I wrote this last night before going to bed please excuse the tense. It was originally written for my page.  I wanted to share with more people.

As a religious minority (I am an atheist - Spider Grandmotherist.  I do my best to live by the two rules given tp the Hopi Indians by their Spider Grandmother: "Don't go around hurting folks.  Try to learn about things.") I am sick of political candidates pandering to religious testing by fundamentalist preachers posturing in  their megachurchs like modern day Elmer Gantrys and mainly questioning the candidates beliefs about Jesus, abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage and euthanasia.  

Come to think of it, I think there used to be something in our U.S. Constitution banning this, but I suppose after almost 8 years of the Bush II presidency, and a majority of Democratic cowards and Republican crooks in our Congress and a criminal majority in the SCOTUS, that, like so many things in our constitution, the ban on religious testing no longer applies.

Up north of the border, there are some really strange political shenanagans going on. An election to stop an investigation? It might actually happen in Canada next month.

So Bush is about to "cut and run":

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq's cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal from the country, according to senior American officials.

The draft agreement sets 2011 as the date by which all remaining U.S. troops will leave Iraq...

Teams of American and Iraqi negotiators spent months haggling over the deal, which represents a remarkable turnaround from just a few months ago, when talk of timetables and deadlines was routinely dismissed by the Bush administration and other Republicans in Washington...

President George W. