Stewart's Britney / McCain analysis

No one mixes political analysis and humor better than Jon Stewart. In fact, he's the best in the business. The above clip is the gold standard. (Watch the vid, and you'll get the pun.)

Anyway, I really got a good laugh out of this clip; stick with it, it's a little over nine minutes, but it's one of the best I've seen on The Daily Show in quite some time.

Hearing the words come out of McCain's mouth about how he'll balance the budget, win in Iraq, find and kill bin Laden, etc. is high comedy at its greatest. Don't get me wrong, I certainly hope all of those things will happen, but just saying you'll do it without offering specifics is Saturday Night Live-sketch worthy, and definitely fodder for The Daily Show.

I've been writing for a long time now that "winning" in Iraq is a myth. Even if we "win" as politicians define it (and I still don't know what that is), we've lost. And by that I mean trillions spent (before it's all said and done), thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, and for what? So we could get cheap oil, which isn't happening, anyway. I tire of typing this over and over, but it does bear repeating, since the right sees fit to keep propagating lie after lie after lie about why we invaded in the first place and why we should stay there. I don't buy any of it.

As far as balancing the budget, George Stephanopoulos was totally right to take McCain to task - he's proposing massive tax cuts, in addition to "winning" the War in Iraq. An economist it does not take to figure out that his math is, how shall I say it? - Creative. This year, we are going to have a $600-700 billion deficit, and that's without any more tax cuts. And Brain McCain is going to reverse all of those losses and balance the budget?!? I LOVE it when McCain tells Stephanopoulos "Look, I'll find you $100 billion tomorrow." One, that's patently absurd, and two, he probably could - but not a dime would come from the Pentagon. But, we could say goodbye to lots of other social and educational programs, to be sure, which McCain and the GOP have been trying to do for years.

It also should be lost on no one how the media is simply pimping and recycling McCain's talking points over and over and over, too. McLame puts out an attack ad calling Obama "arrogant," and the next thing you know, media talking heads the world over are repeating it like the drones that they are. Stewart is right on point here, too; anyone running for president has to have a certain amount of arrogance in him or her, without question. I don't know who's currently "winning" the Arrogance War between the two (nor do I care), but hearing McCain boast about how he "knows how to win wars" strikes me as blatantly arrogant, dismissive of alternate strategies, and, quite frankly, a total lie. As has been mentioned here and on countless other blogs (God only knows no one in the mainstream media has enough sac to ask him) -- "Name a war you've even remotely been in that's won, Senator." Anyone who did have the temerity to ask him to his face would most likely get that creepy smile and stare, and then a deflected answer (McCain has elevated that to an art form).

Probably my two favorite parts of this clip, though, are when McCain vows to pursue Obama to the "gates of hell," and then he just stares blankly ahead, with that creepy, plastic smile (at about the 7:20 mark); and when he says that he would not invade Pakistan because "it is a sovereign nation." And Iraq was... WHAT?

Media reports Obama's tax plan wrong, again

In recent months, the press has repeatedly reported Obama's tax plan inaccurately, and the problem doesn't seem to be getting better.

From Media Matters:

On July 7, washingtonpost.com's The Trail, CNN, and CBSNews.com each repeated Sen. John McCain's assertion during a Denver town hall meeting earlier that day that -- "If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator [Barack] Obama is going to raise your tax rates" -- without noting that the claim is false. In fact, Obama has proposed rolling back President Bush's tax cuts only on "people who are making 250,000 dollars a year or more"; according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center's table of 2007 tax returns that reported small-business income, 481,000, not 23 million, of those returns are in the top two income tax brackets -- which include all filers with taxable incomes of more than $250,000.

Two things about this story frustrate me - first, that McCain simply lies about what Obama plans to do about taxes, and that the press willfully reports it as fact.

There probably aren't many taxpayers in America who feel that they don't pay enough taxes, or even just the right amount. However, people in the lower tax brackets need tax relief a whole lot more than people who earn more than $250,000 per year, period.

I'd also like to know when the benefits of the rich getting tax breaks is going to kick in. Very early in Bush's first term, before his first round of tax cuts, the American people were told that when people in the higher tax brackets get tax cuts, they would stimulate the economy. We're still waiting, Mr. President (and we will for a looooong time), because thus far it hasn't happened. In fact, the economy is getting worse.

What are John McCain's answers to our faltering economy? Two of them are a gimmick gas tax holiday, along with cutting the corporate tax rate. Both are horrifically stupid ideas. But, to distract from said stupidity, McCain and his adoring media simply lie about Obama's plan.

However, I'm not all that crazy about Obama's plan, either; I think that before anyone gets tax cuts, America really has many things that need to be addressed: mass transit, our soaring debt, homeland security (which is still sorely lacking in many areas), universal health care, etc. But, it's an election year, so tax cuts always have to be a center piece of any candidate's proposals, and I get that. I simply like Obama's plan a whole lot better.

What cut-ups: O'Lielly & Newt blast NYT

I almost laughed myself silly when I saw this footage - Newt Gingrich and Bill O'Lielly castigating the New York Times for its report on John McCain's alleged improper relationship with a lobbyist.

My favorite part: BOR intoning that "these people [The New York Times] aren't being honest, they're not reporting the news, and we have to stop this. Make them the villain, and that will galvanize people around John McCain."

Someone, anyone who works for Fox News bitching about another media outlet "not reporting the news" is akin to Dick Cheney complaining about the federal government's awarding of no-bid contracts.

I can't neglect to mention Gingrich's claptrap, either, including "a massive tax increase" and neither Obama nor Clinton being amenable "to making English the official language" of the United States.

