optimistic, pie-in-the-sky thinking. Unless he picks Mike Huckabee or another figure the evangelicals are enthusiastic about-- Mitt not being The One-- he'll be lucky to be claiming 80% of the Bush coalition in two weeks.

A group of Michigan social conservatives who support former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee threatened Thursday to abandon Republican nominee John McCain, upset that McCain's vice presidential choice may not reflect their anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage positions.

The uproar came after a pair of meetings Wednesday-- while McCain was campaigning here-- in which his campaign hoped to strengthen its support with religious conservatives. Huckabee supporters said they were especially upset at word that, at a meeting in Birmingham between McCain and a small group of conservative activists, a top McCain ally had floated the possibility he'd pick a running mate who is for abortion rights.

"We are totally done with McCain at this point," said Debra Mantey, one of the organizers of the other meeting, in Saginaw. She said she and many others in the group will refuse to help McCain's campaign unless Huckabee is on the ballot, or given the keynote address at the GOP convention.

One has to wonder if Debra Mantey (or even Phyllis Schafly) will be all over the media next week the way that flaming asshole Sacha Millstone, the irrational Clinton delegate from Boulder, was this week. Somehow, I doubt it. And even if McCain, who seems hell bent on picking almost anyone but Huckabee as his running mate, manages to set things straight with the Huckabee folks, what about the Ron Paul contingent? Who do you think Ron Paul, who is pointedly not being invited to speak at the Republican Hate Fest, is aiming this ad at? It will run on a hundred televisions every 8 minutes throughout the Mall of America during the Republican Convention down the road. And that's not a few dozen post-menopausal, spoiled and self-entitled old yentas whining about not getting their way.

Good News For Scott Kleeb (D-NE) And Jeff Merkley (D-OR)

Scott Kleeb-- with Darcy Burner and Charlie Brown behind him

Early yesterday someone told me that former Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns, who served as Bush's Agriculture Secretary, was finally so embarrassed by the bribe money he had taken from Alaska's crooked (and indicted) Senator Ted Stevens, that he felt compelled to return all the money from Stevens' Northern Lights PAC, a Republican Party money laundering operation that took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribery from corporations and then distributed it to incumbents and challengers. Johanns was one of the last recipients to agree to disgorge his share.

Then yesterday he announced-- again, only more loudly than the last time he announced it-- that he won't be going to the Republican Convention in St Paul. He's vying with progressive Democrat Scott Kleeb for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Senator Chuck Hagel. Yesterday announced that he's made plans to be out of the country when his party tries for four more years of shame and destruction. Neighboring Kansas' Senator Pat Roberts, who's in a tight re-election battle, is also not all that eager to identify with a political party detested by most Americans and he won't be at the convention either. In fact, quite a few Republican senators hoping to be re-elected are staying away: Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), Ted Stevens (R-AK), whether he's in prison or not, Susan Collins (R-ME), Roger Wicker (R-MS), John Sununu (R-NH)... Then there's Larry Craig (R-ID), who has been asked to stay away since he was arrested in a St Paul men's room trying to fellate a handsome young police officer.

But the funniest Republican sad sack of them all is Gordon Smith. A few days ago he ran his second TV ad trying to glom on to Barack Obama and make believe he wasn't part of the catastrophic Republican agenda for the past 12 years. But he was and all he's managed to do is get Republicans angry and make everyone else laugh at him. He resigned as McCain's Oregon campaign chairman and he's refused to campaign with the right-wing extremists running for Congress on the GOP line. Today he released his third and most pathetic ad yet. I wonder what McCain thinks of this guy who said he wouldn't go to the Republican Convention, wouldn't work to elect McCain and is now giving free TV time to Obama! Watch this clown... and imagine what you would think if you were a Republican:

Alaska Primary Results: Don Young Race Too Close To Call

Good riddance-- now or in November?

Yesterday was primary day in Alaska. The biggest surprise was the narrowness of the Republican race between soon-to-be-indicted incumbent Don Young, thought by many to be the single most corrupt member of the U.S. House, and Lt. Governor Sean Parnell. With 429 of 438 precincts reporting the Anchorage Daily News shows Young ahead by a handful of votes.

Don Young... 42,461 (45%)
Sean Parnell... 42,316 (45%)
Gabrielle Ledoux... 8,589 (9%)

Most of the precincts that hadn't reported election results as of midnight were from rural Alaska villages. Those are "typical Young strongholds," Anderson said. But Parnell wasn't convinced Young was going to clean up in the Bush, especially given many rural residents might choose to vote in Tuesday's Democratic primary instead of Republican contest.

There are also the 16,000 absentee ballots the division of elections mailed out. It has received back 7,600 of them and Gail Fenumiai, director of the state division of elections, said she didn't know how many of those have been counted. As long as the absentee ballots were postmarked Tuesday, the division will continue to count them for the next 10 days. Questioned ballots will be counted on Sept. 5.

...Parnell was helped by the fact that Young, Alaska's lone member of the U.S. House since 1973, spent more than a million dollars of his campaign contributions on legal fees. Young refuses to say exactly what his legal fees have been paying for, but the congressman is connected to several federal investigations. They include the wide-ranging federal probe into corruption in Alaska politics, which has focused on the fundraising practices of Veco Corp.

Although Parnell, supported by the far right extremist group, Club for Growth, would be a weak candidate in November, Democrats are hoping Young will win the primary because it would be impossible for him to win the general election in November because of the mounting corruption scandal. Independent voters play a huge role in Alaska electoral politics and Young is dead meat to them.

On the Democratic side, progressive Diane Benson was swamped by institutional and Establishment money that flooded in for Rahm Emanuel crony Ethan Berkowitz. He took 53% of the vote, having reported raising (as of June 30th) $628,605 to Benson's $194,327.

On the Senate side, indicted incumbent Ted Stevens won his race against David Cuddy with a whopping 63% of the vote, showing the world exactly what Alaska Republicans are. Stevens will face Blue America-endorsed Mark Begich in November, who took 84% in his primary. Democrats were celebrating Stevens' primary win, who will be facing the voters just a few weeks after his criminal trial.


UPDATE: ALASKA HOUSE RACE STILL TOO CLOSE TO CALL

Don Young's race still too close to call at 1pm, PT. The remaining precincts are in Native American-majority areas and they are both remote and traditionally pro-Young. Meanwhile watch Ted Stevens celebrate his primary win last night. Like McCain, he's an angry old man... a very angry old man.

Has Romney Lost His Marbles Entirely? Or Is He Just Trying To Prove He'll Say Anything If McCain Makes Him The Running Mate?

Willard: "She works hard for the money"

So Willard's in Denver trying to stir up trouble and get the corporate media to focus on him instead of the Convention. Yesterday he came up with a real doozy: he not only made the preposterous claim that McCain earned the dozen or so homes he owns, but that Obama didn't "earn" the house he and his family live in. Of course in the rarefied world of a vulture capitalist, English is never the kind of English ordinary folks speak, so who knows what Romney is talking about?

Speaking to reporters at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, Romney said that while McCain deserved his houses because of the "hard work" of himself and his family, "Barack Obama got a special deal from a convicted felon."

"I think it was a strange thing for Barack Obama to seize upon," Romney said. "If homes is going to be the topic of discussion that Barack Obama is going to end up on the short end of that one."

But Romney's attack stretches the truth. He was referring to Tony Rezko, a political fixer in Chicago and former Obama fund-raiser who was convicted by a federal jury earlier this year on corruption charges. It's true that Obama bought a piece of land from Rezko's wife to expand the yard of his $1.65 million Chicago home while Rezko was under federal investigation; Obama has since said the deal was a "bone-headed move," given the cloud that was already surrounding his former patron.

There is no evidence, however, that the Obamas got any "special deal" engineered by Rezko. Obama was able to buy the place thanks to two best-selling books and the six-figure salaries he and his wife were both earning.

The only felon involved in buying anyone anything here was McCain's mobster father-in-law, whose Mafia-connected businesses made him the millions of illicit dollars McCain married into. Those dollars bought him his first election; he's sleazy contacts (like Charlie Keating who admits he bribed McCain) and, of course, all the houses.

Best News Of The Day: Alan Grayson Crushes Reactionary Hacks In Orlando

Today Florida had its congressional primaries and with about 93% of the vote counted it's looking like Donna Edwards may soon have a strong progressive with a reform-minded agenda working with her in Congress. (Oh, there's still the general election in November... but Keller barely managed to hold onto his party's nomination against Todd Long who's getting 47% of the Republican vote.) AP has called the race for Grayson but says it's too close to call on the GOP side. (UPDATE: Keller was finally declared the winner late last night. But he is now seen a really damaged goods.)

Alan Grayson... 48.4%
Charlie Stuart... 27.5%
Mike Smith... 17.3%
Quoc Ba Van... 3.7%
Alexander Fry... 3.1%

Which ad do you think will be most effective in the general election?



or this?



And, think about donating to Alan's general election fund at our Blue America ActBlue page so he can keep running the ads. This is what red-to-blue is really about, not some more Inside the Beltway Stalinism.

The Grayson campaign paid for weeks of the above TV spots and Orlando's Democratic voters overwhelmingly backed him. Yesterday, according to The Hill Rep. Dennis Kucinich tried saying something similar at the Convention and it was editted out of his speech:

"They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20."

Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- Corrupt, Bitter, Increasingly Alone And Filled With Venom

Kendrick remembers he's a Democrat and leaves DWS on her own with the Republican extremists

This morning DavidNYC at Swing State Project revisited Debbie Wasserman Schultz' determined campaign to undermine and sabotage the efforts of Miami-Dade Democrats to replace reactionary Republican extremist-- and Wasserman Schultz crony-- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, with one of the most outstanding Democratic challengers running in this election cycle, Annette Taddeo, someone the corrupt Wasserman Schultz fears could stand in her way when she seeks higher office.

When Wasserman Schultz, co-chair of the DCCC's less and less credible "Red to Blue" program, first announced her intention to work against the election of the 3 Democrats running against her right-wing buddies-- Ros-Lehtinen plus the Diaz-Balart Brothers-- in South Florida, she suckered and bribed a more respectable south Florida Democrat, Kendrick Meek, into her scheme. Since then, pressure from the Democratic Party and from the grassroots has forced Wasserman Schultz to distance herself from the unspeakable Diaz-Balarts-- she has now allowed their opponents, Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez, into the Red to Blue program and has even given token donations to their campaigns from her PAC-- and she has been abandoned in her indefensible position by Meek who has endorsed all three candidates and donated to each as well.

In leaving Wasserman Schultz to steam in her own bile, Meek throws in with former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham, who sent an e-mail to every Democrat in FL-18 telling them that he's "confident that Annette Taddeo represents exactly the kind of change that our country needs" and calling her "a tough, independent-minded Democrat who will fight for the American dream. She’ll also stand up for American values, like health care for children of working families." He pointed out that Wasserman Schultz' Republican candidate, Ros-Lehtinen "voted five times against expanding KidCare in Florida. That’s five votes that Ros-Lehtinen cast with President Bush-- and against expanding health care for children, even though Florida is last in the country for children with health care coverage, and there are 250,000 uninsured children in South Florida alone." One can only hope Wasserman Schultz got one of Gov. Graham's e-mails as well. If she hasn't, you can let her know what he and other Florida Democrats think by calling her office at 202-741-7154 or 202-225-7931 and telling her to come back to the Democratic Party-- or at least resign from the DCCC Red to Blue program. 

If Wasserman Schultz backs away from her support of the extreme right (and extremely corrupt-- like DWS herself-- Ros-Lehtinen, she will be getting on board with Emily's List, United Teachers Dade, the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, International Union of Painters and Allied Tradesman, Ironworkers Political Action League, Communications Workers of Americans, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Democracy for America, the two biggest netroots PACs (Blue America and Orange to Blue), as well as Democratic congressmembers who may be a little skeptical about DWS and his motives, nemesis Charlie Rangel and a growing posse of congressional Democrats sick to their stomachs over her corruption and worried that she will drag the Democratic Party down the same path that Tom DeLay dragged the GOP. Besides Meek and Senator Russ Feingold, solid progressives like Lucille Roybal-Allard, Xavier Becerra and close Pelosi ally Hilda Solis have endorsed Annette Taddeo and contributed to her campaign. Shamefully, most members of Congress will not contribute to Democrats who haven't been endorsed by the Red to Blue program and Wasserman Schultz plans to keep Annette off that until it is too late to make a difference-- the same way she managed to keep her off the stage at the Democratic National Convention today. Wasserman Schultz is on the verge of a nervous breakdown over her pigheaded unwillingness to back away from her support of Ros-Lehtinen.

Are The Political Conventions Relevant?

Although I would actually love to hear firebrand congresswoman Linda Sanchez speak-- and Alejandro Escovedo sing-- at the convention today, I think I could survive passing up a pack of hacks like Chris Van Hollen, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Bennie Thompson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Ed Rendell, and most of all corrupt corporate shills Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer when they take the stage and make the Democrats seem just as unpalatable as the Republicans they so thoroughly resemble in so many, many ways. Most Americans wouldn't know one of these self-aggrandizing bozos from any other well-compensated corporate employee. A far more compelling picture would be to show the looks in Emanuel's and Hoyer's faces were Lady Guillotine to be rolled onto the stage.

Most Americans are paying no attention whatsoever to this costly shill-fest. And why should they? Today's NY Times reported that home prices in June were off by another 17%, a clear indication of the worst annual results ever. "But the Republicans did it," you say? OK, fair enough... the Republican Party ideological mania for unrestricted "free" markets-- i.e.- for the rich and powerful to plunder the rest of us while paying off the politicians-- has sent them on a largely successful jihad against federal regulatory agencies that were put in place by real Democrats to protect workers and consumers. Today's Emanuel-Hoyer version are more exclusively interested in protecting their own career paths and care almost as little about consumers and worker protection as your garden variety voracious Republican.

Blue Dogs and other Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party worked hand-in-glove with Bush and the GOP to dismantle the federal regulatory agencies that protect society from the excesses of corporate avarice. The feeding frenzy that followed the loosening of regulations that governed banking and real estate-- greased by hundreds of millions of dollars in political bribes, not just to the Tom DeLays and John Boehners and Mitch McConnells, but to the Blue Dogs, Hoyers and Emanuels as well-- is at the root of why American's mistrust of Washington is turning to actual hatred. I doubt most Americans are prepared to watch Lady Guillotine in action yet... but give it time.

