Our Corporate Media - a sad state of affairs

Lewis H. Lapham, the National Correspondent for Harper's Magazine and the editor of Lapham's Quarterly, has an article in the latest (September 2008) issue of Harper's titled "Elegy for a Rubber Stamp."

Lapham targets specifically the overblown media hype upon the untimely death of NBC's Tim Russert. Lapham had nothing against Russert personally, but 1) he was not the "standard bearer for serious journalism," as deemed by Mr. Obama, nor was he "a tough and hardworking newsman," as stated by George W. Bush. McCain also missed the mark by describing Russert as "hard" and "fair," though he may have been right by insisting "He loved the Buffalo Bills."

Lapham believes, rightly, that the mourning for Mr. Russert was garishly excessive and way over the top. "During the delays between bulletins, Brokaw and Olbermann introduced a procession of Washington media celebrities arriving with rush deliveries of op-ed-page solemnity and camera-ready grief. For two days and three nights, they paid tribute to the glory that was Tim and the grandeur that is themselves."

Following a memorial service staged by MSNBC at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, "Lo and behold, right there in the gray twilight, swinging low over the White House and the Washington Monument, right there in plain sight, there was a real rainbow in the sky. Later than night on MSNBC's rebroadcast of the proceedings, Olbermann reported the rainbow as no coincidence. 'I know that was Russert,' he said. 'I'd recognize him anywhere.'

"With Olbermann it's sometimes hard to know when or if he's attempting a joke, but if he was joking, at whom or at what was the joke directed? Certainly not a rainbows; probably not at God. Conceivably at the thought of MSNBC hunting high and low for the Easter eggs of truth, or at the idea of Tim as a knife-wielding journalist. Olbermann is an intelligent man, and how else could an intelligent man interpret the glorification of Russert if not as a joke, or as a ninety-six hour public-service announcement paid for by General Electric, the company that owns the NBC networks but depends for its profit margins on its patriotic dealings as one of the nation's primary weapons manufacturers."


Lapham, as I said, was not attacking Russert in any personal sense, but rather critiquing the solemnizing of Russert's TV persona as a pundit of heavenly consequence. Sam Donaldson said that Russert "understood as well as anyone, that the reason political reporters are there is not to speak truth to power ... but to make those who say we have the truth -- politicians -- explain it."

Lapham dissects that comment perfectly by noting that "Speaking truth to power doesn't make successful Sunday-morning television, leads to 'jealousy, upsets, persecution,' doesn't draw a salary of $5 million a year. ...

"Long ago in the day before journalists became celebrities, their enterprise was reviled and poorly paid, and it was understood by working newspapermen that the presence of two people at their funeral could be taken as a sign that they had disgraced the profession.

"On television the voices of dissent can't be counted upon to match the studio drapes or serve as tasteful lead-ins to the advertisements for Pantene Pro-V and the U.S. Marine Corps. What we now know as the 'news media' serve at the pleasure of the corporate sponsor, their purpose not to tell truth to the powerful but to transmit lies to the powerless."


Nowhere, of course, is this transmission of lies more obvious than the abomination known as Fox News. But pushing lies through the pipeline of corporate profits to attain access to power is the modus operandi of every media outlet in 2008 in America. The media is owned by corporate America. Corporate America is in bed with the political establishment. Any journalist who attempts to buck that system will immediately end upside down on the pavement dusting off his/her clothing, wondering where the next job will come from.

As Lapham concludes, "The Washington news media [I'd include almost all media] worship at the altars of divine celebrity." Thus, they've got a problem when "they begin to suspect that despite the promise of their ceaseless self-promotions they are not immortal, their market share hitting new lows, [and] their audiences [are] drifting away to Comedy Central and the blogs."

What to do? "How then to regain the favor of the god in whose image they believe themselves created?" They become "the ideal American journalist," a "basic old American patriot," and the "friend to millions of people," all of which were descriptions of Russert. "They no longer speak the truth to power, but they fall on their knees before power and transmit the lies of the powerful to the powerless as if it were truth.

And that is the sad state of the journalistic enterprise in America today.


For an excellent, if frightening story detailing how today's media is fully owned and controlled by the corporate machinery, read Mary Mapes book, Truth and Duty - The Press, The President, and the Privilege of Power (St. Martin's Press, New York, 2005).

America - it ain't like it used to be

Harper's magazine, in its latest (September 2008) issue carries an article titled, "The Naughts," by Roger D. Hodge.

What follows are a few excerpts which I believe to be especially pertinent as we try to decipher just what the hell went wrong in the United States of America.

"The 2000s--perhaps we should call them the Naughts, since they will be remembered chiefly for their wants--were a decade in which the American Republic finally succumbed to a kind of autoimmune disorder, in which the social and political systems normally responsible for maintaining the healthy functioning of the body politic have instead turned against it with particular savagery, as if our very Constitution were an invasive foreign organism. The causes of the disorder are obscure. ... As with other diseases, this one masks itself with opportunistic infections, hides under assumed names, and thus has often escaped accurate diagnosis. The humdrum corruption of political machinery, the passivity of screen-addled citizens, ignorant pedagogues, job-gobbling immigrants, malevolent divines, greedy corporate grandees, the timidity of bourgeois journalists, the sinister conniving of neoconservative and liberal intellectuals, and homosexuals living in holy matrimony have all been adduced as causes of the national decline. Proximity cannot be denied, yet none of these putative causes appears to be sufficient to the magnitude of the disorder. What can be said with some certainty, however, is that we are now exiles in a strange land; America is no longer America.

"In one domain of our national life after another, the old American ideals and liberties have been replaced by their opposites. Torture, once a reliable attribute of Nazis, Communists, and Eastern despots, has become official government policy. The Department of Justice has been transformed into the corrupt instrument of a partisan agenda. Habeas corpus is but a fond memory, as is the Fourth Amendment, with its fellows soon to follow. ...

"The disease manifested itself almost everywhere at once, but the superficial effects were most spectacular in our national mirror: the Media, which absorbed and digested the once proud opposition of the Press and made it a mere legitimizer of horrors. The self-refuting absurdity of the Bush presidency, with its pretensions to manufacture an imperial reality, parallels the rise of the aggressively oxymoronic genre of 'Reality Television,' with all its unintentional ironies. ...

"... Not only have we been made to witness the betrayal of almost every promise made by our Founding Fathers, and seen their direst prophesies confirmed, we must also suffer the indignity of seeing our constitutional ideal turned into a shabby mockery of itself. ..."


