Joe the Plumber Is McCain's Foreign Policy Advisor

As if McCain's campaign failed to properly vet its Diva VP, now he has "Joe the Plumber" as his mouthpiece. Even Fox News was shocked and awed by the "Joe the Plumber" interview.

Now McCain has a non-political, non-vetted, non-licenced fake plumber setting his foreign policy agenda. As reported in Politico from the AP:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Joe the Plumber endorsed Republican John McCain for president on Tuesday and agreed that a vote for Democratic candidate Barack Obama would be "a vote for the death of Israel."

...In a McCain rally at a flag store, Wurzelbacher said he feared that Obama would turn the U.S. into a socialist nation.

When a McCain supporter asked him if he believed "a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel," Wurzelbacher replied, "I'll go ahead and agree with you on that." He didn't elaborate on how Obama, who has said his commitment to Israeli security is "nonnegotiable," would be caustic for the Jewish state.

Fame brought media scrutiny to Wurzelbacher, who turned out to be an unlicensed plumber with unpaid back taxes.

GOP: Thwart the Vote

Bob Herbert from the New York Times writes:
It never ends. The Republican Party never gets tired of spraying its poison across the American political landscape.

So there was a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann, telling Chris Matthews on MSNBC that the press should start investigating members of the House and Senate to determine which ones are “pro-America or anti-America.”

Can a rancid Congressional committee be far behind? Leave it to a right-wing Republican to long for those sunny, bygone days of political witch-hunting.

Ms. Bachmann’s demented desire (“I would love to see an exposé like that”) is of a piece with the G.O.P.’s unrelenting effort to demonize its opponents, to characterize them as beyond the pale, different from ordinary patriotic Americans — and not just different, but dangerous, and even evil.

But the party is not content to stop there. Even better than demonizing opponents is the more powerful and direct act of taking the vote away from their opponents’ supporters. The Republican Party has made strenuous efforts in recent years to prevent Democrats from voting, and to prevent their votes from being properly counted once they’ve been cast.

Which brings me to the phony Acorn scandal.

John McCain, who placed his principles in a blind trust once the presidential race heated up, warned the country during the presidential debate last week that Acorn, which has been registering people to vote by the hundreds of thousands, was “on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history.”

It turns out that a tiny percentage of these new registrations are bogus, with some of them carrying ludicrous names like Mickey Mouse. Republicans have tried to turn this into a mighty oak of a scandal, with Mr. McCain thundering at the debate that it “may be destroying the fabric of democracy.”

Please. The Times put the matter in perspective when it said in an editorial that Acorn needs to be more careful with some aspects of its voter-registration process. It needs to do a better job selecting canvassers, among other things.

“But,” the editorial added, “for all of the McCain campaign’s manufactured fury about vote theft (and similar claims from the Republican Party over the years) there is virtually no evidence — anywhere in the country, going back many elections — of people showing up at the polls and voting when they are not entitled to.”

Two important points need to be made here. First, the reckless attempt by Senator McCain, Sarah Palin and others to fan this into a major scandal has made Acorn the target of vandals and a wave of hate calls and e-mail. Acorn staff members have been threatened and sickening, murderous comments have been made about supporters of Barack Obama. (Senator Obama had nothing to do with Acorn’s voter-registration drives.)

Second, when it comes to voting, the real threat to democracy is the nonstop campaign by the G.O.P. and its supporters to disenfranchise American citizens who have every right to cast a ballot. We saw this in 2000. We saw it in 2004. And we’re seeing it again now.

In Montana, the Republican Party challenged the registrations of thousands of legitimate voters based on change-of-address information available from the Post Office. These specious challenges were made — surprise, surprise — in Democratic districts. Answering the challenges would have been a wholly unnecessary hardship for the voters, many of whom were students or members of the armed forces.

In the face of widespread public criticism (even the Republican lieutenant governor weighed in), the party backed off.

That sort of thing is widespread. In one politically crucial state after another — in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, you name it — the G.O.P. has unleashed foot soldiers whose insidious mission is to make the voting process as difficult as possible — or, better yet, impossible — for citizens who are believed to favor Democrats.