Yesterday the execrable Larry Kudlow, spokesperson for the Greed and Selfishness wing of The Republican Party, blamed the steep drop in the Dow on the Democratic Convention. No one who knows anything about GOP tactics-- or about a wretch like Kudlow-- would expect him to examine the systemic weakness of a rigged market system that is leading the nation into the worst economy since the early 1930s, the last time a played-out, greed-obsessed Republican Party was lucky enough to have so complacent, pathetic and cooperative a Democratic Party to push around. And then came Franklin D. Roosevelt? Will Barack Obama live up? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, there is much work to be done to make the legislative branch more responsive to ordinary Americans-- no matter what Obama turns out to be like.

The difficulty in excising metastasized cancers like Emanuel and Hoyer from the body politic is next to insurmountable. It's why Emanuel nearly had a hemorrhage when I went up to him in a bar to talk about his ally Al Wynn's primary defeat a few weeks prior. One of the only reasonable things progressives can do is to participate vigorously in primaries and defeat the corporate shills from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party before they are elected to Congress. Today Orlando voters will decide between progressive champion Alan Grayson and two sad-sack establishment rubber stamps, while in Alaska Emanuel is pushing a corporate-friendly puppet, Ethan Berkowitz against independent minded progressive Diane Benson.

On September 2nd, in Arizona's gigantic first CD, Emanuel-Hoyer-Van Hollen and the rest of them make an all out effort to shove another hopelessly ineffectual hack, Ann Kirkpatrick, down the throats of low-info voters, many of whom have probably never even heard that there is actually a real Democrat in the race, Howard Shanker. Yesterday Democrats.com made a ringing endorsement of Steve Harrison for the Staten Island congressional seat. Harrison is running against someone who combines the very worst one could ever hope to never find in a Democrat-- he's both a corporate shill and a reactionary hack. Needless to say the Democratic Establishment is firmly on the side of the corporate shill and a reactionary hack, Michael McMahon. If he gets into Congress he will just be another metastasizing cancer. The same day Staten Island Democrats choose between Harrison and McMahon, western New York voters also have a real Democrat, Jon Powers, and a free-spending freakshow from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, Jack Davis, to choose between-- unless Davis winds up in jail before the primary:

Media Spending More Time On GOP Tactics To Disrupt The Democratic Convention Than On The Convention Itself

Karl Rove, who is running the McCain campaign's messaging operation through Steve Schmidt, seems to be the only voice in America badmouthing Michelle Obama's speech last night at the convention. And, of course, the GOP's official propaganda network, Fox, was happy to have him on tearing her down. Unlike Rove and Fox, David Gergen isn't part of the McCain campaign. He thought Michelle rescued the night.

The Democrats should be enormously grateful to Michelle Obama: after a very slow start to the convention, punctuated by a moving tribute to Teddy Kennedy and his own rousing speech, the first evening was in danger of becoming an entirely lost opportunity. But Michelle rescued it.

She was extraordinary, talking in ways that were both conversational-- always welcome in people's living room-- but also inspiring. She spoke in ways that reached out to people of all backgrounds. Democrats should be both proud and grateful.

It is impossible to know whether how many people will accept her message. To a significant degree, that is of course because she represents such a departure from the traditional order of things in America. She represents a new future-- of women who are not only devoted mothers and wives but also highly educated, caring people … and, yes, African-Americans, Hispanics, and people of many different backgrounds. One day the country will be there. Is it prepared to be there now? I'm frankly not sure. We are living through one of the most important chapters in the American story.

With the help of the media, the message of the convention and Obama's campaign is getting lost in a constant barrage of McCain flack, much of it in the form of concern trolling over Hillary Clinton.

Whether they knew it or not, the PUMAs who had congregated next to the MSNBC stage were making the night of the man who has done everything in his power to destroy their purported heroine. They held aloft Clinton signs and hand-markered cards reading “Stop Delegate Intimidation!” and “South Jersey PUMA.” At one point, three women and three men holding “McCain” signs started a melodic chorus of “Clintons for McCain, sweetie, Clintons for McCain, sweetie,” in reference to Barack Obama’s bad habit of referring to women by that diminutive. Next to them, a man in an Obama hat shouted, “You’re all irrelevant! Jesus!”

But irrelevant is not how the protesters will be portrayed by a media that has been salivating over the possible disruption of the Democratic convention-- by angry, broom-riding succubi!-- for weeks. Never mind that there were probably no more than 50 shouting PUMAs. Never mind that every national political convention in modern history becomes a locus for vocal agitators. Never mind that over the weekend, antiwar protests had been larger. Never mind that in three days in Denver I had not spotted a single PUMA or Hillary protester until I found where Chris Matthews was broadcasting. Never mind the guy in the toilet outfit. To hear Matthews, and the talking heads at CNN tell it, these demonstrators were “ground zero” in a rift that could potentially destroy the Democratic Party and ruin its national convention.

Instead of letting Karl Rove and Fox News and Republican hacks who hate everything Hillary Clinton has ever stood for, set the agenda for sincere Hillary backers (not counting the racists who just hate Black people and will never vote for Obama no matter what), listen to what Hillary herself has to say:

Did You Get Into The Big AT&T Blue Dog Bash In Denver To Celebrate Retroactive Immunity For Telecom Executives?

Although one Blue Dog, Pennsylvania's anti-choice, homophobic reactionary Neocon, Chris Carney, says he won't be going to the historic Democratic Convention in Denver that will be nominating Barack Obama-- a man whose policies Carney will spend the rest of his wretched political life fighting-- many other Blue Dogs have indeed shown up in Denver. Sunday night progressive bloggers, Jane Hamsher, John Amato, Glenn Greenwald and Matt Stoller tried to infiltrate the huge bash AT&T threw for Blue Dogs who had taken their bribes and helped Bush push through retroactive immunity for criminal executives from AT&T and other telecom companies who had illegally spied on American citizens. Glenn has a description and video of the bloggers being stonewalled and harassed by the reactionary forces within the Democratic Party and their paid muscle.

Amazingly, not a single one of the 25-30 people we tried to interview would speak to us about who they were, how they got invited, what the party's purpose was, why they were attending, etc. One attendee said he was with an "energy company," and the other confessed she was affiliated with a "trade association," but that was the full extent of their willingness to describe themselves or this event. It was as though they knew they're part of a filthy and deeply corrupt process and were ashamed of -- or at least eager to conceal -- their involvement in it. After just a few minutes, the private security teams demanded that we leave, and when we refused and continued to stand in front trying to interview the reticent attendees, the Denver Police forced us to move further and further away until finally we were unable to approach any more of the arriving guests.

It was really the perfect symbol for how the Beltway political system functions-- those who dictate the nation's laws (the largest corporations and their lobbyists) cavorting in total secrecy with those who are elected to write those laws (members of Congress), while completely prohibiting the public from having any access to and knowledge of-- let alone involvement in-- what they are doing. And all of this was arranged by the corporation-- AT&T-- that is paying for a substantial part of the Democratic National Convention with millions upon millions of dollars, which just received an extraordinary gift of retroactive amnesty from the Congress controlled by that party, whose logo is splattered throughout the city wherever the DNC logo appears-- virtually attached to it-- all taking place next to the stadium where the Democratic presidential nominee, claiming he will cleanse the Beltway of corporate and lobbying influences, will accept the nomination on Thursday night.

AT&T has also given more money to federal elected officials than any other single company in America, $39,502,961 since 1990, most of it to Republicans. So far this year they have "donated" $3,084,061, 59% of it to Republicans. Mostly of the money went to PACs.

Obviously the #1 recipient of AT&T bribes this year has been McCain, but leaving presidential candidates out of this, the biggest targets of their "generosity" in Congress were that fount of corruption, Democratic Party boss Rahm Emanuel (D-IL- $48,950) and "Mr. Retroactive Immunity," Jay Rockefeller (D-WV- $22,000). But right up there with some of the most odious far right Republican stooges, like Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL- $11,000) and Michael McCaul (R-TX- $10,500) were the Blue Dog scum and fellow travelers who joined the GOP to pass the FISA bill giving immunity from prosecution to the AT&T executives:

Brad Ellsworth (D-IN- $15,000)
Joe Baca (D-CA- $10,000)
Marion Berry (D- AR- $10,000)
Leonard Boswell (D-IA- $10,000)
Lincoln Davis (D-TN- $10,000)
Joe Donnelly (D-IN- $10,000)
Jim Matheson (D-UT- $10,000)
Dennis Moore (D-KS- $10,000)
Zach Space (D-OH- $10,000)
John Tanner (D-TN- $10,000)
Baron Hill (D-IN- $9,750)
Mike Ross (D-AR- $9,250)
Melissa Bean (D-IL- $9,000)
Allen Boyd (D-FL- $9,000)
Charlie Melancon (D-LA- $9,000)
David Scott (D-GA- $9,000)
Heath Shuler (D-NC- $8,450)
John Barrow (D-GA- $8,000)
Artur Davis (D-AL- $8,000)
Jim Cooper (D-TN- $7,500)
Dan Boren (D-OK- $6,500)
Dennis Cardoza (D-CA- $6,000)
Jim Costa (D-CA- $6,000)
Chet Edwards (D-TX- $5,000)
Dan Lipinksi (D-IL- $5,000)
Edolphus Towns (D-NY- $5,000)
Nick Lampson (D-TX- $4,500)
Adam Schiff (D-CA- $3,000)

AT&T was also able to funnel money to Blue Dogs through the Blue Dog PAC which then laundered it out to individual Blue Dogs in $10,000 increments through PACs belonging to members like Melissa Bean, Allen Boyd, Adam Schiff, Marion Berry, Jane Harman, Leonard Boswell, John Tanner, Mike Ross, Earl Pomeroy, David Scott, Dennis Cardoza, etc.

Our blogger colleagues were unable to ascertain which Blue Dogs were availing themselves of AT&T's hospitality (which included a performance by Scottish singer KT Tunstall) in Denver before they were chased away from the entrance. This morning I couldn't get a single congressional office of a single Blue Dog to admit that he or she attended the AT&T Blue Dog celebration in Denver but I did hear from an authoritative source that Allen Boyd, Melissa Bean and John Tanner were at the event. Nor was I able to ascertain whether or not Carney-- who's entire re-election campaign is an outreach to Republicans-- will be in St Paul for the Republican convention.

Since Jane, John, Matt and Glenn missed the party, this is for them-- and for any DWT readers in Denver who didn't get into the AT&T Blue Dog bash Sunday night:

Extremist Tim Walberg (R-MI) Circling The Drain?

Go right ahead and make up your own caption

There are 16 Republican extremists who have zero scores on the ProgressivePunch scale that measures the tough substantive votes in Congress. There are all people who would abandon the GOP in a second if the Nazi Party, or any other similar fascist entity, was viable. Nine are unreconstructed Confederates and the rest, from Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Barbara Cubin (R-WY) to Dan Burton (R-IN) and Steve King (R-IA) mostly suffer from various mental afflictions. One half a baby step up the evolutionary ladder-- members who have voted like humans, out of hundreds and hundreds of votes, one time-- are 19 more lunatic fringe wingnuts. Just over half are another lot of unreconstructed Confederates, from North Carolina GOP closet queen Patrick McHenry to the odious John Kline (R-MN) and the recently dumped (in a primary) David Davis (R-TN). But the kook we want to look at today, after some excellent news, is one of the most detestable of all Republican freshman, neo-fascist Tim Walberg, who represents a moderate district in south-central Michigan from battle Creek to the suburbs around Ann Arbor.

Blue America has endorsed state Senator Mark Schauer of Battle Creek in this race so we were doubled excited to read in today's Detroit News that, according to the newest poll, he has caught up to Walberg. What makes this doubly dismal for Walberg is that he has been unable to keep up with the popular grassroots Schauer in the fundraising department and he has been up on TV with ads for 3 weeks. In the quarter ending on June 30, Schauer out-raised the incumbent for the fourth straight filing period, something that is extremely rare under the current fundraising system which completely favors incumbents. Most of Walberg's money comes from far right fringe organizations and PAC but he has also gotten a tremendous amount of cash infusion from the industries whose special interests he's always happy to support, no matter how at odds those interests are with ordinary Michigan working families. Walberg, for examples, wholeheartedly supports the kinds of anti-regulatory agenda that has precipitated the mortgage crisis, while taking $59,045 from the real estate industry, $40,850 from the Investment industry, and $19,450 from commercial banks. But what is probably damaging him most of all is a clear voting record of kissing up to Big Oil-- allowing them to drive up gasoline and heating oil prices-- while scarfing up $21,950 from Big Oil & Gas. Here he is making up some kind of crazy claim that we're buying oil from the Chinese who are stealing it by drilling under Florida from Cuba, some kind of urban legend that Republican Senator Mel Martinez said Walberg has all wrong on. He also wants to allow his contributors at Big Oil to drill in Lake Michigan.

Walberg is so worried that he is joining half the Michigan congressional delegation in avoiding the GOP HateFest in St Paul. Reps. Joe Knollenberg, Dave Camp, Candice Miller and Thaddeus McCotter already announced they're staying away from the McCain disaster and Walberg is planning to go for 2 cocktail parties filled with corporate donors to beg for money before scurrying back to Michigan. He was shocked yesterday when fellow Republican ex-legislator, Paul DeWeese, endorsed Schauer.

“The people of Mid-Michigan are ready for change, and Mark Schauer is exactly the kind of leader we need right now to make this state more competitive, The 7th district deserves a Congressman who will fight to fix our broken health care system, and Mark is the best man for the job.”

An emergency room physician, DeWeese is painfully aware how devastating the reactionary, anti-family health care policies Walberg is always pushing have been on Michigan families. He's so disgusted that he actually resigned from the Republican Party.

The first time I spoke with DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen, he predicted that 2008 was going to be a banner for Democrats in Michigan. I think he had electing Mark Schauer uppermost in his mind. You can donate to Mark's campaign at the Blue America ActBlue page.

Walberg is also delusional.

McCain Decides To Compete In The Celebrity Arena-- Gets The Nod From Daddy Yankee And Half of Big & Rich (The Gay Bashing Half, Of Course)

"Can you sing 'Dancing Queen?'"

Today John McCain, apparently thinking he was about to get another $1,394,033 check from Big Oil and Gas, accepted the endorsement from "Gasolina" singer Ramon Ayala (p.k.a.- Daddy Yankee). McCain, an Abba fan, has also been endorsed by half of country duo, Big & Rich, John Rich, whose previous political foray was a vicious homophobic tirade coupled with an endorsement of McCain's then-rival, the hapless Fred Thompson. He's now recorded a catchy ditty called "Raisin' McCain," which tries helping McCain further exploit his POW experience in Hanoi-- one thing McCain doesn't need any help doing. In fact, right after accepting his endorsement from Daddy Yankee, McCain flew off to Hollywood for his 900th celebrity appearance on Jay Leno's show. There he again shamelessly played the "I was a prisoner of war" card to try to garner sympathy and take the spotlight off another in an embarrassing series of bumbling gaffes:

Leno: "For a million dollars, how many houses do you have?"