That's enough. I have no answer. I can only weep for what once was. The America in which I grew up, while by no means without fault, did at least stand for something grand -- a vision of freedom and the possibility of goodness, undergirded by the Constitution.

It ain't like it used to be! In eight god-forsaken years a tinpot dictator and his hired henchmen have turned what was once possible greatness into a broken-down banana republic, ruled not by law but by whims of power.

The Department of Homeland Stupidity

[The information below derives from an article titled, "Big Brother: Getting Bigger?", edited by Norie Quintos, in the July/August 2008 edition of the National Geographic Traveler.]


If the Department of Homeland Stupidity has its way, which appears to be the case, American citizens will no longer have the right to move freely about the country.

In January of last year, DHS established a rule which said that people traveling on flights to or from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean must carry a passport or some other form of government identification.

DHS has also established a plan to force American citizens to obtain a driver's license "with enhanced security features." This law is called the Real ID act, and essentially creates a national indentification card, which has been, frequently, a sign of a police state. Fortunately, 18 states so far have refused to follow the DHS law. Unfortunately, people living in those states will likely be hassled even more by DHS personnel when they try to enter airports and federal buildings.

"The latest assault on the freedom to travel is a TSA program known as Secure Flight. The agency says Secure Flight is merely a streamlining of the way passenger names are screened against government watch lists. But civil-liberties and privacy advocates caution that it would create a system in which travelers must obtain government permission to board an airplane."

Consider: This plan operates on a fundamentally un-American principle. It operates on the principle that you are guilty until proven innocent!

Not only so, but let's say that you were wrongly denied boarding an aircraft. You may submit a Redress Number to show that you were confused with someone else on the watch list. This, however, this would result in "an Orwellian piece of data called a Known Traveler Number" (which includes your personal identification information) which the TSA claims "will ensure greater consistency in the process and provide a better resolution for misidentified passengers."

And, if you believe that...

Note that "The government won't say how many names are on its watch lists or what criteria are used to place people on those lists. Estimates of the number of names on the lists have ranged from 250,000 to 880,000. If anything, privacy advocates say, Secure Flight has the potential to be even more arbitrary because it allows TSA to make decisions in secret."

Edward Hasbrouck, a civil-liberties consultant connected with the non-profit Identity Project, says, "We don't know what rules the TSA will follow or whether it is following them or not, because it won't tell us what they are."

It get scarier. TSA, back in 2004, tested a beta-plan for Secure Flight. At that time, "TSA collected and stored more than 100 million commercial data records, despite promising not to do so." In other words, we cannot trust the government to do what it says!

The Department of Homeland Security is a gargantuan, secret, and extremely dangerous bureaucracy, given to policies and practices more reminiscent of Nazi Germany than a free country. And, historically, when a bureaucracy grabs power, they are forever loath to give up even a smidgen of it!

The DHS should be abolished at the earliest possible moment. There must be other, better ways to enhance the security of our country (notice I did not use that nazi-sounding "homeland" word) than this Bush abomination.

P.S. Just in case you're wondering about my use of the word "Stupidity," instead of "Security," please note the chart above. We're the only country in the world that advertises our state of "preparedness" for a terrorist attack, thereby telling the terrorists when we are most vulnerable."

Todd Bentley Update - it was another woman!

Initially, everyone said there was no infidelity on the part of either Todd Bentley or his wife.

All the wingnuts went "Whew!"

Bentley, as you know, is that tattooed, Canadian, evangelistic fruitcake with a past, who has been tearing up the revival scene in Lakeland, Florida, preaching his brand of Jesus (whom he talks to), healing all sorts of diseases (sometimes by knocking people down), and generally creating an ungodly uproar. In other words, he's Canada's version of Elmer Gantry.

The uproar increased a few days ago when it was announced that Bentley and his wife had separated. Fresh Fire Ministries, which is Bentley's outfit, also said that no outside persons were involved. It was the ministry that had put so much pressure on the marriage...

Yesterday, Fresh Fire issued an update: "We wish to acknowledge ... that since our last statement from the Fresh Fire Board of Directors, we have discovered new information revealing that Todd Bentley has entered into an unhealthy relationship on an emotional level with a female member of his staff."

Don't you just love that truth-mincing "unhealthy relationship on an emotional level" bit? Be honest, anyway. Did he diddle her or not?

And all of this in spite of the fact that Bentley was just recently commissioned "as an evangelist by leading apostolic ministers ... The event took place during a special ceremony that was broadcast by God TV."

Bentley's "commissioning" meant that some self-appointed religious wacko poohbahs laid their hands on Bentley's head and certified that he was goofy enough to continue to scam all the deluded and delusionary folks of Lakeland and surrounding areas.

Peter Wagner is a major poohbah of the so-called International Coalition of Apostles. He was in charge of Bentley's "commissioning." When he prayed over Bentley, he said "This commissioning represents a powerful spiritual transaction taking place in the invisible world. With this in mind, I take the apostolic authority that God has given me and I decree to Todd Bentley, your power will increase, your authority will increase, your favor will increase, your influence will increase, your revelation will increase."

Gobbledygook! All of it! Invisible world? Please!

You have to admit his "revelation" did, in fact, increase. It was shortly thereafter revealed that Mr. Bentley, man of god, commissioned to further con the people by one who claimed to be chosen of the same god, was fooling around with a chickadee on his staff.

But, it really wasn't Bentley's fault. He was so good, you know, doing such good work for the deity, that the devil just couldn't stand by and let it happen. So it really wasn't Bentley's fault, it was the devil's fault.

You can expect that Bentley will soon strike out on his own. He'll put up another tent and will be once again "healing" other fools who line up to get knocked down, even while he's busy knocking off a little on the side.

Read about Fresh Fire here. Additional info can be had from a CBN blog by Craig von Busek here.

God in heaven, Jesus, saints and healing

God sits upon his heavenly throne. He is bored. Jesus sits next to him, playing with his yarmulke.

"So, what are we gonna do today, Dad?" asks Jesus.

"I dunno. How's about healing a couple of folks?"

"Well, which ones? There are a lot of good people down there who are pretty sick."

God rubs his forehead. Decisions are difficult for him these days as he made a few bad ones when he created the world and there's been nothing but trouble ever since. And lately, whew! A whole bunch of morons are running around the world claiming to know what he wants, which is really funny, 'cause half the time even he isn't sure what he wants.

