"...McCain is not about the military status quo. He is ambitious for further conflicts. The current US military is too small to handle yet another front, and to maintain, as McCain insists they must, the current ones.
My friends, there is only one way for McCain to make good on his hawkish foreign policy and his virtual pledge of more wars.
McCain will need to institute a draft for young American men (and, given the times, maybe for women as well).
If you are in your late teens and early twenties, or if you are a parent of a person that age, and you have strong views on a renewed draft, it should come into your decision about whether to vote on Tuesday and for whom."
"Occasionally, during the past eight years of writing this column, I have addressed the remarkably dangerous manner in which Republican Party officials rule the nation when they control one or more of the three branches of the federal government. Over the same period, I've also made this argument, even more directly and loudly, in three books on the subject.
In this column, I will be more pointed on this subject than I have ever been, while also repeating a few key facts that I have raised earlier -- because Election Day 2008 now provides the only clear remedy for the ills of Republican rule...."
Photo credit: In this November 20, 1990 file photo, Senator John McCain, R-Arizona (left) sits with his attorney during a Senate Ethics Committee hearing on the Keating Five Savings and Loan Scandal. Carefully timed leaks during the investigation successfully deflected the blame from McCain to his other Senate colleagues. Evidence continues to surface that points to John McCain as the possible source of those leaks. (Photo: John Duricka / AP)
Samuel Maverick was a Texas cattleman, land baron and politician, so influential that he was one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Fiercely independent and equally liberal. Sam became well known for what he didn't do, however. It seems, according to Fontaine, that he had taken some cattle in lieu of a debt he was owed. He let them roam on an island off of Texas, and for whatever reason, didn't brand them. So, any unbranded cattle became known as Maverick's. Now, this more than likely wasn't an act of revolt. No one knows for sure, but Maverick really wasn't much of a cattleman. He was also shrewd, later on in life if cattle weren't branded, he would often claim them.
Sam was also very spirited and free minded. It was because of this that in 1867 the term Maverick was first cited as being used to describe someone with an independent streak, someone not branded.
...
"Mavericks believe everybody has a right to be in America so long as they obey the law," Fontaine told me. "Grandfather Maury was no coward. He chased the Klan right out of San Antonio once, stood up to the mob... Maury was burned in effigy in San Antonio, for his defense of members of the Communist Party's right to assemble, for his defense of the Hispanic community, support for those who didn't have a voice. "
...
"My brother called me from California last week during the VP debate and told me if they said the world Maverick one more time, he was going to shoot the TV. Of course, he doesn't have a gun, but, you get the point. My mother was just quoted in the New York Times about how we feel McCain is branded, Palin is branded, they are Republicans, and true Mavericks carry no brand. It's driving our family crazy, upsetting us and the legacy of my family, and we really with the campaign would stop misusing the word and the phrase.
"John McCain on a few occasions has shown that he can go against his party, but how hard is that when his party has been wrong on so many things as we now see," she continued. "But he has a brand. And Palin, I'm not sure she even knows the history of the word of or my family, but one thing is clear to all of my family, she truly is not a Maverick."
"Describing how ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics, and sheer incompetence have left the US economy on life support, the author puts forth a clear, commonsense plan to reverse the Bush-era follies and regain America's economic sanity...."
"I've listened to Sarah Palin several times in the past few days. (It's my job--what I get the big bucks to do.) And as she whips up the crowds that come to her rallies, her biggest argument against Barack Obama is that he WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES. Did you get that? Oh, you missed the nuance. HE WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES. And her case is built on two facts. But they are not facts--or not full facts. And though these attacks have been debunked repeatedly by mainstream media factcheckers, Palin and John McCain keep using them. Call me naive, but I still find it surprising that they believe they can get away with such serial misrepresenting (or lying). So for the last time--I hope--let's look at these two claims...." Continue reading.
Photo credit: A Barack Obama ad quotes press remarks about John McCain's campaign. Democrats have added a ''Count the Lies'' Web page. (YouTube.com) The Boston Globe
People should vote against McCain and for Obama - but without illusions
Chomsky says while it's true that the two parties are essentially like factions of one party - the party of business - the differences do matter to ordinary people. If you are living in a swing state, there is nothing wrong with picking the lesser of two evils.
Noam Chomsky: Current crisis demonstrates anti-democratic nature of financial system
In part two of their interview, Paul Jay asks Prof. Noam Chomsky to weigh-in on the dominant subject of the day, the economic crisis. While Prof. Chomsky agrees that the current crisis is a very serious one that will have broad implications for the broader society, he points out that the foreseeable Medicare-induced economic crisis will "dwarf" the current one in magnitude. Furthermore, Prof. Chomsky develops his contention that democracy is hindered by unrestrained free markets. While on the other hand, state-restricted markets are democratic by design in that they allow people take control--through their government--of financial institutions to force them to include externalities and risks to the broader population in their decision-making. These factors are such that profit-seeking enterprises will not accommodate them when left to their own volition, given that free markets do not put a price on these externalities.
