Newt is becoming as pathetic at McCain did during his Presidential bid for fame, glory and power ...

Gingrich: I Totally Would Have Voted For Paul Ryan's Budget

Gingrich Apologizes To Ryan, Begs Dems Not To Use His Quotes In Ads

Sometimes John McCain is funny and sometimes he is pathetic ...

From digby, here's an example of the pathetic John McCain:

I guess the Dems have really gone and done it this time:

Democrats shouldn't expect much cooperation from Republicans the rest of this year, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Monday.

Terrifying prospect.

Well if the reThugs don't 'cooperate' the rest of the year then they will have succeeded in their goal of non-cooperation for the entire year. 100% non-cooperation is such an impressive sign of success for the reThugs. Congrats. Take the rest of the year off. Go home or somewhere out of sight. Maybe try exercising your brain, instead of your mouth, for awhile.

John McCain and Jon Kyl are using Medicare but do not want all Americans to have access to what they have ...

Anthony Weiner Points Out the Hypocrisy of Members of Congress on Medicare but Against the Public Option

From Think Progress: Rep. Weiner Identifies 55 Republicans On Medicare Who ‘Steadfastly Oppose’ The Public Option

Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) office today released an internal study showing that 151 members of Congress “currently receive government-funded; government-administered single-payer health care — Medicare.” Of those 151 members, 55 are Republicans who also happen to be “steadfastly opposed [to] other Americans getting the public option, like the one they have chosen.” Included on Weiner’s list are anti-public option crusaders Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), and Rep. Peter King (R-NY).

Arizona's Jon Kyl continues to swim in the muck ...

Via Arizona Geology:

Kyl blocks Energy nominees to help move land swap bill

U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., is blocking presidential nominees to U.S. Energy Department posts in an effort to move an Arizona land bill forward. ...

Always favoring business interests over the interests of the majority of the voters and residents of the State of Arizona, Kyl and McCain plan to give (or 'trade,' rather) land to the Resolution copper Mine and are attempting to extort the President by holding up appointments to him administration.

Ain't politics a crock ...

Irony of ironies: McCain, Kyl back Napolitano for Cabinet

Kyl said he doesn't expect Napolitano to start "bringing home the bacon" in her new role but said Arizona stands to benefit from a Homeland Security secretary well-versed in the state's concerns.

That's quite a compliment from one of the corruption crowd.

Palin's right: "... those guys are jerks."

Gov. Sarah Palin returned to work in her Anchorage office Friday afternoon and spoke out against anonymously sourced stories critical of her behavior on the campaign trail, saying ...

And in my opinion accurately describing the press, McCain and the entire GOP establishment:

"it’s immature, it’s unprofessional and those guys are jerks."

Right, thanks for the lies and the hate, McCain ...

The Arizona Daily Star shows its complete lack of integrity, again. The press have lied to us for decades about McCain and now they thank him for making nice after he loses:

Without bitterness or animosity, McCain stressed the need to move beyond the election and work together to get the country moving again.

McCain, like Lieberman and all the Thugs, know they can do any and every despicable act and their media enablers will still sing their praises.

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Today's QUOTES: George Bush is the most morally slimy and horrifying incompetent President modern industrial America has ever seen, everyone knows that, but the point is that he never could have achieved such lofty status without Congress. If Bush is the worst of all time how can this Congress be rated far behind, even with our Party in alleged control? It can’t be, that is the reality we live this glorious American day. --paradox, The Left Coaster

Ahhhh, I can breath again!

Rambo and The Challenged lost the White House.

And Arizona's Congress Critters are now comprised of 5 Dems and 3 Thugs as the fight in Northern AZ for Rick Renzi's congressional seat was won by the Democrat:

Flagstaff Democrat and former legislator Ann Kirkpatrick rode a significant fundraising edge to victory over Republican Sydney Hay, a mining-industry lobbyist well-known in conservative circles. Kirkpatrick focused her campaign on the rural district's economic concerns, while Hay emphasized gas prices and conservative touchstones like abortion and gun rights.

The rest of Arizona's Critters stayed in place.

Yesterdays' QUOTES ...

