McCain’s Lost House Problem

For middle America (and I’m not talking about a place in the middle bread basket of America) but the real prairie of existence - the flatland life that consists of barely making house payments, of nevering know if your job will find itself exported to China.

This is the middle America where most Americans take up residence.

This is the one house if your lucky America. Otherwise you rent.

This is the America where it’s a good wage to make $50K per year and support your three kids because at least you have health insurance paid. In this middle America, you send your kid to public school with new clothes every other year. You might have enough for one sport - it just depending on how much you have left on that third credit card.

When John McCain claims to not know how many houses he owns…that’s pretty shocking. “I’ll have the campaign check on that and get back to you.” Yeah right.

Well it turns out the McCain’s own 7 properties, but John McCain actually doesn’t own any. Doesn’t this seem weird. Every thing’s in his wife’s name. You get the feeling that they were allowed to get married (he 42, she 25) only with a strong prenuptial that made sure McCain wasn’t diddling with the heiress just for her money…no I’m sure it was for love of country but that’s another story.

The big story is “how can McCain not know?” Is he getting that old…so really old. The kind of old that he doesn’t recall simple facts of his own life. Perhaps we should have his campaign check on that too.

Perhaps John McCain is just one rich-ass elitist who’s totally clueless about middle America. We all know how he defined rich as making $5 million a year. Hey I’d be happy with just 1 mill. However, did you know that back in 2006, while talking to the AFL-CIO, he asked the audience who would be willing to work for $50 per hour to pick lettuce. He was defending why illegal immigrants had to come into this country…Americans were too lazy to work for $50/hour…fuck! I think every American that’s currently struggling today would drop their $10 or $15 hour job and jump at the chance to piss on the lettuce and contaminate our food supply…but it’s only in some fantasy land that lettuce pickers make $50/hour.

Try $5.25/hour.

So I hope my Republican and independent friends wake up when they’re thinking about voting this guy into office. He might look like your grandfather (our grandads always had our best interests at heart) but his economic stimulus is likely to be similar to the one my grandad delivered when he gave me 5 cents and said go buy yourself a soda. His good old heart hadn’t kept up with inflation.

(Ok, the story about my granddad…I made that up, but you get the point.)

Enjoy.

ISM

Got kids? You’re Rich Getting Richer According to McCain

McCain offered up his plan for a $7000 per child tax credit while debating the Holy Ghost back at the Saddle Back Farm. (It’s been pointed out he probably meant $7000 per child tax exemption…but who knows).

This is a good plan if either, you want free money, and debt for your kids, or if you’re rich. I don’t know which is the case, but do the math. It starts to look pretty profitable to pump out kids.

My problem with this plan…and I’m no tax accountant so correct me if I’m wrong…is that it benefits wealthier families more than those who need it most.

Let’s say I’m a median American family. There’s myself and my spouse making $50,000 a year together and we’ve got two dependents. Let’s say after I get done doing the front sheet of my 1040, I flip over the form and I have an adjusted gross income of $45,000.

Now comes the fun part.

$45,000 minus exemptions…ok line 49 take it to line 60..wow look at these tax credits here. I’ve got…wait…I don’t owe a dime in taxes…am I getting money from the IRS? if this doesn’t make sense, you’re following me, because it doesn’t make sense to me either. Either the government is paying money (rather then collecting money) from those with more kids, or (if the credit only works if you owe SOME taxes) this sort of policy only benefits the wealthy.

I’d love it if someone more familiar with tax law could explain this, but until then I’m going to hold my own misconceptions and see this for what it really is…a way to sock it to the childless and pad the pockets of the wealthier child rearing Evangelical and Mormon Folk. (Yes, I predict Romney to be McCain’s VP).

A Closer Look at McCain’s Top 3 Faux Advisors

The myth of the McCain Maverick is really a cover for a man terribly unsure of where he really stands. This was evident on Saturday at the Saddle Back Forum, when McCain rattled off his three advisers he’d call on and trust their wisdom. A closer look at this list of three brings out the WTF in all of us.

From left to right:

1. General David Petraeus: This was a gimme, considering McCain’s love fest with war. And its one of the wise people he mentioned that I no doubt would expect him to actually have in a McCain White House. My problem with Petraeus is that he tells leaders what they want to hear (the reason he’s so well liked by McCain), and that’s the exact mentality that got us into the mess of Iraq in the first place.

And now for the two total pandering “wise” advisers mentioned by McCain:

2. Rep. John Lewis: I have all respect for John Lewis, but this was so obviously an attempt to pander at the one demographic Obama has locked up that it’s surprising that he even tried. First, McCain has been a champion against civil rights more often then a champion for civil rights, by opposing the MLK Holiday, both nationally and in Arizona. But it’s also striking because John Lewis is a democrat who doesn’t even advise McCain in any way today, despite both serving in Congress for over 20 years together.

3. Meg Whitman, Ebay: Obviously an appeal to Hillary Clinton supporters, I get the feeling that McCain floated Meg Whitman’s name, if only to test her name in the VP waters, after getting backlash from his base on Ted Strickland, the pro-choice governor. Plus, she provides an insight into McCain’s economic vision for America…while you’ll never make it rich, by his standard of $5 million, you could join the 1.3 million currently making a living off eBay.

