Republicans run on the premise that they will lower taxes and create more jobs.  Not very many people remember that while Reagan brought about the largest tax cuts in history, he also presided over the largest tax increase in history.

Reagan ran up the biggest deficits ever seen.  To his credit, his defense spending helped bankrupt the Soviet Union (along with their ill-advised war in Afghanistan).  But putting aside the international consequences, the country was put in a precarious position with Reagan’s “borrow and spend” budget deficits.

George H.W. Bush continued Reagan’s deficit spending and, coupled with a recession, introduced even higher budget deficits.  Bush was forced to raise taxes, thus breaking his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge.

The “tax-and-spend liberal”, Bill Clinton, got the deficit under control, and created a budget surplus.  George W. Bush has been a disaster, with the bailout of his economic failures costing us over a trillion dollars, along with his Iraq war, which will likely run another 1.5 trillion dollars, if we are lucky.  We now have the most severe recession since the 1930’s with millions losing their jobs and homes.

George W. Bush said that Wall Street acted like it was drunk.  What an apt description for his whole administration.  That is the reason that John McCain’s promise of jobs and prosperity are nothing more than a feeble punch line, as depicted below:

This results in such statements as “Senator McCain does not speak for the McCain campaign”. You have a campaign which is promoting so much racial hatred from white supporters that, in rallies, the crowds have been shouting that Obama deserves to die for opposing McCain.

When John McCain attempted to reign the hate-filled mob back in by claiming that Barack Obama was a decent man, John McCain himself was booed. Now McCain has to try to put the genie back in the bottle, which is most likely impossible.

Like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, the xenophobic mob has taken on a life of its own, and is not listening to its creator any more. This makes them particularly dangerous. Barack Obama’s life has been put at risk by a man incapable of controlling his own rage, and is now impotent to control the raging wildfire he himself ignited.

Seemingly, McCain cannot exert control over anything. He cannot control his own campaign. He cannot control his own supporters. He cannot control his surrogates, who one after one have had to be “disappeared”, as they committed embarrassing blunders.

McCain is even incapable of controlling the media, which is quite remarkable since he had the media wrapped around his finger with barbecues at his ranch, and AP members bringing McCain his favorite pastry adorned with sprinkles, just the way he liked. He had every pundit that considered themselves objective ignoring gaffe after gaffe, calling them senior moments or simply answering critics with recitations of John McCain’s prisoner-of-war history.

Yet, John McCain began attacking the media and even angered them. Yes, that whipped up the Republican base, but John McCain forgot that, even he has said earlier in the campaign, that “the media is my base”. The media can make you or break you in a campaign. How can a veteran of so many campaigns be unaware of that? His refusal to let Sarah Palin be vetted by the press has caused members of the press, such as Campbell Brown and George Will, to speak out against the once-revered McCain.

Then you have John McCain lurching from position to position during the financial meltdown. The fundamentals of the economy were strong. No. Wait. He didn’t mean the economy when he said “economy”, he simply meant the American workers were strong, and that they were fundamentally sound, therefore America was strong.

His explanations failed to win over voters, so to dramatize what a leader he was, much like in the Georgia invasion, McCain jumped into the middle of the fray ready to fight someone. Even in that, he bungled it, alienating popular late night TV host, David Letterman.

How awful it must have been for McCain to tell a TV host that he was going to have to cancel his appearance to to back to Washington, D.C. to save the economy which “was about to crater”, only to have David Letterman reveal in front of a national audience that, in fact, John McCain had stayed in New York to appear on a different program.

Insult David Letterman at your own peril, especially when you show disrespect for the importance of his show. John McCain did not go to Washington, D.C., for another 22 hours, meanwhile appearing on multiple television shows.

David Letterman did not take that lightly. As you no doubt know, David has chided McCain about McCain’s “political lie” to him on multiple late-night shows, making John McCain seem like an untrustworthy, lying fool. Again, McCain blew it with the media.

So, what happened when John McCain failed to rush to the aid of the economy and stayed in New York for those extra 22 hours? Well, Congressional leaders announced that they had come to an agreement on the bail-out package. That was Thursday, at noon. John McCain arrived in Washington D.C., later that afternoon.

While Obama cautioned against injecting presidential politics into the bail-out debate, McCain, who had previously delayed, lurched once again into the middle of the fray, like some Tokyo-hating Godzilla. Trampling over all the negotiations that had gone before, the McCain campaign entered the picture and behold, there no longer was an agreement!

After dissolving the previous agreement, McCain could now lay claim to the “financial savior” mantle. All of McCain’s life had been leading up to this moment where he could exert his leadership skills and bring Congress together on this all-important issue. The House Republicans indicated that they would not have been for the bill except for the exceptional leadership of John McCain.

The stage was set for McCain to pull off a game-changing moment in his campaign and in the well-being of each American’s pocketbook. That weekend, John McCain, rather than appearing on Capitol Hill, made phone calls from his posh residence. He said that nothing more was needed. The result? The vote on Monday failed, and even while on the campaign trail, McCain had prematurely congratulated himself, and derided Obama for not doing enough to make sure that the bill passed.

