McCain

Paid McCain spokesmen keep saying on news programs that McCain doesn't speak for "the campaign". What are they talking about?? If McCain isn't the campaign, WHO is running for president on the Republican ticket?? This is soo weird!!

This morning on Fox, Tucker Bounds said McCain doesn't speak for the campaign on the topic as to whether the option of increasing taxes on social security is on the table to solving the SSI shortfall. McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin responded yesterday to the discrepancies between McCain's public assurances on economic proposals and those posed by others in the campaign: Holtz-Eakin said that McCain’s public statements are not necessarily “official” policy. Then Sunday McCain said he supports a state constitutional amendment to ban affirmative action and again Tucker Bounds said this does not reflect the campaign's policy. Finally while trying to distance McCain from his “econ brain” Phil Gramm’s “nation of whiners” comment, Holtz-Eakin declared that on policy issues, “Senator McCain speaks for Senator McCain.”

What IS McCain, a candidate or a symbol? Maybe he's a faux-candidate. If you are a Republican, who do you believe -- the faux-candidate or the men behind the curtains?

Just Wondering

As seen at Left 'Toon Lane:

McCain is Lost Again

McCain keeps telling us how many times he's been to Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama is too inexperienced and unknowledgable to be President. The trouble is McCain didn't learn anything when he made all these trips in the past. ABC's The Note reports it:

Asked by ABC's Diane Sawyer Monday morning whether the "the situation in Afghanistan in precarious and urgent," McCain responded:

"I think it's serious. . . . It's a serious situation, but there's a lot of things we need to do. We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border," said McCain, R-Ariz., said on "Good Morning America."

Exactly where is that border?

AL GORE!!!

He just came out on stage at the Netroots Conference! I immediately teared up. I wanted to be there but decided on other travel plans this summer. He is so wonderful. I want his vision to prevail. I was so happy to see Pelosi supporting his iniative.

McCain Should Be Censured for This

Ben Smith over at Politico writes:

Obama, you may have noticed, doesn't have a public schedule today. The press generally respects campaigns' and officials' security concerns, when voiced.

So . . . John McCain -- of all people -- just said, at a fundraiser, that Obama would be in Iraq with other senators this weekend. . .

His comment was reported by Reuters.

NOTE: Nobody's suggesting here that McCain was deliberately trying to do harm . . ."

Well, I AM! He's either TRYING to get Obama killed OR he's too senile to remember what treason is. Either way -- this guy should be censured by the Senate. How would he have liked trying to go shopping in the markets of Bassra if someone over here had given the terrorists several days notice?

Flying in America

Digby is so smart!

Travelling by airplane in the US is nothing more than mass training of Americans to the requirements of the coming police state. The whole point is to make you learn to acquiesce without question, en masse, to completely absurd directives by dull functionaries wearing uniforms.

I'm planning a vacation in August and I'm already driving myself nuts dreading the flight.

MSM Falls Down on Job Again -- There Were Oil Spills During Katrina

Republithugs keep saying that no oil was spilled during Katrina and Rita to justify expanding off shore drilling and the MSM lets them get away with it. I remember WAY back 3 years ago -- why do so many media talking heads and Republithugs suffer from amnesia?

Ask the folks in Mereaux, Port Sulphur, or Cox Bay if there was an oil spill -- oh, yeah. You can't because those folks can't go home because of the fouling of their homes, businesses, water, and soil with the spills.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimated that there were 124 separate spills for a total of 743,700 gallons. But why believe an agency charged with keeping track of such things? McCain and McConnell can just keep asserting lies like

"it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston."

Maybe they need a picture:

HSA Terrorist List Reaches 1,000,000 Names

The ACLU says the HSA terrorist watchlist has now reached 1 million names.

I like Goldy's take on it:

At one million strong, this list is either inaccurate and overly broad to the point of being useless… or we as a nation need to do some serious introspection about how we’ve managed to piss off so many people to the point where over one million domestic air travelers have dedicated their lives to murdering American civilians. (Though perhaps, domestic air travel itself these days is motive enough.)

More McCain Flip Flops

I don't have the time or energy to track all of McCain's flip flops but these really piss me off.

Today McCain held a women's-only town hall event in Wisconsin. He talked about how he's committed to "equal pay for equal work". ARGH! In April this year McCain said that if he had been in the Senate, he would have voted against the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would have rectified the Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear that made it much harder for women and other workers to pursue pay discrimination claims. McCain gave his reasons for being against it as the bill "opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems." He also dismissed the importance of equal pay, saying that women simply need "education and training".

Earlier this week, Carly Fiorina, often speculated as his presumptive VP choice, brought up how many insurance plans cover Viagra but not birth control. McCain, of course, voted against legislation that would have mandated birth control to be part of insurance coverage. When he was asked for comment,he had a senior moment.


Does the man think we're stupid? Or is he senile? I think the man can't think on his own. He is fed opinions and gets them all mixed up. I'll be looking for the walkie-talkie in his back like Bush had at the Kerry debate so someone can feed him the right answers.

