McCain's scary economic advisor

Salon:

Not only is former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm a shill for special interests, his deregulation policies helped spur the mortgage crisis, among other financial disasters

McCain voted with Bush 100 percent of the time in 2008.

Thinkprogress:
According to a CQ analysis of Senate votes on issues President Bush expressed “an explicit, stated opinion,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) voted with President Bush 100 percent of the time in 2008 and 95 percent of the time in 2007. Despite his record, McCain’s supporters try to deny that a McCain presidency would be a third Bush term in terms of pushing similar policies. Recently, the campaign has gone to great lengths to avoid being seen with Bush.

McCain Skips GI Bill Vote to Campaign

TPM:
The Senate just voted to pass Jim Webb's 21st Century version of the G.I. bill, which would greatly expand educational benefits to veterans.

Guess who skipped it?

John McCain.

Secretary of Defense Gates: US Should "Sit Down and Talk" to Iran

Washington Post:
The United States should construct a combination of incentives and pressure to engage Iran, and may have missed earlier opportunities to begin a useful dialogue with Tehran, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday.

"We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us."

Also, in a hearing today, Secretary Gates refused to defend Bush's appeasement statement.

GOP's Hagel Takes On McCain, Praises Obama, Raises Bush Impeachment

Sam Stein:
Chuck Hagel is quickly becoming Barack Obama's answer to Joe Lieberman.

The Republican Senator from Nebraska was a political thorn in McCain's side on Tuesday night, repeatedly lavishing praise on the presumptive Democratic candidate and levying major foreign policy criticisms at the GOP nominee and the Republican Party as a whole. At one point, Hagel even urged the Arizona Republican to elevate his campaign discourse to a higher, more honest level.

TN Senator Turns On State Party, Tells Them Not To Attack Michelle

Huffingtonpost:
The Tennessee State GOP is running out of allies. A recent negative ad ridiculing Michelle Obama has prompted a round of national criticism, including a few fightin' words from Sen. Obama.

Now, Bob Corker, the state's Republican senator, has entered the fray. Unfortunately for local Republicans, he's taking the side of Democrats

Meanwhile, it appears the ad, which features "proud Americans," isn't comprised of the most wholesome Americans. One Bob Pope, a gun rights advocate who appears in the negative ad, is also a former strip club investor. No word if he's proud of that too.

BAKER FLUMMOXES HANNITY: RIPS BUSH FOREIGN POLICY

TPM:
James Baker, the globally accomplished diplomat and former GOP Secretary of State under Reagan totally flummoxed the cartoonish GOP bagman, Sean Hannity.

Point blank, Baker said that given the choice between waging a war or a foreign policy solely restricted to establishing a new democracy in the Mid-east or alternatively pursuing policies of
stabilizing the region, policies of stabilization were preferable.

Hannity tried to parry this heretical bashing of Bush's core foreign policy talking point with the usual GOP gobbledygook propaganda such as "this is "World War III" and "this is a fight against Islamo Fascists." Baker seemed uninterested in Sean's offer of GOP red meat talking points and
he continued.

Huckabee jokes about Obama ducking a gunman

This is beyond disgusting. After we have lost two Kennedys and MLK to gun violence, this douchebag goes in front of the NRA and jokes about assassinating our African American presidential candidate? The Republicans having nothing to run on but hate and fear. What a despicable lot. Some Christian Huckabee is...

CNN:
During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

Exclusive Video: McCain Was For Talking To Hamas Before He Was Against It...

Huffingtonpost:
Two years ago, in an interview with James Rubin for Sky News, Sen. John McCain expressed a willingness to negotiate with the terrorist group Hamas -- the very group that McCain has been relentlessly using to smear Sen. Barack Obama over the last several weeks.

You can watch the video of the interview Here

(Pathetic) Tennessee GOP Attacks Michelle Obama, Obama Camp Hits Back

Huffingtonpost:
The Tennessee GOP hasn't yet had their fill of Obama dirty tricks. A few months ago, they circulated a photo of Barack Obama in traditional Somali garb. Now, they are going after his wife.