I seriously doubt that the average Fox viewer, much less the drones who watch BOR, will even take the time to look into exactly what the candidates said, but both have proposed rolling back the tax cuts for people who earn over $250,000. Good. If Newt wants to call that a "massive tax increase," that's fine by me. But people need to know where that increase is going, and to whom.

When I first heard Gingrich say that, I almost jumped out of my chair with an "A-ha!" moment. You see, this is the exact strategy that Bush employed when he gave the rich the ill-advised tax cut back in '01. All but the most far-right thought that those tax cuts were a bad idea - even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stated at the time that the cuts would blow a massive hole in the budget.

Fast forward seven years, and of course, people like Gingrich and O'Lielly count on the fact that most people haven't paid attention. Quite naturally, it's the Democrats who are pointing out that these idiotic tax cuts can't continue (oh yea, along with two wars that are going to cost us an estimated $2 trillion), and here's Gingrich and other Repubes on TV harumphing about Democrats' "proposing a massive tax increase," when they never should have been cut in the first place.

The whole issue of English being the official language of the United States is about 787th on the list of things that should be debated in this campaign. To me, it's just a rather sad, transparent attempt by far-right, xenophobic Repubes to discriminate against immigrants.

Think I'm going too far? This is the same Republican Party that wants to have discrimination put into the Constitution by banning gay marriage.

h/t to C&L for the video

Another embassy attacked

When is our government going to get it right? Another U.S. embassy has been attacked - this one in Athens, Greece (above, the embassy shortly after the rocket attack).

Okay, that may be a little unfair, actually. We should wait to see what all of the facts are before making snap judgments about embassy security, but even a passive follower of the news knows that there are U.S. embassies around the world that are quite vulnerable to any psycho who feels like blowing up something American (or Americans, for that matter).

However, this does raise some questions about what our government has been doing to beef up security at our embassies around the world.

Following the 1998 embassy attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, President Clinton was slammed for not doing enough to beef up security at our foreign embassies following a study that determined over $1 billion would be needed to either build new embassies where existing ones were completely inadequate and unprotectable, or beef up security at vulnerable embassies. I'd love to know what our government has done since then.

I've read that some embassies are better protected, but how much digging do you think it would take to discover that the Bush administration has skimped on spending the money to protect U.S. citizens who work at our embassies around the world? After all, we've got tax cuts we have to keep in place! (And even more, if Republicans had their way - deficits be damned. Bush has already stated that he had more tax cuts planned, but the Democratic takeover in Congress foiled those plans.)

It's yet another reason that I align myself with the liberal way of thinking with most economic matters. I'll elaborate.

No one likes to pay more taxes - most of all, me. But, there are some things that need to be taken care of in this country, and I realize that is why we pay taxes in the first place.

Homeland Security

The fact that we haven't been significantly attacked again is as much a product of luck as what the Bush administration has done, despite Bush and Cheney reminding us every chance they get that we haven't been attacked again on their watch. (But, we WERE attacked on their watch, weren't we?) Yes, billions have been spent in the wake of 9-11, but in the right areas? Investigative reporters still routinely pass through airport security with items that have been banned on flights, and some of these items are dangerous.

Yet, the TSA, an agency created in the wake of 9-11, sure is vigilant about limited the number of carry-ons and making travelers' lives miserable. Worse yet, many of these TSA employees aren't making squat per year, and any traveler knows the quality and demeanor of TSA employees performing inspections at airports.

I won't even get started on the scum that harassed and bullied Vandra at Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport, when we were on our way to Mexico for our wedding. It's a good thing we were on our way to get married, or I probably would have lost control with the incompetent rube who took great pleasure in making Vandra cry when she tried to carry on her wedding dress in addition to another carry-on bag.

And the TSA was awfully strict about allowing passengers carrying liquid onto flights because of a threat in Great Britain. Passengers weren't even allowed to carry on trial-sized bottles of mouthwash! Mouthwash! The worst part about that is some people were getting on with liquids, and others weren't.

And homeland security is just one example. Protecting our embassies is another, and there are dozens and dozens of other examples: We have millions of people in this country without health care, millions of people are in poverty, and we are fighting two wars, yet all the Republicans want is to cut, cut, cut taxes, while deficits are driven up and up, bankrupting our future.

President Bush could have gone to the American people and asked them to sacrifice virtually anything in the wake of 9-11, and he would have had a captive and favorable audience.

The bottom line is this - Americans have not been asked to sacrifice ANYTHING for the War on Terror. Not in taxes, not in laws (save personal privacy & personal freedom and the right for the gov't to do anything to you if they call you a terrorist), not in anything. The only people who are sacrificing anything in this War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan are the soldiers fighting and giving their lives in both of these countries - they are the real heroes.

It's amazing to look back on our nation's World War II years - the rationing, the sacrifice, the total mobilization of our economy and society. We will never see that again. In one of my classes last semester, WW II came up in one of my lectures, and I referred to the rationing, etc. that our government put in place during the war, and I got open-mouthed stares and gasps. Our society and young people today (save our soldiers and their families) know nothing of sacrifice, and I'm including myself and my generation.

Many (nay, most) Americans are the luckiest people on the planet.

Where was I again? Oh yea, the embassies. We need to beef them up, and our government needs to spend the money to do it.

First, the waste needs to be cleaned up in this government to save taxpayers billions. And there's loads and loads of waste in the tens of billions.

Next, this Congress needs to do what it needs to do in order to make us safer.

Get going, Congress. And the only way they will get going is if we hold our representatives in Congress accountable.