One thing that I’ve agreed on with the Republicans in the last month is their rejection of the automaker bailout.  I’ve felt from day one that an automaker bailout would simply elongate their inevitable death and that tossing more money at them would be pulling taxpayers down too.  The root of our economic problems comes from a old and dysfunctional infrastructure based on fossil fuels, over spending, and our unwillingness to adapt to renewable energy.

We know what the problem is and we know that changes have to be made.  I guess the question is WHEN we’re going to start making those changes to turn our country from fossil fuel and energy dependent to self sustaining and independent.

Apparently, we’re too chicken shit to start that process now.

On Friday, Congress still hadn’t passed a $14 billion bailout plan to be injected directly into the dinosaur automakers.   I cheered.  The Republicans were actually doing something good!  They were remembering their roots as fiscally responsible lawmakers and conservative spenders.  They were drawing a line and starting to convince the Democrats of the same.

But then the White House and President Bush comes galloping in to steal destroy take-over rescue the day.  The White House has promised $15 billion of the $700 billion TARP funds originally passed to bail out Wall Street for the automakers.

I’m glad to see our political process is working so well that one man can simply make the decision of spending the money of millions of people (taxpayers).

So the automakers will get their money and the taxpayers will continue to groan under the weight.  There won’t be any oversight in how the big three are spending the money and I suspect we’ve pushed renewable energy priorities straight to the bottom of the list.  I’m aware that hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake here but sometimes the best way to fast-track change is the have our backs against the wall.

Today the House Democrats tried to open up 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve which presently holds 700 million barrels.  The 70 million barrels would only account for a 3 day supply for the citizens of the U.S., however in the past when the SPR had been tapped into it had relieved pressure at the pump in ‘91, ‘00, and ‘05. 

The measure received a majority vote, however the proposal required a 2/3s vote to pass.  The reasoning behind requiring a 2/3s vote as opposed to majority was so the Republicans could not add on an amendment allowing the off shore drilling proposition that’s been receiving so much coverage on the news lately.

As a result of not receiving the 2/3s vote, the House will now go on a 5 week vacation without having done anything to address our current oil crisis.  Of course, had the measure passed the White House (read: Bush) said it would’ve been vetoed anyway.

Thanks all, way to get shit done.

Two weeks ago Cindy McCain swore she would never release her tax return even if her husband became President.

Reneging their words must be a McCain family trait. She’s decided to release them anyway.

Cindy McCain 2006 Federal Tax Return 1040 PDF Part 1 and Part 2

Also enjoy Senator McCain’s 2006 and 2007 returns.

John McCain 2007 Federal Tax Return 1040 PDF here.

John McCain 2006 Federal Tax Return 1040 PDF here.

As if we needed further proof of the Bush administration’s unpopularity:

Twenty-five Republican senators broke with President Bush and voted Thursday for a major expansion of veterans’ benefits as part of a bill to finance another year of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The proposal, adopted by a vote of 75 to 22, also provides money for extended unemployment insurance benefits and other domestic programs to which Mr. Bush has objected.

Some can argue that those 25 Republican senators crossed party lines to vote in favor of next years war funding. The veterans’ benefits and domestic programs were piggy backed on the same vote. An old trick to get the parties to unite.

The Reps get what they want (more money siphoned into our Middle Easter quagmire) and the Dems get what they want (domestic and veteran programs to boast the home front).

Everyone wins except the Bush administration.  I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing his name smeared.

On Thursday the House shocked everyone- including itself, with it’s votes on a 3-part war funding bill.

The surprise action left antiwar activists on and off Capitol Hill exultant, Republicans gloating and Democratic leaders baffled. Recriminations from all sides quickly followed.

House leaders had broken the war funding bill into three separate measures. The first, to continue funding combat operations, needed Republican votes to pass over the objection of antiwar Democrats. The second would impose strict Iraq-related policy measures strongly opposed by President Bush, and the third would fund domestic priorities, including a new G.I. Bill and levees around New Orleans.

That legislative legerdemain became the plan’s undoing. Rather than go along, 131 House Republicans voted “present” on the war funding provision, saying they were incensed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and a few of her lieutenants had drafted the bill in secret, then expected them to play along.