For Senator McCain to flip reality on its head and point to an overwhelmingly legitimate voter-registration effort as a “threat to the fabric of democracy” is a breathtaking exercise in absurdity.

Read the entire New York Times Op-Ed writer Bob Herbert's article "The Real Scandal" here.

George Wallace's Heirs: McCain-Palin

Diane McWhorter, author of Carry Me Home, wrote an excellent piece in Slate entitled, "A Legacy of Resentment:Are McCain and Palin Wallace's heirs?"

I finally understand the switch of doom that tripped somewhere deep in my soul during Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention. Her rhetorical star turn—the exuberant snideness, the gut-level rapport with the audience, the frank pleasure at being a yokel on the big stage—reprised the great gifts of the politician who dominated my youth: George Corley Wallace, perpetual governor of Alabama and frequent candidate for president of the less-than-United States.

U.S. Rep John Lewis of Georgia also noticed the similarity. He issued a statement last week accusing Palin and John McCain of "sowing the seeds of hatred and division." He invoked "another period, in the not too distant past," when George Wallace "created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional rights."

So how is Sarah Palin like—and not like—George Wallace? And how much is John McCain relying on tactics Wallace used? The answers: more than she can probably know and more than he appears to have admitted to himself.

Wallace is a pivotal figure in American politics, the man who yoked white racism with middle-class cultural grievance when the civil rights revolution and the Vietnam War protest movement provoked a (so far) permanent counterinsurgency of "real Americans." At the time of his ascendance in the 1960s as Alabama's "Segregation Forever!" executive, Wallace seemed to be on the wrong side of history, a "stumpy, dingy, surly orphan of American politics" (in the words of Marshall Frady, whose work I rely on here) standin' in the schoolhouse door of enlightenment. He turned out to be the godfather, avatar of a national uprising against the three G's of government, Godlessness, and gun control. There is ample analysis—see especially Wallace biographer Dan T. Carter, whose book I also rely on—tracing the line from Wallace to Ronald Reagan and on to Newt Gingrich with his 1994 junta. Now comes Sarah Palin.

Read the entire McWhorter article "A Legacy of ResentmentAre McCain and Palin Wallace's heirs?" here.

Reporter kicked at Palin rally

As reported in Salon by Thomas Schaller: The list of nasty, anger-filled antics that have taken place at John McCain, Sarah Palin or joint McCain-Palin rallies continues to grow, and this time it's another assault on the media.

Just a few days after a black cameraman was told to "sit down, boy," at a Palin rally in North Carolina, some attendee kicked a reporter in the back of the leg.

In any contest between fear and hope, apparently fear will only go down kicking and screaming -- literally, it seems.

GOP's Mob

"Married to the Mob," by Steven Wells, published on October 17, 2008 in the Philadelphia Weekly:

The last weeks of the campaign reveal the GOP's rotting soul.

A new sport hits America—nelly baiting. It involves walking up to a McCain/Palin supporter with a video camera and pressing ”record”. The result is a guaranteed instant real–life horror documentary, several fine examples of which now litter the Internet.

In the future these videos will be prized historical documents. They mark the exact moment the Republican Party ceased being the most powerful, sophisticated and successful political organization in world history—and instead became a batshit insane racist lynch mob.

Recent research indicates that the more impotent a person feels, the more likely they are to believe in ”magical thinking”.

The crowds at McCain/Palin rallies are proof that the utterly impotent—the broke–ass, credit squeezed, mortgage defaulting, 401(k)–raped, Wal–Mart–waged losers desperately searching for reasons to a) believe that George Bush hasn’t totally screwed them over seven ways to Sunday and b) not to vote for the black guy—will believe absolutely anything.

So the news from the rancid guts of the GOP—freshly fed by Palin and McCain’s ooga–booga speeches— is that Obama is a ”scary”, mysterious, black, Arab, communist, Marxist, PLO–supporting, Hamas–backed, secret ”Muslim” ”faggot” ”one man terror cell” who ”supports terrorism” (because ”it’s in his bloodline”) and is single–handedly responsible for the ongoing collapse of Western capitalism. And who will—if elected—”make us speak Muslim.”

