On Fox & Friends, Millionaire Donald Trump Falsely Claimed That Obama Plans to Have “Everybody … Pay Double and Triple the Taxes” - During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump claimed, “The worst thing that can happen [in this economy] is everybody has to pay double and triple the taxes, and that’s what [Sen. Barack] Obama is looking to do.” Fox & Friends co-hosts did not challenge Trump’s claim, even though it is false. Obama has proposed cutting taxes for low- and middle-income families and raising taxes only on households earning more than $250,000 per year in income.

On Fox, Huckabee Misrepresented Obama Plans for Health Care, Taxes – On the August 28 Fox News, Mike Huckabee falsely claimed that, under Sen. Barack Obama’s health-care plan, “the government will be in control,” and that “we’re going to be rationing it.” In fact, Obama has not proposed government-run health care. Indeed, Obama’s website specifically states that, under his proposal, individuals “will not have to change plans.” Huckabee then claimed that Obama will raise taxes, which has also been proven false.

Associated Press Misrepresents McCain’s Positions on Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, Abortion – On August 27, the Associated Press, in an article headlined “GOP takes hard line on abortion for its platform,” reported that “[Sen. John] McCain opposes gay marriage but also is against a constitutional amendment against it. He has expressed limited support for the rights accorded couples in same-sex civil unions.” The article also stated, “Apart from opposing a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, [McCain] is against most abortion rights and says he would favor overturning the Supreme Court decision affirming those rights.” In fact, McCain has expressed support for a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions and for a federal constitutional amendment banning abortion in most cases.

G. Gordon Liddy and Wesley Pruden Repeat Debunked Claim That Obama’s Birth Certificate is Non-Existent or Fake – G. Gordon Liddy asserted on his nationally syndicated radio show: “[W]e still don’t have a birth certificate for [Sen. Barack] Obama. There are claims that he was actually born in Kenya.” The Washington Times’ Wesley Pruden similarly wrote that a “summer-long controversy continues about when and where the senator was actually born” and falsely asserted that “[t]he Obama campaign has been reluctant to produce a birth certificate.” In fact, the Obama campaign, in addition to posting a copy of the birth certificate on the campaign website, reportedly provided the original to FactCheck.org, whose staff said in an August 21 article that they “have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate,” and concluded that the document does, in fact, exist, and that it “meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship.”

Fox News’ Carlson Repeated Falsehood That McCain Rarely Talks About His POW Experience – On Fox & Friends, Gretchen Carlson said that the “first time” Sen. John McCain “really did start sharing some personal moments” about his prisoner of war experience in Vietnam was during his August 16 appearance at a forum at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, adding that “most people would say that John McCain hasn’t talked enough about his POW experience.” In fact, McCain has discussed his POW experience, including “personal moments,” during the current campaign as well as on numerous previous occasions.

Regards,

Jim
Will you listen to your hopes or your fears?

McCain Decides to Continue the Bush Legacy of Destructive Environmental Policies - Senator John McCain just announced his choice for running mate: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. The following is a statement by Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

Senator McCain’s choice for a running mate is beyond belief. By choosing Sarah Palin, McCain has clearly made a decision to continue the Bush legacy of destructive environmental policies.

Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP (formerly British Petroleum), has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska’s coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration.

This is Senator McCain’s first significant choice in building his executive team and it’s a bad one. It has to raise serious doubts in the minds of voters about John McCain’s commitment to conservation, to addressing the impacts of global warming and to ensuring our country ends its dependency on oil.

The McCains’ Budget for Household Staff is $273,000 Per Year – The McCains’ household-staff budget is nearly six times the US median household income. Yet McCain’s defenders in the elite media, the comfortably-well-off ones pass on bogus Republican “elitism” smears used against self-made Barack Obama.

McCain Advisor’s Solution to Health Care Crisis is to Redefine “Uninsured” – The McCain campaign likes to tell us we’re a “nation of whiners” complaining about a “mental recession,” so it should come as no surprise that their solution to the health care crisis is to simply have the Census Bureau redefine the term uninsured. Seriously. Let John Goodman, McCain’s point-man on health care issues, explain:

I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime,” Mr. Goodman said. “The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved.

Voila! No more health care problems! All those “whiners” out there who are losing their homes due to unmanageable health care bills can sleep sound tonight. The health care crisis is solved! As Michigan Messenger says:

If you’re uninsured, out of money – and not having a life-threatening emergency – you not only don’t exist in John McCain’s world, you’re completely out of luck.

White House Could Become Beer Distributorship Headquarters - Cindy McCain holds the title of company chairwoman and controls about 68% of the privately held company stock of Hensley & Co., one of the nation’s major beer wholesalers, with her children and the senator’s son. In an interview in May, she said she knew “everything that is going on” and communicated with her executive team every day. She added that she did not need to be at headquarters to be in charge. So far, she has given no hint of what changes, if any, she envisions. “That’s very premature,” she said. If her husband is elected president and she retains her role at Hensley, she will set a precedent for outside corporate activity by a first lady. Political analysts said they were astounded that the presumptive Republican nominee had not already addressed the issue.

“You can’t run a beer company out of the White House,” said Samuel L. Popkin, a political science professor at UC San Diego. “You can’t run any company from the White House. McCain is leaving a live hand grenade on the table, a major embarrassment.”

The company has opposed such groups as Mothers Against Drunk Driving in fighting proposed federal rules requiring alcohol content information on every package of beer, wine and liquor. Its executives, including John McCain’s son Andrew, have written at least 10 letters in recent years to the Treasury Department, have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to a beer industry political action committee, and hold a seat on the board of the politically powerful National Beer Wholesalers Assn.