Reps say their action is a boycott of shady Dem dealings, Dems say the Reps had a choice between funding the war, or not funding it, and they chose to wash their hands of it altogether.

(T)he impact is likely to be short-lived. The Senate will take up its version of the war funding bill next week; it is expected to restore the war funds and strip out the policy prescriptions most disagreeable to the White House. The White House reiterated its veto threat of the overall package yesterday morning, demanding a new version stripped of policy prescriptions and domestic spending, including the bill’s $52 billion expansion of veterans’ education benefits. The supplemental appropriations vote is the last major clash on Iraq policy between Congress and Bush.

Had it become law, the House bill would have brought the total cost of the war in Iraq to around $660 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service, more expensive than any U.S. military effort except World War II.

As passed, the House bill would require troop withdrawals from Iraq to begin within 30 days, with a goal of removing all combat forces by December 2009. The Iraqi government would have to match U.S. reconstruction funding dollar for dollar, and would be required to offer the U.S. military the same fuel subsidies it provides its own citizens.

Basically as it stands, rather than continue to flush money in a situation that taxes our country’s resources and money more than we can afford, this bill will improve scholastic options for troops who have served, begin bringing the troops home as well as giving them more time off inbetween deployments to recouperate, and make the Iraqi gov’t begin to pull it’s actual fair share of the load. Sounds pretty reasonable to me, but of course reasonable dealings have never been the current admin’s strong point, as evidenced by the fact that the White House has promised to veto this thing to death should it even reach their door.

And while the improvement of educational benefits to the troops sounds like something anyone, regardless of political affiliation could get behind- leave it to Prez hopeful John McCain to try to use it as a tool for keeping the troops in the military (which in turn makes it all the more difficult to use the benefits to get to college, because, you know- deployments tend to make it hard to get to get to class on time).

The measure has attracted broad bipartisan support, but it is opposed by Bush because of its cost, its tax increase and fears that its generosity could entice service members to leave the military rather than reenlist at the end of their tours. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee, has put forward a less generous alternative that would save its richest benefits for service members doing multiple tours.

But McCain’s efforts have run into bipartisan opposition — from lawmakers, veterans organizations and educators. Former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge, a close McCain ally, came out for Webb’s measure yesterday.

“I have tremendous regard for Senator McCain, but I can’t figure out where he is right now,” said Dartmouth College President James Wright, a former Marine who helped negotiate the Webb-Warner language. “It seems to me our posture as a nation cannot be to say to servicemen and -women, ‘We do not value you unless you reenlist.’ That wasn’t the contract they signed.”

But no matter what happened in the House, expect the Senate to sink the whole thing and bring it right back to war spending where this gov’t seems to think it belongs.

Answer- Someone needs to step down and they all need to learn how to fucking get along!

You’ll have to excuse me here for getting a little worked up, but seriously, WTF is going on?  It’s a wretched time to be an American.  We’ve got recession on tap, joblessness (can’t say unemployment because most jobless people have given up on looking for new job and filing for unemployment, so the numbers are going down) never-ending war, and the people we all hoped might be able to drag us out of this won’t get out of each other’s shit, unite, and try to actually do something good for the country and it’s people.  Like Bill Clinton said recently- “Chill out.”  (Only, he said it for the wrong cause.  Bill buddy, your wife is losing.  Get over it.)

Democrats… someone either stop Hillary, or tell Obama that he’s good, the people like him, but the machine wants him to wait his turn.  Because right now, the more the two candidates drag this out and go back and forth with each other, the longer McCain gets to be largely ignored by the media and come into the actual elections looking relatively good- as he’s spent months letting the Dems do the work of tearing themselves apart for him.

And Iraq… oh Iraq.  We need to talk.  There’s something that’s been bugging us lately, and it’s mostly got to do with the fact that you all really don’t want us around.  Well guess what?  We don’t really want to be there either, but unless you can get all your religious factions to unite around common love for your state, we’re not going to be allowed to leave because someone somewhere thinks we’re keeping the peace or something.  I don’t give a rats ass if you’re a sunni or shiite or kurd, or if the whole damn country decides to convert to scientology.  Don’t care.  But guess what, I don’t agree with what the psycho-right-wing-conservative-christian-led government we’ve got here is up to 99% of the time, but shooting up the joint isn’t really the best way to go about these things.  Especially where you’ve got psycho-right-wing-conservative-christian-cowboys like Dubbya involved in the show. 