And that Democrats need to get jobs, stop being ”Jews” and ”European socialists” and ”commie faggots” and ”socialist swine”, and to get back to Russia and stop murdering babies and die. Pretty much in that order.

For anyone with a brain and/or a soul—by which I mean everybody on the planet hoping for an Obama victory—these YouTube videos are glorious evidence of what lies at the heart of the GOP—nasty, snarling, finger–sniffing, pin–prick pupiled, reptile brain–stem fascism.

Read the entire article here.

GOP Racist Base Voters

Bart Rettberg writes, "Republican events look like KKK rallies," I have but one thing to ask Sen. John McCain (as well as his sidekick, Gov. Sarah Palin): “Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last?“

By now everyone in America has witnessed the numerous excerpts of what is occurring at the McCain/Palin stumps around the country. Both candidates have been spouting unbridled hate, fear, division, and derision, then standing back with a smile as the crowd erupts with various chants of “Terrorist!,” “Off with their head!,” “N——-!,” and “Kill him!,” just to name a few. Not to mention the constant swell of boos and hisses every time Obama’s name is uttered.

But where are the flaming crosses? Shouldn’t everyone be wearing their cleanest white sheets? And why isn’t there a noose hanging from the nearest tree, or for an even better photo op, placed on stage behind the speakers standing next to the American flag flapping gently in the wind?

Because let’s face it, these Republican-sanctioned gatherings have become nothing more than heinous KKK rallies. It is unbelievable. Yet what’s really scary is that there are a large number of children amongst the crowds, who are carefully taught to accept the hate and fear being spewed around them.

Of course, now that the word is out about the true nature of his campaign in recent days, McCain is suddenly suggesting, albeit half-heartily, that Sen. Obama is actually “a decent man.” But by then, the damage has already been done. I’m sorry, but you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater and then stand near the exit with a big smile and say “Oops, just kidding!“

So again — and I paraphrase — does the McCain/Palin campaign, and most especially the Republican “mob” backing them, have any sense of decency left?

Letter by Bart Rettburg from Charleston.

Presidential Debate 3

IT'S OVER. John McCain still hasn't told the country why he should be president.

He has talking points. He is against taxes, earmarks, and pork. But he can't knit what he opposes into a coherent economic philosophy that would inspire voters to get behind him in the final days of this presidential campaign.

...McCain had at least one good line last night: "Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush you should've run four years ago." But one good line isn't a lifeline.

The Arizona senator finally mentioned Bill Ayers and ACORN to his opponent's face. But he can't link Obama to Ayers and domestic terrorism, or to the controversial community group called Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, as tightly as Obama can link McCain to Bush. And that remains one of Obama's biggest advantages in this race.

The Democrat has other advantages, from the economy to his own eloquence. He also has the ability to do what McCain can't do: look and sound presidential.

Enjoying a surge in the polls, Obama was confident, maybe a bit overconfident in this final debate

.
Obama grinned; McCain grimaced.

Each knows his destiny. One man is walking to the White House. The other is just a politically dead man walking.

source: Boston Globe "That's It for McCain".

Silly Sambo Alert

Presidential Debates

A Politico article entitled "Debate coaches: McCain must up game" states,

Top national debate coaches, though, say that McCain made many easily corrected mistakes in the first two debates.

McCain “meanders through the substance of his arguments,” often “getting lost and having to revert back to simple themes,” University of Kansas debate coach Scott Harris said.

Harris added that McCain has allowed Obama to “look more knowledgeable” by simply delivering “clearer arguments.”

While Obama is widely perceived to be a more gifted speaker than McCain, the Democrat was “very rough in the primary debates,” Wade said. “He had an idea about what he wanted to say but didn’t have the concise language to say it.”

But having emerged from the crucible of 23 primary debates, he has “found his groove” in the general election campaign, according to Wade. “There was a lesson in every one of those debates, and he internalized them.”

Obama’s general election debate performances have demonstrated classic signs of coaching, said the debate experts, such as enumerating his answers, using McCain’s arguments to make his own points, and pivoting quickly from the question that was posed to the question he’d prefer to answer. The Illinois senator is also much quicker to offer facts and statistics than McCain.

