To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,
Homes again, homes again, dancing a jig;
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog;
Homes again, homes again, jiggety-jog;
To market, to market, to buy a plum bun,
Homes again, homes again, market is done.

— Apologies to Mother Goose

In 2006,  John and Cindy sold their 2-acre estate in Phoenix, Arizona for a paltry $3.75 million. It was a hard sell.  The house had been one of Cindy Lou’s childhood homes, which the McCains inherited; it’s where those McCain family recipes were finely honed before they were copied by the Food Network.

“Almost every memory I have of childhood is in this house—very happy memories,” Cindy Loe McCain says. “I want my children to know this house and have these memories.”  Unfortunately for the children, that desire got pushed aside by. . . whatever. But not before Architectural Digest did a wonderful article on the property, which went off the rails by referencing one of the Senator’s rare mentions of his POW™ daze days:

Architectural Digest, July, 2005:

John McCain suffered more than five years of harsh imprisonment in North Vietnam. He was tortured, endlessly interrogated, bound hand and foot, and clapped into solitary confinement; he endured mental and physical punishment. At last, [um, four days after his capture] when it was discovered by his captors [ how does one do that pre-Google? ] that his father was an important officer in the U.S. Navy, he was given permission to leave; yet he refused to go while his fellow prisoners remained behind bars. Because of this stern refusal, his punishment became more severe. Yet the book’s theme is forgiveness and faith.

“Cindy has a picture fetish,” the senator says, gesturing to a bank of framed photographs— family pictures, photos of pets, of landscapes, [and— can you imagine?] of the senator himself on the day of his release from his Hanoi prison. [Wonder who took that?]

Asked whether he will run for president again, the senator chooses his words carefully. “If I talk seriously about it, my activities in the Senate will be viewed through the prism of presidential candidate rather than a senator who’s trying to do good work.”

While one may reasonably ask “What activities in the Senate??” Despite his reluctance to talk about his time as a POW™, the crusty Senator reluctantly volunteered this:

“My best friends are those I was in the Navy with and especially those I was in (expletive deleted) prison with,” the senator says. Describing one of them, he says, “He is one of those (expletive deleted) people for whom everything is either black or white. It’s wonderful to go through life like that. I wish I could.” Reminded of his independent and subtler views, he remarks, “That’s one of the reasons [my candidacy] is so attractive,” and with his signature deadpan, “and one of the reasons it’s so (expletive deleted) difficult.”

One of the Senator’s “independent and subtler views” is that his current “black or white” political opponent, Barack Obama, is “dangerously unprepared” to be president, having just a single unattractive home in of all places, Chicago. McCain subtly pointed out he has numerous homes, too many to even remember, which have prepared him to go to war in order to take care of the many millions of homes dotting the American landscape. McCain added, in his signature bedpan deadpan, “Besides, my (expletive deleted) opponent isn’t even rich.”

When the MSM pundicks start sniffing around this story, John McPOW may experience another, much more spectacular shoot-down crash and burn; one that will turn a war hero into a traitorous turd in one fell swoop.

McKarma may prove to be a much bigger bitch than mere payback.

For thirty years, agents of the GOP have invoked political strategeries to intentionally polarize and divide the American people, often in ways that ignore or betray the very Judeo-Christian principles John McPOW says he believes our nation was founded upon. If McPOW somehow manages to convince a majority of the American electorate that four more years of Dick-Bush policies will make this nation a better place to live, then along about the time it becomes necessary for McPOW to pardon Cheney and Bush for war crimes, the Vietnamese might decide it’s time to show Americans the thirty-two propaganda pieces starring POW Songbird; President McPOW may sing a much different tune when he is exposed as a cowardly collaborator.

We just might have to “nuke the gooks for God,” aye, Johnnie?

Yeah; stranger things have happened. But who am I kidding. This Judeo-Christian nation makes a full-time job out of looking the other way at monumental immorality and hypocritical betrayal of trust. They couldn’t begin to find the balls to look Dick-Bush in the eye and throw the bastards into prison for their heinous crimes against humanity.