Bio:
Noam Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. His works include: Aspects of the Theory of Syntax; Cartesian Linguistics; Sound Pattern of English (with Morris Halle); Language and Mind; American Power and the New Mandarins; At War with Asia; For Reasons of State; Peace in the Middle East?; Reflections on Language; The Political Economy of Human Rights, Vol. I and II (with E.S. Herman); Rules and Representations; Lectures on Government and Binding; Towards a New Cold War; Radical Priorities; Fateful Triangle; Knowledge of Language; Turning the Tide; Pirates and Emperors; On Power and Ideology; Language and Problems of Knowledge; The Culture of Terrorism; Manufacturing Consent (with E.S. Herman); Necessary Illusions; Deterring Democracy; Year 501; Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War and US Political Culture; Letters from Lexington; World Orders, Old and New; The Minimalist Program; Powers and Prospects; The Common Good; Profit Over People; The New Military Humanism; New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind; Rogue States; A New Generation Draws the Line; 9-11; and Understanding Power.
John McCain never tires of declaring himself a war hero. After reading this article, ask yourself, is this the way a "hero" behaves? Read all about it:
"Forty-one years after McCain was shot down in Vietnam, the man who saved his life has died in obscurity.
[...]
As I stood on the floor of the Xcel Energy Center, some 50 yards from John McCain as he accepted his party's presidential nomination, the projector flashed that same black-and-white photo image I had seen in Vietnam of McCain being dragged to the shore of Truc Bach Lake. Moments later, to my surprise, I heard McCain say: " … I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence. Those men saved my life." But McCain wasn't talking about the Vietnamese people who pulled him from that lake, people whose homes he had just bombed. He was talking about his fellow American POWs. Had McCain truly erased from his memory a touching reunion that took place just over a dozen years before?
I could only think about how different the narrative would be had McCain said: "I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence. Those (Vietnamese civilians) saved my life (because they understood the humanity in all of us that transcends government and country)."
A new anti-Obama group runs a bunk-filled ad implying he'd give a driver's license to Mohammed Atta.
Summary
An upstart group calling itself the "National Republican Trust PAC" mixes a pile of false claims and the image of 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta to create one of the sleaziest false TV ads of the campaign.
The spot falsely claims Obama has a "plan" to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. In fact, Obama has said quite specifically, "I am not proposing that that's what we do."
The ad implies such licenses would enable terrorist attacks. In fact, Atta wouldn't have needed one to carry out his attacks.
It claims that Obama's health care plan will apply to illegal immigrants. But Obama has stated quite clearly that his plan "does not" cover illegal immigrants.
The ad falsely claims that Obama's plan "gives illegals Social Security benefits," which is also flatly untrue.
Find out. Click here to find out how many people in your state would lose their health insurance under John McCain's health care plan.
McCain Undermines Employer Insurance
An estimated 165 million U.S. residents under the age of 65 currently receive health insurance coverage through their employer. A linchpin of this system is the tax exclusion that allows insurance premiums paid for by employers to be not considered taxable income for employees. John McCain’s plan for health care reform would end this exclusion. EPI’s report concludes that as many as 27 million Americans nationwide could lose their employer health benefits as a result. (Learn more about why Senator McCain’s plan would have such a devastating effect on hard-working families across the country.)
POCKETBOOK: From the price at the pump to prescription drug prices, John McCain's lobbyist ties have put him out of touch with the needs of ordinary Americans.
STANDING IN THE WORLD: John McCain's lobbyist friends conduct business worldwide, representing shady interests in Iraq and brutal dictators in a host of countries.
ETHICS: John McCain has promoted himself as a reformer, but the lobbyists running his campaign have a lengthy rap sheet entailing everything from the questionable to the criminal.
CORPORATE REGULATION: Big Business has little to fear from a McCain administration -- dozens of his lobbyist friends make their money representing huge corporations that put profits ahead of people.
SIN CITY: John McCain's lobbyist friends have excelled at profiting off other people's vices, counting the gambling and tobacco industries among their top clients.
PLANET IN PERIL: John McCain's shifting environmental positions may be a consequence of listening to lobbyists whose interests lie with Big Oil and other polluters of the air and water.
SOURCES: Campaign finance and lobbying figures are based on Campaign Money Watch analysis of data obtained from the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan organization that tracks and codes campaign finance data by industry and tracks lobbying. Campaign finance data include individual contributions ($200+) and from Political Action Committees (PACs) to campaign committees and leadership PACs. Data for the 2008 cycle were downloaded in July 2008.
