Drill Baby Drill

Conservatives like Republican incumbent for the U.S. 3rd Texas Congressional District, Sam Johnson, age 78, Republican incumbent for the U.S. 4th Texas Congressional District, Ralph Hall, age 85, and Republican incumbent Texas Senator John Cornyn join Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain in his support of big tax breaks for big oil and big coal companies and no investment in alternative energy development. The GOP answer to America's energy problem is "drill baby drill." The only problem is - the GOP's buddies, the big oil companies, already control thousands of oil leases across America and offshore, but they won't drill and they won't let anyone else drill either.

Something Lighter - Les Misbarack

With music from "Les Miserables," the video shows a Obama campaign office filled with supporters hoping for a better future.

John McCain's Health Records Must Be Released

A New "New Deal" For America

David Moberg, a senior editor at In These Times wrote this week in Back for the Future:

The discussions on the fringes of the [Democratic] convention often returned to another era: the 1930s. Progressives pointed to a panoply of problems facing the country: deepening economic downturn, environmental and economic crises based on our dependence on oil, record economic inequality, a broken healthcare system, and inadequate public investment in education and infrastructure.

Redressing these failings will require a "transformational presidency," like that of Franklin D. Roosevelt, as journalist Robert Kuttner argues in his new book, Obama’s Challenge. They will require the "next New Deal," according to U.S. Action, a coalition of statewide citizen organizations.

But it’s not just the Democratic left that sees the present through the prism of a New Deal past. According to pollster Anna Greenberg, more voters see the present as a moment comparable to the ’30s than as a time comparable to the ’70s or ’90s. ...

But conventional wisdom, often even among Democrats, denies the possibility of grand government action that makes most people’s lives better. That wisdom, according to Kuttner, says: There’s no money. Government doesn’t work, except to cut taxes. It must bow before private markets.

Obama's Economic Agenda

Barack Obama's campaign is releasing a new television ad in which the Senator, speaking directly to the camera, lays out his economic agenda. Obama says in the new ad, "The truth is that while you've been living up to your responsibilities, Washington has not. That's why we need change. Real change. This is no ordinary time and it shouldn't be an ordinary election. But much of this campaign has been consumed by petty attacks and distractions that have nothing to do with you or how we get America back on track."

Obama's Economic Agenda

• Tax Cuts for Ordinary Americans
  
• Jump Start the Economy
• Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief
• Trade
• Job Creation
• Support Small Business
• Labor
• Protect Homeownership and Crack Down on Mortgage Fraud
• Address Predatory Credit Card Practices
• Reform Bankruptcy Laws
• Work/Family Balance

Lies And Phony Outrage And Swift-Boat Politics

The McCain campaign attacked Barack Obama with an internet ad which accuses him of insulting Sarah Palin by using the phrase "put lipstick on a pig" in reference to the McCain campaign. (The ad falsely used an out of context clip, misleadingly captioned "Katie Couric on: This Election" that CBS News demanded be withdrawn.)

Obama responded by calling this a "made-up controversy" and describing the ad as "lies and phony outrage and Swift-boat politics."

The McCain Campaign seeks to find a daily faux outrage to distract the news media to keep them from writing stories about: Highest Unemployment Rate In Five Years... Housing Crisis... Stretched Military... Resurging Taliban... Energy Drought... Never-Ending War... Growing Nuclear Enemies... Global Warming... Lack Of Healthcare... Underperforming Schools...

A Republican Legacy To America

Highest Unemployment Rate In Five Years... Housing Crisis... Stretched Military... Resurging Taliban... Energy Drought... Never-Ending War... Growing Nuclear Enemies... Global Warming... Lack Of Healthcare... Underperforming Schools...

"F--- You," McCain Publicly Tells Texas Sen. Cornyn

In separate interviews with Politico during the last week of August, Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said they have seen McCain “explode.”

“He has a huge anger problem,” Boxer said. “And he never hid that. ... I have seen it happen on the Senate floor many, many times. … He has exploded at me a couple times.”

Boxer said McCain has always apologized after the dust-ups. Nonetheless, she insinuated that McCain’s temperament makes him unfit for the White House.

“It’s all well and good to apologize,” Boxer added, “but if you are in charge of that black box, I worry about that.”

Durbin noted McCain’s temper is “well documented,” saying that he had been on the receiving end of it for what he considered “minor things.”

McClatchy Newspapers - McCain's History of Hot Temper Raises Concerns By David Lightman and Matt Stearns September 7, 2008 WASHINGTON — John McCain made a quick stop at the Capitol one day last spring to sit in on Senate negotiations on the big immigration bill, and John Cornyn was not pleased. Cornyn, a mild-mannered Texas Republican, saw a loophole in the bill that he thought would allow felons to pursue a path to citizenship. McCain called Cornyn's claim "chicken-s---," according to people familiar with the meeting, and charged that the Texan was looking for an excuse to scuttle the bill. Cornyn grimly told McCain he had a lot of nerve to suddenly show up and inject himself into the sensitive negotiations. "F--- you," McCain told Cornyn, in front of about 40 witnesses. It was another instance of the Republican presidential candidate losing his temper, another instance where, as POW-MIA activist Carol Hrdlicka put it, "It's his way or no way." There's a lengthy list of similar outbursts through the years: Read the rest of the story

Slate.com - One Angry Man Should we worry about John McCain's temper? By Christopher Hitchens Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 We are still obliged to ask ourselves whether the senior senator from Arizona is a brick short of a load or, as heartless people in England sometimes say, a sandwich or two short of a picnic. Because "anger," make no mistake about it, is the innuendo for instability or inadequacy. What if McCain doesn't really have both oars in the water or is either too tightly wrapped or not tightly wrapped enough? Read the full story

McCain Is No Maverick

John McCain together with all of his spokespersons, which too often includes the established news media, are "marketing" McCain as a "Maverick Centrist Republican." In truth, when the vote really counts, McCain has always voted with other far-right conservatives in the U.S. Senate to enact the far-right conservative philosophy into federal law and to confirm far-right conservative judges for the U.S. Federal and U.S. Supreme Courts. This is particularly true on the issue of women's rights.

• McCain JustMoreOfTheSame.com
• McCain Campaign's Descent Into Ugliness
• McCain: Make-Believe Maverick

The Truth About Sarah Palin

The McMansion in McCain's Nomination Acceptance Speech

While I was watching McCain's nomination acceptance speech Thursday night I was puzzled why he had the picture of a McMansion projected behind him after the flap of him not remembering how many McMansions he owns. The tight camera shots only showed McCain's head against the grass in the picture, which made it look like he was reprising his famed green screen performance. And when they panned out, it looked like McCain was showing off one of his mansions. Josh Marshall at TPM may have solved the mystery in this posting - "I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this [picture of the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California] instead.

At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this [North Hollywood middle] school being behind McCain and the fact that it has 'Walter Reed' in its name, I'm really not sure you can discount this possibility."

Statement from Walter Reed Middle School principal, Donna Tobin, "It has been brought to the school's attention that a picture of the front of our school, Walter Reed Middle School, was used as a backdrop at the Republican National Convention. Permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school's picture an endorsement of any political party or view."