Why did the vote fail? The Republican House members had received phone calls from their supporters that this was a bad bill, and ignoring how embarrassing it might be to McCain, they voted “no” on the financial bail-out. That left John McCain trying to back-track and later saying that the initial bill was a bad bill, but the damage had been done.

Americans had seen this lurching back and forth before. They no longer believed, nor trusted, John McCain that what he had said had been misconstrued, that he was taken out of context, that the mainstream “media filter” had misinterpreted his actions. They saw a weak, addled, angry old-man, who lurched between the advice from his Bush campaign minions, and what his gut told him was his best move.

Unfortunately for McCain, both sources of advice have proven wrong.

As if driving a business that was “too big to fail” into the ground was not enough, the AIG executives threw themselves a lavish party after the Federal government approved their bail-out, which therefore, was at the taxpayer’s expense.

These men are stealing from the United States treasure and the American people – why are charges not being pressed?  Oh, that’s right.  It’s okay if you are a Republican:

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) on the expenditures:

Have you heard of anything more outrageous - a week after taxpayers commit $85 billion dollars to rescue AIG, the company’s leading insurance executives spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at one of the most exclusive reports in the nation…

Let me describe for some of you the charges that the shareholders, taxpayers, had to pay. AIG spent $200,000 dollars for hotel rooms. Almost $150,000 for catered banquets. AIG spent $23,000 at the hotel spa and another $1,400 at the salon. They were getting manicures, facials, pedicures and massages while American people were footing the bill. And they spent another $10,000 dollars for I don’t know what this is, leisure dining. Bars?

The Gavel Blog Archive Rep. Elijah Cummings: They were getting manicures, facials, pedicures and massages while American people were footing the bill.

Then, during the debates, John McCain took credit for putting a deal together with House Republicans, so that the bailout would pass.

This morning John McCain again prematurely congratulated himself on his work to get the bailout passed while criticizing Barack Obama, saying that he was standing on the sidelines.

Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain were on the Senate banking committee responsible for producing a bail-out package.  John McCain wasn’t even allowed into the committee chambers, and did not arrive in Washington until an agreement had already been reached, yet he was taking credit for the bailout.

Well, after all of his bragging, chest thumping, and ridicule of Barack Obama, the financial bailout measure failed to pass today, leaving McCain looking more sheepish and childish than ever.  He had no statement as he got onto his Snake-Talk Express airplane a few minutes ago.

While the Democrats produced two-thirds of their caucus to vote for essentially a Republican plan, John Boehner was only able to muster one-third of his Republican caucus to vote for the plan. 

Yes, it was a failure of Republican leadership, but the egg is on John McCain’s face, and he knows it.

He thinks we are stupid.

Therefore he has issued the following statement as part of his simple, 3-page bailout request:

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

While members of Wall Street begged for deregulation and pursued their “greed is good” and “free market” philosophies, they gave themselves record bonuses while the average American was being forced out of their homes through foreclosures. At the same time that Main Street was literally being gutted via the housing market and sub-prime mortgage crisis, Wall Street firms were engaging in practices that they knew could only lead to disaster if the markets were ever to go down.

This is similar to the Enron debacle, where deregulation of the energy market allowed the “greed is good” institution to manipulate energy to their benefit and to the public’s detriment. California had to endure rolling blackouts, used as a method of extortion by Enron, making it critical that California act rapidly to stem the energy crisis. Thus, the perceived solution by Governor Gray Davis was to protect the citizens of California and hand Enron even more money, thinking that this would allow the rolling blackouts to cease.

To realize how much of a joke this was to Enron, I recommend that you watch the DVD about Enron, “The Smartest Guys in the Room“.  You will see a side of human nature that is sad and pathetic.  You will see millionaires who have become morally and spiritually bankrupt.

When you watch this DVD documentary it becomes apparent that this is not the typical “greed is good” crowd, but rather “greed gone wild”.

Enron’s market manipulations did not become apparent until their markets began to collapse, revealing how massive the fraud perpetuated on the American people truly was. As Enron unraveled, it became obvious that if Enron had “The Smartest Guys in the Room”, Enron had only one opinion of Main Street America:

They thought we are stupid.

Now, we have markets collapsing again, and the massive fraud and lack of transparency of the credit default swap markets have once again allowed us to peer inside the black box at the heart of Wall Street’s “greed gone wild” financial institutions.  Henry Paulson describes the situation as “complex”.

The answer that the Treasury Secretary has proposed is to enable Mr. Paulson to undertake actions, using 700 billion dollars of tax-payer money, that are “non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency”.

The stipulation that these actions have no oversight, no transparency, and no judicial review, form the heart of the real “Bush Doctrine“, not the one Sarah Palin was ignorant of regarding preemptive strikes of other countries.

The Treasury Secretary has made a proposal that lack of transparency and lack of oversight are the key components of rescuing the American taxpayer.  In reality, we are being asked to bail out the same markets using the same methods that placed us in this situation.