Yet even as they obsess over Barack Obama and Bill Ayers -- just as the McCain campaign tells them to --the news media have all but ignored John McCain's close ties to Gordon Liddy. A Nexis search** finds fewer than 100 news reports that have mentioned McCain and Liddy this year.

The idea that truth is merely a social construct, that it's subjective, in other words, first appeared in academia as a corruption of post-modernism, but it’s taken root in our culture without our really realizing it or understanding its implications.

[ ... ]

Although this kind of thinking, relativism and constructivism, started on the left, many conservatives now feel empowered by it, too, and some of them have embraced it with a vengeance on issues ranging from global warming and evolution to the war in Iraq.

We then try to explain to them why the outer shell color of people matters so much on this planet and why those individuals who can lay eggs (sorta) are regarded as second-class quality essentially everywhere while the egg-laying ability itself is lauded to high heavens. The aliens then roll all their eight eyeballs and decide to vacation on Alpha Centaur next time.

Not being "the other" has some great advantages. For instance, when John McCain or Joe Biden do something stupid they only affect their own reputations, because white men are not "the other". They are individuals. When Barack Obama or Sarah Palin do something stupid they affect the reputations of African-Americans or women respectively (at least among all racists and sexists). They serve as embodiments of the groups they represent. This is the case as long as Firsts are necessary, as long as we only have a handful of individuals on which to base our group assessments.

Thank Glenn for putting it into words: So what if he were a muslim?

As usual Glenn Greenwald get to the heart of what's so uncomfortable about this 'Obama-is-a-muslim' attack from the holier than thou; more christianist than their neighbor; the ultimate witch-hunting, woman-hating, fetus-idolising ultra-patriots; the GOP horde of thugs.

An excerpt from Colin Powell condemns the ugliness of the Republican Party:

There has been much condemnation over the "Obama-is-a-Muslim" line of GOP attack, but almost all of it has been on the ground that the attack is factually false as applied to the Christian Obama, not on the ground that it is a reprehensible and dangerous line of attack even if it were factually true. Powell bears much of the responsibility, and always will, for the horrific U.S. attack on Iraq (one which, just by the way, resulted in the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims), but he deserves credit for using the platform he had this morning to go out of his way to make this vital point when doing so was not necessary (and perhaps not even helpful) in advancing the cause of his endorsement of Obama.

That being Muslim or Arab is a mark against someone's character is now so ingrained in our political culture that it is hardly noticed any longer. When John McCain, at that rally in Minnesota last week, sought to chide his supporter for asserting that Obama is an "Arab," McCain did so by pointing out that, in fact, Obama is a "decent family man" -- as though that proves that he's not "an Arab because "decent family man" is the opposite of "Arab": ...

McCain has a tiger by the tail ...

One might call it a 'terrorist' tiger bomb engineered by McCain and his sidekick and thrown into the pre-election mix.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — John McCain on Friday moved to calm rising anger among his supporters at rival Barack Obama, calling him a decent man and at one point taking the microphone away from a woman who'd called Obama an Arab.

Their anger apparently still at flash point, McCain's supporters then booed him for his conciliatory words about Obama.

The abrupt move from McCain at a town hall meeting in Minnesota came after days of rising tensions as McCain and his campaign attacked Obama as a friend of a 1960s radical they called a terrorist.

Can we stop talking about Palin now?

The Dems had a brilliant woman running for the Democratic nominee for President (brilliant, but not my first choice, by the way) and not only did the national press respond with ugly sexism so did quite a few theoretical Dems and Progressives.

In the end the Dems choose the pied piper who is male and has sorta black skin.

McCreepy then searches for the most stupid woman he can find because, sexist that he is, he thinks women are just so stupid like him and will automatically switch their votes to McSame and Mc's woman running mate because those who supported Clinton will just naturally switch their votes from an intelligent and somewhat liberal woman to a stupid, cloying and rabidly extreme woman. I'm sure that's how things work in McDumb's world, but his world is shrinking.

I wonder though, if Clinton had been the nominee and if she had chosen some white male as her running mate would McDumbo have searched for the stupidest black man he could find for his running mate? There's one on the Supreme Court isn't there?