"Being Barry Goldwater's granddaughter and living in Arizona, one would assume that I would be voting for our state's senator, John McCain. I am still struck by certain 'dyed in the wool' Republicans who are on the fence this election, as it seems like a no-brainer to me.
Myself, along with my siblings and a few cousins, will not be supporting the Republican presidential candidates this year. We believe strongly in what our grandfather stood for: honesty, integrity, and personal freedom, free from political maneuvering and fear tactics. I learned a lot about my grandfather while producing the documentary, Mr. Conservative Goldwater on Goldwater. Our generation of Goldwaters expects government to provide for constitutional protections. We reject the constant intrusion into our personal lives, along with other crucial policy issues of the McCain/Palin ticket.
My grandfather (Paka) would never suggest denying a woman's right to choose. My grandmother co-founded Planned Parenthood in Arizona in the 1930's, a cause my grandfather supported. I'm not sure about how he would feel about marriage rights based on same-sex orientation. I think he would feel that love and respect for ones privacy is what matters most and not the intolerance and poor judgment displayed by McCain over the years. Paka respected our civil liberties and passed on the message that that we should conduct our lives standing up for the basic freedoms we hold so dear.
For a while, there were several candidates who aligned themselves with the Goldwater version of Conservative thought. My grandfather had undying respect for the U.S. Constitution, and an understanding of its true meanings.
There always have been a glimmer of hope that someday, someone would "race through the gate" full steam in Goldwater style. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened, and the Republican brand has been tarnished in a shameless effort to gain votes and appeal to the lowest emotion, fear. Nothing about McCain, except for maybe a uniform, compares to the same ideology of what Goldwater stood for as a politician. The McCain/Palin plan is to appear diverse and inclusive, using women and minorities to push an agenda that makes us all financially vulnerable, fearful, and less safe.
When you see the candidate's in political ads, you can't help but be reminded of the 1964 presidential campaign of Johnson/Goldwater, the 'origin of spin', that twists the truth and obscures what really matters. Nothing about the Republican ticket offers the hope America needs to regain it's standing in the world, that's why we're going to support Barack Obama. I think that Obama has shown his ability and integrity.
After the last eight years, there's a lot of clean up do. Roll up your sleeves, Senators Obama and Biden, and we Goldwaters will roll ours up with you."
"Ben Bernanke apparently wants four more years as Federal Reserve Chairman. At least that's a reasonable conclusion after Mr. Bernanke all but submitted his job application to Barack Obama yesterday by endorsing the Democratic version of fiscal 'stimulus.'"
McClellan Endorses Obama"Scott McClellan, President Bush's former press secretary, says he is backing Barack Obama for president.,,,"
“Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States,” writes The Times’s editorial board.
The Wall Street Journal today rounds up the horde of prominent Republicans jumping ship to Barack Obama. Now one of John McCain's actual advisers has switched sides...
Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian UK: "Joel Haugen, a Republican fighting a tough congressional race against the Democrats in Oregon, has fallen out with his party. The reason: his surprise endorsement of Barack Obama for the presidency.
'I believe in putting nation before party and my first priority is following my conscience with regard to what is best for America,' Haugen said in a statement issued by his office today. 'I have a huge amount of respect for John McCain, but I believe that he has more of a cold war mentality.'"
The Wall Street Journal today rounds up the horde of prominent Republicans jumping ship to Barack Obama. Now one of John McCain's actual advisers has switched sides...
"Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, a Republican, endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president on Friday, citing the senator's good judgment, 'deep sense of calm' and 'first-class political temperament.'
Weld said he's never endorsed a Democrat for president before, but in the last six weeks or so, it became 'close to a no-brainer.' Obama has a history of bringing Democrats, Republicans and independents together and is the best choice at a time when America's standing in the world is at a low point, he said.
'It's not often you get a guy with his combination of qualities, chief among which I would say is the deep sense of calm he displays, and I think that's a product of his equally deep intelligence,' he said in a phone interview."
"Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt will hit the campaign trail this week on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, signaling Mr. Schmidt's push for a greater voice in politics while giving the Obama campaign a boost from a highly desirable constituency...."
A longtime Republican State Senator in Wisconsin history announced on Tuesday that she would be supporting Barack Obama, in part because of the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign and, specifically, the use of "dishonorable" anti-Obama robocalls.
"All of us should be extremely wary of the half truths and outright untruths that have been spread by the recent negative campaigning and shameful automated phone calls," said Barbara Lorman of Fort Atkinson. "While my admiration for Senator Obama has grown with his positive approach to addressing the challenges facing our nation, my disappointment with the McCain campaigned has deepened. The negative tactics are inappropriate, downright dishonorable and have no place in the State of Wisconsin...."