As Sarah Palin would say, “Thanks, but no thanks!”

Do you think that Secretary Paulson has Main Street America’s concern as his primary focus?

To answer that, consider this aspect of his resume from Wikipedia:

From 1990 to November 1994, he was co-head of Investment Banking, then, Chief Operating Officer from December 1994 to June 1998;^[8] eventually succeeding Jon Corzine (now Governor of New Jersey) as its chief executive. His compensation package, according to reports, was US$37 million in 2005, and US$16.4 million projected for 2006.^[9] His net worth has been estimated at over US$700 million.^[9] Paulson has personally built close relations with China during his career. In July 2008 it was reported by The Daily Telegraph that: “Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations with the Chinese elite, dating from his days at Goldman Sachs when he visited the country more than 70 times.”^[10]

It is interesting that Paulson believes that the American taxpayer is dependent on Wall Street and the markets functioning efficiently.  Yet, when times are good, the financial tycoons of industry believe they may act with impunity, and that no one’s fortunes matter but their own.

Wall Street has a give-and-take relationship with Main Street America.  We give and they take.

That is even more remarkable considering that McCain has seen his Savings and Loan industry (remember the Keating 5?) go belly-up after de-regulation, and now has the banking and mortgage crisis to show how well things go after de-regulation in the past decade.

Economist Paul Krugman writes (emphasis mine):

OK, a correspondent directs me to John McCain’s article, Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American, in the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries. You might want to be seated before reading this.

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago — and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!

McCain on banking and health - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog.

John McCain has resorted to the most tired, but most effective, message that Republicans ever use. He states that Barack Obama will raise taxes on the middle class, when he will in fact, cut those taxes much more than John McCain.

Can lies win an election for the Republicans? When people get their information from sound bites, the answer is “yes”.

Do you realize that just yesterday, the Bush Administration requested close to 1 TRILLION dollars to bail out the financial fat cats on Wall Street. Sure, this measure was done to help prevent a run on banks that would result in even more financial collapse. But it does not hide the fact that, when things were going well for the Wall Street tycoons, they pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars a year, awarding themselves 33 BILLION in bonuses just last year:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — In a year when Wall Street bonuses were expected to suffer, payouts to finance pros in 2007 remained pretty impressive.

Wall Street bonuses declined just 4.7 percent last year to an average of $180,420 per worker, according to the latest figures published this week by the New York State Comptroller’s office. Financial firms were expected to cut bonuses up to 10 percent from a year ago, according to previous industry projections.

Just a year ago, individuals working in finance in New York City enjoyed record payouts of $33.9 billion. This year, the total bonus pool shrank to $33.2 billion.

The numbers, while still lucrative, come as a bit of a surprise since this year was expected to be particularly difficult for Wall Street workers, given the recent market turmoil, ongoing woes in the credit crisis and an uptick in hiring during the year…

Just this week, some of Wall Street’s mightiest firms, including Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), reported staggering losses and took billion of dollars worth of writedowns because of bad mortgage bets.

Wall Street bonuses down, but not out - Jan. 18, 2008.

As you can see above, Wall Street gave itself staggering bonuses despite reporting “staggering losses”. Remember, that when a CEO has his corporation go belly-up, he does not lose his house, his cars, or his bank account. His stock becomes worthless, but his millions in the bank are safe. In other words, while tens of thousands of people are being laid off because of the CEO’s poor management, and have no income whatsoever, the CEO’s only decision is which house does he want to live in while riding out the bad press coverage.

When Wall Street’s greed caught up with them, when no further money could be extracted from hard-working Americans, then Bush’s Corporatist government provided them with a bail-out, a complete get-out-of-jail-free card. To use an example I heard on “Real Time with Bill Maher”: for the Republican Wall Street elite money managers, it is like they woke up yesterday morning to find out that all their credit card debt had been paid off. Their mortgage was paid off as well, as well as their kid’s college loans, and their retirement plans were fully funded.

That’s what happened on Wall Street yesterday. When times are good, Wall Street tycoons pocket the money and buy themselves seven or eight houses, despite the laws of physics preventing them from ever living in more than one house at a time. When times are bad, well, you know…

“Tax and Spend Democrats”, indeed. Democrats are going to lower your taxes. Republicans have already raised your taxes with the price of gasoline. We have a new tax in this country, created not by Congress or the President, but by the lobbyists for the oil companies. When they have raised the priced of gasoline and not passed on their windfall profits to the customer, everything we own is taxed, because everything we do, everything we consume ultimately involves gas-consuming transportation.

Bush inherited an economy with a budget surplus. Now, we have a debt ceiling over 11 TRILLION dollars as a nation, and spending more money that we don’t have every minute.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed to Congress what could become the largest financial bailout in United States history, requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets.

The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt.

Staff members from Treasury and the House Financial Services and Senate banking committees immediately began meeting on Capitol Hill, where negotiations were likely to be complicated but quick. Democratic Congressional leaders have pledged to approve legislation by the end of this week.