And Obama smiles whenever McCain attacks him, making him look “more agreeable … [and] more reasonable,” Wade said.

McCain, the debate experts said, has been making classic mistakes that could be fixed.

During both debates, the Arizona senator has struggled both to clearly argue his own point and to rebut those of his opponent, despite 16 primaries of his own to hone his performance.

“Part of the trick in coaching candidates is to have them get to the damn point,” Louden said. “Whatever you can say in five minutes, you can say better in 30 seconds.”

McCain's Aimless Wandering:

Bill Kristol's Message to McCain: Fire the Campaign

Bill Kristol's message to McCain, "Fire the Campaign":

It’s time for John McCain to fire his campaign.

He has nothing to lose. His campaign is totally overmatched by Obama’s. The Obama team is well organized, flush with resources, and the candidate and the campaign are in sync. The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic. If the race continues over the next three weeks to be a conventional one, McCain is doomed.

He may be anyway. Bush is unpopular. The media is hostile. The financial meltdown has made things tougher. Maybe the situation is hopeless — and if it is, then nothing McCain or his campaign does matters.

But I’m not convinced by such claims of inevitability. McCain isn’t Bush. The media isn’t all-powerful. And the economic crisis still presents an opportunity to show leadership.

The 2008 campaign is now about something very big — both our future prosperity and our national security. Yet the McCain campaign has become smaller.

What McCain needs to do is junk the whole thing and start over. Shut down the rapid responses, end the frantic e-mails, bench the spinning surrogates, stop putting up new TV and Internet ads every minute. In fact, pull all the ads — they’re doing no good anyway. Use that money for televised town halls and half-hour addresses in prime time.

And let McCain go back to what he’s been good at in the past — running as a cheerful, open and accessible candidate. Palin should follow suit. The two of them are attractive and competent politicians. They’re happy warriors and good campaigners. Set them free.

Provide total media accessibility on their campaign planes and buses. Kick most of the aides off and send them out to swing states to work for the state coordinators on getting voters to the polls. Keep just a minimal staff to help organize the press conferences McCain and Palin should have at every stop and the TV interviews they should do at every location. Do town halls, do the Sunday TV shows, do talk radio — and invite Obama and Biden to join them in some of these venues, on the ground that more joint appearances might restore civility and substance to the contest.

The hope for McCain and Palin is that they still have pretty good favorable ratings from the voters. The American people have by no means turned decisively against them.

The bad news, of course, is that right now Obama’s approval/disapproval rating is better than McCain’s. Indeed, Obama’s is a bit higher than it was a month ago. That suggests the failure of the McCain campaign’s attacks on Obama.

So drop them.

Read the entire New York Times article, "Fire the Campaign," by Bill Kristol here.

Keating 5 Scandal

From the Keating Economics website: The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.

John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal -- the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.

At the heart of the scandal was Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which took advantage of deregulation in the 1980s to make risky investments with its depositors' money. McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry -- actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers.

When the savings and loan industry collapsed, Keating's failed company put taxpayers on the hook for $3.4 billion and more than 20,000 Americans lost their savings. John McCain was reprimanded by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, but the ultimate cost of the crisis to American taxpayers reached more than $120 billion.

The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain's judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history.

John McCain is a Scary Muther-shut-yo-mouth

GOP Truth

David Letterman's Take on McCain's Campaign

McCain Wants to Delay Friday's Debate at Ole Miss

Senator John McCain wants to delay Friday's debate at Ole Miss and suspend his campaign. It just begs the question: I say, I say......did that pitbull in lipstick eat your homework boy?

John McCain proves that he doesn't care about the little guys over at Ole Miss who have been planning to host Friday's first Presidential debate. This means losses for the vendors, hotels, retailers, restaurants, etc. Money's too tight to mention, so the proposed losses for Small Town USA is staggering.

Mr. McCain should just level-up and say, I'm unprepared and I don't know jack about the economy, foreign policy, or anything else of consequence.