Cindy’s company has also run afoul of health advocacy groups that have tried to rein in appeals to young drinkers. For example, the company distributes caffeinated alcoholic drinks that public health groups say put young and underage consumers at risk by disguising the effects of intoxication.

Regards,

Jim

Fox News Cuts Democratic Keynote After Two Minutes; Switches to Anti-Obama Coverage – In its August 26 coverage of the second night of the Democratic National Convention, Fox News aired just over two minutes of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner’s nearly 20-minute keynote address. Then they went on to discuss an anti-Obama ad and an interview with former Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani.

Ohio GOP Illegally Funneled $495,000 From Federal Account, Top Campaign Finance Official Writes – The Ohio Republican Party funneled $495,000 into an account used to support the candidacy of former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell that should have only been used to support candidates for national office, according to a letter from Ohio’s current Secretary of State and a GOP spokesman.

The letter says Ohio’s Republican party collected nearly half a million dollars from a federal GOP account in October 2006. They also took in $20,000 from a state GOP account the same month and another $25,000 in November 2007. According a state GOP spokesman, the money supported just one candidate — former Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

Blackwell achieved notoriety after allegations he abused his office as the state’s top elections official. While serving as Secretary of State, which handles statewide elections, he also doubled as state chairman for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign. Blackwell has been named in more than ten voter disenfranchisement lawsuits. He was also named in a 2006 lawsuit after his office publicly disclosed the Social Security numbers of Ohio residents.

Republicans Love Their Indicted Senator – Senator Ted Stevens received 63 percent of the primary vote against six challengers, even as he faces a trial in September on charges that he concealed $250,000 in home renovations and gifts provided by an oil services company, VECO. If the trial goes forward on schedule, Mr. Stevens, who has been in the Senate for 40 years and is revered in Alaska for bringing home billions of dollars in federal spending, will be defending himself in court while he also tries to hold off a strong general election challenge from a popular and well-financed Democrat, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage.

The results of the Republican primary’s other top race, between Representative Don Young and his challenger, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, may not be known until next week or even later. Like Mr. Stevens, Mr. Young is under federal investigation for his ties to VECO, but he also faces scrutiny on other matters. He has spent more than $1 million of his campaign money on legal fees.

US Threatens UK to Try to Make Them Not Tell About Torture – In a remarkable development at the High Court in London, an email from a senior US State Dept. official has been revealed, apparently threatening to curb co-operation with Britain on international intelligence sharing if details on a detainees interrogation are revealed. Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, held at Gitmo, have taken legal action in the UK to force the release of details which, they say, will prove Mohamed was illegally abducted and tortured into a confession. Mohamed claims that his torture included having his penis cut with a razor blade by Moroccan proxies for the US.

What Bush Taught McCain – The woman, a venture capitalist from the Denver area, looked a bit like Cindy McCain, and so it was disconcerting when she announced, in a focus group of undecided voters conducted by the Republican pollster Frank Luntz, that she had decided she just couldn’t vote for John McCain this year. “I supported him enthusiastically in 2000, but he’s hired the same people who ran him into the ground last time to run his campaign,” she said. McCain’s tone was more negative now. “It breaks my heart.”

Most people don’t care about the consultants a candidate hires — very few handlers achieve the celebrity status of a Karl Rove or a James Carville. Most voters who supported McCain in 2000 but not this year have more obvious gripes: they don’t like the way he’s shaved his policy positions to approach Republican dogma. They may remember that he opposed the Bush tax cuts before he favored them. They may remember that he was more moderate on social issues like abortion in 2000, decrying the extremists on both sides and saying that “people of good intentions” could come to some understanding. They may be surprised by his free-range bellicosity, rattling sabers from Iran to Georgia. All of which is summed up in a single image: McCain hugging — no, nuzzling up to — George W. Bush. And yet, as the venture capitalist pointed out, the most disheartening aspect of McCain’s 2008 campaign is not his embrace of Bush’s policies but of the Bush style of campaigning

Regards,

Jim
Will you listen to your hopes or your fears?

The McCains Lied Repeatedly About Their Baby Adoption Story, Then Changed It Just Before the 2008 Campaign Began – As was pointed out Wednesday by the Christian Science Monitor, the McCain campaign was called out for lying about the purported urging of Cindy McCain by Mother Teresa herself to adopt two children at her orphanage back in 1991. It turns out, McCain never met or even spoke with Mother Teresa on that trip. Once confronted by the Monitor about the deception, the campaign quickly erased such claims from the website, as it did with Cindy’s family recipes, which were proved to be lifted from the Food Network. But after doing some research, this deception was no careless accident, but rather another shameless and deliberate attempt by the campaign to reinvent and embellish the McCain family history in time for his 2008 presidential bid. Read the details of the repeated false stories put into various media outlets by the McCains.

McCain’s “Rove-Style” Politics Forces President Eisenhower’s Granddaughter to Quit the Republican Party – From Susan Eisenhower:

I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican. For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency … And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks.

My decision came at the end of last week when it was demonstrated to the nation that McCain and this Bush White House have learned little in the last five years. They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucusus, and this has undermined U.S. national security. At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove–style political campaign. Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win?

Hijacked by a relatively small few, the GOP of today bears no resemblance to Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower’s party, or many of the other Republican administrations that came after.