$700 Billion Is Sought for Wall Street in Massive Bailout - NYTimes.com.

In addition, we are talking about spending twelve BILLION dollars a month in Iraq. The prediction is for this war to cost us over 1.5 TRILLION dollars. Remember, Bush requests money for the Iraq war in special supplemental requests that do not appear in the normal budget figures.

Defense contractors, mercenary corporations like BlackWater, oil companies, and the oil service industry are right now making tremendous profits while the rest of America is on the brink of economic disaster. While the middle class is being forced out of their houses by foreclosures, the Republicans are making out like bandits. They are even using the mortgage crisis to cull Democratic voters from the registered voters lists.

That is not just “Disaster Capitalism“, it is a “Disaster”, period. What is the answer to people in our government who want to accuse Democrats of wanting to “Tax and Spend”, when we have the evidence staring us in the face that the wealthy, elitist Republicans in government and Wall Street, want to “Rape and Spend”, and to “Borrow and Spend”, bringing us deficits which our children’s children will still not have paid off?

Isn’t borrowing money and spending it a hidden tax? If you put money on your credit card, don’t you have to pay it off out of your on pocket some day? Bush does not believe this principle. He has been on a borrowing and spending spree the likes we have never seen, or could have ever imagined. Perhaps he believes that this policy will never affect him personally.

Who has received the money that Bush has borrowed in record amounts? His friends, his family, the corporations who have donated money to him, the industries that are tied to defense and oil, which Bush’s family is heavily invested in, and now, the list also includes the Wall Street tycoons who just ten months ago rewarded their poor results with billions of dollars in bonuses.

So the question remains, can lies win an election? We’ll see. But watch the video below, and you will understand that we have campaign lies, Fox News, and Right-Wing Talk Radio to overcome before Middle-Class America realizes the truth about which party, and which Presidential candidate, actually has their interests at heart.

What does that mean? It means taking your Social Security retirement funds and handing them over to Wall Street, which has proven to be an unregulated disaster, with no safety net at all. How would you like to find out that your Social Security fund had lost 40% of its value in one week?

We already know that our 401K’s and retirement accounts invested in Wall Street took a huge hit this week. If your Social Security had also been invested in Wall Street, you would have endured a financial double-whammy this week.

What seems to escape notice in the media is that not only would McCain put your finances at risk, he would put your health care at risk also.  McCain’s plan, as outlined by economist Paul Krugman below, would not only increase the taxes on your health care, but it would remove the incentive for your employer to provide health benefits at all. 

McCain on Banking and Health

OK, a correspondent directs me to John McCain’s article, Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American, in the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries. You might want to be seated before reading this.

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”

“So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial de-regulation like 10 seconds ago — and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!”

McCain on banking and health - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog.

In reality, you have to go back 32 years to find a Vice-President that has not met heads-of-state.

But in the excerpt below from her interview with Charlie Gibson, she actually slams McCain’s use of experience as a reason to elect him as President, talking about a “big, fat, resume that shows decades and decases in that Washington establishment” as being a bad thing (emphasis mine):

I have not and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you.

But, Charlie, again, we’ve got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual and somebody’s big, fat resume maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment, where, yes, they’ve had opportunities to meet heads of state … these last couple of weeks … it has been overwhelming to me that confirmation of the message that Americans are getting sick and tired of that self-dealing and kind of that closed door, good old boy network that has been the Washington elite.

Her saber-rattling to sound tough is offensive to knowledgeable people. She does not even understand the nature of the Georgia conflict or she would not be blaming Russia for their actions. Just think, Sarah Palin did so poorly in the interview despite two weeks or more of being briefed by the McCain campaign. Does she not absorb knowledge, even when it is spelled out simply for her?

In reality, Sarah Palin does not know much about the world, about Iraq, or even what the job as Vice President entails. Sarah Palin is all about Sarah Palin, and her local rise in political circles. Yes, she has been ambitious, but she has not been ambitious in following what the United States is doing. Her focus has only been on Alaska.

Want proof? She had not given much thought to Iraq even though she had a son that was to be deployed shortly to Iraq:

….I have a 19 year old who’s getting ready to be deployed to Iraq. His Stryker brigade will leave on September 11th of this year. He’s 19, he’ll be gone for a year. [And so] kind of on a personal level, when I talk about, umm, the plan for the war, you know, let’s make sure we have a plan here, and respecting McCain’s position on that.

Kevin Drum - Mother Jones Blog: Sarah Palin on Iraq.

While Hillary Clinton broke the glass ceiling, Sarah Palin sets back the women’s movement a decade, because all you really need to do to be a McCain VP pick is to have a pretty face, and repeat what the men tell you to say.

Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton. That doesn’t even need to be said. However, her incurious nature about things that do not directly affect her, and her firm convictions, despite not knowing all the facts make her a perfect George Bush clone.

With John McCain not knowing the difference between Shia and Sunni, and Sarah Palin not understanding the Bush Doctrine, or even how Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae work, these are a know-nothing, incurious couple that are perfect for each other, but not for America.