According to ABC News "Ole Miss Official Says Debate Cancellation Would be 'Devastating'":

ABC News' Tahman Bradley Reports: A senior University of Mississippi official reacted Wednesday to the news that Sen. John McCain R-Ariz., wants to postpone Friday's presidential debate, saying that such a move would be "devastating" for the university which has already invested millions in preparation for the debate.

Andrew Mullins, special assistant to university Chancellor Robert Khayat, told ABC News that the Ole Miss campus has been transformed to accommodate the candidates and the press. Road blocks are in place on campus and in the community and the debate set for the candidates has already been constructed. He said the university has spent roughly $5.5 million getting ready for the debate.

Mullins also noted that if the Commission on Presidential Debates asks the campus to hold the debate at a later date, he is not sure the university would be able to accommodate them.
"It's huge. You cannot just say that you're not going to do this thing," Mullins said. "I don't have any idea whether we do the debate" at a later date. (We) probably wouldn't do it."

For now, Mullins, says the university is proceeding like they're still having the debate until the commission makes a decision. The university was instructed by the commission on Wednesday to move forward as though the debate is still going to happen, Mullins said.

Sen. McCain, who suspended his campaign activity Wednesday, called for the debate to be postponed so that he could focus on congressional negotiations of a $700 billion Wall Street bail out deal.

George Will: Ice, Ice Baby

The pen is mightier than the sword. With cold precision, George Will demonstrates just how to wield the mighty pen to lance the heart of an issue. In two different Washington Post Opinion columns, published on two consecutive days, George Will unsheathes his sword to strike a blow at both the bumbling feds and Senator McCain's response to the financial crisis.

In his September 24th article, “Stampede of the Lemmings”, George F. Will warns that “the government's speed should not vary inversely with its information.” Will writes in the Washington Post article entitled “Our Federal Economy”:

Members of Congress are being exhorted to stampede, like lemmings in reverse, away from a postulated cliff. But some of the economic geographers who say they know that the cliff is there, and that the economy will plunge over it if Congress stops to think before empowering the secretary of the Treasury to control the flow of capital through the veins of American capitalism, are some of those experts who said in March that prophylactic federal intervention in the matter of Bear Stearns was necessary to contain the crisis.

Everything that has been done for the past six months has been done to cope with what previous actions were supposed to prevent. A perhaps pertinent axiom: There is no education in the second kick of a mule. The essence of this crisis is lack of knowledge, including the inability to know who owes what to whom, and where risk resides. In such a moment, government's speed should not vary inversely with its
information...Henry Paulson, a.k.a. the Fourth Branch of Government, is intelligent and indefatigable and has as much pertinent experience as could be hoped for. But no one has ever had much experience that is pertinent to the tasks that would be assigned to him by the three-page legislation that would give him almost complete discretion over at least $700 billion.

Before Congress codifies this, it should consult Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution: "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." ...

Rep. Barney Frank...says: "No one in a democracy, unelected, should have $800 billion to spend as he sees fit. . . . That's not the way to run a democracy." ...

Read George Will's entire article “Our Federal Economy” here.

Yesterday on September 23rd, Mr. Will took a cold stab at the heart of Senator John McCain's response to the financial crisis. In his article entitled “McCain Loses His Head,” George Will compares McCain with the Queen of Hearts character from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He even opens his critique with a quote from Lewis Carroll's classic: “The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around." Oh man, if that weren't cold enough, Will adds:

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street...."

...In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people. McCain's Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning...

By a Gresham's Law of political discourse, McCain's Queen of Hearts intervention in the opaque financial crisis overshadowed a solid conservative complaint from the Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the RSC decried the improvised torrent of bailouts as a "dangerous and unmistakable precedent for the federal government both to be looked to and indeed relied upon to save private sector companies from the consequences of their poor economic decisions." This letter, listing just $650 billion of the perhaps more than $1 trillion in new federal exposures to risk, was sent while McCain's campaign, characteristically substituting vehemence for coherence, was airing an ad warning that Obama favors "massive government, billions in spending increases."