Rush Limbaugh Says, “You Can’t Criticize the Little Black Man-Child” - From the August 20 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show: “McCain’s just out there saying he’s putting his own personal political ambition ahead of the country’s. It’s — you know, it’s just — it’s just we can’t hit the girl. I don’t care how far feminism’s saying, you can’t hit the girl, and you can’t — you can’t criticize the little black man-child. You just can’t do it, ’cause it’s just not right. It’s not fair. He’s such a victim.” (Do you really know anyone saying that Obama should not be criticized? If it’s truthful and relevant, bring it on! – JLV)

And on the August 19 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh said about Obama’s nomination, “I think it really goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy.”

And on his radio show, Sean Hannity said that Sen. Barack Obama “can’t point to a single instance in which President Bush or McCain or Karl Rove or Sean Hannity or talk radio or any other major Republican has made an issue of Obama’s race.” Of course, Limbaugh is not the only one proving Hannity wrong about that. There’s Glenn Beck, Monica Crowley, John Gibson, Melanie Morgan, and Sean Hannity.

McCain’s Campaign Says You Can’t Criticize the Ex-POW – When John McCain revealed that he didn’t know how many houses he and his wife currently own (they have at least eight properties), the Obama campaign pounced. They accused him of being elitist and disconnected and launched an ad within hours. The McCain campaign–realizing this was trouble–retorted the only way they knew how: With a truly stupefying response from McCain spokesman Brian Rogers:

“This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison,” referring to the prisoner of war camp that McCain was in during the Vietnam War.

Yes, you read that right. McCain justified not knowing how many houses he has by saying he was a POW in Vietnam, four decades ago. Sorry, but we’re sick of hearing about this as a justification for everything John McCain does or doesn’t do. And remember, thousands of other veterans are homeless–that is, they have ZERO homes.

McCain Rode In A Nine-Car Motorcade To Get A Cappuccino – “By midafternoon, both campaigns were in full battle cry and sought to portray the other candidate as living an ostentatious lifestyle. Both campaigns called reporters, rushed out scathing TV attack ads, unveiled new websites and unleashed surrogates. McCain, who huddled with advisors at his desert compound in Sedona, Ariz., said nothing in public. A nine-car motorcade took him to a nearby Starbucks early in the morning, where he ordered a large cappuccino. McCain otherwise avoided reporters.”

(Maybe he did other things while he was out, like getting his $500 imported shoes shined. I wonder if he threw some coins to the little people on the way? – JLV)

McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years – When you can’t remember how many mansions you have, you can’t be expected to remember to pay the taxes on all of them.

McCain’s Chief Foreign Policy Adviser is a ‘Dual Loyalist’ and ‘Neocon Warmonger’ According to Pat Buchanan – According to conservative commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, Sen. John McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann is a ‘dual loyalist’ ‘neocon warmonger’. Scheunemann’s former employer, Orion Strategies, is a lobbying firm with strong ties to Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration in Georgia. “He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man,” he wrote. Scheunemann’s former lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, received at lest $800,000 from the government of Georgia between 2004 and May 15, 2008

In his recent history, Scheunemann was a key member of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which lobbied President Clinton for war with Iraq for years before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He was also a signatory on a letter to President George W. Bush, just days after the terrorist attacks, demanding an invasion of Iraq and threatening political consequences if the president did not comply. Could Scheunemann be McCain’s Secretary of State if McCain is elected?

13-Year Military Pilot on Terror Watch List; Could End His Career – For Erich Scherfen, being on a government terror watch list isn’t just a matter of inconvenience. It could end his career. Scherfen served in the U.S. military for 13 years, as an Army infantryman in the first Gulf War and then as a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. After receiving an honorable discharge, he was hired as a pilot by Colgan Air Inc., a regional airline operating in the Northeast and Texas.

In April, Colgan informed Scherfen that he was on a government list and would be suspended from his job. He was told he faced termination on September 1 unless he was able to clear his name. But Scherfen, of Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, has been unable to do so and said fears it could mean he has no future as a pilot. “My entire career depends on me getting off this list,” he told CNN. “I probably won’t be able to get a job anywhere else in the world having this mark that I’m on this list.”

Documents Reveal the PR Push for Iraq War Preceded Intelligence Findings – New documents from within the Bush administration and US intelligence community during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq reveal that the White House began assembling a case for war before it had compiled the intel that ostensibly formed the basis of that case.

A new report on the documents from George Washington University’s National Security Archive also presents compelling evidence that the Bush administration pressured the CIA and other intelligence agencies to tailor their reports to back-up Bush’s desire to invade. The report suggests the bulk of this effort was run out of Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, backing up numerous other post-war examinations of the path to invasion that saw Cheney as the mastermind of the plan to oust Saddam Hussein.

FBI Wants Power to Investigate Citizens “Without Any Basis for Suspicion” – A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday. The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,”

New Greenland Ice Crack Forms – In northern Greenland, a part of the Arctic that had seemed immune from global warming, new satellite images show a growing giant crack and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice hemorrhaging off a major glacier, scientists said Thursday. And that’s led the university professor who spotted the wounds in the massive Petermann glacier to predict disintegration of a major portion of the Northern Hemisphere’s largest floating glacier within the year. If it does worsen and other northern Greenland glaciers melt faster, then it could speed up sea level rise, already increasing because of melt in southern Greenland.

Regards,

Jim

McCain to Mom of Veteran: I Don’t Disagree With Reenacting the Military Draft – An audience member at a McCain town hall meeting in Las Cruces, New Mexico on Wednesday said, “If we don’t reenact the draft, I don’t think we’ll have anyone to chase bin Laden to the gates of Hell.”