He does know, though, that he doesn't want a lot of what poses as "religion" on earth. He rubs his eyes, as if trying to erase what those omniscient orbs can't help seeing.

"Tell, you what," says God. "I kinda liked that Damien guy who arrived up here about 100 years ago. Do you remember him?"

"Yeah, wasn't he some Catholic missionary to the lepers on the island of Molokai? As I recall, he did some pretty good work for us. By the way, that's in Hawaii."

"I know where Molokai is. Jesus!" says God. "What I was going to say is that there's a retired teacher, Audrey Toguchi, who has been praying to him. She's got cancer bad. She hasn't been able to reach him, though, 'cause he's been playing golf on the Heavenly Fore course. Get Damien over here and tell him to do his stuff."

"Aw, Dad, you know what's gonna happen. That old pope is gonna get all excited and want to make Damien a saint, and you know he's not ready for that, yet. And if the pope gets his way we'll be inundated with prayers to Damien which means our communication system will jam again. And you know he needs at least another hundred years in saint school."

"That's OK. I'll handle Damien. I'll put him on the fast-track to sainthood so old Benedict doesn't get his shorts in a knot."

"All right," says Jesus. "I'll get Damien and you can zap him and he can heal Ms. Toguchi and the pope can make him a saint. But couldn't we have Saint Augustine do some of this leg work? I'm Jewish, remember, and don't even believe in saints!"

"Ah, c'mon. Do we have to go through all that stuff again! Go get Damien!"

Jesus did as he was told and Damien heard Audrey Toguchi when she prayed, "I put my whole faith in you. ... Father Damien, please pray for me, too, because I need your help." Thus, one month after she was diagnosed with lung cancer, doctors found the tumors had shrunk and within a year they had disappeared. Her doctors did not know what had happened, but they sure as heaven were surprised! One scientific-type person said it was a "complete and spontaneous regression of cancer."

The Vatican reviewed Audrey's case and found it "defied medical explanation." Seeing as how this was Damien's second miracle, which Pope Benedict approved on July 3, Damien could now be slated for sainthood and that process is underway. In fact, Audrey plans to travel to Rome for the canonization.

What the Vatican does not know is that saints in heaven have to work pretty hard because they get so many prayer requests. And when Damien's canonized, he will be a little miffed as he is sure to have to give up his golf game, or at least cut down the number of days he plays each week.


But I have strayed from my story.

A couple of years before Audrey discovered she had cancer, a fellow by name of Charles Staples, an attorney for the Commonwealth of Virginia, found that he had a large, cancerous tumor behind his nasal cavity.

Here's how it all played out in heaven.

"Hey, Dad," Jesus calls, fiddling with his tzitzits. "We've got 3, 500,000 cancer patients praying to just about every saint up here and they're even praying to some that went, well, you know where...and a whole bunch are just plain praying - either to me or you.

"But, I think I've got someone we ought to take a closer look at. He seems sincere even if he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Okay," says God. "Who is this sincere person?"

"His name is Charles Staples. He's a lawyer. I know, I know...but he's a pretty good guy in spite of that. And he's got a real problem. There's a tumor in his nasal cavity and the docs can't operate so they're gonna give him radiation and chemo, and you know how that fries the old brain!"

"So, why are you picking him out of the whole three and a half million?"

"I guess I feel sorry for him. He's one of those true believers and he's hooked up with that Pat Robertson nut, and .... well ...."

"You know, Son, you really have a soft spot. I wouldn't touch anyone who so much as listens to Robertson. He's caused us no end of trouble! He keeps preaching the end of the world stuff and gets people all het up and, hell, I don't even know when I'm gonna do that end-times thing!"

"I know, Dad, but this guy is OK and he's got a nice wife and he's got a lotta faith, even if it is sorta misplaced."

"All right, already. Do your schtick." says God. "I won't interfere. But do it yourself. I don't want some kooky saint getting involved. I'm omniscient, as you know, and I can foresee we're gonna have trouble with Father Damien after he heals that Hawaiian women in a couple of years. He'll be parading around heaven like he thinks he is me! That won't last long, of course, after I make his golf ball disappear a few times! ... Wait a minute! Isn't Staples the guy who was telling everyone he had actually talked to you?"

"That's the one," says Jesus, pulling his yarmulke down over his eyes. "He went around telling people that he'd had 'a real good talk with Jesus that day, in the car on the way to the hospital.' He even said that I was there, in the car! Then he said I said that I would never leave him nor forsake him - all he had to do was trust. You know I don't talk like that, and I haven't talked with a human since I said "Ciao" and flew up to be with you."

"Oh brother!" says God. "Pretty soon this guy will run for president and he'll be saying that I told him to invade Florida and I'm going to have enough of that crap when those American idiots elect George W. Bush!"

"C'mon, you can't be always worrying about the future. If you don't like it, change it! Anyway," says Jesus, "The doctors were pissing me off. They think they're God! So, I figured I'd throw them a curve. I told Charles (from my mind to his mind - I didn't actually ever talk with him - sheesh!) that he needed to rely on the Holy Spirit and not trust medicine and technology. I suggested, in my usual indomitable way, that all he needed was faith."

"That sounds rather juvenile, Jesus. You know we rely mostly on the doctors and their medical knowledge."

"I know, I know, but sometimes I can't help myself. Anyway, Charles got well without the medical treatments. The kicker is that a couple of years later he got cancer again--in his neck. The docs said he only had a 20 percent chance to live. So this time he opted for the treatments, but that made him so sick, he thought he'd rather die, so he "trusted in the Lord" and the cancer disappeared."

"You know," replies God, "I think I recall a little bit of that."

"You should, your Omniscience! I mean, I did all the work, and you got all the credit! Staples went around saying 'God is faithful. God healed me. God is a rewarder of faith. God's hands are full of miracles.' Please! I did it! Me! Jesus! Don't give me that God stuff!"

"Ah," says God, "you know you and me are the same. We're one. One for all and all for one. Which reminds me, where the hell is the Holy Spirit? She hasn't done a lick of work since she started fooling around with that Obama character! She thinks he's going to be president in about 10 years!"


If you wish to read the more mundane, earthly accounts about the healings of Ms. Toguchi and Mr. Staples, go here and here.

Ric Keller backslides in Florida

Ric Keller, who represent's Florida's 8th District in the United States House of Representatives is running for a 5th term.