And somebody will.

But it won’t be this clown.

McCain with Lieberman and Graham, in sympathy makeup. (click)

WASHINGTON — GOP nominee John Sidney McCain appeared on the steps of the Congressional Office Building today in clown-face makeup, and sporting a new tattoo on his forehead, which reads, “POW.” The Republican candidate for president said it reminds people that he has “returned with honor” from his imprisonment some forty years ago, and that he is still reluctant to talk about it.

Asked by reporters at the scene if that sentiment might be somehow blurred by the large buttons on his suit coat which read, “ASK ME ABOUT MY POW,” the senator became visibly annoyed and said only, “Please. . . please.”

Flanked by chief toadies Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham, who also wore clown-face to commemorate and honor McCain’s bold new tattoo/makeup scheme, McCain stated that his “credentials as a Vietnam era prisoner of war, in conjunction with his bold gesture towards the hapless poor, [bums?] would go along way towards negating his image with some Americans as a wealthy, angry, senile old curmudgeon. “I’m not the first POW underdog to realize that looking the part is half the battle. Drill now! Drill now, my friends!” No one had any fucking idea what he meant by that.

The attending toads took turns tonguing the microphone after McCain spoke, telling no one in particular that their “voluntary” appearance in clown face demonstrated the suckass solid solidarity of the corporate Overlords with their lackey underlings, and praised Senator McCain as a president “. . .of the people, buy by the people, and like the people.”

ORLANDO, Fla. — Little Johnnie was not wearing his “cone of silence” Saturday night when Barack Obama was answering questions for Pastor Rick. Johnnie was actually in his limo on the way to the Saddleback Church of Fiery Peril, and McCain said there “. . .just wasn’t enough headroom in the limo to wear the (expletive deleted) thing.”

Pastor Rick started by asking Little Johnnie, “Now, my first question: Was the cone of silence comfortable that you were in just now?”

Little Johnnie blurted out, “I was trying to hear through the wall!” The audience laughed.

Were ya now. . .

Even though Little Johnnie was supposed to be wearing the cone in the greenroom, Nicolle Wallace, McCain Campaign spokeswoman, said that Little Johnnie could not have heard the broadcast of the event, ’cause he was in his motorcade thingy, and was too far away to hear any of the questions.

“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated, is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.

Yes, of course. A “former prisoner of war” would never be deceptive; even though ninety percent of a POW’s actions are, by design, an effort to deceive their captors of their true intentions.

But what about Little Johnnie’s pernicious aides? Not having the unquestionable integrity of a prisoner of war, they might be tempted to tune into the broadcast, and say, in prepping Little Johnnie, tell him to pay particular attention to the issues of. . .

The fact that Little Johnnie asked when they could “get back to the question of judges,” when no such question had been asked him yet, might make it seem like a person of normal integrity (read: will cheat at the drop of a cone) had been briefed about a question on Supreme Court judges. Golly. Would Little Johnnie lie in church??

Is the Pope a Catholic? Has a cat got an ass?

Does Little Johnnie wear $500 loafers?

This is loading a lot better, but if it loads slowly you may have to back-ball to keep it from re-caching. This is MoveOn’s motivational video de jure, and worth watching. Listen carefully. Act accordingly.

John McCain lives in a very special world. . .

. . . A very special world where hecklers are hustled off in a heartbeat, so the duffer doesn’t have to put up with their opinions long enough that he forgets what he was talking about; a world where the “third estate” is a fun-to-be-with bunch of sycophantic barbecue junkies; a world where a man with a kazillion monies and a dozen houses he calls home can ridicule a political opponent as elitist; a world where “Victory with Honor” can become a reality by simply saying that it’s our goal.

Commander-in-Cheese John “Peter Quincy Taggart” McCain says he will “Never surrender” his fantasy world, where first Dick Joe Lieberman, head Toadie Lindsay Graham, Master Dick Karl Rove, economic Dick Phil Graham, and main squeezebot Cindy Creamcheese flounce around in his power vacuum, looking for ways to bolster his authoritieh to rule the planet. Note the unretouched universal pasty-whiteness of his crew.