McCain responded, “Ma’am, let me say that I don’t disagree with anything you said.”

Who’s Elitist? McCain Says He Doesn’t Know How Many Homes He Owns
Sen. John McCain told Politico in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own. “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain told reporters Jon Martin and Mike Allen. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.” McCain’s staff said the answer is at least four. Guess again. Newsweek estimates that McCain has a total of seven homes. (Does McCain know how many pairs of $500 shoes he has? – JLV)

White House Missing as Many as 225 Days of E-mail – The White House is missing as many as 225 days of e-mail dating back to 2003 and there is little if any likelihood a recovery effort will be completed by the time the Bush administration leaves office. “With an eye on the clock, the White House continues to drag its feet and do everything possible to postpone public access to the records of this presidency,” said Anne Weismann, chief counsel to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a private watchdog group. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has said the White House’s failure to properly archive e-mails violated the Presidential Records Act. The top lawyer for the National Archives has expressed disappointment the White House did not have a formal records management system in place.

McCain Says There’s No Need to Differentiate Himself From Bush – I don’t have any need to show that I’m different than President Bush,” McCain told Politico’s Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin Wednesday.

McCain Attacks Obama’s ‘Ambition’ After Acknowledging His Own – Senator John McCain recently accused Senator Barack Obama of calling for an end to the war in Iraq because he is motivated by “the ambition to be president.” It has now come out that McCain himself has written of his 2000 presidential campaign, “I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president.” That ambition, McCain added, even led him to “lie” and conceal his true opinion of the Confederate flag.

U.S. Military Held a Television Cameraman for Three Weeks Without Charges – The U.S. military freed a Reuters television cameraman on Thursday after holding him for three weeks in Iraq without charges. Ali al-Mashhadani, who also works freelance for the BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio, was detained in Baghdad on July 30 while he was in the Green Zone government compound for routine checks for a U.S. military press card. U.S. forces have detained Mashhadani twice before, at one point holding him for five months, but no charge has ever been filed against the cameraman, who is based in Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province.

Man Dies After Waiting 22 Hours at Hospital
A mental patient died after workers at a North Carolina hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or helping him use the bathroom, said federal officials who have threatened to cut off the facility’s funding. An investigator’s report released Monday found that 50-year-old Steven Sabock died in April after he choked on medication and was left sitting in a chair for close to a day at the facility about 50 miles southeast of Raleigh. Surveillance video showed hospital staff watching television and playing cards just a few feet away.

Alaskan Governor Fired Public Safety Commissioner Who Balked Against Firing of Trooper Involved in Child-Custody Battle With Governor’s Sister - In July, Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Monegan has said he felt pressured by the governor’s office to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, a trooper who had been locked in a child-custody battle with Palin’s sister. Palin last Wednesday revealed a phone call made by her boards and commissions director, Frank Bailey, to a trooper lieutenant. In the call, Bailey lists various complaints about Wooten and says the governor and her husband couldn’t understand why he still had a job.

Soil Bacterium Used in Making Geneticaly Modified Crops Found to Transfer T-DNA into Chromosomes of Human Cells – Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium extensively manipulated and used in making geneticaly modified crops, not only infects human and other animal cells, it also transfers genes into them. Until Stony Brook University in New York (SUNY) professor Vitaly Citovsky and his team made the discovery, the genetic engineering community had assumed that Agrobacterium did not infect animal cells, and certainly would not transfer genes into them. Agrobacterium was found to transfer T-DNA into the chromosomes of human cells. Preliminary findings now suggest a link between Morgellons Disease and Agrobacterium. Morgellons Disease first became known in 2001. A growing list of people are registered with Morgellons Disease, totalling 12,106 worldwide recorded by Morgellons Research Foundation, as of 12 April 2008.

McCain Sidesteps Question About Why His Account of His Affair During His First Marriage Doesn’t Match Official Documents – CNN’s John King has been looking into the circumstances of McCain’s divorce from his first wife, Carol.. Not only was McCain 17 years older than Cindy, but he was still married to Carol, and their daughter was only 12 years old. King explains. “He’d been having affairs for several years.” King stated, “his own divorce filing shows they dated for nine months while he was still living with Carol, and records show he applied for a marriage license in Arizona before his divorce was final.”

However, Cindy McCain told King that it didn’t bother her to be dating a married man because “my husband had been separated. … You know, six and a half years, it was a long separation.” John McCain also wrote in his memoir that he had separated from Carol before he started dating Cindy.

When King asked McCain about the fact that “the chronology that is presented publicly doesn’t necessarily match the chronology of the documents,” McCain’s only answer was, “It’s 30 years ago. I have a happy marriage.”

John McCain’s Introspective Comments in His AutoBiography Were Not Written by John McCain – In his 2002 book, “Worth the Fighting For,” John McCain offered this confession — an acknowledgment of a restless mind: “Although I seem to tolerate introspection better the older I am, there are still too many claims on my attention to permit more than the briefest excursions down the path of self-awareness. When I am no longer busy with politics, and with my own ambitions, I hope to have more time to examine what I have done and failed to do with my career, and why.”