Olbermann To Bush: "This War Is Not About You...Shut The Hell Up!"

You can watch Keith's special comment Here

McCain Aides Forced to Quit over Ties to Burmese Military Junta

Alternet:
Two top aides to the Republican presidential nominee John McCain have been forced to resign over their ties to the Burmese military junta, providing yet another embarrassment for Mr McCain who is trying to present himself as the scourge of special interests in Washington.

Douglas Goodyear, who had been chosen to run the 2008 Republican convention, said he was resigning "so as not to become a distraction in this campaign" after it was revealed he was connected to a lobbying firm that has represented Burma's military leaders.

Detainees drugged against their will for deportation

Washington Post:
The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

Such episodes are among more than 250 cases The Washington Post has identified in which the government has, without medical reason, given drugs meant to treat serious psychiatric disorders to people it has shipped out of the United States since 2003 -- the year the Bush administration handed the job of deportation to the Department of Homeland Security's new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens

Washingtonpost:
It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.

Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: "Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother's Day."

By voting against it?

If Boehner's explanation doesn't make much sense, he's been under a great deal of stress lately.

Quote for your Friday

Dkos:
"It's hard to say which perception McCain fears worst: being seen as yesterday's man -- a man of the last century -- or being seen as a shameless toady who sold his "maverick" soul for a bloated, stinking elephant carcass"

Obama takes triple crown: Most delegates, most popular vote and most superdelegates

ABC News:
ABC News reports that Barack Obama has taken the lead in superdelegates. Obama has 267 to Clinton’s 265.

ABC’s Jake Tapper reports, “Senator Obama has two big endorsements — Congressman Payne, a former Clinton supporter, and Senator Defazio. That means he takes the lead with superdelegates 267 to Senator Clinton’s 265. For the first time, Barack Obama can now say he leads Hillary Clinton for the battle in the all important superdelegates and mounting odds against Clinton are taking a toll.”

McCain embraces Bush's radical views of executive power

Salon:
McCain lamented that "there is one great exception in our day" to these principles. Surely "the exception" to which McCain refers must be the fact that we've lived for the last eight years under a President who literally has claimed powers greater than those possessed by the British King; whose underlings have promulgated radical and un-American theories literally vesting him with the power to rule outside of the law, who has exploited a political and media culture devoid of "suspicion of power" when exercised by the White House, and who has acted with no meaningful constraints or checks from Congress and virtually none from the judiciary? No, actually, that isn't the "exception" to which McCain was referring at all.

Lawyers for Guantánamo Inmates Accuse U.S. of Eavesdropping

NY Times:
One lawyer for Guantánamo detainees said he replaced his office telephone in Washington because of sounds that convinced him it had been bugged. Another lawyer who represents detainees said he sometimes had other lawyers call his corporate clients to foil any government eavesdroppers.

In interviews and a court filing Tuesday, lawyers for detainees at Guantánamo said they believed government agents had monitored their conversations. The assertions are the most specific to date by Guantánamo lawyers that officials may be violating legal principles that have generally kept government agents from eavesdropping on lawyers.

Post-War Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths, U.S. Says

Bloomberg:
The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.

As media pounces on Obama relationships, McCain gets a pass

Rawstory:

Mastermind of Nixon's Watergate break-in calls McCain an 'old friend'

It's a classic pattern in politics, isn't it? A young, fresh, charismatic, upstart candidate bursts onto the campaign trail to glowing reviews from the press that covers him only to have those same reporters and pundits aim their BB guns toward his rising balloon just as it's ready to crest the horizon.

While that arc seems to be playing out now for Barack Obama, whose faced relentless recrimination over his associations with controversial pastors and former radicals in recent weeks, the media largely let John McCain float by unscathed.

Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman explores McCain's "own radical friend."

Ex-Iraq commander accuses Bush Administration of 'gross incompetence'

Rawstory:
In a new memoir set to be published May 6, the former commander of US forces in Iraq provides new intimate details of the goings-on at high levels of the Bush Administration in the first year of the Iraq war.