A friend and former colleague of mine in the Foreign Service, Kevin McGuire, some time ago drafted a short statement of support for Obama and began to ask retired Foreign Service officers if they would sign it. So far 334 of us have done so, including by my count 66 former American ambassadors.
If you would like to know why we have done so and who we are, you can find our reasons and our signatures at Foreign Policy for Obama.Com: Declaration of Support by Over 280 Former Diplomats. (Ed. note: the number is now over 330.) ..."
"Sarah Palin had a few memorable moments during her campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday. But the most eye-opening of them all came, it would appear, when the Alaska Governor somehow drew a connection between Barack Obama's tax policy and an encroaching, nightmarish, communist government. The Illinois Democrat, she hysterically suggested, would, through his proposals, create a country 'where the people are not free.'"
"Gov. Sarah Palin's signature accomplishment _ a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 _ emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows.
Beginning at the Republican National Convention in August, the McCain-Palin ticket has touted the pipeline as an example of how it would help America achieve energy independence...."
"Sen. Joe Lieberman on Friday skirted a question on whether vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is ready from day one to be president, saying 'thank God' she won't have to be."
The Republican National Committee is distributing a mail piece that says "Terrorists" on the front and opens to a big picture of Barack saying "Not Who You Think He Is."
John McCain -- who promised to run a respectful campaign -- said that he was "absolutely" proud of it.
John McCain is trying to win this election by scaring voters with truly vile attacks.
With less than two weeks to go, you can provide this campaign with the resources we need to push back in the final stretch.
We cannot let McCain take the low road all the way to the White House.
"'It looks like, walks like, talks like and smells like desperation to me,' said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston, an Obama supporter who backed President Bush in the past two elections. The Methodist pastor called the 2012 letter 'false and ridiculous.' He said it showed that some Christian conservative leaders fear that Obama's faith-based appeals to voters are working.
Like other political advocacy groups, Christian right groups often raise worries about an election's consequences to mobilize voters. In the early 1980s, for example, direct mail from the Moral Majority warned that Congress would turn a blind eye to 'smut peddlers' dangling pornography to children.
'Everyone uses fear in the last part of a campaign, but evangelicals are especially theologically prone to those sorts of arguments,' said Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University political scientist. 'There's a long tradition of predicting doom and gloom.'
But the tone this election year is sharper than usual and the volume has turned up as Nov. 4"
"It’s bad enough that the employees of ACORN have had to endure days of baseless and outlandish attacks by John McCain and the RNC. But after McCain outrageously claimed before a national audience on Wednesday night that ACORN was “maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy,” the group came under attack, literally. In the following days, ACORN’s Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized and at least one employee received a death threat.
And for nearly two weeks, ACORN offices across the nation have been subjected to an onslaught of racist and threatening voicemails and emails. We have secured copies of some of the most disturbing and offensive messages and have reproduced them below in order to show the very real consequences of the Right Wing’s overheated and misplaced “voter fraud” rhetoric.
Warning: the emails and voicemails below are highly explicit and have only been edited to remove personally identifying information. Please also note that, where relevant, the proper authorities have been notified...."
"A group of liberal American rabbis have denounced Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign as leaning toward 'hate speech' in its treatment of Democratic rival Barack Obama.
'The manner in which Senator McCain, Governor [Sarah] Palin and their supporters refer to Senator Obama is creeping toward hate speech,' Rabbis for Obama said in a statement on Thursday.
'As leaders of the Jewish community we are well aware of the dangers of using inflammatory political language to marginalize individuals and groups."
"A newsletter from 1984 provides more embarrassing evidence of John McCain's relationship with the U.S. Council on World Freedom, a group that was involved in funding militant anti-communists and espoused some anti-Semitic views...."
A Pittsburgh police commander says a volunteer for the McCain campaign who reported being robbed and attacked near a bank ATM in Bloomfield has confessed to making up the story. Police say charges will be filed. More details to follow.
"There are a number of people in my life -- some family, some friends, some colleagues -- with whom I have never agreed upon anything political. Ever. These are my political opposites. My bizarre-o twins. And they have been my adversaries in countless debates; the kind nobody ever wins, but nobody ever seems to tire of, either.
Sadly, politics have become sort of a new sports league in modern culture. We don't really listen to each other's points of view so much as we pick a side and root for it. And just as with our favorite sports teams, our faith in our parties can become blind. I have had about as much success convincing my Republican father-in-law of my liberal points of view as I have had convincing my father, an Ohio State alumnus, to root for Michigan.
But over the last few months, something unprecedented has happened. Almost all these folks have told me that, for the first time ever, they are voting for the same candidate I am: Barack Obama.
"...I thought we were making an ad campaign about Obama. But I think we ended up making an ad campaign about the essential ingredient that makes democracy work: an open mind. We don't belong to our political parties. Our political parties belong to us."
Juan Cole (Informed Comment): 