"With the debate on, the stakes finally are getting serious"

Is the author, Steven Thomma, implying that the stakes would NOT be serious if McCain refused to show up for the debate as he attempted to do?

Is this another silly case of the media looking at the 'stakes' only from their two-fighters-in-a-ring perspective?

What is at stake is the future of the United States. Though the Democratic nominee is no progressive, he is at least mature, intelligent, thoughtful, coherent and concerned. All qualities that McCain does not possess.

Ah, yes. Don't let the public think they can decide ...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/27/debate.poll/index.html?iref=topnews



http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/27/debate.analysis/index.html?iref=topnews

Who says there should be a 'knockout' blow. The press. Who gets to judge such a blow. The media. I really shouldn't refer to them as 'the press' or as reporters or as journalists or as news media. They obviously don't think of themselves as such. Based on their output they must think of themselves as 'the deciders' and/or public opinion manipulators.

How long before the continual media propaganda undos what the public saw before their very eyes?

Congress critters just believe whatever BushCo tells them. After all that's what they think their job is, doing the president's laundry ...

Is the bailout needed? Many economists say it's not
by Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers

A funny thing happened in the drafting of the largest-ever U.S. government intervention in the financial system. Lawmakers of all stripes mostly fell in line, but many of the nation's brightest economic minds are warning that the Wall Street bailout's a dangerous rush job.

President Bush and his Treasury secretary, former Goldman Sachs chief executive Henry Paulson, have warned of imminent economic collapse and another Great Depression if their rescue plan isn't passed immediately.

Is that true?

"It's more hype than real risk," said James K. Galbraith, a University of Texas economist and son of the late economic historian John Kenneth Galbraith. "A nasty recession is possible, but the bailout will not cure that. So it's mainly relevant to the financial industry."

In other words, another money give away to rich people. The rich have a socialized right to be rich, after all. It's just so obvious. After all they are rich so they should be rich. And since they are rich and should be rich it's everyone else's responsibility (not theirs, mind you) to make sure they remain rich. That's all the Bushies are doing. Just passing out the money to the rich before they leave office.

McCain, of course, more than approves and, I think, enjoys playing the games for fun and profit. After all he (or his wife) is very rich and he knows he deserves it and so should we'uns.

And the Democrats are just so blind that they are unable to even ask an intelligent question nor look into the problem on their own. Except for a couple individuals, the democratic mass acts like acceptance of the administration's statement of the problem is a given. Even Obama can't muster a decent question or two and is preparing us for another capitulation like FISA.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Under the PATRIOT Act, Americans' rights of privacy, including their reading habits, could be scrutinized by the FBI. Protestors—even peaceful ones—can be charged with terrorism. Dissenters are often denied the right to fly on commercial airlines. In Bush's target have been Greenpeace and the Quakers. Like China's leaders, America's leaders say these restrictive measures only exist to protect the nation.

On John McCain's 'Tech Plan': ... This isn’t vision. It’s more like a wistful memoir about times gone by.

... The US has shown that its volunteer military, while valiant, is undermanned and overstretched, its intelligence services are willing servants of political manipulators and its leadership is dishonest, immoral and incompetent. It's understandable that somebody out there would think that now is the time to make a move. That it would be Bush's soul brother Pooty-poot was entirely predictable.”

The bottom line on all of these arguments is that men’s feelings are more important than women’s rights.

Now that's a surprise: ... What shocked her, she says, was Americans' ignorance of foreign affairs, obsession with money, and willingness to make long-haul commutes.

Per the top 'law' enforcement officer in the United States of America, formerly a nation of laws, Attorney General Michael Mukasey: ... But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime.”

I guess I just don't think it's fear mongering or divide-and-conquer to tell the truth, which is that the Republicans have screwed things up royally and that the Democrats have a better idea. ...

"The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us.''

If we assume that an idiot such as Col. Bud Day who is quoted in this post's title represents all of the citizens of the United States then those outside the US would be justified in assuming that all US citizens are idiots. But Bud Day does not represent us and we are not all idiots such as he (though all humans seem to have some brand of idiocy in varying degrees).

