Go Straight To Bailout. Do Not Pass Go. Do Collect 700 Billion Dollars.

Let me start by saying that I know very little about economics. Only slightly more than John McCain. I admit I do enjoy when the latest James Surowiecki column comes out, who is a much better person from whom to get your financial advice than Phil “Nation of Whiners” Gramm. But I digress…

I just want to briefly state that on principle, I am against this bailout. Bush’s speech last night, you could have substituted "gears of the economy" with "weapons of mass destruction" and it would have been word for word the speech he gave about invading Iraq. I don’t see any reason why there is so much pressure to immediately pass, under duress, right before an election, a bill that gives $700 billion to the Treasury Secretary, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, to dole out to the very swindling companies/cronies of Bush who got us into this mess, and to do so as he sees fit: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” Except to try to pull yet another one over on us.

I'm sure something needs to be done, I just don't know if this is it. And I know that if Bush said it, it behooves us to be skeptical. Again, that’s neither here nor there since I don’t know all that much about economics. But one thing I really, really don’t understand is how they are close to passing a bill already and McCain hasn’t yet provided his brilliant insight and presidential leadership skills. Did they really not need him? How is that possible?

It’s almost as if he “stopped” his campaign and called off the debate as some sort of a political… what do you call it? When Evel Knievel would jump over a bunch of buses… but like different… When they have all those explosions and broken glass in a Jerry Bruckheimer film? What is the word? Damn it! When you want to turn off your brain and be distracted from the important things in life, staring mouth agape at the flashy colors and bomb blasts and machine guns, and mindlessly absorb the senseless violence and simple jingoistic dialogue. In those movies the actors have a double who does all the…

What’s that word?


FRIDAY UPDATE: Well, Magic McCain did accomplish something by swooping into DC the day after his numerous interviews and speeches in New York – he completely undermined the agreement the Republicans and Democrats had agreed to earlier in the day. And, of course, he won’t attend tonight’s debate if there isn’t a solution.

Hmmn… If he ends up skipping this debate, and there’s almost no time to reschedule, and people start thinking there should definitely be three presidential debates, not two. What do you think they might take off the schedule?

In case that wasn’t clear enough, I am, in no uncertain terms, accusing McCain of intentionally sabotaging the bailout bill so that he can cancel Friday’s debate and reschedule it for when Sarah Palin might have to be on TV. Because he knows as well as you do that she is dumb as a post. Country first indeed, Senator.

Hooray For Fingers!

By the way, DoGgers, that last post about McCain not caring about you so he can play president for a day – that was our 1000th post. I know that it’s an arbitrary number that seems important because humans have 10 digits on their hands, but hell, people like the zeros. It feels a little anti-climactic though, you know? I think perhaps it needed more unnecessary cursing and juvenile fart jokes to be an appropriate milestone post for these pages.

Well, in just over a month we’ll be four years old. Maybe we can bring the scat then…

Thanks for reading! And, hey, see where it all began.

Meltdown

John McCain dropped a few points in the polls yesterday and all of a sudden found religion on the economy. As such, he is “suspending campaign activities” and he wants to cancel Friday’s debate. Why? Because this economic crisis is too important to the future of our nation. Once again, he is putting “Country First.”

One problem – campaigning, debating, and speaking to one’s constituents is not for the benefit of John McCain. It’s for the benefit of the American people. He is attempting to be elected President of the United States. But now he wants to stop talking about his plans and his vision so that he can go back and do a bunch of photos in the Capital Building? He wants to eliminate one of the four scheduled debates so that he can appear to be “presidential?” Newsflash, Gramps – you’re not the president. Also? You yourself have said you don’t understand economics all that well. Everyone says you’ll just be getting in the way. So what are you going to do in Washington?

Nothing.

And while you’re in Washington, what are the American people learning about you, your vision, and your plan for America?

Nothing.

And yet, you want us to elect you on faith that you’d be a good president because you can fly to Washington when there’s a crisis. Guess who else knows how to get on a plane when the shit hits the fan...


And your BFF Bush probably knows more about floods than you do about the economy.