McCain: "Could I just mention to you, Jay, that, at a moment of seriousness. I spent five-and-a-half years in a prison cell. I didn't have a house. I didn't have a kitchen table. I didn't have a table. I didn't have a chair."

He then went on the sing to praises of the millionaire mobster and jailbird, his father-in-law, who's bootlegging business and Mafia connections bought McCain every single one of the 13 houses he owns.

Now Daddy Yankee, who isn't eligible to vote in presidential elections, is no Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, Nas, or John Legend, all outspoken Obama supporters. But the endorsement certainly got some of the crazier extremists in the crumbling GOP coalition hopping mad. God only knows what Dobson and Company think of Daddy Yankee's family-unfriendly, sexually suggestive act-- and "Gasolina" is not about "drill here now," (unless you mean drilling in a... colloquial sense). But extreme right, out-of-kilter GOP blogger Michelle Malkin was howling at the moon when she saw McCain and Daddy Yankee together.

Can someone, anyone, in the McCain camp stop him from self-immolation? Can the open-borders GOP establishment drive a bigger wedge between the conservative base and the GOP ticket?

Last week, it was the RNC ad touting McCain’s shamnesty superiority over Obama. Today, it’s McCain goofily, stupidly, standing with Puerto Rican singer Daddy Yankee for the all-important reggaeton vote while teenagers squealed. Celeb-u-pocrisy, anyone? The singer, whose real name is Ramon Ayala, singled out McCain’s sponsorship of the shamnesty bill as the reason for his endorsement:

“He’s been a fighter for the Hispanic community and I know that, me personally, I’m choosing the best candidate, because he’s been a fighter for the immigration issues,” Ayala said. “So, for me, he’s the best guy to lead this nation.”

Desperately seeking a coolness boost, McCain lapped it up: “I just wanna say thank you, Daddy Yankee,” McCain said.

Anatomy Of A Deceptive Election Ad: Meet Republican Rubber Stamp Gordon Smith

A few days ago when we looked at Chris Shays' deceitful TV ad attempting to tie himself to Barack Obama's popularity in Connecticut, we also noted how Shays' had taken a cue from Oregon rubber stamp Gordon Smith who had already done a similar TV ad and subsequently quit as McCain's Oregon campaign chairman. Rasmussen's most recent August polling shows Obama beating McCain by 10 points.

Smith is desperate to do eveything he can to appear to distance himself from the Republican Party and from the party's radical right agenda. He's keeping away from the GOP HateFest in St Paul, hoping Oregon voters will forget he's part of the much-loathed Republican Party. But he still refuses-- as does Shays-- to give back the thousands and thousands of dollars he has received from reactionary swiftboat financier, one of the earth's worst polluters and most corrupt men, billionaire Harold Simmons of Dallas. Simmons will give whatever it takes to keep Smith in office-- even as he spends millions on smearing Barack Obama, the same way he did in 2004 to John Kerry. But forget for a moment that Harold Simmons has been buying Gordon Smith's votes for years and let's just look at Smith's voting record on Iraq, the subject of his new ad (below).

Smith wants Oregon voters to know he doesn't support Bush and the radical Neocon agenda on Iraq. Yet he still claims to support McCain for president, whose entire rason d'etre for being in the race is to fulfill that agenda and stay the course. McCain says Smith is still part of his "kitchen cabinet" and in the past-- before he saw the polling on how much Oregionians disagree with McCain's ideas about continuing the occupation of Iraq, he said. "President Bush has set our country on the course of recovery at home and strength abroad. We are safer today because this president has had the backbone to follow terrorism where terrorists are and go after them, and they have failed to strike us again on our own shores since 9-11… President Bush represents economic recovery and American leadership."

When we asked Jeff Merkley, the progressive, anti-war Democrat who's taking Smith on this year, why Smith was trying to portray himself as a moderate and independent and make believe he opposed the war, he had an interesting perspective: "Smith had a responsibility to investigate the Iraq threat and failed. Then he criticized people like me who opposed the war from the beginning. Smith says he read a book in July of 2006 that made him change his mind about the war. But after changing his mind Smith did nothing about it. Imagine, a U.S. Senator decided the Iraq war was wrong and did nothing about it for seven months. Not until six of his Republican colleagues lost reelection in 2006 did Smith decide to speak out and, even then, refused to take a tough stance to bring our sons and daughters home. America needs leaders who believe in what they fight for and will fight for what they believe in. Some times that is politically inconvenient, but that is what real leadership is all about."

That's why Blue America has been so enthusiastic in its endorsement of Jeff. Please consider donating what you can to his campaign at the Blue America ActBlue page.

Smith has participated in 49 roll call votes regarding Iraq since he enthusiastically supported the Bsh-Cheney position of the use of force 6 times on October 10 and 11, 2002. He was a 100% war hawk at the time. He claims he's changed. Has he? Well, he rubber stamped every single Bush-Cheney initiative in Iraq (19 roll calls) until he finally found something non-binding and innocuous to oppose in June, 2004. And then it was back to the good ole Smith rubber stamp shuffle for another year when another innocuous procedural vote came up that he could safely "support"-- along with even far right Republican kooks and warmongers like George Allen (R-VA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Ted Stevens (R-AK), Norm Coleman (R-MN), John Sununu (R-NH), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)... even his pal McCain... so not exactly a profile in courage. For the rest of 2005, all of 2006 and the beginning of 2007, when he started remembering he would soon have to face Oregon voters again, he never wavered from his rubber stamp support for the Bush Cheney Iraq agenda-- he was 100% in the bag. In March, 2007 there was a non-binding resolution and some assbackwards Neocon joke that he voted with the Democrats on, neirther being anything more than symbolic. And then the opinion polls of Oregon voters started coming in and Smith noticed his job approval rating was predicting a defeat in 2008. (October, 2007 and May, 2008) At that point he started flip flopping around, voting with Bush-Cheney-McCain and the radical right on some issues and against Bush-Cheney-McCain on other issues. Still, when the tough, hardcore votes come up-- the ones that would actually end the war, like Russ Feingold's amendment to redeploy U.S. forces in September, 2007, Smith's "no" vote cancelled out Wyden's "yes" vote. And on July 9, 2008, Smith lined up with the right-wing of his party to oppose Arlen Spector (R-PA) who offered an amendment to the FISA bill that would not have permitted retroactive immunity for criminal telecom executives (many of whom had "donated" to Smith's career), again cancelling out Wyden's vote. It might be worth noting that when you discount senators running for president , Gordon Smith was the 6th biggest recipient of "donations" from those telecom giants he voted to grant retroactive immunity. If that isn't out and out bribery, I don't know what is. They've lavished $169,710 on him in his political career.) Anyway, watch his deceptive ad and then think about it... does a senator who rubber stamps Bush for 5 years, then changes his positions a little after seeing some polls showing voters are angry merit re-eelection?

Leaked GOP Convention Memo-- Maude, Pack My Dancing Shoes

Our pals at Brave New Films got a leaked copy of Day one of the GOP Convention. I'm very disappointed that Sammy Hagar isn't playing. I'm boycotting-- unless the rumors are true that McCain himself has squeezed Daddy Yankee onto the bill. Not enough of the closet case agenda is represented either; three damn events-- and two are in restrooms!

7:00 pm – Ceremonial burning of the U.S. Constitution
7:15 pm – Spiritual Medium Sylvia Browne performs psychic séance in desperate attempt to raise Ronald Reagan from the grave
7:35 pm – "The Pleasures of Adultery" - with Newt Gingrich & Rudy Giuliani
8:05 pm – Gay sex party in Men's Restroom hosted by Senator Larry Craig
8:35 pm - Transvestite Ann Coulter – "My Life as a Man"
8:55 pm – Live satellite feed from Federal Prison – Ohio Rep. Bob Ney Mr. GOP, Jack Abramoff
9:05 pm – Guest speaker ex-Florida Congressman Mark Foley "Joys with Young Boys"
9:25 pm – Oliver North – "Iran is Evil, but I sold them weapons anyway"
9:40 pm – Bill O' Reilly – "The costs of sexual harassment and phone sex with employees"
10:00 pm – Gay sex party in Men's Room hosted by Ken Mehlman and Geraldo Rivera
10:25 pm – Check John McCain to see if he's still breathing and if his adult diaper needs changing.
10:35 pm – N.R.A. President hosts an assault riffle target practice on Gays and Mexicans.
10:45 pm - Call emergency squad after a drunken Dick Cheney accidentally shoots his friend in the face.
11:00 pm – President Bush performs his hilarious comedy routine where he looks for Iraq's fictitious WMD's under guests tables.
11:15 pm – Governor Mike Huckabee does his famous uncanny imitation of Gomer Pyle.
11:20 pm – Group intervention to get Rush Limbaugh back into drug rehab
11: 45 pm – Go up on rooftop and throw rocks down at homeless Vets sleeping in alley.
12:00 am – Live satellite feed from Federal Prison – California Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham
12:20 am – Convicted felon/Fox News analyst G. Gordon Liddy – Lock picking secrets
12: 40 am – Guest speakers Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz – "How to lie your Country into a War"
1:00 am – Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay – "Tips on Money Laundering"
1:15 am – Hookers arrive for after party

Rove Lures Sad Yentas And Fressers To McCain With Laughable PUMA Operations

A few months ago a friend of mine IM-ed me breathlessly. I had to hear a new band he had discovered; they're amazing and I could do a YouTube and people would love them. He's right; they are amazing. The band was Nirvana. At least he hadn't just discovered the Doors or Benny Goodman; that may come soon though. We all have a friend like this guy-- let's call him "Eve"-- who has the latest and most exciting news, but usually way after it's peaked, if not been used to wrap fish bones. Needless to say he's also Mr. PUMA, rushing me all their incredible newsletters (straight from Karl Rove's office).

While insisting that his Hillary "fanatic"/woman's rights advocate mom is voting for McCain but isn't a racist, the proof being that she donates to the colored people and helps them-- yes, I swear he says this with a straight face-- his is one of the South Florida families to whom the McCain PUMA strategy was geared. And it worked! Granted, there aren't that many people who make up their minds about American politics based on some weird combination of ugly personal racism and the essential question: "Is it good for the Likud?" Still, Florida is a state that has been known to sway elections based solely on problems arising out of seriously deficient intelligence quotients in the voters.

The StrangeDeathOfLiberalAmerica is written by a man whose father, grandfather and aunt came to America to escape death sentences. His grandfather was one of the most prominent German politicians of the last century. His unequivocal hate for Adolf Hitler earned him a death sentence. After the war, he returned to become mayor of Hamburg, rebuilding one of the WW II's most devastated cities. His family taught him that we must constantly defend democracy and the idea of the level playing field that sustains it.

To any Democrat or political reporter, the Hillary Trojans have all the earmarks of a Karl Rove effort. As the master practitioner of wedge politics, Rove may have found his ultimate wedge in the disgruntled supporters of Hillary Clinton. The more Rove can convince these people that the Democratic National Committee is an evil empire that robbed them, the more he can channel their anger to the Presidential candidacy of John McCain.

The problem with this convenient theory is that Rove and the GOP are far too clever to let themselves be traced to the Hillary Trojans any more than they could be traced to the Swift Boaters or the infamous Brooks Brother Riot of the 2000 campaign. When the histories of this era are written by another generation, the speculation will only continue to grow. Rove, of course, all but encourages this because like the cat burglar who never gets caught it only increases his reputation.

The fact that the Hillary Trojans seem to have a decentralized structure–the Al Qaeda of American politics–the harder it becomes to track down who is bankrolling them and masterminding their efforts. With 527 groups at least you can see who contributed, but with blog sites and political spam the detective work becomes harder. Prosecuting spammers has proven as difficult as catching sand with a sieve.

He goes on to profile the sorry gaggle of Hillary dupes and Rovians who have found themselves a bunch of suckers in Florida. The founder of PUMA, Jane Murphy, claiming to be an abused Hillary fan, happened to have been a McCain campaign donor years before Hillary ever mentioned running for president. One of PUMA's sister groups, Clintons4McCain.com was registered by the Republican National Committee on May 15 and the man who registered it, Michael Zimmerman of Scottsdale, Arizona maxed out to the McCain campaign on March 1, 2007. The "official" founder is Peter Boykin is a low grade hustler and pornographer, who appears to be a paid GOP operative whose job is to trick naive and sad Democrats like my friend and his family, many of whom are desperate to find reasons to vote against Obama without having to admit that they are terminal racists. One of Boykin's many other Republican-front sites, like Don'tVoteObama gives them just what they're looking for. There are dozens of sites, dozens of groups and dozens of kooks running around screeching about Hillary. One would think no one would fall for this who wasn't really, really stupid or seriously damaged from too many drugs over too long a period of time. One would be correct.

But if you still think that the PUMA sites and the other GOP ruses have more to do with Bill and Hill instead of with Rove and McCranky, let Kevin K put your mind to rest with the full story behind a Republican propaganda tactic that works on people who have been out in the sun without a hat for too many years... or who watch Fox News.



I know I'd never get to hear my friend and his family sing "Das Lied der Deutschen" or even the Confederate anthem or a Toby Keith song. I just want to see them all yelling "4 more years" as they march off to the polls in November. They may not do that but I bet they get all wrapped up in a conspiracy theory about how Obama stole Hill's and Bill's brains and got them to endorse him and his foreign, radical ideas and to campaign against their good buddy McCain. So pay attention to Rove and a bunch of GOP shills... or remember when you were young and idealistic and knew you hated racism and everything else the right-wing stands for, and listen to Hillary who you claim to admire so very, very, very much:

Chris Carney Boasts That He's Anti-Choice And Always Has Been

When I left my job at Warner Bros, there were several things I was especially happy about. One was the prospect of never having to go to another convention again. We had two a year-- one for our U.S. companies and one for our international companies. They were even fun, more fun than the Democratic Conventions. But I always hated having to go to them anyway-- and that was as a president of the company! So you can imagine how I responded to the prospect of going as a blogger to the DNC in Denver. I shuddered at the thought and never wavered in my decision-- until this morning. This morning I sent a note to my Blue America partners, Jane, Digby and John, as well as to Glenn. They're all in Denver.