Ok, militias, the top dog wants you all to lay down your arms.  Got it.  Welcome to every backwoods NRA member asshole’s compound up in the forests of bumfuck USA.  “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hand”.  If you want to keep your guns, go hole up somewhere, shut up, and if you keep yours asses out of trouble, people will ignore you.  Then you can set up target practice ranges and fire off all the weapons you want.  al-Maliki, al-Sadr, you two need to sit down and work something out, or one of you has to take your people and go somewhere else.  It’s that simple.

And hey, we’ll accept blame.  We came into Iraq, we fucked it all up, factioned you guys up worse than before, and then played you all against each other so that we could claim we were working with the people to fight extremists. 

Look, we’d love to make things better for you guys, but haven’t you realized?  We can’t even figure out the relatively simple issue of our own country, which largely sits within the same political and religious spectrum, with a few easily workable differences (“in god we trust” is on the money, guess what- money IS the god we’re putting our trust in.  It’s got nothing to do with Jesus.  So atheists, I feel for you, but currency is the god we’re all kneeling to, you included.  Get over it.)  so how in the blue hell do you think we’re gonna be able to figure you guys out?  You all need to fix your damn country so we can pretend we had something to do with it, and leave feeling proud that we “stayed the course” or “accomplished the mission” or some other bumper sticker nonsense.

Which brings me back home…  Dems.  If you really want to fix America, start with yourselves.  If you’re not going to pull troops out, then say it.  Stop all the bullshit about pulling “combat forces” from Iraq, meaning you’ll be leaving just about everyone who’s over there now, because a large brunt of the forces are either support, or “peace keeping” or training.  And stop pretending you’re anything but politicians.  You’re not preachers, you’re not working class, you’re not heroes or victims… you’re politicians.  You’re walking talking scum sucking pieces of trash that unfortunately we need to run our country without us because the public that was supposed to be keeping tabs on things- decided to watch The Simple Life with Paris Hilton instead of caring about what’s going on in the economy (wish you’d paid atttention now don’t you?).  And for the love of god (read: $) settle down and pick just one person to run for President, because as bad as a Democrat might be in office… at least it wouldn’t be another Republican promising continued war and having no ideas in regards to domestic policies.  Sorry John, I can appreciate your past and all, but Iraq is a money pit, and we’re not really set up to “win” anything without sinking our country so deep it’ll never recover.

I know I’ve gotten off on a bit of a rant here today… but let’s face it, if you’re not pissed off- you’re not paying enough attention.

I’ve been grumpy over the stale mate between Obama and Clinton lately.  It’s really not all that exciting anymore.  I’m feeling a little run down by the constant name calling between the candidates (and the voters).  It’s just getting so… I dunno… blah. 

We just want a Democratic candidate!!

They say that technically, Clinton has no chance of winning.  Obama will statistically have more deletage votes. 

Newsweek broke it down for us a few weeks ago:

…no matter how you cut it, Obama will almost certainly end the primaries with a pledged-delegate lead, courtesy of all those landslides in February. Hillary would then have to convince the uncommitted superdelegates to reverse the will of the people.

Even coming off a big Hillary winning streak, few if any superdelegates will be inclined to do so. For politicians to upend what the voters have decided might be a tad, well, suicidal.

So what good can come out of such a futile battle? Why should we be happy to bear witness to the bad blood developing between Obama and Clinton?

VOTER REGISTRATION.

Get this. 

Democratic voters and registrations are at an all time high.  The Democratic party is spanking the Republicans in voter turnouts and registrants.  For example, in Pennsylvania Democrats have topped 4 million registered voters, the first time either party in the state has crossed that threshold.  That’s a four percent increase.

The Republicans, on the other hand, lost nearly one percent to 3.2 million. 

What this means is that no matter who wins the Democratic nomination, the voters will be out en mass in November.

Look out McCain.  Here we come.