McCain’s campaign has been more despicable than could have been imagined knowing that Karl Rove is merely the puppetmaster lurking in the shadows and not running everything day to day. The lying, the dodging, the ignorance, we’ve all read about plenty. But this new “not speaking to the press is patriotic” meme is perhaps the most democracy-damaging thing yet. Sarah Palin is locked in a closet like a Trekkie’s prized Captain Pike action figure, and now McCain claims that the most important item on his agenda is to not talk to us - the voters, the taxpayers, the citizens of this nation.

McCain is expecting you to vote for him because of a gimmick he pulled and not because of his positions or worldview. Does he really think you're that dumb? Wasn't the Palin gimmick insult enough? Are you really going to take this crap from that crazy old man?

Ow! My Balls!

Some time has passed since my uncharacteristic outburst of optimism last month. And what a fortnight it’s been, huh? With all of their hysterical outrage, you’d think that something real actually happened to the Republicans. Something as bad as being ignored and then left for dead by a criminally negligent government after an extremely destructive hurricane. Or something…

Moving on, I’m really worried about this election, DoGgers. Yes, it will be devastating for our country and for the future of this planet if the mummified remains of the ethical Senator McCain and his bird-brained Jesus-freak sidekick were to take the White House. But honestly, I’m more concerned about our democracy.

I know that these elections can bring out the hyperbole in all of us, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot. McCain was down 10 points before he picked an unknown dunderhead governor of a backwards redneck state who lies repeatedly; who considers herself above answering questions, whether they’re from the media or an independent investigation; who has a secrecy fetish and conducts state business on private email accounts; who hires her unqualified friends for jobs and strikes down with furious vengeance those who disagree or criticize her; who is proudly ignorant of foreign policy and only very recently got her passport; who wants to ban books that make Jesus cry and views science with contempt. Stop me when the list starts to sound like anyone you know.

Choosing her has made McCain competitive again, and this is from the candidate and party who would “rather win a war and lose an election.” Newsflash, Grandpa: if you die and she becomes president, we’re going to lose everything. He’s also claiming to bring “change,” right? Change from a less-intelligent clone of Bush. Right.

Which brings me to my point. People -- even the God-fearing yokels -- hate Bush now. He’s fucking radioactive. But McCain has not only selected this Bushian moron to be his running mate, but is campaigning like Karl Rove. Not even like that; he's worse! When Bush was smearing Kerry, Gore, and even McCain and his black baby back in 2000, Bush was either using surrogates to do the really dirty work or else his lies had some kind of ring of truth to them, at least in the minds of the idiots who don’t know better or never learned to read. This time around, McCain is “approving” messages that are so obviously false that even the typically agnostic media are calling them lies. Lies! Not even those euphemisms they use like “spin” or “misrepresent.” McCain is running a campaign in which facts no longer matter. Similarly, they will not put poor defenseless little Sarah-belle out there in front of all those nasty reporters with their evil questions. McCain supporters are eating that up like buckets of friend dough. If you don’t like Sarah Palin it’s because you’re an egghead elitist or you’ve prejudged Palin unfairly. Problem is we’re not prejudging. We’re judging. And it’s fair. If you would listen to the questions and her answers, or lack thereof, you too would understand the fear we feel at the prospect of a McCain/Palin White House. But for these people, simply asking a question is an evil unto itself.

If Zombie McCain can take all of Bush’s positions and claim to be about change; if they can stir up all the divisive culture issues; if they can lie every day with impunity and go on to win this election then I fear that America’s experiment with democracy is over. If Father Time and his bespectacled airhead weather girl take the White House it will mark a turning point in American electoral history – The Day the Facts Died. From that point forward, no candidate could possibly envision a winning campaign based around truth and integrity. They’ll think, President McCain sold out everything he ever valued in his career including truth and justice and played to people’s basest fears and the lowest common denominator. An intelligent, thoughtful man with integrity running an inspirational, high-minded and honest campaign got beat. Let me think – what kind of campaign should I run?

We’d better prepare ourselves for President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.