The Maverick King of Phoniness

Recently, I finished reading this explosive Rolling Stone piece on John McCain by Tim Dickinson. This article comprehensively outlines a side of McCain that his adoring fans in the MSM have never bothered to report on, or even look into. Not all in the blogosphere have received this article well, but it certainly has its defenders. I'm of the mind that the article is fair. Dickinson certainly is one-sided in his portrayal of McCain, however he sources everything and even has numerous direct quotes from McCain's associates of the past and present (most importantly a number of his fellow POWs at the Hanoi Hilton). I strongly recommend that you give this article a read. Definitely approach it with a grain of salt, as it is quite one-sided. However, it's important to note that until recently the MSM has only ever said positive things about McCain; don't ever forget that everyone has a dark side. Yes, that does include Obama and the Democrats. After all, we're all human!

So this is what it's come to

(Via Jason Zengerle at The Plank)

Did you see that? John McCain asked a crowd of supporters "Who is the real Barack Obama?" In response, some man in the audience yelled "terrorist!" What did John McCain do? Well, he continued with his speech. Pretty mavericky, huh? This is the measure of just how far John McCain has fallen. This is what his campaign has inspired. Insipid hatred. Vile racism. God Bless America! The same can be said of Sarah Palin (color me unsurprised!). In some of the recent rallies she has headlined an African-American sound technician was told to "sit down, boy!" and when she asked the crowd what should be done about Barack Obama, another good ol' boy shouted "kill him!" Once again, what did noted hockey mom Sarah "Barracuda" Palin do about this? Let's just say the silence was deafening as she cracked a smile. (Links courtesy of Christopher Orr over at the Plank) How do McCain and Palin look at themselves in the mirror? How do they sleep at night? Have they been consumed so thoroughly by amorality that they are completely and utterly indifferent? Do they enjoy this? Or, is this campaign tearing them apart inside? For their sake, I hope that it's the last one. I'm 24 years old. I can't make the claim that I've seen a lot of things, because I haven't. However, never in my life have I experienced so vile an endeavor as the McCain-Palin campaign. Christopher Orr says it best "If Steve Schmidt and the other architects of this increasingly disgraceful candidacy didn't anticipate such an outpouring of violent, racist bile, they are imbeciles. If they did, they are worse." John McCain, to paraphrase the great Joseph N. Welch, "Have you no decency, sir?"

Georgia?!?

Nate Silver, over at FiveThirtyEight, has a very encouraging post up about the latest voter registration figures out of Georgia. Between November 2004 and October 1 of 2008, the percentage of the active registered voter pool that is African-American jumped from 27.4% to 29%, and is likely to climb up to almost 31%! Silver outlines how this could move Georgia from a safe red state into the toss up category. This is very exciting stuff.

All this leads me to the main point of this post, VOTE on November 4! If you don't vote and your candidates lose, you have absolutely no right to complain. For my readers in Wisconsin, you can register at polls. For the rest of you, just google your home state and voter registration (e.g. Colorado Voter Registration). Do yourself and your country and vote. I won't try and influence your vote but you should really vote for Barack Obama.

Disturbing Possibilities

Via Michael Tomasky, I found this unsettling post from Robert Dreyfuss over at The Nation. Dreyfuss reports on the tenous situation on the northern Lebanon border with Syria, were the Lebanese media reports there are at least 10,000 amassed Syrian troops. It's becoming increasingly clear that Syria believes that groups operating in northern Lebanon pose a serious threat to its security. This set of circumstances is particularly disturbing because Syria is currently in the midst of negotiations with Israel over a peace deal that would include a return of the Golan Heights to Syria.

Despite the obvious consequences of a Syrian invasion of northern Lebanon including civilian casualties and a possible collapse of the talks between Syria and Israel, it could also be a huge boon to John McCain. This is of course completely illogical, however, the voting patterns of the American people are rarely steeped in logic. Rationally, one would conclude that an increasingly calamitous and unstable situation in the Middle East would call for a different approach. However, as was demonstrated in 2004, the Republicans usually shift into full bear fear mongering mode (with a great deal of help from the MSM) in order to remind the public that only they can protect America from the terrorists. The surrender happy Democrats would cut and run. There's no doubt that McCain in his infinite wisdom would proclaim that "we are all Lebanese" now, just as he did when Russian made incursions into Georgia. We see this over and over again from McCain. The man is prone to hyperbole. In fact, it's probably fair to call him a hypochondriac. Whenever anything happens, he completely freaks out. When Russia invaded the South Ossetian region of Georgia it was the "greatest foreign policy challenge since the fall of the Soviet Union." Also, McCain has regurlarly called the current financial crisis (actually, he calls it a fiscal crisis, which Matt Yglesias is right to point out is wrong) the "greatest crisis since World War II." Admittedly, the current fall out on Wall Street could prove to be the greatest crisis since World War II, but is irresponsible for McCain to say so before the entire scope of the problem is known. Anyways, to get back to my point, many in the media like Chris Matthews and Wolf Blitzer and Tom Brokaw would tout McCains resolute stances on national security and foreign policy. It doesn't matter that John McCain's views are completely wrongheaded, in today's media landscape a strong disposition towards military force and increased tensions with America's "enemies" is equated with deep understanding of international affairs.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user failasoof April 25, 2007

R.I.P. Paul Newman

Great Actor. Great Man. Via Eric Alterman at Altercation.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user JamesAlec September 27, 2008

Wah! Wah! I'm losing! TIME OUT!

Look, John McCain, there's no crying in baseball! You can't call time out! You've said numerous times that you don't know a lot about economics, and suddenly you are going to rescue the bailout package! This reminds me of something I would've tried in high school debate! I really hope people are smart enought to see through this. To anyone that's unsure, THIS IS A TOTAL GIMMICK! It's a stunt! McCain knows he has no credibility on the economy so he's hoping a little political theater will save the day. Bullshit. Don't buy it. For those of you that aren't yet convinced of Sarah Palin's knownothingism check out this clip courtesy of Think Progress:



I'm sorry, but I have no fucking clue what she just said. I'm in league with Glenn Greenwald on this, I actually feel sorry for her in this instance because she clearly has no idea what the hell she's talking about. I'm pretty sure bailing out Wall Street has nothing to do with health care reform, but perhaps I'm just being inflexible!

Corporate Socialism

You, my dear readers, might have noticed that I've been relatively silent on the financial meltdown that we are currently in the midst of. In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that it is because most of this stuff is over my head. Perhaps the only affinity I have with John McCain, is that I also don't know as much about economics as much as I should. I blame this on my own shortcomings and supply side doctrinaire professors that taught me voodoo economics back in college. However, I'm not running for president. John McCain is. Anyways, I'm getting off on a tangent here. I titled this post corporate socialism because lately we've seen a lot of government nationalization of business, particularly in the financial sector. I think the irony of this is lost on a lot of people. A deeply conservative, radical free-market, Republican administration has been nationalizing (at least partially) corporations left and right! I wrote a somewhat sarcastic post about AIG last week, but just think about it, we as taxpayers own a 80% of AIG, the largest private insurer in the world! Or to put it in more socialistic terms, the state controls an 80% stake in AIG. Isn't that crazy! Wow! If you'd like to learn a little bit more about the crisis, and some ideas on what to do about it; I'd recommend reading the blogs of Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, and Dean Baker. You should also check out this report by the Center for American Progress on Paulson's proposed $700 billion bailout plan.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user grahamlyth July 20, 2008