“Our American troops will come home with victory and with honor; and that’s my message, my friends.” Yeah. Except those that continue to come home with missing limbs, with devastating life-changing brain injuries, or come home in flag-draped containers. McWar’s “victory with honor” fantasy is a vestigial figment of the last century’s misunderstanding of the value of war, a discredited and backward looking philosophy that believes minds can be changed by blowing them apart.

Our next Commander-in-Chief of our country will have to be a forward looking man of peace. That can never be John McCain, who’s “vision” of global politics is based on taking on smaller nations and beating them into submission; sort of like Vladimir Putin is attempting to do in Georgia.

Since Chimpy is busy flag-waving pool-side in Beijing, it will be instructive to see how Mr. Never Surrender frames the conflagration burning out of control in Georgia. Will it be another affront to his teevee show bravura? or simply another opportunity to crank up the factual gaffe after gaffe machine as he wrestles Karl Rove’s talking points to the ground in front of hand-picked MSM drones.

Meanwhile, Senator Obama has said there “is no possible justification for these attacks,” and called for a high-level international mediator, and an international peace-keeping force, adding the United States, Europe, and all other concerned countries must stand united in condemning this aggression while seeking a peaceful resolution to this crisis.

[McCrew image by Terry Kruger]

Latest Development in the McSame, Obama, Hilton Smackdown

In keeping with his campaign’s desperate attempt to ‘undefine’ him as “McSame” and to recapture his sullied maverick brand of old, John McCain went on the attack again yesterday, this time at the South Dakota Sturgis biker rally (where he babbled incoherently and tried to enter his plastic-fantastic wife into the annual Ms. Buffalo Chip bikini-banana-bimbo contest).

McSame mocked Obama by pointing out a simple fact already embraced by the very Administration from which he is trying to disengage: proper tire pressure has a significant impact on gas mileage. So much so that it mandated all cars built after 2007 contain a tire pressure monitoring gauge. Per Time Magazine:

The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

McSame’s ‘Mock Obama’ strategy came in for a little pushback from Obama himself who replied:

“So now the Republicans are going around — this is the kind of thing they do. I don’t understand it! They’re going around, they’re sending like little tire gauges, making fun of this idea as if this is ‘Barack Obama’s energy plan.’

“Now two points, one, they know they’re lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they’re making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.”

According to at least one source, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates the savings at 12 cents per gallon– immediately.( See also here.)

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that drivers can improve gas mileage by as much as 3.3 percent by keeping car tires property inflated. The agency also says the impact would be immediate, resulting in savings of as much as 12 cents per gallon.

It remains to be seen whether the GOP– the Grand OIL Party which recently banked another $3 miilion from Big Oil– follows through on its threat to hand out tire pressure gauges at it’s nominating convention, a replay of its 2004 convention gimmick where it handed out purple heart bandages to mock presidential candidate John Kerry’s Vietnam medals.

Another proposal by Obama that would have an immediate effect on the price of gasoline is the selling of 10% of the national oil reserves on the open market. That would send speculators scurrying, driving oil prices down to $80 barrel, if not by half.

All of which suggests an emerging theme for the 2008 election. Call it “The American People Versus Big Oil“, with the Democratic Party as advocates of the former and the Rethuglican Party advocates for the latter.

Let the games begin!

UPDATE: Barack hits back..

John “Pander Bear” McCain trailered into the Sturgis Bike Rally today.

STURGIS SD — Appearing in an unusual pastiche of “biker” raiment, Senator John McCain gave a live performance Monday at the Buffalo Chip Campground in front of several hundred intoxicated and bemused bikers. With the sound of automatic weapons fire reverberating in the background from the camp’s newest feature— a machine gun firing range— the candidate delivered a halting accolade to the nation’s military veterans, punctuated by several involuntary flinches triggered by the oddly appropriate machine gun bursts.