I asked them to give Chris Carney (PA), who's presumably there too, a message from me. Turns out Carney didn't just lie to us about being a homophobe, he lied about being pro-Choice as well. Carney has turned out to be the most disappointing of all the class of 2006. Others have worse-- more reactionary-- voting records (although only slightly), but Carney has broken explicit promises he made to Blue America. Everyone knows the story about how he said he promised he would support Hate Crimes legislation that he then voted against-- one of only a tiny handful of far right Democrats to do so. But now it turns out he claims he was "always" pro-choice. That isn't what he told me when I interviewed him.

I read this today: Carney’s campaign insists its candidate is as pro-life as he claims to be.

“Carney does not favor abortion, he has been adamant about that since his first campaign,” said Rebecca Gale, a Carney campaign spokeswoman. Gale noted that Carney did favor access to education and family planning.

As he did in 2006, Carney, a member of the conservative Blue Dog Democratic coalition in the House, is aggressively reaching out to Republican voters. In June, he unveiled a list of “Republicans for Carney,” and last month Carney kicked off his television advertising campaign with a spot featuring Carney discussing his independence from his party.

His district’s coal country, which includes the Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Northumberland counties, is home to its fair share of conservative and values-minded Democratic voters. Carney’s campaign slogan plays to that constituency: “Experience. Honor. Integrity.”

“Chris is a conservative Democrat,” said Carney campaign manager Vince Rongione.

I asked Jane, Digby, John and Glenn to keep an eye out for him and to ask him to explain the difference between what he told Blue America in 2006 about protecting women's right to choice and what he's saying today in his quest for right-wing Republican votes. I assume he means that 2 year term he's had as "experience" but what's with the "honor" and "integrity" part if he lied about core beliefs to get an endorsement and a few thousand dollars? This is a man with no honor and no integrity. He brings shame to the Democratic Party.



The inevitable argument from Carney apologists is that PA-10 is a hopelessly "red district" and Carney is the best that can be expected. As someone who lived in an adjacent district (PA-11), I disagree. There is, after all, something called "leadership" that often trumps the idea of pandering to inbred bigotry and ignorance. Is it too much to look for political leaders who show an ounce of leadership?

In 2006 not a single Democrat was defeated. In November Carney may be the only "Democrat" defeated-- but if he is beaten by the reactionary Republican, I'll celebrate because Carney isn't a Democrat at all, but a malignant growth inside a sick caucus that would be far better off without him pulling it rightward every day.

McSame?

It's Monday... and it's the first day of the Democratic National Convention. How about a nice cheery tune to start the day?



Krugman wants to see more blood in the water and, given what Obama is up against-- Rove is definitely running the McCain operation even if a step removed-- he's probably right.

[I]n the world we actually live in, pro-corporate, inequality-increasing Republicans argue that you should vote for them because they’re regular guys you’d like to have a beer with, while Democrats who want to raise taxes on top earners, expand health care and raise the minimum wage are snooty elitists.

And in that world, stripping away the regular-guy facade-- pointing out that everything Rush Limbaugh said about Mr. Kerry applies equally to Mr. McCain, that Mr. McCain lives in a material world few Americans can imagine-- is only fair. Yes, Mr. Obama vacations in Hawaii-- and Cindy McCain says that “In Arizona, the only way to get around the state is by small private plane.”

The squealing from the usual suspects demonstrates how much the Obama counterattack has the G.O.P. worried. Back in 2004 Fox News described John Kerry as “one of the haves” with a “billionaire wife”; now it asks whether raising the issue of Mr. McCain’s houses is “bashing the American dream.”

And the McCain campaign, after initially mumbling something about how Mr. Obama eats arugula, quickly resorted to its all-purpose answer: you can’t criticize the candidate because he’s a former P.O.W. Maybe the campaign hopes that the Obama people will fall into a reflexive cringe, the same way they did when Wesley Clark made the entirely reasonable point that having been a P.O.W., while it makes you a hero, doesn’t necessarily qualify you to become president.

Assuming that the Obama campaign isn’t scared off by the P.O.W. thing, can it really win in an exchange of character attacks? Probably not-- but it doesn’t have to.

The central fact of this year’s election is that voters are fed up with Republican rule. The only way Mr. McCain can win the presidential race is if it becomes a contest of personalities rather than parties-- and if his campaign can instill in voters the perception that Mr. Obama is a suspicious character while Mr. McCain is a fine, upstanding gentleman.

The Obama campaign, on the other hand, doesn’t need to convince voters either that he’s the awesomest candidate ever or that Mr. McCain is a villain. All it has to do is tarnish Mr. McCain’s image enough so that voters see this as a race between a Democrat and a Republican. And that’s a race the Democrat will easily win.

John McCain's Ideas Of A Role Model And The American Dream

When McCain first ran for the House, he won for two reasons: his father-in-law's great wealth and connections and his ability to exploit his POW status. McCain's father-in-law and his friends-- many of whom were criminals (as we will examine below)-- and not just the white collar kind, like Charles Keating who has bragged about bribing McCain. (McCain got far more from Keating than any of the other Keating 5. "Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates. In addition, McCain's wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family, and their baby-sitter had made nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard Keating's jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.")

When McCain was challenged in his first race for being a carpetbagger and not living in the district, he viciously turned the tables on the Republican state legislator who had pointed it out by bringing up how he had been living at the Hanoi Hilton. It worked; even his opponent cried when he heard it! And he's never stopped milking it. In his 2002 book Worth the Fighting For, the ghost writer quotes McCain admitting: "Thanks to my prisoner of war experience, I had, as they say in politics, a good first story to sell." He's still selling it and hoping it will take him all the way to the White House.

I rarely pay any attention to Maureen Dowd but in yesterday's NY Times she told a story the media has been complicit in covering up: how McCain constantly manipulates audiences with his POW tales. McCain's "brutal hiatus in the Hanoi Hilton," she writes, "is one of the most stirring narratives ever told on the presidential trail-- a trail full of heroic war stories."

So it’s hard to believe that John McCain is now in danger of exceeding his credit limit on the equivalent of an American Express black card. His campaign is cheapening his greatest strength-- and making a mockery of his already dubious claim that he’s reticent to talk about his P.O.W. experience-- by flashing the P.O.W. card to rebut any criticism, no matter how unrelated. The captivity is already amply displayed in posters and TV advertisements.

The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, the pastor who married Jenna Bush and who is part of a new Christian-based political action committee supporting Obama, recently criticized the joke McCain made at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally encouraging Cindy to enter the topless Miss Buffalo Chip contest. The McCain spokesman Brian Rogers brought out the bottomless excuse, responding with asperity that McCain’s character had been “tested and forged in ways few can fathom.”

When the Obama crowd was miffed to learn that McCain was in a motorcade rather than in a “cone of silence” while Obama was being questioned by Rick Warren, Nicolle Wallace of the McCain camp retorted, “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.”

When Obama chaffed McCain for forgetting how many houses he owns, Rogers huffed, “This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years-- in prison.”

As Sam Stein notes in the Huffington Post: “The senator has even brought his military record into discussion of his music tastes. Explaining that his favorite song was ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba, he offered that his knowledge of music ‘stopped evolving when his plane intercepted a surface-to-air missile.’ ‘Dancing Queen,’ however, was produced in 1975, eight years after McCain’s plane was shot down.”

As for the crooked father-in-law, McCain tried using his military service to clobber his enemies yesterday too. When a reporter started straying into a place McCain doesn't like-- that, through marriage, he is a multi-millionaire and completely out of touch with the lives of everyday Americans, he got very defensive:

I am grateful for the fact that I have a wonderful life. I spent some years without a kitchen table, without a chair, and I know what it's like to be blessed by the opportunities of this great nation. Cindy's father, who barely finished high school, went off and distinguished himself in World War II in a B-17 and came back with practically nothing and realized the American dream, and I am proud and grateful for that, and I think he is a role model to many young Americans who serve in the military and come back and succeed.

“So the fact is that we have homes, and I'm grateful for it... I'll continue to say I am blessed and very proud that Jim Hensley, a war hero, a man who barely graduated from high school, was able to pass on to his daughter what he struggled for and saved for. That's the ambition that all of us have for our children and grandchildren. If someone wants to disparage that, they are free to do that."

Like McCain himself, Hensley was a crook and a cheat-- a role model? Maybe for gangsters and other Republicans who think the rules are for suckers. Phoenix's New Times put the myth about Hensley being a legitimate businessman to bed many years ago. The New Times story was more an investigation into why McCain gets more contributions from the liquor industry than anyone else in the Senate-- this year they've coughed up $384,110 for their boy and they've given him $644,630 since he was first elected-- but they went into the family history as well, and how Hensley started down the road to so many homes for his daughter as a gangster and bootlegger.

Until McCain dumped his first wife for Cindy he had never earned more than a respectable $45,000 a year. Now he claims a networth of $36 million, although Cindy's is several hundred million. The story "examines the roots of the Hensley fortune and John McCain's implacable bond to the liquor industry -- how it has enriched him personally and as a politician, and how those ties have dictated his actions on questions of public policy... The Hensley saga, meanwhile, swirls with bygone accounts of illicit booze, gambling, horse racing, deceit and crime. James Hensley embarked on his road to riches as a bootlegger... [A] 1948 federal criminal indictment charged, the Hensleys made approximately 1,284 false entries related to the sale of thousands of cases of liquor by their two companies-- United Sales Company in Phoenix and United Distributors in Tucson."

McCain's father-in-law was convicted on seven counts of filing false liquor records and on much more serious federal conspiracy charge. Hensley refused to testify and was sentenced to 6 months in prison. Strings were pulled and he didn't serve much time, even though he lost his appeal. Henlsey, the one McCain calls a role model, was a henchman for a bigtime mobster who had a reporter murdered and also took out a hit on then Arizona Attorney General Bruce Babbitt. It's amazing that national journalists cover this story up so thoroughly even though the car Hensley's boss had blown to bits (with the journalist inside) is on display in DC at the Newseum.


UPDATE: ON McCAIN'S QUALIFICATIONS

No one said it better than Roger Ailes.

The McCain campaign keeps emphasizing that McCain was a prisoner in Vietnam, as proof of his qualification for the Presidency.

Well, so was Gary Glitter, and I'm not voting for him either.

Has Madonna Got McCain Pegged Right?

Before I got my first job at Warner Bros. I did a punk rock radio show at KUSF. Madonna was the most successful musical artist of the day and, obviously, our station didn't play her music. (The closest we got were cover versions of smash hits by alternative artists like BiGod 20 and John Wesley Harding.) But I went even further than not playing her; I had a station promo made bragging that my show was the one place on the dial where the listener could be safe from ever hearing any of her wretched music. Take that!

So my first job at Warner Bros was as general manager of Sire Records and, although I liked thinking of it as the label of The Ramones, Talking Heads, Pretenders, Depeche Mode, Smiths and Ministry... Madonna paid the bills-- all of them. My boss tried luring me to a show she was doing at Madison Square Garden. I resisted. He said he'd give me a hundred dollar bill if I came; it was the early 80s and that was a lot of money back then-- months of gasoline, not a week's worth.

The show was fun enough. I always love the energy when people are all focused on having a good time and this was a party crowd. Afterwards my boss forced me to go backstage and meet her. I didn't want to. When we got backstage she was giving an AIDS treatment organization a check for the entire box office. It was private and unheralded; no press, no announcements. I cried all night-- and not because my boss never gave me the hundred bucks.

I wasn't surprised when a friend of mine sent me a story about her treatment of John McCain at the kickoff of her new tour this weekend in Wales.

As Madonna kicked off her international "Sticky and Sweet" tour Saturday night, she took a none-too subtle swipe at the presumptive Republican nominee for U.S. president.

Amid a four-act show at Cardiff's packed Millennium Stadium, a video interlude carried images of destruction, global warming, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Zimbabwe's authoritarian President Robert Mugabe-- and U.S. Sen. John McCain. Another sequence, shown later, pictured slain Beatle John Lennon, followed by climate activist Al Gore, Mahatma Gandhi and finally McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama.

But the friend who sent it to me was giggling... "They compared McCain to the Nazis... lol."

He was giggling because he finds that far-fetched. That's because he's ignorant of history and politics, having never finished high school. He uses his supposed Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder as an excuse for all of his shortcomings and failings, much the way McCain uses his time as a prisoner of war. When you explain to him that rightist politics inevitably leads to fascism he is incapable of imagining that Nazism is anything other than hatred of Jews. Probably all of the yentas and fressers are.

Neither my politics nor my motivations are identical with Madonna's but when she juxtaposes McCain and Hitler, it isn't unfounded. Will McCain put Jews in gas chambers? No, I doubt that's something he'd get behind-- their era's scapegoats are probably someone else. But Hitler's authoritarianism, his melding of corporate and government functions and his use of war for social cohesion and political gain... now we're talking.




UPDATE: McCAIN CAMP CALLS MADONNA "DISAPPOINTING AND VULGER"-- HE'LL STICK WITH VICIOUS GAY BASHER JOHN RICH

When one of McCain's handlers woke him up and told him what Madonna was up to, he said he was relieved that at least Baby Jesus hadn't denounced him too. The handler brought him some warm milk and tucked him in and went out to the press to say that "It's a disappointing and vulgar attack on John McCain, who has devoted his life to the cause of freedom and the fight against tyranny. But, it's not surprising that Barack Obama and his fellow celebrities stick together." What about singin' homophobe John Rich and reggaeton singer Daddy Yankee? The McCain camp doesn't see them as "celebrities," just as wealthy entreprenuers and "success stories," like McCain's gangster father-in-law whose Mafia business paid for McCain's dozen or so homes.

Not All Republicans Are As Enamoured Of McCain As Ron Fournier Is-- Hagel, Lugar And Specter Sing Biden's Praises

The lobbyists and Rovians running the Double Talk Express are trying to keep everyone on message in preparation for the expected firestorm when McCain announces the inevitable, namely that empty suit Mitt Romney, a man he can barely stand being in the same room with, will be his running mate. The message (courtesy of McCain shill Ron Fournier): Obama's choice of Biden is an indication that Obama would make a bad president. Can't wait to hear what Fournier and the rest of the magpie brigade have to say about Mitt on Friday.

I can't imagine McCain and the lobbyists are too happy about what they're hearing from veteran Republican senators who have worked with Joe Biden for years and years. No doubt the comment that rankles McCain most comes from Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel-- an actual Vietnam War hero, not some loser who got shot down bombing civilians from 20,000 feet and then spent the rest of his miserable life trying to capitalize on his imprisonment. "Joe Biden is the right partner for Barack Obama," said Hagel. "His many years of distinguished service to America, his seasoned judgment and his vast experience in foreign policy and national security will match up well with the unique challenges of the 21st Century. An Obama-Biden ticket is a very impressive and strong team. Biden's selection is good news for Obama and America."