A telling observation, or so it seems, and refreshingly candid for a public figure. But the words are not John McCain’s. They were written by his longtime aide Mark Salter, McCain’s literary alter ego. “Worth the Fighting For,” like McCain’s other four books, is by “John McCain With Mark Salter,” as they all say on their covers. This comment on McCain’s disinclination to commit introspection was “my surmise,” Salter said in a recent interview in his windowless office at McCain headquarters in Crystal City. He explained his technique:

“It’s his voice, but I’m going inside his head to speak some psychological truth about him. I’m drawing a conclusion based on my observation of him. I always show him: ‘This is what I’ve written. This is what I think about you. Is this fair?’ ”

Regards,

Jim

Texas Board of Education Under Control of a Rogue Faction With a Specific Agenda – Recent actions have landed Texas State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy and an eight-member faction under legislative scrutiny.

At first glance, their misdeeds seem innocuous. But, it turns out, they might be costly and illegal.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills are the standards of school content, defining what students need to learn as they progress from grade to grade and what they are tested on at the end of the year.

On July 16, the House Public Education Committee requested that McLeroy answer questions about the TEKS adoption process. Some observers say he hanged himself. But in the words of a Monty Python character, he’s “not dead yet.”

In fact, he’s thumbing his nose at legislators. His testimony was circular and evasive and, according to knowledgeable educators, at times deceptive. Video of the committee meeting can be seen on the committee Web site at tinyurl.com/Public-Education.

McLeroy’s testimony and answers to questions from state Reps. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington; Dora Olivo, D-Richmond; and Donna Howard, D-Austin; revealed McLeroy’s rejection of sound educational practices.

When Howard attributed the SBOE’s adoption of damaging TEKS to “ideology” and “politicizing our children’s education,” observers overwhelmingly demonstrated their agreement with an eruption of applause.

Legislators heard testimony from SBOE members and more than two dozen of Texas’s top educators. Among them were Linda Ferreira-Buckley, chair of UT’s Rhetoric and Writing Department; Alana Morris, teacher and president of the Coalition of Reading and English Teachers; and Cindy Tyroff, curriculum developer for San Antonio’s Northside school district.

Educators who testified about the quality of the adopted TEKS described them in the worst of terms. Flawed. Full of gaps. Costly to local school districts. Damaging to children.

Legislators also learned from testimony that the new ELAR (English Language Arts) TEKS don’t completely align to college readiness standards. The last Legislature passed a law mandating that TEKS align with those standards. The State Board of Education broke the law.

Legislators also learned that the board’s rogue faction rejected a math textbook without reason. They broke the law.

Conclusion: The law applies only at these politicians’ pleasure.

What happened with the ELAR TEKS, and what happened at the next SBOE meeting, is of concern to all Texans because we will pay heavily for this faction’s ideology.

Good TEKS are aligned, meaning that students master content at each level that prepares them for the next grade level, but the adopted TEKS are not aligned. A result will be gaps in students’ learning because a child going through the system is almost guaranteed not to learn material at one level necessary for success on the next level. Most children will not recover the needed material, and many will be damaged as a result.

Texans will also pay with their pocketbooks. Local school districts will spend lots of unbudgeted money interpreting the messy TEKS so that they can match it to what they are teaching in the classrooms.

McLeroy’s testimony was an unintentional admission of guilt and a humiliating display of ignorance of the ELAR standards he voted on.

But he recovered. The next day, defying the advice of Public Education Committee member Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, and with arrogance that contrasts sharply with the humility legislators saw the day before, McLeroy led his SBOE faction to adopt Bible-course standards so vague that they leave the door gaping for classroom proselytizing.

SMU Religion Studies Chair Mark Chancey termed them “a constitutional train wreck” that will cost taxpayers in legal defense fees.

Continuing a radical rampage, McLeroy’s group outlined a process for the Science TEKS adoption that flies in the face of legislators’ intent. Their new process disempowers teachers and experts and enhances the group’s ability to adopt their ideology. If they succeed, taxpayers may foot that bill in court, as well.

And because most members of this faction had campaigns financed by James Leininger from San Antonio, we can anticipate another costly issue. Leininger is known for financing candidates who support his causes, which include school vouchers. Vouchers are one way to get taxpayers to pay for education in religious schools, exactly what America’s Founding Fathers didn’t want.

So what can be done? … One good remedy is in board District 7, where Laura Ewing is running against incumbent David Bradley. Bradley is infamous among educators for his statement, “Thinking is gobbledygook.” He votes with the ideologues. Ewing would balance the board with integrity.

Meantime, Gov. Rick Perry should revisit his appointment of McLeroy as board chair. …

I’ve said that there isn’t anything we can do to bring gasoline prices down in the near future.  I was wrong.
 
According to the Washington Post a few oil traders controlled 81% of the oil futures market driving prices up artificially to profit from exchanges that had nothing to do with the delivery of oil or fuel.  “It is now evident that speculators in the energy futures markets play a much larger role than previously thought, and it is now even harder to accept the agency’s laughable assertion that excessive speculation has not contributed to rising energy prices,” said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.). He added that it was “difficult to comprehend how the CFTC would allow a trader” to acquire such a large oil inventory “and not scrutinize this position any sooner.”
 
How did this happen?  A little thing called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, a little amendment slipped into a 2000 spending bill by Phil Gramm.  It became known as the “Enron Loophole” because it was written by the good folks at Enron to allow them to speculate on electricity supplies without federal oversight.  That was when Phil’s wife, Wendy, was on the board of directors at Enron. 
 
Ah, Phil Gramm!  You remember him, the one who said we weren’t in a recession, that it was only a “mental recession” brought on by a “nation of whiners”.  You know, the one who John McCain tried to distance himself from only to have him back on board a month later as his number one economic advisor.
 
According to Wikipedia, Democrats tried from 2000 to 2006 to close the loophole but were blocked by the Republican majority.  This year the Democratically controlled congress again tried to close the loophole but Bush vetoed the bill.  
 