Some Moslems do apparently believe that forceful conversion or death is the only options for dealing with non-believers but it's rather obvious that not all do believe so. (Christians are not so innocent in this regard either, by the way.)

And even if all Moslems did believe this way, what idiot thinks that before we invaded Iraq they had any chance of accomplishing such a feat. Before we invaded Iraq we could have just laughed in anyone in Iraq that claimed such a preposterous goal. We could have taken steps to protect us from the few crazies. We could have used old fashioned detective work to find those who actually did threaten us or did act out on those threats. And right after 9/11 we would have had the worlds support in going after those who actually planned and engineered 9/11.

After invading Iraq without cause and without benefit, we are weaker than we were (though 'the people who matter' are much, much richer). And if the Bush gang continues down this road and invades or bombs Iran we will be weaker still. We are collecting the hate of the world. We, as a country are very, very stupid. And too few of the non-stupid are in power at present.

Link: McCain backer's comments anger Muslims by Marc Caputo and Beth Reinhard, The Miami Herald

ADDED: Just think, we placed Americans in Iraq as handy targets for any who would like to take a shot at them and then proceeded to treat the country in such a manner to increase the number of people who, and not necessarily for any reasons having to do with religion, want to kill and humiliate as many of us as they can. It's called hate and the monkey in the White House, George W. Bush (a self proclaimed Christian who evidently believes he is doing Gods work), is very, very good at engendering hate, cruelty and all that is base about humanity. What a legacy.

ADDED II: Speaking of God. Since the Moslem, Christian and Jewish God are the same God wouldn't 'believers' begin to wonder if they have understood the message correctly? Either this god is very much like George W Bush(cruel, vindictive, petty, and shallow) and deliberately setting his 'children' at each others throats for some cruel purpose of his own (which I'll admit I am unable to fathom) OR based on the more uplifting teaching of these same religions many are perverting the true teachings OR there is no god and those in power manipulate the message to whatever works to keep and increase their power.

Ya think?

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

The 265 current or former members of the British Parliament and 111 current or former members of the European Parliament ... contend that continuing to proceed with Hamdan's military commission trial now would cause "incalculable harm to the fabric" of international law

Veto overriden on important Medicare bill: So Congress has overridden Bush’s veto on the Medicare bill. This is huge news. As I tried to explain last week, it’s not really about maintaining doctors’ payments — some fudge would have been found to avoid drastic cuts. It’s about rolling back Medicare privatization — and it’s a big win for reformers against the insurance companies.

All of which makes it puzzling how little coverage this is getting in the news media.

-- I also wonder why there seems to be such non-interest in this. Everyone holding their breath?

-- In the world of people who own their own jets, the recession really is just in the minds of whiners--

Is John McCain having more 'let-them-eat-cake' moments lately?

... She has convinced herself that she understands the Everyman American when in reality she is nothing but a ventriloquist to a legion of straw men. --Who could dat be? NPR’s Mara Liasson

... The carceral state has grown so huge that it has begun to transform fundamental democratic institutions, from free and fair elections ...

... Forcing private insurers to operate as efficiently as the federal government is apparently asking too much of the GOP's free market acolytes. Better to cut doctors' fees instead.

Repugs, wrong (or lying) as usual ...

C&L reports that various Republicans, including John McCain are claiming that oil spills did not occur, or were insignificant, during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and then links to a post at Think Progress that gives some actual facts as apposed to lies and rhetoric.

McCain Falsely Claims Katrina And Rita Did Not Cause Significant Oil Spillage

The 9 million gallons reported spilled were comparable with the Exxon Valdez’s 10.8 million gallons, but unlike the Exxon Valdez, were distributed throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, and other Gulf Coast states, many in residential areas.

Sanity will out?

Every time the Doddering Imbecile pushes Obama this fall on this subject, Obama should simply state that he is only interested in finding and eliminating terrorist threats with the help of our friends before they can hit us first. He should point out his differences with McCain and the Bush Administration, who have a penchant for launching trillion dollar wars and nation-killing occupations that let the killers run free while others profit.

Probably not ...