Now, don't expect similar reasonable words from the right-wing extremists like Cornyn (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), McConnell (R-KY), Wicker (R-MS), or McCain's Mini-Me (R-SC) and the others who have been as consistently rubber stamping Bush's economic and foreign policies like McCain. However, two other high ranking Republicans with a great deal of credibility have also issued statements of praise for Obama's selection of Biden. Dick Lugar (R-IN) put out a press release: "I congratulate Senator Barack Obama on his selection of my friend, Senator Joe Biden, to be his vice-presidential running mate. I have enjoyed for many years the opportunity to work with Joe Biden to bring strong bipartisan support to United States foreign policy." Arlen Specter (R-PA), who serves on the Judiciary Committee with Biden and often rides Amtrak with him to Washington, was also "off message," at least from a Double Talk Express POV: "No one on the Democratic side knows more about foreign policy than Sen. Biden. He's been an articulate spokesman on the subject. He also knows about domestic policy. He's been a leader on crime control."

And although he's no Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller in terms of controversy, another very respected Republican will be speaking at the Democratic National Convention on Monday evening: Jim Leach, a moderate Republican ex-congressman from Iowa. Currently a professor at Princeton and the interim director of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Leach served in Congress for 30 years. He was chairman of the Banking and Financial Services Committee and was widely respected on both sides of the aisle as a man with deep convictions, although he has always been reviled by the far right extremists who have turned the Republican Party into a kind of Taliban. Maybe this is why Leach, Hagel, Specter, Lugar and many other decent Republicans are having serious doubts about their own party and, especially, about their own party's nominee, this year and see Obama/Biden as a viable alternative to 4 more years under McSame:

How Racist Are The Yentas and Fressers? Enough To Cut Their Own Throats In Spite?

My friend's mother is in a KKK ladies' auxilliary floating mah jongg game in West Palm Beach. All the ladies are well-off "Democratic" yentas and fressers who moved down to Florida to escape either cold weather or bad family finances. Every one of them believes in women's right to choice-- fervently. When Constitutional scholar Dahlia Lithwick wrote at Slate a few days ago that McCain is betting the farm that women aren't paying attention, she was talking about the South Florida yentas. She may have joined the floating West Palm Beach mah jongg game for a couple of days for her research.

A poll released yesterday by Emily's List has Obama beating McCain by a 12-point margin among all registered female voters and by 30 points among registered female voters ages 18 to 27. A February Planned Parenthood poll of 1,205 women voters in 16 battleground states found that 49 percent of women who backed McCain did so despite being pro-choice, and 46 percent backing him also wanted Roe v. Wade to remain the law of the land. It's clear that once these voters find out McCain's real record on reproductive rights, they flee. The problem, as Sarah Blustain points out in this great piece, is that voters don't seem to be finding out.

McCain needs these pro-choice women, but every time he tries to reach out to them, he gets smacked upside the head by his base. When he floated the notion of naming a pro-choice vice president last week-- either former Pennsylvania Gov. and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge or Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman-- Rush Limbaugh snarled that "if the McCain camp does that, they will have effectively destroyed the Republican Party and put the conservative movement in the bleachers." Limbaugh also pledged that tapping Lieberman or Ridge would "ensure [McCain's] defeat." So McCain needs to keep his base happy-- and the rest of us in the dark.

McCain is hoping he can persuade low-info yentas-- who, of course, are positive without a second thought that they know everything-- that because the mass media and their hero Joe Lieberman have brainwashed them into thinking he's a "maverick," his abortion views are somehow centrist rather than radical right. "Don't believe what I say. Believe what you used to believe before I opened my mouth" sounds pretty good in West Palm. Despite knowing everything, from who is the biggest doctor to who is the biggest lawyer, they are a hefty part of the 56% of voters who don't actually know where McCain stands on Choice, even though at last weekend's Saddleback carnival McCain-- following through on his explicit promise to pander-- McCain said, "I will be a pro-life president, and this presidency will have pro-life policies."

So much of the abortion debate involves treating women like children. It was bad enough when Justice Anthony Kennedy told women last year that we are too unstable to be trusted with decisions about what to do with our own bodies. It is an outrage that physicians in South Dakota are being instructed to lie to us for our own good. But we have a candidate for president who is actually telling women the truth: He wants to do away with our right to choose in all but the most dramatic of circumstances. He won't change his party platform to protect rape victims. This issue will be a defining factor in his selections for the Supreme Court.

The battle for Choice is old for these old matrons though. None of them are likely to be touched that way by a man again. They're bitter and some them would rather get some attention by carping that Hillary Clinton didn't get properly vetted-- as though her public life wasn't all the vetting she needed-- than stick to dimly remembered principles that once burned their bras for.

And then there's the racism. Sure, all the mah jongg-playing yentas and fressers admire the safely departed Martin Luther King and they all "believe" in equal rights-- but every single one of them is a hideous unreconstructed racist down to her dark, dark soul. My friend actually told me some of his mother's best friends... and that she "helps them." Yesterday Jacob Weisberg's column emphasized that the only way McCain can win is if racism triumphs over rational thought.

What with the Bush legacy of reckless war and economic mismanagement, 2008 is a year that favors the generic Democratic candidate over the generic Republican one. Yet Barack Obama, with every natural and structural advantage in the presidential race, is running only neck-and-neck against John McCain, a sub-par Republican nominee with a list of liabilities longer than a Joe Biden monologue. Obama has built a crack political operation, raised record sums, and inspired millions with his eloquence and vision. McCain has struggled with a fractious campaign team, lacks clarity and discipline, and remains a stranger to charisma. Yet at the moment, the two of them appear to be tied. What gives?

If it makes you feel better, you can rationalize Obama's missing 10-point lead on the basis of Clintonite sulkiness, his slowness in responding to attacks, or the concern that Obama may be too handsome, brilliant, and cool to be elected. But let's be honest: If you break the numbers down, the reason Obama isn't ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He does so for a simple reason: the color of his skin.

Hillary may well be the excuse for the yentas and fressers but racism is the reason some will stay away from the polls and the most clueless of them may actually go vote for McCain. And the McCain campaign is certainly playing up the racists' desperate search for an excuse to not vote for Hillary without having to look themselves in the mirror and see how very very very ugly they are... regardless of the nips and tucks and all that dieting.

A new television ad by Sen. John McCain aims to tap into anger at Sen. Barack Obama among the legions of Hillary Clinton supporters by suggesting that the Democratic nominee dissed his one-time rival.

Erasing any doubt that McCain has his sights set on Clinton voters, the new ad uses Clinton's own words to suggest that Obama passed her over because of the tough campaign she waged. The ad is titled "Passed Over."

"She won millions of votes. But isn't on his ticket," an announcer says. "Why? For speaking the truth."

The idea is to portray Obama as a petulant and angry rival who refused to consider Clinton as a running mate because of his anger over her comments. And to tap into Clinton supporters who just might vote for McCain.

Clinton spokesperson Kathleen Strand wasn't buying it. "Hillary Clinton's support of Barack Obama is pretty clear," she said in an e-mail. "She has said repeatedly that Barack Obama and she share a commitment to changing the direction of the country, getting us out of Iraq, and expanding access to health care. John McCain doesn't. It's interesting how those remarks didn't make it into his ad."

Of course, it isn't only little old Jewish ladies in South Florida was are bitter and clueless. There are corrupt, reactionary governors who are as well. From the time I was in high school I have a vague recollection of a teacher telling us that finally, that year, as many women voted as men. By 2004, 54% of voters were women. Nearly 60% of the voters in Democratic primaries this year were women. Obama is winning women voters overwhelminingly. Women want exactly what he's running on. Even in Florida, where Biden is supposedly going to sooth things over with the disgruntled Hillary Brigade. And then there are the yentas and fressers. Call bubbie and talk some sense into her. Show her the nice YouTube and bring her back to The Light:

Can You Guess Who Senator Corndog Is?

Hint: he ain't got any bullets in his gun. And his good friend and longtime political ally, George W. Bush, gave him the nickname. More hints? Well... he's certainly one of the most favored of all members of Congress by Mr and Mrs Satan (in fact, their Contran PAC alone gave him $42,500 in the current election cycle) and he's the #1 most bribed senator by Big Oil (not counting John McCain who is, after all, running for President). Big Oil "donated $484,100 so far this year-- for services rendered-- and have given him $1,317,825 since he was first elected. Still not ringin' any bells? He's also the #1 recipient of cash from the gun fanatics-- over $15,000 this year alone-- and not counting presidential candidates (again, McCain is, by far #1), he is the biggest recipient of "donations" from car dealers who sell foreign-made autos. That's a big hint because if anyone in the Senate is responsible for destroying the American manufacturing base and for supporting policies that have led directly to the outsourcing of American jobs, it is Senator Corndog.

Still stumped? OK, the booze industry-- again McCain is by far their biggest recipient-- gives more to this guy ($88,400 this year alone) than to any senator not running for president. So do commercial banks ($201,548 this year), who are appreciative in his steadfast help in weakening the federal regulatory agencies enough so that there would be so little oversight that... well, you heard of the real estate bust, I'm sure. Thank Corndog.

OK, if you haven't guessed yet, maybe you stopped following the intricacies of campaign finance after McCain's cynical and very superficial regulations just made the whole mess worse. Fair enough. Let's look at Senator Corndog's voting record instead. Here is a list of categories in which he is the very worst-- i.e., most reactionary-- of all 100 senators:

-The well-being of America's military personnel
-Response to the Darfour humanitarian crisis
-Respect for international treaties and the United Nations and arms control treaties
-Relations with Cuba
-Nuclear weapons
-Intelligence agency oversight
-Aid to needy children
-Aid to American veterans
-Aid to workers negatively impacted by trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA
-Aid to needy senior citizens
-Aid to Native Americans
-Aid to impoverished women
-Aid to small family farms
-Aid to Big Pharma
-Aid to the Insurance Industry
-Aid to banks and credit card companies
-Aid to the asbestos industry
-Aid to the firearms industry
-Public education
-Air pollution
-Clean water
-Humane treatment of animals
-Renewable energy
-Choice
-Availability of contraceptives
-Coziness with lobbyists
-Coziness with Big Tobacco
-Heath care
-Foreclosures
-Hate crimes
-Individual rights
-Separation of Church and State
-Freedom of Speech and Press
-Government surveillance of citizens
-Human rights
-Drug prevention
-Judicial nominations
- Protection of working men and women to organize unions
-Pension protection
-Occupational safety and health
-Outsourcing of American jobs overseas
-Civil rights
-Preserving Social Security
-Ethics in Congress
-Campaign finance reform

Again, this isn't a list of areas where Senator Corndog is bad. This is a list of where Senator Corndog is the worst member of the U.S. Senator (although in many cases tied with other right-wing extremists like Inhofe, McConnell and McCain). OK, enough with the guessing game? This little animated song and dance will give it all away:

Harold Simmons, America's Biggest-- and Most Crooked-- Financier Of Hate Politics And Smears

Crooked GOP Sen. Susan Collins Refuses To Return The Tainted Money From Mr & Mrs Satan

Since posting about reactionary billionaire, swift boat funder, and hate-monger Harold Simmons yesterday, we've had more than a dozen e-mails from people in Texas claiming inside knowledge of not just activities that will keep Simmons out of Heaven, but activities that, if they were provable in court, would have him spending the little bit left of his wretched life in a prison cell. I'll pass on publishing the ones that I can't verify and the personal stuff and just stick to the political dirt.

It's well known that the twice-divorced ne'er-do-well was sued by his two daughters. What I didn't know is that some of what came out in the process is that he'd been funneling vast amounts of money to Republican candidates by forging documents making it look like the donations were coming from other people (like the two daughters). Under questioning, and threatened with perjury charges, he admitted in court that he forged his two daughters' signatures to make political contributions from family trusts to various Republican candidates. Simmons has said that from 1991 to 1995 he made $110,000 in contributions to political action committees (PACs) in his daughters' names without their knowledge or permission. He later settled a lawsuit with them for $50 million.

So why aren't slimy Republican crooks who routinely look after his business interests in the Senate, like Susan Collins (R-ME), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), John Cornyn (R-TX), Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), John Sununu (R-NH), James Inhofe (R-OK), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and others upon whom he has lavished thousands and thousands of tainted dollars, returning the money? And while we're on the subject, so far this year Simmons' shady Dalen PAC has made efforts to buy the loyalty of the following senators and Senate candidates (all Republicans):

Lamar Alexander (R-TN, $2,000)
Norm Coleman (R-MN, $5,000)
John Cornyn (R-TX, $10,000)
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC, $5,000)
Michael Johanns (R-NE, $5,000)
James Risch (R-ID, $5,000)
Bob Schaffer (R-CO, $5000)
John McCain (R-AZ, $5,000)

The same suspicious PAC handed out $130,000 in 2006 to some of the most extreme right members of (and candidates for) Congress. Although almost all of his Senate patsies lost-- like Michael Steele (R-MD, $10,000), Mark Kennedy (R-MN, $7,000), James Talent (R-MO, $6,000), Conrad Burns (R-MT, $6,000), George "Macacawitz" Allen (R-VA, $5,000), Mike DeWine (R-OH, $5,000), Rick Santorum (R-PA, $5,000), Stephen Laffey (R-RI, $5,000), Michael McGavick (R-WA, $5,000), and Pete Ricketts (R-NE, $5,000)-- he still has his hooks into dozens of Republican House members he and his PAC have financed, especially Kay Grangers (R-TX), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Jim Gerlach (R-PA), Michael McCaul (R-TX), and Chris Shays (R-CT).

According to the Dallas Morning News, "The two daughters, Andrea Swanson, 33, and Scheryle Patigian, 44, contend in a lawsuit over control of the family trust that Mr. Simmons made hundreds of thousands of dollars of contributions in their names without their permission in violation of federal campaign law."

He also funnels money to Republicans through his Contran Industries PAC. So in addition to what he's given personally, given fraudulently from his daughters, and given through Dalen PAC, he's also given hundreds of thousands more-- mostly to the same far right candidates like McCain, McConnell, Cornyn, Dole, Inhofe, etc.-- through Contran, $100,000 this year alone.

Wagner's artistic insights remain as needed as ever, but performances -- now done in every theater on the planet -- have never been less comprehending

Birgit Nilsson, whose still-unmatched Isolde and Brünnhilde are gloriously represented in the 33-CD Bayreuth Festival set, here sings Isolde's climactic "Liebestod" in concert in 1962 with the Vienna Philharmonic under Hans Knappertsbusch, whose Bayreuth Parsifal from the same year -- one of the all-time great opera recordings -- was regrettably passed over.

by Ken

In some ways -- not many, but some -- the Wagner lover of 2008 is better-served than all previous generations of Wagner lovers. I'm thinking particularly of the preposterously inexpensive 33-CD set Wagner: The Great Operas from the Bayreuth Festival. Here, in a box a mere 5 1/8" by 5 1/8" by 2 9/16", we have recordings in excellent stereo of all ten canonical Wagner operas made in the Festival House built to the composer's specifications for performance of his operas.