The Washington Post article says that pure speculation is responsible for $20-25 a barrel in oil costs.  Hmmm, without speculation the current price of oil would be under $100 a barrel and gasoline would be under $3 a gallon. 
 
You really need to read the Washington Post article start to finish.  See, things aren’t going to get any better and in fact may get a lot worse as the same players who have made $billions running up the cost of your gas and electric bill will soon begin trading US oil contracts in Dubai and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the “watchdog” over futures speculation, has said it does not plan to stand in the way of this new wave of speculation.
 
If you liked the last 8 years, you’re gonna’ love life under McCain.
  

Warning: The following is a fantasy about what could still be ….

Executive privilege is a key tool of the unitary president. If we would just formally legalize “executive privilege” and unitary leadership for all levels of government, life would be so much simpler. For example, none of government leaders would need to raise money for election campaigns and we the people would be rid of studying the issues and the ‘trouble of voting’ because campaigning and elections would no longer be needed. Of course, a few other changes would be required to keep this privileged unitary system (PUS) running.

Full blown PUS means we get rid of two thirds of all government and replace it with a unitary presidency. Who needs a rubber stamp legislature or judges who only support executive policy anyway? Extend PUS from the national level to the local level. All political decisions would be made by our unitary leaders at all levels of government. We could have a unitary national president, unitary state governors, unitary county commissioners, unitary city mayors, and home owners associations with unitary presidents to run all government and community activities as they see fit. And they all would be granted rights of executive privilege.

Imagine Washington, D.C., reduced to the unitary White House and K Street lobbyists occupying the historic offices of our Capitol Building. Add to this the Straussian neocons and support of The Federalist Society who would not only counsel the unitary executive but could curate our national and state museums to help us understand the nobility of the unitary executive and its rightful privileges. Access to our Constitution and Declaration of Independence would be limited to a select few of these consultants. This would help assure a unitary interpretation of these documents in support of the national unitary policy.

Similar changes across our state capitals and all local levels of government and community organizations would be made to carry the unitary policy to all.

Voting would become a relic of history just like the legislature and court system. Why bother voting if there is only one choice? We could just let the corporations pick our leaders. No voting also means no more worrying about election fraud.

Just think of the corporate profits saved by eliminating the need for corporate political contributions. These profits could instead be used to increase corporate executive benefits packages and pay for the lobbyists. After all, don’t they deserve the extra pay in this new system? They are not only paid for directing managers of large corporations, they should also be paid for their sage advice during all those secret meetings with the unitary executive branch of all levels of government. And they are all protected by executive privilege.

To implement these efficiencies and make our daily lives less complicated, a few other changes would be necessary.

In addition to legalizing the unitary executive and executive privilege, all the open meeting laws would have to be nullified. They would no longer be necessary. A unitary executive, by definition is trusted – or else ….

Open meetings were meant to keep the citizens informed so they could vote intelligently, but with voting and election fraud eliminated, who needs to know what the unitary executive and the corporate executive are saying behind closed doors. We all trust they will be fair and we’ve been told by the neocon curators that they were selected by those who know a truth too complicated for others to comprehend.

PUS would need a unitary source of information. The current situation has far too many variables for keeping the unitary governments stable. Also, citizens need to be entertained while the unitary government works aggressively to spread PUS to the rest of the world. This will also help secure our ‘homeland.’ All sources of information and entertainment would be merged into Fox News and other Rupert Murdoch media enterprises.

PUS would need a unitary evangelical religion to support the policies of the unitary governments – no more separation of church and state. Keeping them separate is just too confusing for maintaining a unitary executive.

All local and national law enforcement would be merged with the Justice Department. This would put national policy enforcement under the Attorney General. Combine that with the international policy enforcement through the Joint Chiefs of Staff and we have a unitary approach for battling all enemies – both internal and external. This, of course, works best when combined with executive privilege, secret meetings and no checks and balances by less knowledgeable third parties.

To control the ‘few’ internal enemies, the unitary governments would need to set aside remote sections of the country. They could use portions of the public properties leased out to the oil and gas corporations to ‘house’ these delusional dissidents and enemy combatants. They would be very useful in recovering the oil, natural gas, coal and other resources needed for both reducing the nations dependence on external energy sources and to support its ever expanding ‘international unitary expansion efforts.’

Higher education would be reserved for neocons, corporate leaders, lobbyists, media moguls, enforcement leaders and leaders of the national mega church. This would assure they are making the right decisions for the rest of the nation. It would also comfort the ruled to know they are in such noble educated hands.

Isn’t this just what we need? No more partisan bickering. No more filibustering. No more pork. Just one happy unitary country. In fact, why don’t we just get right to it? Why put it off any longer?

We’ve come a long way since 1994 and the Contract with America. GWB has brought us right up to the edge of this neocon future. Why try and stop it with an election in November. GWB can just declare a national emergency and ‘suspend’ the elections.

Just let it happen. Tell GWB you’re willing to give up your right to vote so he can stay on and finish what he started. But maybe he’s ready to retire and move to a unitary corporate position as a consultant for John McCain.

“Some say” that McCain is willing to provide a brand new Harley motorcycle to the first 1,000 signers of the unitary pledge of allegiance he plans to have developed.