So what?

Well, as Jim Ross at the Ocala Star-Banner points out, back in 2000, when first elected, "Keller said he would serve no more than four terms." In other words, he was one of those people voted into office partly because he said he believed in term limits.

Oops! Today, Mr. Keller says what he said eight years ago was a "mistake." "I think there's more work to be done," said Keller. Of course he does. Lots more work. More tax breaks for the rich, more drilling of our precious natural preserves, more guns in the hands of kids, more taxpayer money for private schools, more prisons to privatize, less environmental protections...lots more work to do.

Oh, yes, he also supports the Fair Tax, which would raise our sales taxes to 23 percent, and he thinks we should raise the age for receiving Medicare.

Here's a partial look at how Mr. Keller has "represented" his people in Congress:

1. Voted NO on expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
2. Voted YES on expanding the power of government agencies to spy without a court order.
3. Voted NO on requiring the president to begin reducing troop levels in Iraq.
4. Voted YES on funding the Iraq war without troop withdrawal deadlines.
5. Voted NO on funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as setting a timetable for troop withdrawal.
6. Voted NO on additional money for fighting the War on Terror. This bill also included a timeline for withdrawing troops in Iraq.
7. Voted YES on the House's displeasure with Bush's "surge" in Iraq. (He bucked his party here but now thinks the surge was a great success!)
8. Voted NO to repeal tax cuts to oil companies and require they pay a fee to remove oil from the Gulf of Mexico.
9. Voted YES to lower the interest rate on student loans.
10. Voted NO on allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices.
11. Voted YES to increase minimum wage. (Bucked his party here, too.)

That's a sample. According to the Washington Post, Keller has voted Party line 92 percent of the time!

All of which leads us to conclude that 1) we can't trust Keller as he is breaking his solemn promise -- on which he was elected -- not to serve more than four terms; 2) there is indeed a lot more work to be done, but Keller is most definitely NOT the one to do it.

I'll bet you've got a few "Keller's" in your state, too.

Rick Warren and the religious test

The following gives one an ideas as to how sick we have become as a country:

"The Rev. Rick Warren is so prominent and respected that just being seen with him is a boon for any presidential candidate."


What does the Rev. Warren have to do with anything of importance relative to the governing of the United States of America?

Some would answer that question by claiming Warren represents those wingnuts on the right who believe in Jesus and disbelieve in abortion. So what? What does believing in Jesus and disbelieving in abortion have to do with a person's qualifications for the office of president?

Unfortunately, in our country today, for many people, such beliefs are directly related to a person's qualifications for the office of president. It's not supposed to be that way, but it is.


Tonight at Warren's Saddleback Church in California, Barack Obama and John McCain will appear at a "forum" to answer Mr. Warren's questions. It is expected that Warren, considered by some to be a "moderate" fundamentalist, and who has distanced himself from extreme wingnuttery by his concern for the environment, the poor, as well as HIV/AIDS, will ask the candidates how they plan to deal with such issues.

It is also expected, however, that to remain in good standing with the fundy-duddies like Dobson, he will include questions about personal faith and abortion. "Larry Ross, who represents Warren, said the pastor has been consulting with other clergy and with experts in different fields to develop questions for the candidates about leadership, the Constitution, human rights and 'sin and righteousness issues.'"

Ross goes on to say that Warren will "ask tough questions, fair questions, not gotcha questons."


My question: Why should Warren ask the candidates anything? No matter his concern for social issues, he remains an anti-abortion, dyed-in-the-wool Southern Baptist preacher, once blessed by the notorious W. A. Criswell hisself! Does authorship of a best-selling book about "positive" Christianity give him that privilege? While it is true that he has used his money to establish means and methods of combating a variety of social problems in Africa, that does not drape him with some mantle of politicized religious wisdom and the right to plumb the depths of the religious commitment of McCain or Obama.


Perhaps Warren has not read Article VI of the United States Constitution, which reads, in part: "...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

As a private citizen, Warren, like all the rest of us, has the right to pose legitimate political questions to the candidates. But he's more than a private citizen. He's become one of those Time magazine calls "most influential." He's a symbol of a certain type of Christianity, which gives this forum an unwarranted heavenly benediction.

Furthermore, the moment he moves into the realm of personal faith or religious views, i.e. "sin and righteousness issues", he is abrograting the Constitution of the United States.

Perhaps the only proper response to all this religious mania, is "Holy Crap!"

John McCain - a lobbyist's best friend

In the latest edition of Jim Hightower's The Hightower Lowdown, Jim takes aim at McCain's overpowering and monumental hypocrisy.

Far from being a "maverick," or a "straight talker," McCain walks hand-in-hand "with a coterie of lobbyists, executives, and fund-raisers who are shaping his policies and expecting to walk right into the White House with him."

Hightower explains that when McCain was forced to dump two "key operatives" back in May when they "were publicly fingered as lobbyists for the totalitarian military thugs who rule Burma," McCain's campaign went boldly on record with a "new internal ethics rule barring lobbyists from paid positions on the 'Straight Talk Express.'"

But that, says Hightower, was a "crock."

"The trick is that the new rule bars 'active' lobbyists from being 'paid' to work 'full time' on the staff." But the rule is full of loopholes. "Lobbyists can simply go on leave from their active influence peddling for a few months to work on the campaign ... they can work part-time for McCain's election while still lobbying up a storm; or they can take no pay from the campaign, working pro bono while being retained by their corporate clients."

The truth is that, even with the new rule, McCain has more than 100 lobbyists working for him!


Here's a few of the headliners:

Charlie Black, McCain's top dog. Black is boss of a "powerhouse lobbying outfit that represents a menagerie of special (and sometimes shady) interests." These include Blackwater, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, GM, GE, Rupert Murdoch and Philip Morris. "He's also been a hired gun for the heads of repressive regimes in Angola, Somalia, and Zaire."

Rick Davis. Davis was a White House aide to Ronald Reagan, and is now chairing McCain's campaign. "Davis built a lucrative lobbying business through his political ties, maintaining an especially close relationship with the Arizona senator...

Randy Scheunemann. Scheunemann is McCain's national-security adviser. He is "a noted neocon foreign-policy hawk." He founded the lobbying firm of Orion Strategies "which specializes in representing foreign governments including Taiwan, Macedonia, and the Republic of Georgia."