ALL 13 WAGNER OPERAS ON A SINGLE CD-ROM

Of course, simply as a feat of miniaturization this is still nothing compared with the CD-ROM Operas of Richard Wagner created by Mike Richter for his Audio Encyclopedia series (available from a variety of sources, but Mike's officially designated distributor is Image Mogul). There's no need here to fool around with titular distinctions like "the great operas." Mike's got all 13 Wagner operas.

The Wagner CD-ROM draws on a wide range of sources, of varying sound quality. But all the performances, even those that exist in high-quality sound, are heard here in limited MP3-compressed mono. (The 1976 BBC concert performances of Wagner's first three operas can be found elsewhere in excellent FM-broadcast-quality stereo. Of course Rienzi contains some first-rate music, but the basic reason for hearing these pieces is to appreciate the leap the composer made with The Flying Dutchman.) Nevertheless, it's thanks to the MP3 compression that all 13 operas, most of them very long, fit on a single CD-ROM. The performances are also a wildly diverse lot artistically speaking, including some notable ones.

For a long time, this was the only source I'm aware of for:

* the seriously interesting complete Ring cycle conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch in 1968 for Rome Radio, which has only recently been issued in proper CD form by Myto;

* and also the English-language Mastersingers of Nuremberg conducted by Reginald Goodall that same year at Sadler's Wells Opera. Goodall would then preside over a complete Ring in English, using many of these same singers, in the course of which (and in good part thanks to which) Sadler's Wells Opera became the English National Opera. The Goodall Mastersingers, I'm pleased to see, has now been issued in Chandos' opera-in-English series (where the Goodall Ring has wound up as well). I still haven't heard it, though. It's expensive, so I'm saving my pennies.

To get back (finally!) to the new Bayreuth set, when I finally cracked it open last Monday, it made for an interesting week of listening. And I mean a work week: Between Monday and Friday, I went through 30 1/2 of those 33 CDs, which is to say from the Dutchman Overture on through Act I of the final Wagner opera, Parsifal. Of course I wasn't listening carefully. Mostly I was listening while doing other things, on the subway to and from work, and at work.

But then, a number of these performances I know pretty well, notably the 1966 Tristan und Isolde originally recorded by Deutsche Grammophon, at the final Bayreuth Festival of Wieland Wagner, the elder of the composer's two grandsons (the sons of Richard Wagner's son, Siegfried), who were given charge of the festival when it was finally allowed to reopen in 1951 -- as de-Nazified as was possible -- for the first time following World War II. (The photo shows young Wolfgang [left] and Wieland [right] with Hans Knappertsbusch at that first postwar festival. Kna conducted one Ring cycle -- Herbert von Karajan conducted the other -- and Parsifal, both staged by Wieland.)

A QUICK BACKWARD LOOK AT THE WAGNER GRANDSONS

When the Wagner boys took charge of "New Bayreuth" in 1951, and for the 16 seasons during which Wieland Wagner (1917-1966) was its principal creative force, brother Wolfgang (born 1919) was largely thought of as the "administrative" half of the team. It's sobering to realize that Wolfgang, though less than 32 months younger, has now outlived Wieland by more than 40 years, and is only now at 89 preparing -- kicking and screaming -- to relinquish control of the festival, which he has exercised singlehandedly since 1967.

I remember eagerly opening the shipping carton that contained the LP edition of the still relatively new DG Tristan, which I'd mail-ordered while I was in college, and over these 40 years it remains my favorite version, with soprano Birgit Nilsson's classic Isolde, the outstanding Brangäne and Kurwenal of mezzo Christa Ludwig and baritone Eberhard Wächter, a darned good King Marke from bass Martti Talvela, and even a memorable Shepherd (tenor Erwin Wohlfahrt) for his haunting scene at the start of Act III. I own this recording on LP, open-reel tape, and now in two CD editions. To me it sounds better than ever.

A QUICK NOTE ON THE NEW BAYREUTH SET

For anyone with any sense of phonographic history, the weirdest thing about this set is finding all this material on the Decca label. The DG Tristan had already been absorbed onto the Philips label, back when the once-rival labels were already under the same corporate umbrella -- for a Philips Bayreuth compendium. (The performance has actually been issued on CD on DG and Philips.) Otherwise, this material is so closely associated with Philips that it seems just plain bizarre to see all those Decca logos. All three labels, along with a host of smaller ones absorbed along the way, are now part of Universal Music, the colossal and colossally mismanaged entertainment giant, which has shown little understanding of or appreciation for either the cultural or commercial value of the musical treasures entrusted to its custody by virtue of corporate inheritance.

Now that doesn't mean we shouldn't take advantage of good stuff that's tossed out of the various Universal repositories. From people who should know, I hear guestimates that they must be losing a couple of dollars on every copy of this set they sell. (Presumably they're making it up in volume!) When I looked earlier today, Amazon.com was selling it for $55.99 (with free shipping). For a long time Amazon -- and most everyone else -- was out of stock on it, and during that time, fearing they might never get it back in stock, I bought mine from Tower.com for $54.99 (also with free shipping). At the moment they're selling it for only $51.99. Grrr!

Naturally at this price there are no printed texts or translations. There are plot synposes. (Odd note: For some reason, the booklet credits the two Ring operas recorded in 1966, Rheingold and Siegfried, as 1971. The Walküre and Götterdämmerung are credited correctly as 1967.)

Some of these performances are less familiar to me. Before this week I don't remember the last time I listened to the 1962 Sawallisch-conducted Lohengrin, which wasn't issued till more than a decade after it was recorded -- because, it was generally thought, of the controversial cuts made in the performance. Although cuts, often extensive, at least used to be fairly common in Wagner performances in the rest of the world's opera houses, you don't think of Bayreuth performances being other than note-complete.

I don't recall listening to the 1974 Meistersinger conducted by Silvio Varviso and the 1985 Parsifal conducted by James Levine since I was working on the chapters on these operas for The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera. I was curious to hear the Meistersinger again, and indeed as a solid ensemble performance it holds up better than I would have guessed when I last wrote about it. The Parsifal, alas, holds up less well. Oh sure, it's better than Maestro Jimmy's dead-as-dust Met Parsifals, including both the 1991-92 audio and the 1993 video recordings, but I'm no longer sure it's significantly better. It's professionally executed, but on the whole a bore.

A certain stylistic consistency

Somewhat to my surprise, gulping these performances down in such a short span highlights a certain stylistic consistency. In part this is because, not surprisingly, a lot of the same singers turn up in multiple operas -- happily so in some cases (most obviously Nilsson as Isolde and all three Brünnhildes, but also bass Franz Crass's gorgeous Flying Dutchman and nearly as good King Heinrich in Lohengrin, along with his luxurious appearance in the relatively small role of the Minnesinger Biterolf in Tannhäuser); in other cases not so happily (most conspicuously the squeezed-toned soprano Anja Silja as Senta in Dutchman, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, Elsa in Lohengrin, and the Third Norn in Götterdämmerung; and the artistically wise but drearily dry-voiced bass Josef Greindl as Daland in Dutchman, the Landgraf in Tannhäuser, and Hagen in Götterdämmerung).

Split down the middle is bass Hans Sotin, who had a lovely voice but wasn't exactly what you'd call an interpretive self-starter, and so rarely made the kind of impact of some Wagner basses whose careers overlapped his -- Crass, Karl Ridderbusch in his younger years (up to about 1975), and Kurt Moll. Sotin's Pogner in the 1974 Meistersinger (in which Ridderbusch moved up from the bass role, Pogner, to the Heldenbariton or "heroic baritone" role of Hans Sachs, which doesn't seem to have done his voice much good), while not in a class with Ridderbusch's really superlative Pogner in Herbert von Karajan's Dresden/EMI recording, is sturdy and dependable -- a solid success. But his Gurnemanz in the 1985 Parsifal falls prey to the yawning emptiness of James Levine's note-churning.

When the music either moves at a moderate-to-fast clip or contains enough activity in the slower passages to generate a modicum of energy on its own, the performance wakes up. Otherwise Maestro Jimmy seems to have no clue how to animate the musical line so that it progresses from from note to note for some reason other than "that's what's printed on the page." In musical terms one could say that, as in so much of the maestro's Wagner conducting, there is essentially no phrasing, the lifeblood of the music. Given this problem, which has remained constant over the decades I've been listening to him conduct Wagner, his preference for really, really slow tempos, which can be made to work by conductors of real vision, is suicidal.

Probably because the Bayreuth musicians have this music in their blood, to some extent they're able, unlike Maestro Jimmy's Met forces, to fill those gaps in the performance's forward movement. But revisiting the Bayreuth recording, I found myself unable to stop noticing the gaps, and once you're conscious of them, it's hard to hear any real continuity in the performance, which dissolves into a four-hour expanse of notes. What a shame that the extraordinary 1962 Knappertsbusch/Bayreuth/Philips Parsifal was passed over. (The last time I looked, though, it was still available on its own, and it's still my first recommendation for the opera.)

Art as religious ritual -- or "Art = suffering"

Of course there are people, notably those who think of art as some sort of religious ritual, who believe that pointlessness and tedium are what makes art worthwhile, as proof of the spectator's suffering and endurance. I remember staggering out of a Met Tristan a few years ago, a performance of almost unbroken ineptitude, whose hatefulness was compounded by the then-new production's derisive trivializing of the piece itself -- which, overall, was pulverized into virtual unrecognizability -- and noticing that a surprising number of my fellow audience members seemed almost buoyant. I could only guess that if suffering in the name of art was what they were after, they had just endured a five-hour voyage into the sublime.

After the washout of Sotin's 1985 Gurnemanz, it's a shock to go back to the 1981 Bayreuth Parsifal film conducted by Horst Stein. The unpretentious Stein's pacing is generally quicker, and for all that Stein was never what you would call a deep musical thinker, the performance is unfailingly more alert -- the music actually moves with purpose, and Sotin, while still not a memorable Gurnemanz, gives a sturdy, honest performance of this modestly wise teacher, who never complains about the really despicable way he has been treated by the current administration of Montsalvat. Gurnemanz is potentially one of Wagner's most cherishable characters, and the audience depends almost wholly on him for our understanding of what happens in the nearly two-hour expanse of Act I, and for that matter everything that follows. There doesn't seem to have been anything wrong with Sotin's voice in 1985, but he's sucked into Maestro Jimmy's snoozefest, and his performance here seems to me an almost total loss.

What did Maestros Böhm and Sawallisch know?

Of course the major reason for that "certain stylistic consistency" in the Decca Bayreuth box is that, setting aside the Meistersinger and Parsifal, the eight remaining operas are conducted by either Sawallisch or Böhm. What was most interesting to me, listening straight through these performances, was how beautifully conducted all eight operas all seemed, and how persuasively they all "play." Certainly Sawallisch and Böhm aren't conductors one thinks of as plumbing for great depths, at least in Wagner. They're closer in spirit to the honest, plain-spoken work we hear in that Horst Stein-conducted Parsifal, making sure that the music fits together and "plays."

Sawallisch (born 1923) was still a relatively young Wagner conductor in 1961-62 ( he's seen here in 1962), but the fluency of his Dutchman, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin, with the incidental detail knowingly but unshowily accounted for, is an almost unfailing pleasure. The Dutchman and Tannhäuser in fact succeed in spite of casts that -- apart from Crass's Dutchman and Eberhard Wächter's often quite beautiful Wolfram von Eschenbach in Tannhäuser (along with interesting work by some of the lesser minstrels) -- could fairly be described as weak.

The Lohengrin is rather decently cast. In addition to Crass's lovely King, Jess Thomas gives what may be his most effective recorded performance; along with the voice's familiar size and strength, once it's warmed up we get large stretches of genuinely beautiful singing. There's a vocally plausible, predictably intense effort at the baritone role of Telramund by the reconverted tenor (after all those years of Otellos and Siegmunds and Parsifals) Ramon Vinay; an outstanding Royal Herald (a difficult and important role) by baritone Tom Krause; and a predictably commanding and predictably unlovely Ortrud by Astrid Varnay.

While I don't think of Böhm (1894-1981) as a great Wagner conductor, as noted I'm a longtime fan of his unfancy yet richly detailed while always forward-moving Tristan. Despite the performance's limitations -- notably the merely serviceable Tristan of Wolfgang Windgassen (but of course what alternative was there?) -- I do love this recording.

I had a hunch that I might enjoy Böhm's Ring more on rehearing. In fact, before the advent of this set, I'd been thinking about scouting for a CD issue of it. And, especially freed from the confines of all those LP side breaks, the cycle indeed plays beautifully. It would be way too complicated to compare it with its most direct competitors, the Solti/Decca and Karajan/DG (and perhaps now also the 1955 Keilberth/Testament) Rings. What struck me most forcefully is the presence of a caliber of Wagnerian performance, a level of intuitive understanding at the basic phrase level, that's seemingly beyond nearly all the more recent Ring recordings, audio and now video.

The notable exceptions are the 1991-92 Barenboim/Bayreuth/Teldec audio and video Ring (which may be the most beautiful recorded representation of the orchestral part we've had on records, and is at least tolerably sung) and, a special case, the Goodall/ENO cycle (which was probably recorded too long after the original performances; only the Valkyrie seems to me to really "work," and yet Goodall digs into the music in a way that not even Furtwängler did). Okay, I have a certain fondness for the 1980-83 Janowski/Dresden/Eurodisc Ring, which still has some vocal performances I enjoy returning to. It's not in the class of the earlier recordings -- as we can hear by throwing Sawallisch's 1968 Italian Radio Ring into the mix, Janowski just didn't have his or Böhm's basic feel for the way this music moves -- but outclasses most of the later ones.

He never seems to miss the music's content

For its issue of the 1968 Rome Ring, Myto appears to have had access to excellent "inside" tapes. There's a special surprise in the discovery that the Rheingold was recorded in stereo, and even has some stereophonic staging. What really matters, though, is that the stereo sound enables us to hear the loveliness and incisiveness of the playing Sawallisch drew from the Rome orchestra, the very one with which Italian Radio had 15 years earlier recorded for its own broadcast use a complete Ring under the great Wilhelm Furtwängler. When the Furtwängler/RAI Ring finally achieved commercial release nearly 20 years later, it became one of the essential Wagner recordings.