The potential Commander-in-Chief donned a biker “skid-lid” festooned with air brushed skulls and stickers, and his new self-effacing biker handle, “Pander Bear.” McCain mingled with the bikers afterwards, who, in various stages of inebriation, seemed preoccupied with the fact that his aides had sown several biker patches directly to McCain’s expensive Italian suit coat.

One enormous tattooed biker wearing an unusual animal fur on his head, asked the senator if he knew what the word “DILLIGAF” meant, pointing to the patch on McCain’s upper right chest. McCain tried to eyeball his chest, finally saying, “Yes; that’s the um, that’s the place all my gaffs go to die!” After the guttural snickering trailed off, the burly biker said in a suddenly menacing tone, “Nope. “DILLIGAF” stands for “Do I Look Like I Give A Fuck.”

A local reporter quickly jumped into the awkward silence, asking McCain if he had participated in any of the Buffalo Chip’s daily events, like the Fake Orgasm Contest, or the tandem parachute jump into the Chip campground. McCain said that he had spent the day working on his new energy proposal, that he said would “Help give the oil companies the incentives they needed to expand oil drilling offshore and lead us to energy independence.” A nearby biker guffawed, “Oh you mean that Four Billion dollar tax-break you wanna give’m? Yeah that’s some fuckin’ incentive, alright! Did you cook that up before or after they dropped that two mil into yur campaign purse, ya little pussy.”

McCain instantly wiggled a tit-high thumbs-up and a blinky grin to the crowd and whirled towards the Straight Talk Express. The secret service boys quickly moved in front to make way for the “Pander Bear.”

It really is like the biker patch says. “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”

 

DOUG THOMPSON:

John McCain, a member of the House of Representatives in the mid-1980s, often held court at a table near the bar at Bullfeathers, a popular Capitol Hill watering hole, telling jokes and matching hangers-on drink by drink.

As a Capitol Hill chief of staff, I often drank at Bullfeathers and was invited to join the throng at McCain’s table one evening. A few minutes listening to the racism, bigotry and homophobia of the Arizona Congressman told me all I needed to know.

McCain loved to tell jokes about lesbians, blacks, Hispanics and the Vietnamese community that occupied a large section of Arlington County, Virginia, just south of the District of Columbia.

Of course, McCain didn’t use polite language in the jokes: He used names like “fags” or “queers” or “dykes” or “niggers” or “spics” or “wetbacks” or “gooks.”

A typical McCain joke:

Two dykes are talking at a bar and one leaves. As she walks toward the door, the other watches her leave and says out loud: “God, I’ve love to eat her out.”

Two men are standing near by and one turns to the other and says: “I’d like to do the same. Guess that makes me a dyke.”

Or another:

Question: Why does Mexican beer have two “X’s” on the label?

Answer: Because wetbacks always need a co-signer.

When he ran for the Senate, I attended a gathering of GOP operatives at the National Republican Senatorial Committee where McCain outlined his campaign strategy:

“I play to win. I do whatever it takes to win. If I have to fuck my opponent to win I’ll do it. If I have to destroy my opponent I won’t give it a second thought.”

This is the man the Republican Party thinks should be the next President of the United States. What else should we expect from a party that promotes racism, homophobia and discrimination against anyone with a different skin color, sexual orientation or ethnic origin.

So we shouldn’t be surprised that McCain’s campaign strategy seeks to raise racial fear about Barack Obama, the first African-American with a serious shot at the Presidency of the United States.

John McCain is a racist: Always has been, always will be. Those who served with him in the Navy say he treated black sailors with disrespect and scorn. His collection of off-color jokes are riddled with racist words and sentiments. Advisors have toned down the raunchy rhetoric of his early years in Congress but close aides say his attitudes have not changed.

McCain opposed making the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King a national holiday. During his 2000 campaign for President, he told reporters on his “Straight Talk Express: “I hated the gooks (North Vietnamese). I will hate them as long as I live.”

Do you tolerate hypocrisy in your friends and associates? No? THEN DON’T TOLERATE IT IN OUR POLITICIANS EITHER!