Sucker Fish Go to Aquarium to See Bottom-Feeder – Last night at the Aquarium Restaurant, Karl Rove was the guest of honor at a fundraiser for State Rep. John Davis (R-Clear Lake). (Who would pay to see Karl Rove unless he was behind bars? – JLV) Davis has appropriately been called “used furniture” by Texas Monthly Magazine. Davis is one of the state’s more ethically-challenged State Reps. Davis spent campaign cash on a pair of $1,500 boots and he failed to itemize over $48,000 in American Express card purchases (and got hammered by the Texas Ethics Commission for failing to do so).

John Davis has cast a lot of votes against schools, children, and education. For starters, he voted for tuition deregulation and then had the audacity to say that 44% increases in college tuition costs are “not unreasonable”. As a result of Davis’ vote (combined with the votes of many other Republicans), it has become very difficult for middle class families to afford to send their kids to college because tuition costs are skyrocketing. Davis voted to slash funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and help create the “permanent wall” that kept kids off CHIP. Of course, after Sherrie Matula held Davis accountable for this vote in 2006, he quickly changed his tune and became “for” CHIP after he was “against” CHIP. Of course, by then it was too late and thousands of Texas children had suffered as a result of his vote. Davis has also voted time and time again against everything for teachers, teacher retirement, childhood immunization programs, and anti-discrimination measures to help school children. John Davis even put the interests of one of his big financial supporters, Houston Home builder Bob Perry, above middle class students who want a college education when it came time to cast votes on the Appropriations Bill on the House floor! And for a State Representative that actually has to breathe the air in Houston, Davis is solidly against clean air. He’s time and again voted against improving the air quality in his own district.

Sherrie Matula (D-Houston) is the candidate running against Davis. Sherrie is a longtime public school educator and science education consultant who served two terms on the Board of Trustees of Clear Creek Independent School District. She’s served on the board of the Texas State Teachers Association, and has a very impressive resume. She will bring to the Texas House of Representatives a wide array of knowledge and experience, especially on education issues. She will work hard on lowering college tuition, electricity rates and homeowners insurance.

Let’s show John Davis and Karl Rove we are tired of their brand of politics. Donate to Sherrie Matula’s campaign .

McCain Supports Tax Breaks For Big Oil — But Not For Wind Power - The recent farm bill also contained a measure extending a tax break for developing wind power, which McCain specifically opposed.

McCain’s Touts Renewable Energy, But His Energy Plan Offers Little to Support It – A McCain ad shows pictures of wind-driven turbines while the narrator says: “Renewable energy to transform our economy, create jobs and energy independence, that’s John McCain.” But, in fact, his energy plan doesn’t specify any new federal spending for renewable energy and says only that he’d “rationalize” existing tax credits to provide incentives. In the past, however, he’s opposed extending such tax credits when paid for by tax increases elsewhere.

McCain Lies About Obama’s Tax Proposals Again, and Again, and Again – McCain has released new ads with multiple false and misleading claims about Obama’s tax proposals:

• A TV spot claims Obama once voted for a tax increase “on people making just $42,000 a year.” That’s true for a single taxpayer, who would have seen a tax increase of $15 for the year – if the measure had been enacted. But the ad shows a woman with two children, and as a single mother, she would not have been affected unless she made more than $62,150. The increase that Obama once supported as part of a Democratic budget bill is not part of his current tax plan anyway.
• A Spanish-language radio ad claims the measure Obama supported would have raised taxes on “families” making $42,000, which is simply false. Even a single mother with one child would have been able to make $58,650 without being affected. A family of four with income up to $90,000 would not have been affected.
• The TV ad claims in a graphic that Obama would “raise taxes on middle class.” In fact, Obama’s plan promises cuts for middle-income taxpayers and would increase rates only for persons with family incomes above $250,000 or with individual incomes above $200,000.
• The radio ad claims Obama would increase taxes “on the sale of your home.” In fact, home-sale profits of up to $500,000 per couple would continue to be exempt from capital gains taxes. Very few sales would see an increase under Obama’s proposal to raise the capital gains rate.
• A second radio ad, in English, says, “Obama has a history of raising taxes” on middle-class Americans. But that’s false. It refers to a vote that did not actually result in a tax increase and could not have done so.

These ads continue what’s become a pattern of misrepresentation by the McCain campaign about his opponent’s tax proposals.

Update, Aug. 12: The tax falsehoods continued with the release of a McCain Web ad Aug. 11 claiming that the “perks” of joining the Obama “fan club” include “a tax increase for everyone earning more than $42,000 a year.”

(Do we want another president that will lie to us over and over? Does McCain want to win an election more than he values his integrity? When it comes to leadership, aren’t these things most important? – JLV)

Most U.S. Corporations Don’t Pay Income Tax – The Government Accountability Office is set to release a report that says most U.S. corporations pay no federal income taxes. And most foreign companies that do business in the United States aren’t paying corporate taxes. The study says about two-thirds of American corporations paid zero income taxes to Uncle Sam between 1998 and 2005. An even higher percentage of foreign corporations avoided federal corporate taxes. At the same time, said the GAO, the firms had trillions of dollars in sales.

Republican Rep. To Environmentalists: Jesus Already Saved The Planet – Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, the Christian Right champion from Minnesota says we don’t need pesky environmentalists like Nancy Pelosi around, because Jesus already saved the planet!

“[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she’s just trying to save the planet,” Bachmann told the right-wing news site OneNewsNow. “We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet — we didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that.”

Other recent Bachmannisms include the claim that there isn’t actually any wildlife in the areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where she wants more drilling, and the allegation that Democrats want high gas prices so as to force people to move into “inner cities” and “the urban core.”