ABC News: EXCERPTS: Charlie Gibson Interviews Sarah Palin.

To give you a hint, if you earn $2 million per year, what McCain thinks is middle class, then your taxes will go down under John McCain:

Obama: $134,552.25

McCain: -$32,584.45

For John McCain’s multi-millionaire supporters, taxes will go down $32,000.00.  Under Obama’s plan the poor rich person would have to pay an additional $134,000.00 in taxes.

If you are really middle class, and have earnings of $50,000.00, then your taxes look like this:

Obama: -$468.76

McCain: -$39.34

You would pay $468.76 less taxes with the Obama plan versus a tax cut from McCain that would cut your tax by only $39.34.  Imagine that, McCain wants to give the Middle Class $40.00, while giving his base of multi-millionaire voters tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of dollars in tax breaks.

On Obama, Earmarks, Palin Less Than Honest
Palin’s RNC Speech Bent the Truth on Her Record and on the Opposition
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN

Sept. 4, 2008—

In a rousing speech at last night’s Republican National Convention, vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, touted her record, attacked the opposition, and in some cases, bent the facts.

“PALIN: “[Obama] is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word ‘victory’ except when he’s talking about his own campaign.”

FACT: On July 15, in a speech in Washington, D.C., Obama twice used the word “victory” in reference to Iraq.

“In fact,” he said, “true success in Iraq — victory in Iraq — will not take place in a surrender ceremony where an enemy lays down their arms. … I want Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future, and to reach the political accommodation necessary for long-term stability. That’s victory. That’s success. That’s what’s best for Iraq, that’s what’s best for America, and that’s why I will end this war as president.

A week later in Berlin, Germany, on July 23, Obama used the word “victory” three times to describe Allied successes during World War II. And in a June speech about the prospect of universal health care, he said Sen. Hillary Clinton “will be central to that victory.”

“PALIN: “There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate.”

FACT: The meaning of “major” is open to debate, but Obama worked with Republicans, including Sen. Richard Luger of Indiana, to pass legislation that would expand efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. While a state senator in Illinois, he sponsored two contentious bills, one that studied racial profiling by police and another that ordered interrogations in potential death penalty cases to be recorded.

“PALIN: “I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history. And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence. That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.”

FACT: That infrastructure project has not yet been approved by federal regulators. The proposed pipeline would ship natural gas from the Alaska’s North Slope to homes and businesses across the United States. In June, the Alaskan legislature, with Palin’s prodding, agreed to pay Canadian energy company TransCanada $500 million as an incentive to build the pipeline.

“PALIN: “And I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending: nearly half a billion dollars in vetoes. I suspended the state fuel tax and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks, but no thanks,’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”

FACT: While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin hired Steven Silver, a former chief of staff for Sen. Ted Stevens, to lobby Congress for earmarks. Wasilla received around $27 million in federal money, about as much as Boise, Idaho. Boise has a population of 200,000 people, compared with Wasilla’s 10,000. Earmarked funds went to sewage improvements and improving roads connecting the town to a local ski resort.

As for the Bridge to Nowhere, Palin initially supported using federal funds to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island, which has 50 residents and a small airport. It was not until the plan was ridiculed that she withdrew her support. Critics contend she still supports using federal money to build a 3.4 mile Road to Nowhere on the island for $26 million — from the funds for the bridge.

“PALIN: While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor’s office that I didn’t believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay. I also drive myself to work.

FACT: Soon after entering office, Palin put the state-owned Westwind II jet [on eBay] that her predecessor Frank Murkowski purchased amid much criticism. When the deal fell through with the sole eBay bidder, the plane was sold offline.

Alaskan businessman Larry Reynolds paid $2.1 million for the jet after learning about it from Republican John L. Harris, speaker of the Alaskan House of Representatives.

Palin, as she said, drives herself to work. In July, her Chevy Suburban was rear-ended while driving from Wasilla to her office in downtown Anchorage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

See How Gov. Sarah Palin Bent the Facts.

Sarah will not be meeting with the press until the McCain campaign tells her what her strongly-held beliefs are.

This seems to be Republican M.O.: Charge into something without thought, research, and planning, and then lie about it when everything turns sour.

John McCain’s decision-making ability needs to be seriously questioned. Frank Rich discusses McCain’s long line of impulsive, poorly thought-out decisions, starting with Sarah Palin:

She didn’t say “no thanks” to the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after Congress had already abandoned it but given Alaska a blank check for $223 million in taxpayers’ money anyway.

Far from rejecting federal pork, she hired lobbyists to secure her town a disproportionate share of earmarks ($1,000 per resident in 2002, 20 times the per capita average in other states). Though McCain claimed “she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard.

As for her “executive experience” as mayor, she told her hometown paper in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, the year of her election: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.” Her much-advertised crusade against officials abusing their office is now compromised by a bipartisan ethics investigation into charges that she did the same.