There's no reason to assume that in 1968 the orchestra's playing standard dropped in the later operas. It's just that the mono recording sucks all the texture and dimensionality out of it -- an unintended but striking demonstration of the leap in sonic believability brought about by stereo technology. All the same, even in the later operas the sound is a major improvement over the low-fi MP3 version I've known, and the cast, which often overlaps the casts of Böhm's as well as the Solti/Decca and Karajan/DG studio Ring recordings, is always solid and often genuinely interesting, and Sawallisch always seems to get solid, believable work out of the singers.

I guess its pointless to linger over the what-might-have-been if the whole of the Sawallisch/Rome Ring existed in sound of the quality of the Rheingold. I should point out that there is a stereo Sawallisch Ring. Japan's NHK video-recorded his 1989 stereo Bavarian State Opera cycle, and then licensed it to EMI, which gave it almost invisible video circulation in the U.S. in the form of effectively underground "black box" VHS sets, complete with hilarious typos, but the audio portion received actual domestic release as a CD set. In both cases, I've been struck over the years by Sawallisch's seemingly effortless shaping of The Ring's scenes.

He is, notably, the master of Act II of Siegfried, that singular succession of deeply weird, and wildly differently weird, scenes -- surely Wagner' most idiosyncratic piece of musicodramatic construction. (But then, Siegfried always seems to me the Wagner opera for the truest Wagner aficionados.) After years of listening to Sawallisch Wagner performances, while other conductors may have hit higher highs and unearthed deeper depths, I'm struck by how consistent he is in seemingly never missing the content of this music, which is unprecedented in both its vastness and its intricacy.

Obviously Wagner performances of recent decades have been hobbled by the drought of singers equal to the challenges of the cruelly demanding principal roles. (Of course, opera companies haven't done much better in casting the smaller roles, but let's not be picky.) Certainly the absence of conductors with a Wagnerian vision comparable to Furtwängler's or Knappertsbusch's (when he was into what he was doing, that is) or even Goodall is regrettable. But where are the conductors who can simply -- or maybe not so simply -- make this music come to life, who can let us hear what it's about, in the way that we hear Böhm and Sawallisch doing here?

#

Bob Ney Turns On The Bush Regime-- Spills The Beans About Iran!

Bob Ney: "They've taken bloodsport to a whole new level in this administration"

A couple weeks ago Ken wondered why a liberal-leaning talk radio network had hired early-release Republicrook Bob Ney. I wondered the same thing. Looks like Air America's Thom Hartmann got to the bottom of it. And I'm still shocked-- although, frankly, by now none of us should be shocked by anything the Bush Crime Family pulls. Hartmann is comparing the Bush Regime's treatment of Ney, a right wing Republican hack with their jihad against Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman!

According to Hartmann's interview with Ney, the Bush Regime was up to their old tricks, this time in regard to Iran-- and Ney got in the way. Transcript:

Thom Hartman: You were prosecuted by the Bush Administration for what Ellen has characterized to me as mostly ... a political prosecution because you were pushing back on Iran. Can you speak to that? Please?
Ney: At the end of the day, I brought a lot of things on myself and I did some things that were wrong; but I also believe that part of this was fueled in the sense of the Iran issue.

It's been no secret that when I went to prison I gave permission for a secret meeting I'd had with Mr. Gorman who came from Switzerland. He presented a document that was absolutely incredible, where Iran would have recognized Israel and a whole host of other things, would have let our inspectors on their ground; and I said that to the White House; I'll stand by that today; the white house denies it, but Colin Powell's former assistant admits that that [document] came over to the State Department and the White House wanted no part of it.

I believe that every step of the way, and I think it came more from Cheney's people, but every step of the way that I attempted to deal with Iran, it got pretty harsh back. So I think part of this, I gave them the bullets, but I think some of the force was also involved with Iran and people that would rather see those countries not communicate, no matter who is head of Iran.

Hartmann: So Iran came to you, because you speak Farsi and you are the Iran expert in the House of Representatives...

Ney: Ambassador Goolaban, who was ambassador from Switzerland to Iran, he came to me.

Hartmann: Their representative, in other words they approached you through their legal representative...

Ney: And I had participated in the meeting in Stockholm...

Hartmann: And they said that they would recognize Israel and that they would allow UN inspectors into their nuclear sites, and you passed that information along to the White House, it fell down the rabbit hole and immediately you were being prosecuted.

Ney: It, it fell down the rabbit hole, there was a lot of kickback; I know that Gorman had terrible problems after that, I think through mainly Rumsfeld's people and Cheney's people. That's what happened after that agreement.

Hartmann: It so sounds like the Don Siegelman story and the Paul Minor story, and if you're not familiar with those two stories, I encourage you to do a little Googling. I think that we have political prisoners in the United States now.

Ney: Well, I know that the harshness of the administration, and again, I take culpability, I did some wrong things, but when you get in their path, I think they've taken bloodsport to a new level in this administration.

Hartmann: "They've taken blood sport to a new level; what a quote! Congressman Bob Ney, thank you for coming on our program and sharing candidly with us."

Warning to DWT readers: if you notice Bob Ney getting onto a plane you're on, switch your flight... immediately.

Hey, Democratic conventioneers, here's the plan: Jangle your keys for McCranky!

Learning Center's First Keys Teether from its First Years line

by Ken

I'm sure you too have encountered much talk online chattering encouraging Democratic National Committee attendees to come equipped carrying keychains with 10 or 12 or however many nice jangly keys on them, to commemorate the however-many collection of McCranky homesteads. One colleague recommended the plastic clankers pictured above, which she'd bought for her infant daughter. (Note to hygiene-conscious householders: They're dishwasher-safe.)

The million-dollar idea, though, came from the list member who suggested that everybody in the auditorium jangle their keys every time Young Johnny McCranky's name is mentioned.

Zowie! Now SEIU is reportedly bringing truckloads of key rings and keys to distribute to conventioneers. Take it this extra step, and the media would go nuts for this. Young Johnny would go nutsier.

We all know this is the kind of idea the Republicans would jump on in a heartbeat. (They would be providing everyone in the building with the biggest and noisiest sets of keys they could drum up, for maximum audiovisual impact.) However, you may be surprised to learn that I'm actually not attending the DNC. So I can only pass on this inspired suggestion.

Now that would get me to tune in the convention.


AT HOME(S) WITH THE McCRANKYS

Meanwhile at our pal Cliff Schecter's Campaign Silo blog, our pal crack investigative reporter Lindsay Beyerstein has supplemented her previous report on "The Mystery of McAin's McMansions" with the lowdown on the former Casa McCranky, the 14,000-square-foot Phoenix pied-à-terre the family called home for 20 years, until they sold it in 2006:

Behold the grand foyer of John and Cindy McCain's former home. This Phoenix mansion is 14,000 square feet, with 9 bedrooms, and 8 baths. Amenities include 2 guest houses, his and hers dressing cabanas, a spa, 3 ramadas (2 w/full bar set-up), a pavilion, a large lap pool, and a detached 7-car garage. It was a simpler life, unburdened by the real estate confusion that besets the senator today.

The couple lived at Stately McCain Manor for 20 years--starting after John left his first wife who only had one house. In 2006 they sold the mansion, possibly seeking to avoid the razzing that John Edwards endured on the campaign trail over his palatial home. The estate sold for a little over $3 million. The current owner who remodeled and presumably redecorated, now has it on the market for $12 million."

Can Howard Shanker Still Beat Back The Insider Hack In Arizona?

More of the same for AZ-01?

A week from Tuesday is the under the radar primary to pick the Democratic nominee-- and overwhelming November favorite-- to replace indicted Republicrook Rick Renzi, who has already resigned as McCain For President Co-chair and is retiring from Congress, reportedly as part of a plea bargain to keep his prison time down to a minimum. The reason this likely red to blue Arizona seat is under the radar is because Democratic Party insiders saw it as a way to insert a clueless rubber stamp of their own. Their pick is an utterly worthless party hack who has less comprehension of the important issues facing Americans than an average political science major at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The DCCC's Stalinist single-mindedness towards getting the nomination for the hapless Ann Kirkpatrick-- and the tactics they're using to accomplish that-- is reminiscent of 2006 races where the DCCC trued crushing progressive, grassroots and anti-war candidates in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, New Hampshire... and wherever they could. Their most effective trick is to convince lazy and gullible local media "sources"-- this is a Rahm Emanuel specialty-- that their candidate is "inevitable." If that were true we would be looking at hot re-election campaigns for Congressman Steve Filson (CA-11), Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth (IL-06) and Congresswoman Judy Aydelott (NY-19), among other shills Rahm Emanuel wasted millions of dollars on to beat out anti-war/anti-corporate Democrats. This year they're doing it again in races covering Staten Island, (with conservative Republican-lite Michael McMahon), Alaska (with corrupt hack Ethan Berkowitz), and a Florida district covered much of suburban Orlando plus a chunk of Atlantic coast south of Daytona Beach (with status quo robot Suzanne Kosmas)... and in AZ-01.

The DCCC and the rest of the unscrupulous and thoroughly corrupt Inside the Beltway Establishment is raising money for Kirkpatrick, although the district's activists and grassroots Democrats prefer Howard Shanker. If money alone can win this race, Kirkpatrick will be another awful Democrat in Washington next year, one that makes people wonder why there are even two parties. Thursday one of her supporters' blogs explained why it may not be just a matter of money. Although he makes some mistakes-- like claiming the Sierra Club endorsed Kirkpatrick (they've resisted the Insider demands to buckle under) and that she speaks Apache (she doesn't; and when I saw her at an event a few weeks ago I was wondering why she could barely speak English)-- for the most part, his analysis isn't off-base. Among other things, this Kirkpatrick partisan says:

A few weeks ago I thought that Kirkpatrick had it in the bag, but recently Flagstaff Attorney Howard Shanker has been running very strongly. Shanker represents the Navajos in an ongoing lawsuit to prevent Arizona Snow Bowl from using treated wastewater to make artificial snow on the San Francisco Peaks (considered sacred by the Navajo--- think of the Mapplethorpe exhibit and the crucifix in urine and you get the idea of how they feel about it.) Right now, after several rounds in court that have gone both ways, the ski resort has won the latest round but it is likely to be appealed, maybe even up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Shanker has a lot of enthusiastic volunteers and seems to have boundless energy. I don't think I've gone to a major event in the past two years where I haven't seen either Howard Shanker (often personally) or someone representing him. Working against Shanker are the huge geographical size of the district and the fact that he has been far less successful at fundraising than Kirkpatrick. Shanker is the most liberal of the leading candidates and he has a lot of personal charisma.

As of June 30th Kirkpatrick had raised $988,611 (to Shanker's $171,149). Like the hopeless reactionary Nikki Tinker, Emily's List has endorsed Kirkpatrick and put over $100,000 into her race. Other big donors are Rahm Emanuel's Our Common Values cesspool of corruption, Steny Hoyer's AmeriPAC, and Unite Here, a low-info labor PAC that does whatever NAFTA-mastermind Emanuel tells them to do. It isn't too late to help Howard Shanker win this thing: here's how.

Chris Shays Tries Glomming On To Obama

Few of the rubber stamp Republican senators are as likely to be defeated in November as Oregon's Gordon Smith, someone who just spent 5 years voting for every single item on the Bush-Cheney agenda followed by 6 months of trying to convince Oregon voters that he's a "moderate," an "independent voice," and-- unbelievably-- kinda almost a Democrat. Back in June he was laughed off the air with a short lived ad that attempted to cash in on Barack Obama's huge popularity in his state. There's no Republican in the House who has tried this exact same tactic more forcefully than Chris Shays of Connecticut. Shays is the last Republican member of the House from the 6-state New Hampshire region and his Connecticut congressional district has a PVI of D+5, the bluest district in America represented by a Republican.

Like his close ally, Joe Lieberman, Shays has managed to stay in office by persuading Democrats that he isn't really that Republican. His voting record, however, paints a very different picture. When Bush and the Republicans needed his vote-- no matter what the harebrained scheme they were pushing, he was always there for them. Take Iraq, for example. "Mr. Moderate"  participated in 63 roll calls regarding Iraq since he voted 4 times on October 10, 2002 to authorize the use of force there. And "Mr. Moderate" voted against the Bush-Cheney agenda in Iraq exactly... 3 times, once to require competitive bidding on oil contracts when Cheney was caught trying to steal all of Iraq's oil, as did more than 4 dozen other Republicans, once to turn an Iraqi reconstruction grant into a loan (which was supported by 84 Republicans), and once on an inconsequential and unsubstantive budgetary matter. This week Shays, who is co-chairman of McCain's pointless Connecticut operation (he is polling just 36% against Obama) released an ad, very much like Gordon Smith's, trying to capitalize on Obama's immense popularity in Connecticut. Take a look-- and then consider donating to Blue America endorsee Jim Himes' campaign to replace him.



And Senator Obama's response? "In this race, the good people of Connecticut should know that Barack Obama supports Jim Himes and believes Himes is the candidate who will bring the change American families need to Washington."

Alan Grayson (D-FL): Three Days Before Primary Day

Thirteen 2006 challengers endorsed by Blue America now sit in Congress-- Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD), John Tester (D-MT) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), plus Reps. Arcuri (D-NY), Bruce Braley (D-IA), Carney, Donna Edwards (D-MD), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), John Hall (D-NY), Paul Hodes (D-NH), Jerry McNerney (D-CA), Patrick Murphy (D-PA), and Joe Sestak (D-PA)-- and 4 others from 2006 had close calls and are poised to win in November: Vic Wulsin (D-OH), Larry Kissell (D-NC), Charlie Brown (D-CA) and Eric Massa (D-NY). Not one of these was a "sure thing" or even an easy race. We leave the easy races for others. Blue America does the hard ones. Our first pick of 2008 was Alan Grayson and this Tuesday he faces recently "converted" Republican Mike Smith and an establishment hack and wealthy clownish shill from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, Charlie Stuart, in the Democratic primary. After a very tough race Alan looks like the prohibitive favorite to win Tuesday and go into the general election campaign against incumbent rubber stamp Ric Keller with a full head of steam. I see Alan as one of the Blue America success stories. If you've missed our earlier chats with Alan, I want to recommend you read the Vanity Fair feature about his efforts fighting Iraq war profiteers or go over and watch some of the TV shows he's been on talking about these efforts.

Above is a clip of Alan's brand new TV ad which he just started running on Orlando television. It's powerful and to the point. I think you'll like the ending.

Today Alan is joining us in the comments section of Firedoglake at 2pm, EST for another chat. The other day I asked him to help me understand the whole concept of "change" in a political context.

Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination by being the candidate of change. Now John McCain says that he’s the candidate of change, and we bite our lips and try not to laugh out loud. But since the promise of change crosses the whole political spectrum, we’d better start thinking-- what will change... and how?

What will change are our priorities. Specifically, we will concentrate on meeting human needs, our needs. Health is a human need. Education is a human need. Public safety is a human need. Affordable transportation is a human need.

Here are some things that are not human needs: Making sure that you can own a gun. Preventing two people of the same gender from uniting. Insisting that other people speak English. Instigating unnecessary wars. When our priorities change, these issues take a back seat.

I, for one, would like to live in a place where the hungry are fed, the homeless are sheltered, the children are educated, and the sick are healed. That’s what we’ve been told, for around 3000 years, that a just society tries to accomplish.  Only recently has anyone suggested that a just society is one where everyone is packing heat.

And when that change occurs, the economy will improve dramatically. Why? Because meeting human needs keeps money in the country. If the bridge that fell down in Minneapolis-- which is still down-- were rebuilt, then the construction worker who rebuilds that bridge will make money. He will use that money to pay his rent, and his landlord will make money. The landlord will go to dinner in a restaurant in Minneapolis, and the waiter will make money. The waiter will get his hair cut, and the barber will make money. Meeting human needs means putting more money in the hands of Americans. And spending it on the war in Iraq means it’s gone, forever.

The U.S. trade deficit is $2 million a minute. Under the Bush Administration, money has gushed out of this country. No wonder gas is $4 a gallon, the cost of living is rising, unemployment is up, and the housing market is down. It’s the worst case of economic mismanagement in American history.

And that will change. Because people with a conscience are coming together, and saying “we need to take care of each other.” People with a conscience are taking power in America. And people are letting their conscience guide them.

We're changing. And that’s real change.

I have no doubt Alan is going to win on Tuesday. After that he faces a well-financed incumbent with nearly a million dollars on hand-- a well-financed incumbent who has been faithfully serving the special interests who have given him millions of dollars and have every intention of shelling out whatever they have to to keep him in office. But Orlando is a very changed district and Ric Keller has never been up against a candidate like Alan Grayson. This could be one of Blue America's most important achievements. Take a look at the clip up top again. In case you've forgotten, our Blue America page is here

Who Is Reactionary Billionaire Harold Simmons-- And Why Is He Financing Millions of Dollars in TV Ads To Smear Barack Obama?

Evil incarnate

There isn't a more sleazy and disreputable political operator in America than 77 year old Harold Clark Simmons. Credited as one of the fathers of predatory capitalism, the far right Texas billionaire developed the concept of the leveraged buyout. One of McCain's primary financial backers, Simmons, worth over $7 billion, has a long and sordid history in extremist political sleaze. He's probably best known for having donated $4 million dollars to finance the Swift Boat campaign of lies against John Kerry in 2004, allowing the most ruinous administration in American history to capture the presidency. He is determined to spend whatever it takes to smear Obama with any lie anyone wants to make up about him. Even Fox has refused to show his ads (sort of).

Today's NY Times ran a piece on Simmons' attempt to subvert democracy with his billions. Simmons is spending millions of dollars on trying to tie Barack Obama to a radical who bombed the Capitol when Obama was 8 years old. It is just a small beginning for what Simmons intends to do to make sure McCain-- and his policies-- wind up in control of America.

Simmons is one of the very worst examples of a social criminal in America and his companies make money by poisoning the earth. Without corrupt political hacks like John McCain and George Bush, creatures like Harold Simmons, one of the 50 richest men in America, could not exist. Besides financing more smear campaigns than anyone else in American history, Simmons has donated hundreds of thouands of dollars to extremist Republicans (as well as to a small handful of recationary Democrats, particularly Nancy Pelosi's candidate for the vice presidency, Chet Edwards). When Jesus talked about camels getting through the eyes of a needle he had Harold Simmons in mind. In South Africa Satan gave them Mark Scott-Crossley; in Texas, the Angel of Darkness cursed us with Harold Clark Simmons.

Hallmark enters the market for gay marriage cards, and the Rev. Donnie Wildmon goes bonkers -- plus a pair of neat ideas (not mine!) for saying "OK!"

by Ken

In case you haven't heard, lets review two all-too-closely-related developments:

(1) With the coming of legal same-sex marriage to California, the Hallmark greeting-cards people have added a new category to their lineup: what else but cards for same-sex marriages? This is a matter not just of good sense but (one hopes) of good business. I hope they put out some swell cards and make a mint on them.

Naturally, within the blink of an eyelash of (1) --

(2) In much the same way that a lovely picnic inevitably draws pests, your everyday flies and ants, Hallmark's new initiative has brought some of the crazies out of the woodwork. Would you believe the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the inaptly named American Family Association is up in arms calling for no less than a boycott of Hallmark? If by now you can't imagine for yourself the drivel they're spewing, you just haven't been paying attention. (Here's a report by Amanda at Think Progress.)

Somehow I don't think the Hallmark folks are shaking in their boots. They're not going to lose much if any business to the yammerings of the panic-stricken crazies -- panic-stricken because they realize that the world is passing them by, that, increasingly, folks just don't care if other folks are gay as long as they're good folks, it's just none of our beeswax. The rise of this live-and-let-live attitude drives the die-hard holdouts like the Reverend Donnie nuts.

Here's hoping the Hallmark folks add a nice chunk of change to their bottom line with their new offerings.


WANT TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT?

My colleague John Klenert came up with a brilliant idea, or actually two brilliant ideas.

* To show support for Hallmark, send them a Hallmark "thank you" card!

* And to show your feelings to the American Family Association, send them a Hallmark gay marriage card!

John points out that Hallmark "is still family owned, and they also own, among other things, Crayola Crayons." Now I didn't know that! This suggests that if you really want to be thorough, you should buy a box of Crayolas -- authentic Crayolas, no cheap imitations -- and use them to inscribe your cards and address the envelopes.

John has even dug up the addresses for us:

HALLMARK

Donald J. Hall, Chairman
HALLMARK CARDS INC.
2501 McGee Trafficway
Kansas City, MO 64108

(I plan to make sure to voice my thanks to all the folks at Hallmark.)

AFA

Donald Wildmon
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION
Post Office Drawer 2440
Tupelo, MS 38803

#

Obama-Biden-- It Could Have Been Worse, Much Worse

I wish Obama luck with his mediocre choice of a running mate. It could have been much worse. But it certainly tells us a lot about what the real Barack Obama's relationship will be with the status quo.

I warned my friend Jamil, who first persuaded me to give Obama another chance after Edwards bowed out, not to expect much from Obama. I wish I had listened to my own advice. Biden isn't a blood enemy of The People like Evan Bayh, John McCain or Mitt Romney. But it's not for no reason that David Brooks, the Times most clueless and reactionary columnist was pumping for him.

Biden is a moderate Democrat, the 29th most progressive this session (Obama is the 46th most progressive), 30th most progressive for his career. He voted with Bush and Cheney on Iraq and on most issues he's been a representative of anything but change. If Obama manages to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, his selection of utterly uninspiring Biden will be looked at as one of the reasons. (And isn't he in the middle of a Senate re-election bid? I guess he'll run for both-- like his pal Lieberman did in 2000, demonstrating the same kind of unattractive political spinelessness.)

If Biden starts looking a little too unappealing... watch this a few times:




UPDATE: RESPONSE FROM THE DARK SIDE

McCain (with the help of bottom fisher media shills like AP's pathetic Ron Fournier) will help skeptical Democrats and independents like myself rally around Biden. Here's the ad that the vicious coterie of lobbyists and Rovians put together. They pulled a 2005 quote from Biden saying he'd be honored to run with or against McCain-- one of the (several) old versions of McCain, not the new ultimate monstrosity he has unmasked in the last three years. Part of that unmasking came during his barrage of attacks against Mitt Romney, the empty suit he despises but who he's been forced to agree to take on as his running mate:




DO YOU GET THE FEELING WE DODGED A BULLET?

by Ken

All of what Howie said, plus this: Don't you get the feeling that we dodged a bullet on this? That in fact the choice really was going to be Evan Bayh (whom I'm tempted to call "unspeakable," except that gives him too much credit -- "not worth speaking about" seems closer)?

I'm not saying it was us blogospheric crazies who changed the course of history (such as it is -- come January Obama and Biden could both be footnotes to history). But I really don't think the Obama people who thought they'd found their guy were expecting such widespread expressions of unenthusiasm for Bayh. I think the message hit home that the choice of that empty an empty suit would reflect badly on the presidential candidate's judgment and self-confidence. When you get right down to it, could he really have stood up and told the country that this was the person he considered most qualified to step into the presidency should the need arise?

Obviously I have mixed feelings about Biden, and as I wrote recently (in my "more or less final thoughts on the selection process"), the mere fact that so many of us can breathe a sigh of relief at his selection says something -- and I mean something quite terrible -- about the selection process that produced the choice. At the same time, at least Biden is somebody. There's a functioning mind, and one that has spent a lot of years grappling with the full range of issues of American governance. There is, in other words, a "there" there.

American Prayer

The whole world is praying-- and they don't know the difference between Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine with what they think Barack Obama represents. Believe me, it isn't the same. Anyway, I guess we're about to see what Barack Obama really does represent. I'm praying too.

UPDATE: BIDEN IT IS: The Secret Service has taken up guard duty at his house (and not at Bayh's or Kaine's). Not my first choice-- or second-- but I'll keep an open mind.



Here's what Dave Stewart wrote about this song:

Earlier this year when I was recording American Prayer, a song I originally co-wrote with Bono, the phrase, "When you get to the top of the mountain, remember me" seemed to take on a whole new resonance, given the inspirational candidacy of Barack Obama. The song always contained one of my favorite passages from Dr. King, which was hauntingly delivered the night before he was assassinated. King says: "I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!" People long for a connection-- whether it is to music, to their country, or to a big idea. Regardless of what happens in November, Senator Obama has reminded millions of people that they have the power to connect to bigger ideas. He is, in essence, the embodiment of a new anthem for change. He has continued King's narrative from what was once thought of as a dream to a reality. I find it especially relevant that Barack Obama will accept the Democratic Party Nomination for President 45 years to the day of King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

When we were originally writing the song, Bono was crafting the words in a way that would make people think about the fact that 'America' as a concept was a truly great idea, based on the bedrock of equality. I find it more pertinent than ever to release it now; to the moment America finds itself in, daring to re-imagine itself and its place in the world.

When I set out to make a video for the new version of this song, I wanted to honor all of those millions of people, especially young people, who are, for the first time, feeling empowered to voice their beliefs. I wanted to capture how Obama's message of change has echoed across the broad fabric of what is America. To do that, we've cast the film with an eclectic array of personalities, including Forest Whitaker, Jason Alexander, Whoopi Goldberg, Cyndi Lauper, Barry Manilow, Joan Baez, Macy Gray and Joss Stone. They appear alongside veterans, teachers and everyday citizens-- all of whom have been touched by this simple idea of change. As an Englishman, I'm not an expert in all the intricate details of American politics. But as an artist, I understand how rare it is to inspire a connection to a bigger idea or purpose. This video isn't so much an endorsement of Barack Obama as much as it is a celebration of all those who have picked up a sign, who have registered to vote and are working to make the world a better place. So as Senator Barack Obama ascends to the mountain top, let us not forget all of the others who for the past 40 years have sung anthems of change to make this moment possible.

Big Oil Provides The Glue Connecting Norm Coleman To Ted Stevens-- And Rampant Corruption

This morning John Ensign (R-NV), who has the unenviable task of holding November's expected Republican losses in the Senate down to 3 or 4, instead of the ten or eleven the Democrats are working towards, lashed out at his fellow GOP senators. According to today's Hill the NRSC chair admitted he wouldn't be able "to make good on a promise to match Democrats 'dollar for dollar' this year, blaming his GOP colleagues for not chipping in." The Democrats have $43 million on hand, almost entirely for winning Republican seats, and the GOP has less than $25 million, which will all go to defending vulnerable Republican incumbents.

“I recently challenged my colleagues to step up to the plate and help me provide the resources our candidates need to compete in races across the country-- to match the DSCC expenditures in targeted races,” Ensign said in a statement. “It has become clear that my call has gone largely unanswered. I have no control over the timing or content of [independent expenditure] ads, but I have had no choice but to decrease the total budget of our IE Unit. It is still my hope that my Republican colleagues will engage in this election and help match what the Democrats are doing. If they do, I will adjust our budget accordingly.”

But the GOP politicians, who believe so fervently in outsourcing-- they have put policies in place that encourage outsourcing of American jobs and have even outsourced, tragically, the responsibilities of the U.S. military-- are now outsourcing their own electoral prospects, counting almost entirely on GOP front operations, like Freedom's Watch, run by right-wing billionaires.

One of the most vulnerable of the Republican incumbents, Minnesota's rubber stamp Norm Coleman, has stepped up his fundraising and has managed to vacuum up an incredible $15,495,493, much of it from the corporate special interests he has served so unflinchingly for the past five years. Among the industries which have "donated" the most to Coleman, repaying him for services delivered are:

Real Estate... $877,280
Insurance... $531,260
Commercial Banks... $418,425
Big Pharma... $329,567
Lobbyists... $300,459
Gas & Oil... $247,900

Ah... yes, Gas & Oil... and lobbyists. And that brings us to Norm and his pal, Alaska's indicted senator Ted Stevens, who-- like Coleman-- has been taking huge bribes from Big Oil interests in return for billions of dollars in tax breaks and rubber stamping of policies that have allowed them to... well, in short, drive up the price of gasoline and heating oil. Stevens went a little further than Coleman-- going beyond the generous definitions the political Establishment uses to define bribery. But Stevens has shared those bribes with his Republican colleagues-- including Coleman. As Stevens prepares for his criminal trial, many of the Republican senators have returned the tainted money-- but not Coleman, who, oddly, gave back some and held on to some.

This doesn't exactly shock me. When I was in elementary school in Brooklyn I ran for secretary of my class. The result was a tie-- between me and an especially nasty little cheat named... Norm Coleman; yep the same one who has gone on the live in Minnesota and scoop up incredible amounts of special interests money while selling out the interests of his constituents. Today I noticed that the Minnesota race had tightened up and was, in effect, in a statistical dead heat-- 41% Al Franken, 40% Norm Coleman, 8% Independence candidate Dean Barkley. (Last week Rasmussen also showed a tie.) Coleman's 46% job approval rating predicts that he will lose in November, just like every other Republican incumbent with less than a 50% approval in the summer of 2006 lost his seat in November. I've got to think that if enough Minnesota voters see this video ad and think about it when they vote, Coleman's 46% job approval rating sure won't go up any.