There’s a precedent for dealing with this type of evil in the universe: Never interfere. Allow it to run a free course. But— work tirelessly for full disclosure of the expression of the evil as the quickest technique of achieving the perfect and final cure of the plague of evil. Conduct an unceasing exposure of the hypocrisy and the sophistry of John McCain and his surrogates.

Begin with the bald face lies delivered by John McCain and Cindy McCain in front of MSM cameras, that there would be no “low road” campaigning. This sort of grotesque lying for political gain should be the tar in the mouth that gags Americans awake to the immoral and unethical behavior that is absolutely unacceptable for any public office holder. And the tar that sticks to and suffocates those who would use it to entrench themselves behind political power is the karmic consequence of a just society.

Moral people instinctively know this is right. But after decades of being told by MSM political hacks that campaigns “will get negative,” in no way means it must be tolerated, or that it’s inevitable; it’s not, and we can no longer afford to elect callous liars to the presidency, the Congress, or the local school board. Throw these fuckers OUT.

What YOU must do: John McCain’s racism must go viral on the net. Read Doug Thompson’s article; then spread it everywhere you can— family, friends, social networks. We can stop this ugly little man— and the people who pull his strings— for good. Do your part.

[The] cleansing of the temple discloses the Master’s attitude toward commercializing the practices of religion as well as his detestation of all forms of unfairness and profiteering at the expense of the poor and the unlearned. This episode also demonstrates that Jesus did not look with approval upon the refusal to employ force to protect the majority of any given human group against the unfair and enslaving practices of unjust minorities who may be able to entrench themselves behind political, financial, or ecclesiastical power. Shrewd, wicked, and designing men are not to be permitted to organize themselves for the exploitation and oppression of those who, because of their idealism, are not disposed to resort to force for self-protection or for the furtherance of their laudable life projects. —The Urantia Book

. . . It’s Jesus Himself, come to anoint Senter Obama! Because He would rather we lose our war than Obama lose the election! Yeah, that’s the snark we’ve been waiting for.

The Vision Thing
Ever wonder how the old dude sees anything? How many 72 year old curmudgeons do you know that don’t wear bifocals? Yep, McBlink has had teh lazic, alright; and that may account for his heavy blinking schedule. Check these coke-bottle ends he wore in the ’80’s:

But they’ve been banned from the cameras; well except for the welding goggles the oldster likes so much, that hermetically seal out all sunlight from his cataract-craters. They come with a matching Mc-cane, but he keeps that hidden, too:

You know, John Sidney, deteriorating vision is a sign of old age; there’s really no disguising it. But it’s not really the vanity of trying to hide your failing vision that makes me groan, it’s your total lack of vision for America that makes you the worst possible choice for POTUS. You would be the literal example of Christ’s striking image:

“If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the pit.”

Cindy takes John Sidney out for his first spin on the InnerTubes, part of the new high-tech frontier of Teh Internets he’s getting hip to. McCain said he was pretty sure certain he was “feeling the urge to email” now, and that the big GOP Elephant tube felt “really good” between his legs.

“The internet is not something that you just dump something on; it’s not a big truck; it’s a series of tubes.” — Senator Ted Stevens

A couple months ago, John McCain was asked, “Mac, or PC?” John Sidney replied, “Neither. I am a [sic] illiterate who has to rely on my wife.” Now that strikes us as some straight talk you can believe in, but it also meant the candidate of the twentieth past century had a little catching up to do.

Jonathan Stein:

Last fall, Obama went to Google headquarters to unveil his proposals related to information technology. He covered the waterfront: broadband access, federal funding for the sciences, using the Internet as a tool to increase government accountability, and more. He promised to appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer, a high-level staffer who will make sure that every federal agency has “best-in-class technologies” and uses best practices.