McCain is now the man of James Dobson and Tony Perkins. The “no surrender” warrior surrendered to the agents of intolerance not just by dumping his pal for Palin but by moving so far to the right on abortion that even Cindy McCain seemed unaware of his radical shift when being interviewed by Katie Couric last week.

That ideological sellout, unfortunately, was not the worst leadership trait the last-minute vice presidential pick revealed about McCain. His speed-dating of Palin reaffirmed a more dangerous personality tic that has dogged his entire career. His decision-making process is impetuous and, in its Bush-like preference for gut instinct over facts, potentially reckless…

The Times had it right. The McCain campaign’s claims of a “full vetting process” for Palin were as much a lie as the biographical details they’ve invented for her. There was no F.B.I. background check. The Times found no evidence that a McCain representative spoke to anyone in the State Legislature or business community. Nor did anyone talk to the fired state public safety commissioner at the center of the Palin ethics investigation. No McCain researcher even bothered to consult the relevant back issues of the Wasilla paper. Apparently when McCain said in June that his vice presidential vetting process was basically “a Google,” he wasn’t joking.

This is a roll of the dice beyond even Bill Clinton’s imagination. “Often my haste is a mistake,” McCain conceded in his 2002 memoir, “but I live with the consequences without complaint.” Well, maybe it’s fine if he wants to live with the consequences, but what about his country? Should the unexamined Palin prove unfit to serve at the pinnacle of American power, it will be too late for the rest of us to complain.

We’ve already seen where such visceral decision-making by McCain can lead. In October 2001, he speculated that Saddam Hussein might have been behind the anthrax attacks in America. That same month he out-Cheneyed Cheney in his repeated public insistence that Iraq had a role in 9/11 — even after both American and foreign intelligence services found that unlikely.

He was similarly rash in his reading of the supposed evidence of Saddam’s W.M.D. and in his estimate of the number of troops needed to occupy Iraq. (McCain told MSNBC in late 2001 that we could do with fewer than 100,000.) It wasn’t until months after “Mission Accomplished” that he called for more American forces to be tossed into the bloodbath. The whole fiasco might have been prevented had he listened to those like Gen. Eric Shinseki who faulted the Rumsfeld war plan from the start.

In other words, McCain’s hasty vetting of Palin was all too reminiscent of his grave dereliction of due diligence on the war. He has been no less hasty in implying that we might somehow ride to the military rescue of Georgia (“Today, we are all Georgians”) or in reaffirming as late as December 2007 that the crumbling anti-democratic regime of Pervez Musharraf deserved “the benefit of the doubt” even as it was enabling the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. McCain’s blanket endorsement of Bush administration policy in Pakistan could have consequences for years to come.

Op-Ed Columnist - Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage - Frank Rich - NYTimes.com.

Insanity

by DarkSyde

Sat Sep 06, 2008 at 06:10:44 PM PDT

Can someone tell me what it is conservatives are so afraid will happen if Obama wins? They sure sound angry and terrified about the prospect, but why?

It can’t be that they’re afraid women will be suddenly awarded the right of reproductive choice; women already have it and the GOP did nothing to change that when given the chance of a lifetime. Fuel prices have tripled under the Republican reign, they seem fine with it, and so we have to assume that that worry is not a factor in the conservative calculus. Nor can they be legitimately concerned that democrats will vastly increase federal spending, or enact horrendously expensive new entitlement programs supported by taxes socializing healthcare costs and bar the government from benefiting from the cost saving magic of the free market. Nope, those horses have all fled the barn, no use closing the door now.  

Maybe they’re worried democrats will be vacationing, sound asleep at the switch, while the intel community frantically tries to warn them of a vast, pending terrorist attack that could kill thousands of innocent Americans. Some might even be concerned that democrats will exploit such a tragedy for personal political gain and still fail to capture or kill the criminal masterminds that planned it. Others might speculate Obama will respond by foolishly attacking the wrong nation on a false premise and get us embroiled in a trillion dollar bloody boondoggle that wrecks out military readiness, destroys our international credibility, and gets thousands of US soldiers and untold hundreds of thousands of innocent bystanders killed or maimed for life. Worst case scenario: after all that misery and money, weak willed democrats will roll over and hand a date for US failure to the insurgents in Iraq.

Then again, maybe conservatives are thinking closer to home. What if progressive economic policies wrecked the economy, rocked Wall Street, caused hundreds of thousands of people to lose their homes and jobs, and turned over our national economic future to the tender mercies of fundamentalist Sunni Monarchs and the communist Chinese? Or expand government intrusiveness making toilet paper out of the US Constitution? Maybe, in their darkest fears, they’re afraid democrats would foolishly go on vacation and ignore their responsibilities while a massive hurricane lumbers into the US coast at a slow jog and sinks a major American city.

At least one source of conservative anxiety is imminently plausible: Democrats might rescind tax breaks for companies that ship American jobs overseas, divert corporate welfare from insanely profitable corporations to uninsured or sick children, raise taxes on billionaires and oil companies, and create a more equitable healthcare system. That such possibilities strike fear into the corrupt soul of conservatism says a lot more about their decedent priorities than the middle class values of their opponents.