His sharp tongued conclusion: "Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."

The McCain Health Plan: Millions Lose Coverage, Health Costs Worsen, and Insurance and Drug Industries Win

Ourfuture.org:
[McCain] wants voters to think he is going after health care cost inflation. In reality, he wants to dismantle the employer-provided system that now covers over 60 percent (or about 158 million) of non-elderly Americans, forcing millions of us who now get fairly decent health insurance on the job to instead buy whatever they can find on the individual market controlled by unregulated and predatory insurance companies. And he would drive health care costs upward, not downward.

VIDEO: Baptist Minister Asks McCain If He Called His Wife a C*nt

Huffingtonpost:
Clive businessman Marty Parrish was escorted from Sen. John McCain's town hall meeting by Des Moines police and members of the Secret Service after asking McCain if he had called his wife Cindy an expletive in 1992.

Parrish, an ordained Baptist minister who holds a master's degree in political science, was questioned by Secret Service agents before being released. He was not charged in the incident. Parrish asked whether McCain called his wife Cindy an expletive related to the female anatomy, as has been alleged in the book "The Real McCain," written by Dem strategist Cliff Schecter.

You can watch the video here

Marty Parrish: "A guy who would call his wife a trollop and a c--t just because she had ruffled his hair in front of five guys is not only a jerk, but a dangerous hothead if he ever gets his finger on the button."

"And since the mainstream media has decided to give McCain a free pass, I decided to stand up and, if they gave me an open mike, ask the question that the press refuses to touched. Our country is in a serious crisis after nearly eight years of Bush, and America appears to be oblivious to the danger this guy (McCain) poses to our country."

Former Guantanamo Prosecutor Says Trials Tainted

Reuters:
Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base - The former chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals testified on Monday that the tribunals were tainted by political influence and evidence obtained through prisoner abuse.

Air Force Col. Moe Davis, who quit the war court last year, said political appointees and higher-ranking officers pushed prosecutors to file charges before trial rules were even written.

A supposedly impartial legal adviser demanded they pursue cases where the defendant "had blood on his hands" because those would excite the public more than mundane cases against document forgers and al Qaeda facilitators, Davis said.

Webb calls out McCain on GI Bill: ‘He’s so full of it’

C&L:
A couple of weeks ago, John McCain talked about the importance of increasing the size of the U.S. military. To entice more volunteers, he said, the government should focus on incentives: “[O]ne of the things we ought to do is provide [the troops with] significant educational benefits in return for serving.”

A few days later, McCain announced that he’ll oppose a bipartisan measure to renew and expand the GI Bill for a new generation of veterans.

Break-ins plague targets of US Attorney

Rawstory:
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA – In two states where US attorneys are already under fire for serious allegations of political prosecutions, seven people associated with three federal cases have experienced 10 suspicious incidents including break-ins and arson.

These crimes raise serious questions about possible use of deliberate intimidation tactics not only because of who the victims are and the already wide criticism of the prosecutions to begin with, but also because of the suspicious nature of each incident individually as well as the pattern collectively. Typically burglars do not break-into an office or private residence only to rummage through documents, for example, as is the case with most of the burglaries in these two federal cases.

GOP objects to bill allowing recounts

Politico:
Voting rights activists who hoped the federal government would help local governments pay for paper trails and audits for electronic voting machines have gone from elation to frustration as they watched Republicans who supported such a proposal in committee vote against bringing it to the House floor.

The result: The elections in November will likely be marred by the same accusations of fraud and error involving voting machines that arose in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential race.

When New Jersey Democratic Rep. Rush Holt’s Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act came up for a vote in the House Administration Committee on April 2, the Republicans on the committee gave it their unanimous support. But two weeks later, those same Republican members voted against moving the bill to the House floor. It would have taken a two-thirds vote to push the bill to the floor; with most House Republicans opposed, the bill didn’t make it that far.