Wayne Berman. Berman is "one of America's favorite lobbyists," representing "such government favor-seekers as the Carlyle Group, Chevron, Shell, and various drug companies, Verizon, and, recently, Ameriquest (the notorious mortgage giant that was described by a consumer advocate as 'the most blatant and aggressive predatory lender out of everybody'').


Executives working for McCain include Carly Fiorina, the fired and disgraced HP boss; Meg Whitman, retired CEO of eBay whose policies clone those of G.W.; and Phil Gramm, [t]he sour old former senator from Texas [who] was renowned for his laissez-faire ideological extremism and for being an unabashed corporate whore during his 23-year career in Congress." Many people hold Gramm responsible for the recent banking meltdown as his policies of deregulation allowed the development of "exotic financial schemes that have led to America's mortgage collapse and the failure of major banks."


Hightower documents with probing pen that McCain is not only not a maverick, nor a straight-talker, but is essentially one with his corporate cronies. Even "the overall cast of his foreign-policy team is rigidly corporate."

But the worst is the fact that "Policy proponents for workers, consumers, the environment, small farmers, and other broad segments of America (the vast majority of us) are noticeably absent from his inner circle.

"If he is elected president, no doubt he would consider the needs of the larger public. But it appears that those needs would be submitted from us outsiders to an insider group that now resembles McCain Inc."


You can read the rest of the article and more insights from Jim Hightower here.

Todd Bentley's wife says "Bye, bye!"

Couldn't happen to a nicer man.

You will remember Todd Bentley, the battering ram, healing evangelist holding forth for god knows way too long in the city of Lakeland, Florida. You'll remember he ran afoul of the law a few years ago, but god has forgiven him and all is well and he's been having a great time jumping up and down on a stage while curing people of their lumps and bumps by the laying on of hands and sometimes by pushing them right down on their behinds.

All good things must come to an end, said some wiseass. So, too with Bentley who will be leaving his revival on August 23, because he and his wife, Shonnah, are separating, the cause being "significant friction in their relationship."

This impending split does not, of course, invalidate all the "good" work that Bentley has done. His spokeswoman in Florida, Lynne Breidenbach, said the news of the separation was "very sad," but "God uses fallen, flawed people ..."

I guess that means that if Bentley healed you from cancer, you shouldn't automatically experience a recurrence.

Not that anyone cares about any of this. But I'll bet a lot of normal folks in Lakeland will be glad to see him gone.

Proving prayer doesn't work

The Call is what it's called. Promoted by the Rev. Wacko Pat Robertson and his 700 Club, "it began several years ago as an urgent call to pray for the nation and has spread into a world-wide prayer movement."

Today, people are praying all over the place: Jerusalem, Las Vegas aka "Sin City," Nashville, etc.

CBN explains that The Call in Jerusalem last May was "where gentile and Jewish believers came together to pray for the spiritual eyes of Israel to be opened to their Messiah - Jesus."

[Hmm. It seems to me that if you believe the legendary Jesus was Israel's "messiah," you can no longer legitimately call yourself a Jew.]

The Call is gonna happen again in Washington, D.C., where it all began in September of 2000. "Nearly half a million people gathered in the nation's capitol that year to fast and pray for the country, the presidential elections and spiritual revival."

Lou Engle, co-founder of The Call, thinks all of this praying is the cat's meow. "I believe there is no safe place for the devil. We're believing for miracles and a prayer movement that will erupt in this city [Washington, D.C.] and contend with the darkness. That's our dream. That's why we've come."

You would think that Christians gathering in prayer might want to bring to the almighty such weighty issues as the possibility of nuclear war, the AIDs crises, poverty, the terrible hunger suffered by millions around the world, the on-going genocide in Africa, the growing class war which pits the rich against the rest of us, corruption in government, the soldiers and civilians being killed daily in Iraq and Afghanistan, the looming threat represented by the clash of Russia and Georgia, etc...

What does Engle and his cohorts think to be of utmost importance in the summer of 2008? The need to bring the nation [the U.S. of A.] back to God through intense worship, prayer and fasting." Engle "has a unique burden to see revival come to America and the end of abortion."

Morons like this shouldn't be allowed out of their cages. There is no bringing America "back" to God 'cause America was never with God. In fact, if Engle knew anything about America's early days, he would realize that in spite of all the god-talk, few people gave a rat's ass about religion or churches or god. About 17 percent of Americans at the time of the Revolution were affiliated with a church (and that's a high estimate)!

Furthermore, there is nothing whatsoever "unique" about Engle's "burden!" He's just one of literally thousands of scam artists wandering around, whining about his "burden from the Lord" and skimming money from the ignorant and gullible.

But there it is - the two biggest concerns on which to concentrate all these prayers: revival and abortion!


The kicker in all this is that Engle and friends have shown the world that prayer doesn't work! In fact, Engle and CNN and the 700 Club proved that back in 2000 when they met for the first time to "fast and pray for the country, the presidential elections and spiritual revival."

What we got was Georgi Buski, Dickie Cheney and all the other neocon neanderthals who immediately raised the flag and ordered their minions to lead our poor, unsuspecting soldiers off to war which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. They stayed behind in their wood-paneled, shag-carpeted offices, of course.

Those prayers in 2000 were either ignored completely by the almighty or she decided to punish the United States by allowing Bush/Cheney to steal the election and it's all been downhill since then.

The worst president/vice presidential team in American history - thanks to Pat Robertson, Lou Engle, and all those pray-ers who "gathered in the nation's capitol" in 2000!

Thanks for nothing!

(You can read more about this particular bit of wingnuttery here.)

Michele Bachmann - Minnesota Wingnut

Michele Bachmann was selected by god to represent Minnesota's 6th District in the United States Congress. If you don't believe that, you can ask her.

She is a Repugnican, of course.

Michele also believes that women are required by god to be submissive to their husbands. In fact, in a campaign speech when she ran for Congress a couple of years ago, she said, "The Lord says, 'Wives, be submissive to your husbands.'"

At about this same time Michele declared that she wanted to be god's representative because god wanted her to run for Congress and god was by her side and he had a specific plan for her to become powerful. "God called me to run for the United States Congress. ... God has, with his own will, and his own plan, focused like a laser beam; he has focused like a laser beam on this race."

In another speech, Bachmann said that "...God then called me to run for US Congress...And we took three days, and we fasted and prayed and said 'Lord, is this what You want? Is this Your will? ... He made that calling, sure. And it's been now 22 months that I have been running for congress. Who in their right mind would spend 2 years to run for a job that lasts 2 years. You'd have to be a fool. You are now looking at a fool for Christ."