Contractors Reap 85 Billion Dollars From Iraq War – The US government paid out 85 billion dollars in four years to contractors providing services to various government agencies in support of the Iraq war and reconstruction, a survey showed Tuesday. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report said the administration of US President George W. Bush awarded 85-billion-dollars in contracts between 2003 and 2007, or over 21 billion dollars annually. Large contracts awarded to the Halliburton energy services firm, which was once led by Vice President Dick Cheney, and KBR – a Halliburton subsidiary and the biggest US military contractor in Iraq – have been criticized and come under scrutiny from Democrats.

Congress has also been investigating the role of private security contractors who have been involved in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians, including employees of the private US security firm Blackwater USA. A hefty chunk of US government spending was allotted to private security contractors who received between six and 10 billion dollars of the contracting pie between 2003 and 2007 for their services.

Mukasey: No Prosecutions in Justice Hiring Scandal – Former Justice Department officials will not face prosecution for letting improper political considerations drive hirings of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Tuesday. He told delegates to the American Bar Association annual meeting, “not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws.” (Huh? I thought that the definition of a crime is violating the law. – JLV)

Bush Administration Puts Endangered Species In More Danger – The White House on Aug. 11 proposed a sweeping regulatory overhaul of the ESA, virtually eliminating the independent scientific evaluation of the environmental impact of federal actions. The current law mandates any project that may impact an endangered species and requires approval by a federal agency — for example, a new highway planned by the Department of Transportation that could damage the habitat of a listed red wolf — to undergo an independent review by scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. The proposed new rules would allow the agency in charge of the project — in this example, the Department of Transportation — to decide whether a review would be necessary.

Green groups point out that there is little reason to think that federal agencies whose brief doesn’t include the environment would go through the bureaucratic trouble of requesting such reviews for their projects. The result would be a drastic cut-back of the independent, scientific assessments — thousands of which are done each year — that are the backbone of the ESA. “It gives those agencies carte blanche to do what they want,” says Karla Raettig, the legislative representative for wildlife conservation at the National Wildlife Federation.

Bad Deeds Family Tree – If you’ve ever thought “Hey, I could really use a chart to keep track of who in the Bush Administration could face criminal charges, and for what”, you’re in luck.

Regards,

Jim

US Customs Can Seize Your iPod – US customs have the power to seize your laptop or iPod when entering the country – even with no reason to do so. Although this power has been in place for a while, the truth only recently came to light thanks to a group lobbying for the disclosure of the Department of Homeland Security policies. Apparently agents can seize the items for ‘unspecified amounts of time’ and can share the information with the relevant authorities and private entities for data decryption and the rather ominous sounding ‘other reasons’.

Wal-Mart Tries to Scare Its Managers and Supervisors About Democrats - Wal-Mart is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they’ll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies — including Wal-Mart. In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

Republican Senators Filibuster Defense Bill for Their Oil Company Benefactors – The Senate Republicans voted against the troops. Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans have basically been filibustering every bill till the oil companies get what they want. But, surely, they wouldn’t put the oil companies over America’s defense needs when we’re in the middle of two wars??? Wrong. They did. Seriously, they filibustered a bill, S. 3001, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009, which, among other things, provided pay raises for troops, health care and protection from IEDs. The bill needed 60 votes. Thirty-eight Republicans voted NO against moving forward.

Sheikh Flies Lamborghini 6,500 Miles to Britain for Oil Change – The £190,000 supercar was put on a scheduled flight from Qatar to Heathrow – then flown BACK after the oil check. An airport worker said: “This car doesn’t have a carbon footprint – more of a crater.” The overall cost of sending the Lamborghini to London for the oil change would have cost more than £23,000. The Murciélago LP640 – driven by Batman in movie The Dark Knight – arrived from the Middle Eastern country on Friday. It cleared customs and was trucked to specialist mechanics in London for the service. On Monday it was flown back 3,250 miles to the oil-rich state where it was collected by the owner.

British Territory Used for US Terror Interrogation - According to a former senior American official, it appears another locale can be added to the international roster of interrogation sites — one both more obscure and potentially more controversial than the alleged sites in Poland and Romania. The source tells TIME that, in 2002 and possibly 2003, the U.S. imprisoned and interrogated one or more terrorist suspects on Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean controlled by the United Kingdom. The official, a frequent participant in White House Situation Room meetings after Sept. 11 who has since left government, says a CIA counter-terrorism official twice said that a high-value prisoner or prisoners were being held and interrogated on the island.

Homeland Insecurity: FBI Loses 2.6 Laptops a Month – A 2007 Justice Department audit found that the FBI was somehow losing 2.6 laptops per month, many with sensitive or classified information. More than 1,400 Energy Department laptops went missing in a six-year period, according to another audit. So much for homeland security.

McCain TV Ad Falsely Insinuates that Barack Obama Canceled His Visit to Wounded Troops Because “the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras.” - A new McCain ad says Obama “made time to go to the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras.”

McCain’s facts are literally true, but his insinuation – that the visit was canceled because of the press ban or the desire for gym time – is false. In fact, Obama visited wounded troops earlier – without cameras or press – both in the U.S. and Iraq. And his gym workouts are a daily routine.

The Obama campaign canceled the visit with wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, Obama says, when he learned that the Pentagon would not allow him to bring along a retired Air Force major general who is serving as a foreign policy adviser to the campaign. Obama says that “triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political.”

McCain’s Web Cite Claims That McCain is a “Political Celebrity” While He Criticizes Barack for Being Like a Celebrity – Until recently, this statement was on the McCain website: “A political celebrity, McCain is considered a top contender for the nomination.”

Regards,

Jim