I guess that’s what confuses a lot of voters: Conservatives are worried that Democrats might do the same astonishingly lousy job Republicans have done for the last eight years. To avoid even the possibility that that might happen, conservatives prescribe electing more members from the same crew who wrecked the country, in what is clearly to any lucid external observer the ridiculous and desperate hope that the same party will fix it all by continuing, uninterrupted, the same policies that produced the damage in the first place. In the alternate reality fabricated by the seamlessly integrated conservative PR apparatus, this extension of the failed status quo is called change, in the rest of the world it’s one of the better known definitions of insanity.  

DarkSyde: Insanity - from the Daily Kos.

Clearly in those cases, it is a kind of celebration of their wealth and the ability to buy things they always thought were beyond their reach.

What is the explanation for John McCain? Surely, he is not still celebrating his wealth, as if it is a new-found experience.  Does he believe that he is royalty, and needs multiple homes “just in case” he should ever travel in that area? What determines which of the homes John and Cindy McCain visit?

The idea that people might not be able to meet their mortgage payments is as puzzling to John McCain as how people travel in America without their own private jet?  How do people walk without $520.00 shoes? 

John McCain believes that people are “middle class” if they make $4.99 million dollars, i.e., “under 5 million dollars”, as he answered at the Saddleback Forum last week. 

He honestly believes that our troubles over mortgages could be solved by skipping a vacation (see the quote below).  This is the solution that John McCain has for an America that he believes earns millions of dollars per family, with only those earning greater than $5 million as being considered wealthy.  Wouldn’t you like to be in that imaginary middle class?  Wouldn’t you like to even take a vacation?

I think the middle class is anyone that makes above $35,000.00 and has a small family.  Without consulting charts or economic reports, what is your idea of the middle class and the dividing line between the middle class and the wealthy?  I think earning above $100,000.00 is pretty wealthy.

John McCain’s policies constitute a War on the Middle Class.  He wants to give our tax money to Big Oil and corporate robber barons as they overcharge us for gas and move our jobs overseas.  He believes that Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy need to be continued, though he denounced those tax cuts just a few years ago.

Remember the “mortgage crisis”?  The reason that lenders were able to behave in a predatory fashion and trick people into buying homes that they could not afford was because of the actions of Phil Gramm, when he held office, paving the way for deregulation of the banking industry. Even George Bush said that Wall Street acted as if they were drunk when bundling all of the mortgages and making huge amounts of money as these were sold and sold again.

Who is Phil Gramm? Why, he is McCain’s financial advisor and bank lobbyist, actively being paid to lobby for UBS while he helps McCain form economic policy.  Phil Gramm is the guy that said that Americans were a nation of “whiners” because they were upset over losing their homes.  Yes, I know that Gramm supposedly stepped down after the “whiners” remark, but it is clear that he is still advising McCain.

The Alliance for a Better Minnesota describes the extent of John McCain’s home ownership, including even the start of a Google Map to geographically illustrate where the homes are located.  Please follow the link below to read the whole article.  An excerpt is presented here: 

“Of those 80 million homeowners, only 55 million have a mortgage at all, and 51 million are doing what is necessary –working a second job, skipping a vacation, and managing their budgets — to make their payments on time.

That leaves us with a puzzling situation: how could 4 million mortgages cause this much trouble for us all?
–John McCain [Economic Speech in Santa Ana, CA, 3/25/08]

Before a president can effectively govern this diverse nation, they must first be able to understand the needs and struggles of its citizens. McCain’s astonishing wealth makes it impossible for him to relate to the millions of Americans who have been hurt by the economy.

John & Cindy McCain Own At Least Nine Houses In Arizona, California, and Virginia Worth an Estimated $13,123,269. John and Cindy McCain own a plethora of houses spread throughout the United States, including: two beachfront condos in Coronado, California, condo in La Jolla, California, a two-unit condominium complex in Phoenix, Arizona, three ranch houses located outside of Sedona, Arizona, a high-rise condo in Arlington, Virginia, and, according to GQ, a loft they bought for their daughter, Meghan.

The value of their houses is an estimated $13,123,269. [San Diego County Property Records; Maricopa County Property Records; Yavapai County Property Records; Arlington County Property Records; GQ, 3/18/08]

The McCain’s Primary Residence

1. 1n 2006, McCains Purchased Two Condominiums in Phoenix For $4,666,814. According to property records from Maricopa County, Arizona, the McCains spent $4,666,814 Condominium in Phoenix, AZ in 2006. Officially, the sale was made to The Cindy Hensley McCain Family Trust on October 18, 2006. (2211 E Camelback Rd., Units 1105& 1106, 85016) [Maricopa County Property Records]

* The McCains Converted the Two Condominiums Into A “Single Dwelling.” According to The Arizona Republic, “Property records show that Cindy [McCain’s] trust recently bought a condo at the Residences at 2211 Camelback for $4.66 million.” The paper added, “The deal was actually for two condos that could be combined to one space of 6,000 to 7,000 square feet. That is plenty of elbow room, even for a high-end condo, in a region where the typical single-family home runs about 1,600 square feet.” [Arizona Republic, 10/26/06, emphasis added]

* The McCains Own A $4.7 Million Condo, Vastly Exceeding The Neighborhood’s Average Home Value of $375,011. In a profile of presidential candidates’ homes, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that the McCain’s condominium in Phoenix is worth an estimated $4.7 million.

The average home value in their neighborhood is reported to be $375,011. They added, “Cindy McCain, heiress to the John Hensley liquor empire, paid $3 million for two units, which the couple combined for 6,000 square feet.” [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 2/10/08] The McCains’ Primary Residence Is Outfitted With The Following Amenities:

• Valet parking for residents and guests

• Travel and driver services.

• Roof top pool terrace with zero edge pool, sun deck, spa, fire pit, gas barbeque, and panoramic mountain and downtown views

• Exclusive resident party room featuring separate guest entrance from porte-cochere, fireplace, 50” plasma

• Fitness Center with state-of-the-art equipment, men’s and ladies’ locker rooms, steam rooms, and massage room.

• Roof top entertainment terrace with lounge seating and breathtaking views of Piestewa Peak [Photo & amenities found at www.2211camelback.com, accessed on 4/2/08]

Beachfront Condos in Coronado, California

2. The McCains Own A $2,705,040 Beachfront Condominium on a Small Island Outside of San Diego. According to property records from San Diego County, California the McCains own a $2,705,040 condominium in Coronado, California. Coronado boasts the second best beach in the country, according to the Travel Channel.

The condominium is officially the property of Dream Catcher Family. (1710 Avenida Del Mundo, Unit #802, 92118) [San Diego County Property Records; City of Coronado website, accessed 3/31/08, emphasis added]

3. In February 2008, The McCains Bought Another $2.1 Million Condominium In Coronado. According to property records from San Diego County, California the McCains bought another $2.1 million condominium in Coronado, California. Records show that the sale was completed on February 27, 2008. The condominium is officially the property of Dream Catcher Family. (1710 Avenida Del Mundo, Unit #204, 92118) [San Diego County Property Records] [Google Maps]

Hidden Valley Ranch

The McCains Own Three “Hidden Valley Ranches” Worth $1,103,615 in 2007. According to property records from Yavapai County, Arizona, the McCains own three ranch houses worth a combined $1,103,615:

4. $405,757 - 11455 E Hidden Valley Ranch Rd

5. $369,929 - 11445 E Hidden Valley Ranch Rd

6. $327,929 –11415 E Hidden Valley Ranch Rd

The first two ranch properties are held by the Cindy Hensley McCain Family Trust, while the third is held by Sedona Hidden Valley Limited Partnership. According to the Arizona Republic, the three houses include, “A main house, guest house and caretakers’ quarters [and] total more than 4,800 square feet.” [Yavapai County Property Records; 2007 Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure; Arizona Republic, 8/12/00]

* McCain Said There Are Six Houses On His Lot. According to CNN, “McCain said the valley was settled by Mormons and that the Hidden Valley Ranch got its name from the horseshoe shape of the creek that runs through the property. He said he built the first house on his property 24 years ago and now there are six houses on his lot.” [CNN, 3/3/08, emphasis added]

* McCain’s Ranch Was Described As “One of the Most Spectacular Creekfront Properties in the State.” According to the Arizona Republic, McCain’s neighbor, Daniel Sims, said “It’s called Hidden Valley, and everyone who sees it says they would never expect to find such a beautiful place in such an arid climate.” He added that McCain’s ranch is “one of the most spectacular creekfront properties in the state. Lush lawns go from their house gently down to the water’s edge. The creek makes a natural pool there. It’s very romantic.” [Arizona Republic, 8/12/00]

* AP: McCain’s 15-Acre Ranch “Includes Four Single-Family Homes And Is Worth Nearly $1.8 Million.” According to the Associated Press, “John McCain held a barbecue recently for reporters at a two-story cabin near Sedona, Ariz., that sits on 15 acres owned by his wife’s family trust and a real estate partnership in her name. The property includes four single-family homes and is worth nearly $1.8 million.” [Associated Press, 4/3/08] [McCainBlogette, accessed 4/2/08]

Lifestyles of The Rich & Out of Touch : McCain vs. Minnesota..

Please have your staff do some research and get back to us. We understand if you do not get back to us right away, as it is hard to sort out whether condominiums count as a home or not. Do homes worth less than $1 million count? What about six homes at your ranch, which are on the same property as the main home, but serve as guest houses?

These are difficult issues, so please take your time in answering this question about how many houses you own. After all, only an elitist like Barack Obama is so arrogant as to answer right away, without checking with his staff, saying triumphantly, “One”! He might as well be saying, “Let them eat cake!”.

That Obama really has an attitude problem, and obviously cannot relate to us in main-stream America, with our sub-prime loans and rising payments.