She got the "fool" part right.


When god is calling you and is at your side, you really are above the law. That's why Michele, along with Pastor Mac Hammond of the Living Word Christian Center in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, conspired to ignore (break) the law which specifies that tax-exempt organizations may not engage in electoral politics.

It went down like this. Hammond, at a religious service, stood in front of the congregation and endorsed Bachmann's campaign. He told the people it was their religious duty to vote for Bachmann.

Standing next to Bachmann, Hammond said, "I'm going to vote for Michele Bachmann! It's important, I said important, that we put men and women of God in office in our government, amen. I don't want any more letters about church and politics don't mix. If that's your opinion then you need to get saved!"


Jump to 2008.

Michele was/is not happy with John McCain. Evidently, he is not "Christian" enough. She told one newspaper, "He is not my man. Our candidate was chosen by the media. But there are other races out there."

Michele is not happy about global warming. In fact, she doesn't believe in global warming. "The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. It's all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax."

Michele believes the war in Iraq is part of god's plan. "What our service men and women have accomplished over there has been nothing short of astounding. Though you never hear about it in the media. God has not abandoned us."

Thank god for that. I wonder what Allah thinks.


Bachmann is plainly reprehensible. She is a liar. ThinkProgress reports that during an interview with right wingnut Laura Ingraham, Bachmann denounced the Democrats in Congress because they refuse to "increase American energy resources."

It is very strange, opined Bachmann, that the Democrats being "the big solar/wind people", would not "pass the tax credit for solar and wind."

None of that is true. As the AP noted, "'for the fourth time this summer' Senate conservatives blocked action on legislation that would provide 'tax credits to an array of renewable energy entrepreneurs.'"

ThinkProgress writes that "when the House passed the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 in May, Bachmann voted against it, along with the majority of House Republicans. The bill was then filibustered by Senate Republicans in June."


Bachmann is also comedic - unwittingly, of course. Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report tells how House Republicans are accusing Nancy Pelosi of "playing politics at the exense of the American economy -- and taxpayers are suffering as a result."

House Republicans are fighting Pelosi on offshore oil drilling and Bachmann said she plans to head back to Washington "to join in the protest."

Here's Bachmann witless comedic comment: "[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said she's just trying to save the planet. 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."

Bachmann not only believes that we don't need to save the planet 'cause Jesus did it 2,000 years ago, but that there isn't any wildlife in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and that's why she wants to allow drilling for oil there. She alleges that Democrats want high gas prices in order to force people to move back to the "inner cities" and "the urban core."

Finally, Michele Bachmann is very supportive of the proposal by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) called the Middle Class Job Protection Act, in spite of the fact that this bill would do NOTHING for the middle class. What it does is reduce the corporate tax rate by 25 percent.

Would someone explain why Cantor and Bachmann and other Repugnicans think we need to reduce the corporate tax rate when fully 2/3rds of American corporations pay no income tax whatsoever?

Bachmann tried to justify all this by claiming that people in her state of Minnesota like working hard and long to make enough money to survive.

"I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota," she said. "We're the workingest state in this country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs."

As Crooks and Liars said, Bachmann's version of the American dream is to boost corporate welfare while the rest of us struggle to get by working two jobs and longer hours.


I used to be from the state of Minnesota. What I cannot understand is why the people of the 6th Congressional District would elect this moron to Congress. Michele Bachmann makes the good people of Minnesota look like idiots. Hell, Michele Bachmann gives god a bad name!

Is it possible to recall someone for being just plain stupid?

We'll arrrest you when you're done preaching

PZ Myers at Pharyngula brought this to my attention. It derives from the ReligionNewsBlog.

Anthony Hopkins, 37, is an "evangelical" preacher without a regular church. He preached in a variety of fundamentalist venues throughout the south.

He is now in jail, held without bond.

In late July, his 19-year old daughter went to authorities in Mobile, Alabama to report that her father had been abusing her since she was 11 years old. But that was the least of it. In November 2004, the preacher's wife caught Anthony "abusing" his daughter in the bathroom which resulted in a big argument and eventually led to Anthony killing his wife.

With the help of his abused daughter, he hid his wife's body in a freezer, where it has resided for at least four years.


Authorities went to Hopkins' house but found no one at home. He was preaching at a revival at the Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Christ - a sermon "about forgiveness and not passing judgment."

Here's the kicker: The police left the house and went to the church where they did, indeed, find Hopkins holding forth from the pulpit. THEY LET HIM FINISH HIS SERMON BEFORE THEY ARRESTED HIM!


PZ Myers why the police would give such respect to this murdering, "monstrous psychopath" that they'd let him finish preaching before putting on the cuffs.

It isn't too surprising, however. We live in a la-la land where literally millions of people "respect" charlatan clergy like Dobson, Hagee, Pasley, Benny Hind, Joel Osteen, and hundreds of lesser lights to the extent they base their lives on these preacher's religious concoctions!

Rapture insurance for your beloved pets

Thanks to BSAlert for this one.

An ad at Craigslist offers to take care of your beloved pets when you are raptured into heaven by the Lord Jesus.

The ad begins by quoting a few verses from the New Testament -- Matthew 24:36 and 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 -- which stress the fact that no one knows just when Jesus is coming back to reclaim his faithful believers (I was going to write "followers," but we know that for fundy Christians "right" belief is primary, and actions are secondary).

It's the passage from Thessalonians where many wingnuts get their "rapture" notions as it speaks of the Lord descending from heaven "with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God." Interestingly, however, it says the dead are gonna "rise first." Then all those who are still alive will be "caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."

Whoop dee do! All those ashes and dust will certainly create more global warming, though!


For those folks who truly believe this tripe, and are worried about what will happen to their pets as they fly off into the atmosphere, a new service is being offered to ease their minds and their consciences.

And, no, pets are not allowed into heaven. Only those who are "born again" will see the kingdom of God.

'Tis a problem. Think of your beloved "Rover," "stuck inside your empty house, starving to death with no one to feed [him], let [him] out to potty, or..."

'Tis a problem no longer. A "moral and loving pet owner" who is an atheist (and thus certain to be left behind at the Rapture) will take care of your pet(s) for "a small deposit of $50 ... from the time you are raptured until the end of their natural life."