On his campaign website, Obama provides plenty of data on his information-technology stances:

• He supports net neutrality, a pet issue of the netroots. Net neutrality would prohibit network providers from making websites load faster if their owners pay higher fees. In Obama’s America, accessing www.nbc.com will take no more or less time than logging on to www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com.
• An Obama administration would seek to provide all Americans access to broadband Internet, the same way they have access to phones.
• Obama says he would make technology literacy a priority for public schools.
• His administration would aim to use technology— specifically, a nationwide switch to electronic medical records— to make health care more affordable.
• Obama has proposed a “Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund,” funded by $10 billion annually, that would make sure new renewable energy ideas make it to market.
• He supports increasing federal funding for research in the sciences, and would emphasize math and science at K-12, undergraduate, and graduate levels.

As of July 7th, John Sidney McCain (or any of his lobbyist buds) hadn’t managed to get a tech policy section up on his website. But there are a several comments about technology scattered here and there, and it’s clear that he wants Teh Internets’ engine to continue getting good gas mileage. And if elected president, he is going to set up a $300,000,000 prize (€3,000 Euros or so) to anyone with a research lab big enough to develop a battery to “leapfrog” the “commercially available hybrid cars of tehday.” And never a guy to overlook the negative, there’s also plenty of scary jargon about the danger Teh Internets pose to America’s youngest surfers.

McCain’s site also lacks a statement about net neutrality. But back in January, somebody at his campaign wrote this on his behalf in response to a Mother Jones questionnaire:

In general, I believe that we need to move to a different model for enforcing competition on the Internet. Its focus should be on policing clearly anticompetitive behavior and consumer predation. In such a dynamic and innovative setting, it is not desirable for regulators to be required to anticipate market developments, intervene in the market, and try to micromanage American business and innovation.

Z z z z z z . Mm. Well okay then. You big corporate guys just go ahead and do what you gotta do. John will be at the Internet stables, gettin’ his tube on.

A pilot named Karl (not his real name) is circulating a devastating email on teh internets titled A pilots [sic] perspective on Obama, that should wake up LIBERALS and Rebublicans too, or any other label you care to use to describe people swept up in their own personal feelings of hope and unity. The letter should scare the living shit out of them. Oh, not for supporting Barack HUSSIEIN OBAMASAMA BIN LODIN. But because there are Americans who believe this kind of Rovian garbage, and they know where the poles are. Here it is, with a special commentary by Karla, (not her real name), Karl’s eviler twin:
PILOT Karl: ,,,,,,,,,,DO I HAVE THIS STRAIGHT?

KARL’S EVIL TWIN, KARLA (not her real name): How should I know?

HIS FATHER WAS A BLACK AFRICAN MUSLIM FROM
KENYA.
Strike one.

WE HAVE SEEN PICTURES OF HIS AFRICAN FAMILY.
Strike two. . .

HIS MOTHER WAS A WHITE AMERICAN ATHEIST FROM
KANSAS.
Strike three! My God! An ATHEIST!! And white! And from KANSAS! And a MOTHER! (They go to hell too, don’t they? I mean there’s no exemption for them for their not believing in God, is there? God will make bipedal marshmillows out of you stupid atheists, white or not, mothers or not, and roast your sorry asses in hell!

WHERE ARE THE PICTURES OF HIS AMERICAN FAMILY?
Strike four!! Anybody who can afford to be born in Kansas but live in Hawaii, where middle class white people can only afford to visit once in their lifetime, can certainly afford at least one photo album! And a camera! All white people have cameras, don’t meseginistic– mesigenestical– don’t black and white people have cameras?? Do you expect anyone to believe you couldn’t afford it?

HIS FATHER DESERTED HIS MOTHER WHEN HE WAS ONLY TWO YEARS OLD AND WENT BACK TO AFRICA BY WAY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. HOW? WAS HIS FATHER WEALTHY?
Strike five!!! A black man with money! And a bad marriage! And a great ivy-league education! How is that not uppity?? Is it just me?!

HIS MOTHER MARRIED AN INDONESIAN MUSLIM AND THEN MOVED TO JAKARTA WHERE HE WAS ENROLLED IN A MUSLIM SCHOOL.

Dirty INDONESIANS! Dirty JAKARTANS! Dirty MUSLIMS! Dirty MUSLIM school! [Read more →]