Fibbers, Liars, and Damn Liars

You've probably all see the scarey pictures this week and if it goes according to Bush's plan -- gotten scared enough to support a war in Iran. BUT it's a FAKE!! Here's Fox's version, Getty's version, from the Herald in the UK, and the BBC:






Isn't Photoshop great?! This is so wrong! When are we going to wake up? The lies are so thick no one can tell what the truth is.

Mission Accomplished, Osama bin Laden!

September 28, 1998:

Bin Laden claimed that the United States has carried out ‘the biggest theft in history’ by buying oil from Persian Gulf countries at low prices. According to bin Laden, a barrel of oil today should cost $144. Based on that calculation, he said, the Americans have stolen $36 trillion from Muslims…" (Associated Press, 9/28).

From CNN

Commodities
Energy †
Light Crude (NYM)
August 08 ($US per bbl.)

Price 141.37
Change-3.92
High143.10
Low 139.50
Settle 141.37
Last Update7/7 2:19pm

Thank you, George Bush!

Little Noticed BIG Story

My local paper, The Olympian, had a tiny article on an incident that happened last week. I haven't noticed anyone in the MSM broadcast media picking up this story but I think it has HUGE ramifications for us.

A surge of wind last week jumped far beyond levels forecast by operators of Oregon's burgeoning wind-farm industry, sending more power into the regional grid than it could accommodate.
For the first time, Bonneville Power Administration power managers began calling operators with orders to curtail power generation.

The BPA realized by Monday evening that it could no longer handle the surge without increasing spills of water through hydroelectric dams to levels dangerous to fish. . .

What this means is that a wind storm came up and the windmills started doing their thing sending MORE electricity to the grid than it could handle. If we created most of our power by burning coal, the furnaces could have been turned off and we could have skated on the wind. But we can't turn off the Columbia -- the only way to slow electric production at a dam is to spill more water -- but they couldn't spill more water without harming the salmon.

This story shocks me. I thought the grid was more fungible than this. I thought if one region was producing excess power it could send it out on the grid and another (more expensive) method of creating electricity could be taken down. I had no idea that the regions were closed entities. How did Enron move power around?

Here's the danger -- if the grid can't support the power generated, this will become a great excuse to refuse to allow wind power because of the natural fluctuations and because the power generators are not multinational companies -- they are individual farmers, ranchers, or other investors. BPA wants to handle this in the future by telling farmers and ranchers out there generating power that they have to stop and BPA wants to charge sanctions if they don't. Winds is enough uncertainty for these investors -- now BPA wants to be able to turn them off on their whim and charge them fines?! In BPA's case hydroelectric and wind are both carbon neutral so no harm there, but without assurances that they won't be turned off, how will investors respond to this?

This is important especially in those areas of the country that use coal to generate power. If we want to go to carbonless energy production, we need adequate grid and switching capabilities. And we need some certainty that investors in wind turbines will be able to recoup their investment and not used by power companies to avoid paying them for the power or to ensure their big carbon spewing plants get first dibs at power generating.

This tiny story is a canary coughing in the mine -- we need to pay attention to this and make sure our infrastructure is in place and someone who doesn't make a profit generating power decides who turns the generators on and off. Otherwise companies will have a perfect loophole to close down the wind farms -- just choke them off.

What Does McCain Stand For???

John Amato documents Keith Olbermann's rant about McCain's flip-flops:

John McCain has flip-flopped on so many subjects that he would feel quite at home in my toddler’s tumbling class. Keith Olbermann recounts McCain’s flip-floppery on Political reform, Immigration, gay marriage, Abortion, Nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Military actions against rogue states, Negotiating with Kim Jong Il, Negotiating with Castro, Negotiating with terrorists (acceptable in 2002 when Powell went to Syria. In 2006, McCain said sooner or later we’ll talk to Hamas, not appropriate now), Unilateral action against suspected terrorists in Pakistan (Confused leadership with Obama, not with Bush) Warrantless wiretapping, Torturing Detainees, Indefinitely holding detainees, Iraq War, Tax cuts for the rich, Estate tax, Privatizing Social Security, Balanced budget, Windfall profits tax, Offshore drilling, Bush fundraisers, Jerry Falwell, Pastor John Hagee, MLK Jr. holiday, South Africa divestment, the confederate flag, and alternatives to evolution being taught at school

Feeling dizzy yet?

I sure am!!

Wes Clark

Last Sunday Wes Clark was responding to a question about how didn't 'McCain's service prepare him to be President' on CBS and Clark said: "Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

When I saw it I thought "oops, Wes Clark just stepped in a big pile of shit."

I understand what he was trying to say -- McCain brings up his service ALL THE TIME. Even on such topics as health care -- He reminds us that he wasn't always covered by a government plan -- there were those 5 years in the Hanoi Hilton. It's is answer to everything and he seems to be trying to guilt us into ignoring his other HUGE failings and wrong positions (although who can keep track of McCain's positions? They change daily.)

Bob Schieffer seems to be representative of most reporters -- McCain's service is sacroscant and is the answer for everything. Clark has the credibility to question this but he fell right into the trap and answered in a ham handed way that will give the right all kinds of ammo to hang Clark.

The attacks are commencing and I fear Clark will be the sacrificial lamb. Too bad. I really like Cark and would like to have seen him as a VP candidate. I think that's off the table now.