Speaking religiously, that sounds like a hell of a good deal! You won't need money in heaven anyway!

John McCain the theocrat

John McCain likes to tell his wacko Christian-right friends that the United States is a Christian country, founded on Christian values, blah, blah, blah.

John McCain has fallen all over himself to kiss the asses of the Christian right poohbahs, even though a number of them really don't like him very much, but will vote for him because they like black, liberal, Democrats even less.

Pastordan at streetprophets.com notes that on Monday, August 11, John "Surely MacCaine" made a statement about the "problem" in Georgia, which included the following:

"Georgia is an ancient country, at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion."

Pastordan asks, rightly, "since when did adopting 'Christianity as an official religion' become a point of high praise from a American president candidate?"

The answer to which is since John McCain, who would sell his mother (he's already sold his soul) to gain the White House, began his unprincipled, unbridled and devious campaign designed to fool enough Americans to get him elected in November.

It's rather interesting to note that many theologians and religious historians believe that Christianity began to go to hell when the emporer, Constantine, made it the "official" religion of the Roman Empire!

Fair tax for corporations and the Class War

[Art of Corporate Monster @2004 by Wendy P. Lee]

You've seen the signs promoting something call the Fair Tax. As I understand it, the so-called Fair Tax would abolish the graduated income tax and increase sales taxes so that all people would pay a "fair" tax.

'Tis a bothersome thing that not a few people who should know better are climbing on the band wagon in support of this nonsense. This is just one more scam by which the rich would pay even less tax than they do now relative to their income and the rest of us would end up paying more. The graduated income tax is much "fairer" than the so-called Fair Tax program advocated by these know-nothings.


Under the Bush administration we have become involved in the Afghan War, the Iraq War, something undecipherable known as the Terror War and so far as the great majority of the people in this country are concerned, the Class War.

Under the Bush administration, the rich have become enormously richer, the middle class has been decimated, and the poor - well, let's just say they have been clobbered mightily!

Nowhere has this class war been portrayed more dramatically than in a Congressional report which revealed that fully two-thirds of the corporations in our beloved land avoided paying any income taxes between 1998 and 2005! They paid NONE!

Not only so, but this report, which came from the Government Accountability Office, further noted that 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the United States paid no corporate taxes during that same time frame!

What's involved here are "trillions of dollars in sales."

How do these corporate pirates get by with this? The GAO (which didn't identify specific companies by name) claimed they "escape paying such taxes due to operating losses or because of tax credits." In other words it's an accounting scam, made possible by their government friends in high places.

Consider these stats: In 2005, almost 120 million U.S. companies avoided paying any income tax to the U.S., and 38,000 foreign companies racked up NO tax liability. Many of the U.S. corporations are behemoths, which means they held some $250 million in assets and garnered a minimum of $50 million is receipts.

Senators Byron Dorgan, D-ND, and Carl Levin, D-Mich, requested the study. Dorgan said he thought "It's time for the big corporations to pay their fair share."

Hells bells. It's time for the big corporations to pay any share!


When you throw into this mix of corporate welfare the Bush tax cuts, which have been a gift from heaven to the richest of the rich, it becomes quite clear that the Repugnicans have declared war on the poor and the middle class!

It's also clear that this class war has been engaged through the connivance of a Congress beholden to the same corporate interests as the Executive Branch.

How it will end is not clear. Right now the middle class and the poor are losing badly. We have few weapons with which to fight, other than the ballot box, and the Repugnicans have been working hard to negate that particular armament, too.

Of one thing you can be sure: John "Surely MacCaine," the mega-rich Arizona senator, the best friend a lobbyist ever had, the man to which corporate America turns for help, will not join sides with the poor and middle class if elected prezident!

Wingnuts praying for rain in Denver

[Photo on right is of chief wingnut, James Dobson]

Focus on the Family. That's the group of so-called Christian ultra-rightists who think they have a direct pipeline to god and therefore know what is god's will and therefore have the right to tell all the rest of us what god wants. The implied threat is always there, of course. If you do not believe what we tell you or do what we tell you -- considering our insider knowledge -- you could be in deep caca with the almighty!

This group is, naturally, Repugnican to its rotten core. But they pretend to a sense of humor. So they put up a video hosted by a stereotypical WASP with a religiously-nasal, whining voice to wonder if it would be all right to pray for rain when Obama heads to Mile High Stadium in Denver this coming August to deliver his acceptance speech.

There is a question these wingnuts need to answer first. If their god is anti-Obama and pro-Surely MacCaine, then why would they need to pray for rain? Doth their god in the highest not have the power to do what he wills? And if their skygod is anti-Obama, it would seem reasonable to assume that he would send the torrential rains this kook suggests we pray for as a matter of course.

If Focus on the Family thought this video was humorous, they really need to rethink their concept of humor.

The video has been taken down. Evidently even some of the wingnuts thought FOTF had gone too far.

Fortunately, for those of us who KNOW god is pro-Obama, the skygod doesn't listen to the prayers of wingnuts!

You can view the video here (I think). [From AOL]

John McCain, Ralph Reed and other phonies

You may remember Ralph Reed, called by Time magazine in 1995 "The Right Hand of God." Reed is that nasty SOB who was instrumental in making the Christian Coalition something of a political powerhouse and was also partly responsible for moving Republicans from seats of ignorance in their particular states to seats of power in the U.S. Congress. Some credit him with fooling just enough people to make Bush prezident.

Reed's been on a well-deserved downhill slide for several years, now. In 2006, he ran for governor of Georgia but was soundly defeated.

What probably was most instrumental in his downfall were not only his connections with "disgraced lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, but the dirty deeds he did and the nasty lies he told as he and Abramoff worked the world of Indian gaming to rake in millions of buckaroos which went promptly into their own pockets.

Reed fits perfectly into the Bushite system as he, too, is a monumental hypocrite. He was rabidly and publicly against gambling, calling it a "'cancer' on the body politic." But that stance was a mere ploy to divert attention from his thievery and chicanery. In one instance he was paid millions of dollars to operate a religiously-based anti-gambling campaign in order to stop another tribe from opening a rival casino. One of his methods used involved sending anti-gambling letters to churches urging them to oppose the rival tribe's casino.

There's much more to Reed's perfidy, but suffice it to say he is not a nice man.

Maybe that's why Surely John MacCaine will be attending a fundraiser next week, hosted by none other than Ralph Reed!