McCain’s Biggest Flip Flop

McCain should have mentioned that his biggest flip flop was his taste in women…ehem… I mean Supreme Court justices. During McCain’s recitation of every moderate judge currently serving on the bench, when asked which judges he’d have nominated, he mentioned, “With all due respect [I would not have nominated] Justice Ginsberg, Justice Breyer, Justice Souter and Justice Stevens.” But if you take a walk down memory lane, and it’s not that much of a memory lane walk, even for a gentleman of McCain’s age … just back to June 2008 when McCain tried to appease unhappy Hillary voters, he pointed out that he’d “voted with Bill Clinton on the confirmation” of both Ginsberg and Souter.

Read more here: McCain Courts Clintonites,

Wow…talk about a man who talks to the crowd.

Get the mainstream media talking about this. Take action. Write about it, because if you don’t, a lot of democrat-leaning women are going to vote to take away their right to choice.

McCain Was Jet Skiing with the President of Georgia in 2006?

According to this CNN report, McCain adviser, Randy Scheunemann, confirmed a report that McCain and Saakashvili enjoyed a day of water sports in the summer of 2006. “I can confirm that Sen. McCain and President Saakashvili were jet-skiing on the Black Sea together,” he said. Well after that day on the water, I hope they used protection…of course, I mean from the sun. Then again, I should have used the before in stead of after…hopefully you get what I mean.

According the the US Embassy website, this likely took place in August of 2006. It was during this visit to Georgia that McCain said, “My comment would be that it is time to evaluate whether the Russian peacekeepers are carrying out their mission in an objective fashion. And I believe serious consideration should be given to a new force either from the OSCE or the U.N. which can do a job that is more credible than present Russian peacekeeping force.”

It would seem that Mr. Foreign Policy and National Security Expert would have done something about the situation since then, wouldn’t it. At least make an effort. So I decided to look at what McCain has done for Georgia since that 2006 jet-skiing visit. According to the embassy site, this is what I found.

On April 28 2006 McCain gave a speech. And then again, on April 17, 2008, he gave another speech. Two speeches I didn’t waste my time to read. And this didn’t go unnoticed by the Georgian president, as he called out McCain on doing something more than just blabbing words. Problem is, McCain only has the authority to do just words, which is why he shouldn’t be circumventing official US policy for his own perceived gain.

And now, Susan Rice, an adviser to Obama, says McCain has probably even made the Georgian/Russian situation worse with his anti-Russian rhetoric. Aren’t we glad this clown wasn’t running things during the cold war…damn! What a fool. Sorry. This was probably the best week for Obama to drop off the radar and take some time out, because it’s putting on display fully the freak McCain can be when it comes to warmongering.

War is McCain’s Viagra

McCain is so pro-war that the only thing that gets it up for him is the thought of bombs dropping on Iran. Now he’s taking the Georgia-Russian crisis into political-Viagra territory, making this his raison d’etre for all Americans concerned.

“Today the killing goes on, and the aggression goes on,” McCain said, and then in reference to his conversation with Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, he continued,  “And I told him that I know I speak for every American when I say to him, ‘Today we are all Georgians.’”

No warmonger McCain, you don’t speak for every American.

You are a Senator hell-bent on playing a war-time president. This is a dispute that foremost, requires the attention of the current administration. It seems quite dangerous for a candidate to be directly speaking to leaders of other countries and giving them impression that you speak for the United States. If you’re really meant to be president, McCain, your time will come (Godspeed impotence on your crooked blood lust).

I’m terribly sorry for the loss of life in Georgia. But where’s McCain’s speech on Darfur, and his statement on behalf of all Americans about the terrible loss of life in that country. In fact there are many third-world countries that suffer the ill effects of imperialism every day without notice. Could it be that the only reason he’s all giddy on this issue is that it promises the drumbeat war?

McCain said, “I know how to win wars.” If I recall the US lost Vietnam, and McCain met his breaking point, allowing himself to be played as a propaganda puppet. McCain loves war though. It get’s him ready in the morning like a good cup’a joe.

But why is McCain interested in war in Georgia? Well, it just so happens that a few moments with the oracle of Wiki informs the good senator that Georgia is in the bread basket of Christianity, having been the first nation to adopt its holiness and sword….and then of course there’s oil and that thing call “caucasian”-ness which appeals to those in middle America.

Ahh, yes, the quaint heart-rending image of a fledgling democracy…wait, isn’t that what Iraq is? And Afghanastan? Doesn’t the suicide bombing of 25 innocent Iraqis, at least for a day,  “make us all Iraqis?”.

(By the way, if you have time, watch this great video.)

Where’s McCain’s Flag Pin?

On the night McCain delivered his most watched speech, taking advantage of the historical importance of those other two historical candidates, you’d think McCain would’ve done everything he could to deliver a knock out punch. Instead, aside from the gaffe on how to rehydrate babies with hot water, and the Hamas-green backdrop, he also appears to have gaffed the wardrobe by not wearing a flag pin demonstrative of his patriotism.

Now personally, I could care less, as I’m sure is the case with most other progressives. I even cringe a tad seeing one on Obama, knowing that he’s wearing this flag piece to convince the less educated that he’s not Muslim. (No, actually he might be wearing it out of respect to the veteran who gave it to him.)

But my cynicism causes me to digress. What I was trying to say was, for a Republican to take the stage and not be wearing one - well that’s just a bit too maverick for me.

And wait, listen. Where are all the conservative commentators, the media, and the stupification army in their plastic outrage. Fox News - don’t let us down now. Washington Times, please make this an issue. Rushie, this is so vitally important to this nation.

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