...Today, the efficient means to that end is government control of capital. So, is not McCain's party [Republican] now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale. Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism. Does McCain have qualms about this, or only quarrels?

Read the complete "McCain Loses His Head" article here.

George Will deserves the Ice, Ice Baby Award (Jim Carey-style) for his accurate portrayal of the financial fiasco that we call Wall Street free market capitalism.

John McCain is Wrong for America

McCain and the Zigzag Express

From Johnathan Alter's "McCain and the Zigzag Express" from Newsweek:

John McCain's whole campaign is based on the idea that Barack Obama is risky, untested and can't be trusted to protect the nation in a crisis. But this week it was McCain who seemed unpresidential, as his Zigzag Express swerved back and forth across the median strip. His approach to the greatest financial crisis since 1933 was erratic and off-key. Would his presidency be any different?

McCain's first reaction to the climactic events of Sunday, Sept. 14, when Lehman Brothers fell, Merrill Lynch was sold and AIG began to totter, was to repeat his longstanding sound bite that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." When Obama predictably leapt on this clueless comment with a TV ad, McCain quickly backtracked by saying that he was merely talking about the strength of "the American worker" and anyone who disagreed obviously had a problem understanding the importance of working people. He told the morning shows that he was a Republican in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt, though his true views on free-market economics are more in tune with Herbert Hoover.

Read the entire Newsweek article, "McCain and the Zinzag Express" by Johnathan Alter here.

John McCain says the Economy is Fundamentally Strong

Is John McCain stupid? Perhaps graduating at the extreme bottom of the Naval Academy 894/899 is an indication of Mr. McCain's intellectual ability. McCain's dismal academic record could be held against Obama's tippity top of his class at Harvard. Obama graduated magna cum laude, which for those who are Latin challenged, this is number 1 in his Harvard Law School class. Senator Obama made straight A's all day every day in Law School, while Senator McCain managed to graduate fifth from the bottom of his class. As for Sarah Palin's transcripts and grades from her Jr. College in Idaho, complete silence. If she even had one A on her transcript, the GOP would be touting her intellectual abilities. It's just moose hunting and PTA hockey momming, not one word about Mrs. Palin's intellectual abilities. In a word, Republicans are stupid. Need proof? Look at their academic transcripts.

When Fascism Comes to America, it will be Wrapped in a Flag and Carrying a Cross

Sinclair Lewis declared, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." Republican fascism is alive an well on Wall Street as the feds continue to reward their corporate cronies with tax-funded bailouts. Republican fascism got new life from the GOP Vice Presidential nominee, Governor Sarah Palin. McCain took the Republican mantle of a socialized financial markets and wrapped his candidacy behind the flag skirt of his bible toting, gun slinging, moose killing, self-proclaimed hockey mom.

As editorialized in the India Daily article by Pijush Lodh:

Hillary Clinton showed for the first time that blatant racism could bring White House within reach of anyone. Republicans learnt and acted fast with their version of Hillary – the Sarah Palin phenomenon.

Sarah Palin is attracting the racists of America who favors color of skin above reality, the bible over common sense, and fascism over the root cause of financial trouble for common Americans.
American democracy faces its biggest challenge. The seeds of a second civil war and perhaps outright secession are in place with racism and nepotism taking center stage of anything.

No democracy can survive without participation of people who understand the best for themselves. America is failing in its biggest challenge – it is a crumbling democracy.

One thing is good – if McCain-Palin ticket wins, they will face the consequence of eight years of totally failed policies of the Republicans. The bad thing is that the Supreme Court will be restructured to protect the racism and Christian right wing agenda for a long time.

Who is responsible for this? Yes, you got it. It is the rural American population that just cannot get over the racism and Christian rights.

Perhaps a much more financial meltdown, perhaps $20 gas price, skyrocketing food prices, and a total collapse is real estate with massive foreclosures will teach Americans a lesson on the after effects of racism.

We have seen this before. Nazi Germany crumbled into ground when Germans chose racism and fascism over common sense. We will see it again in America. The problem lies in the fact not all Germans were racists, not all American have lost common sense, but we all will suffer together as this great super power crumbles into ground because of ignorance and arrogance.