That's bad, you say. But that's only part of the story. One of the major reasons that Reed was found out, was because of the investigations carried out by McCain's Indian Affairs Committee. According to CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), McCain's committee published 66 pages of correspondence between Reed and the felon, Jack Abramoff.

Now Surely MacCaine is going to a party sponsored by Mr. Reed where the bonds between these two hypocrites will be cemented in hopes of gaining power and control over the reins of government so that their purses will overflow as the benefits pour into those corporate entities to which they devote their political lives.

How can Surely MacCaine deny Mr. Reed, who, in 2006 wrote that "John McCain believes in a strong national defense, a smaller, more accountable government, steady economic growth and opportunity, the dignity of life and traditional values"?

Or, in other words, bomb the bastards, keep the government out of my lobbying ways, make the rich richer, stop all abortions and kill the gays.

No justice says attorney general Mukasey

The crony apppointed by Georgi W. Buski to be Attorney General of the United States, Michael Mukasey, said his Justice Department will not seek justice in the so-called "hiring scandal" perpetrated by his Justice Department.

The facts are quite clear. Under the former Attorney General, another Bush crony, Alberto Gonzales, top advisers in the Justice Department routinely discriminated against applicants who failed to exhibit proper "conservative" credential and pledge fealty to King Buski.

That behavior is illegal! It is in violation of civil service laws (as well as the policy of the DOJ) to "hire career employees on the basis of political affiliation or allegiance."

Again, there is no question that "career employees" were hired or not hired specifically on the basis of their political affiliation and allegiance. Monica Goodling, one of Gonzales' cronies, actually asked applicants why they wanted to work for George Bush.

Mukasey says this is no big deal. Just a couple minor laws violated. But, he told the American Bar Association, if we find illegalities, we'll "hold any wrongdoers accountable."

Mukasey, like all the other Bush cronies, is full of shit. Or, as Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committe, said, Mukasey "seems intent on insulating this administration from accountability."

Of course he is. That's why Bush appointed him. The question is, why did the Senate confirm that appointment?

Bush, McCain and Rice - mealy-mouthed and absent

Georgia invaded South Ossetia. Russia invaded Georgia. People died. Over oil.

Georgi W. Buski was goofing around with scantily-clad volleyball girls in China. When he did address the events in Georgia, he talked really tough. Like he meant it. Russia better back off, he said. We're really mad, he said. We're going to punish Russia, he said. Who does Russia think it is, he asked. Only I, Georgi, chosen by god, can invade sovereign countries, he implied, hypocritically.

Surely MacCaine talked tough, too. He has experience dealing with countries like the nasty Ruskies, he said. Unlike Obama, the neophyte, he said. I'll hurt Russia, he said. Russia should stop acting like it was the United States, he implied.

Condi Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State, the one person expected to be involved when one country invades what it considers to be a breakaway province and another country invades the first country to protect the oil pipelines in the breakaway province. But Condi Rice was not to be seen. She was on vacation, they said. She was on personal leave, they said. She could not be bothered with such trifles, they said.

It took the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, to broker a cease-fire and set the scenario for a peaceful resoluton. With luck it will all work out.

So, once more the present and would-be leaders of the United States show themselves to be hypocritical morons without a clue as to what "leadership" is about in a 21st century world where a nuclear nightmare is just a button's push away.

People everywhere are rolling their eyes and tearing their hair, their vision of American greatness disintegrating to dust.

G. W. Bushski and Surely Maccaine on Georgia

Prezident Georgi W. Bushski and prezidential hopeful, the hapless Surely Maccaine, met this morning in South Carolina to ponder why Russia had invaded Georgia.

Bushski thought it was terrible and warned Russia, using very strong terminology, saying "We'll give you Atlanta, just leave the rest and go home. It's worthless anyway and there's no water."

Maccaine, just back from a spirited late-night flight with a gorgeous blonde lobbyist, who he insisted is not a mistress, but rather just someone who works for someone for whom he does favors in return for money to get him re-elected. He's not like that bad Jonathan Edwards, who's always acting so preachy!

Oops, got carried away there. Maccaine said to Russia, "Take Savannah!" Then he announced he was going home for a nap. Before he left, though, he warned the Russian bear that if he ever becomes prezident like his friend Georgi, he would punish Russia by moving Moscow to Florida.


Actually, George W. Bush, confiming once more that he is a moronic fool, got himself and the rest of us involved in the Georgian squabble by preaching to Putin that the former KGB (with a good heart, who believes in God) spy should not do reprehensible things like invade a sovereign country.

And all the people of the world guffawed and sneered at this latest display of monumental hypocrisy and chutzpah.

McCain, the wannabe "tough" old fart, scraped off his warts and actually said if he was the prez he would "punish and isolate" bad old Russia, and then pandered to the old right wingers, who hate everything good and decent, by casting Obama as an inexperienced bumbler.

Randy Scheunemann, one of McCain's "top" foreign policy advisors, said that Obama was not ready to lead the U.S. in a time of war, claiming that Obama's "first statement [about Russia invading Georgia] was very weak and did not distinguish between the aggressor and the victim."

(Actually, McCain thinks it's the Sunnis that are the victims and the Shiites are the aggessors. But he thought the discussion was about futbol.)

What's most interesting is that McCain's fondness for lobbyists once again sees the light of day. Scheunemann was a lobbyist for the Georgian government until last year!!!!


But why would Russia's interest in Georgia become a major point of "honor" for the leadership of the Republican Party in the United States? What do we care about Georgia? The Bushites/McCainers don't give a rat's ass about the "sovereignty" of another nation -- that's been proven in spades! They also don't care about democracy - another fact that's clear to all.

So, why care about Georgia?

It's all about oil! On August 8, Georgia invaded South Ossetia with the assistance of Israeli military advisers. Russia responded with force to drive out the Georgia troops.

The question behind Georgia's invasion and Russia's response is: "Who will control the pipelines carrying oil and gas out of the Caspian region?"

The Russians will not stand by and allow Georgia, along with Western oil companies (including Israeli firms - which explains the Israeli military advisers), to succeed with their plan to route the oil from Azerbaijan and the gas lines from Turkmenistan, which transit Georgia through Turkey instead of hooking up to Russian pipelines.

The U.S. government is in the hands of the oil business. The oil business wants to keep Russia from touching oil from the Caspian region.

Will McCain, like Bush, lead us into another huge military blunder to serve the oil interests?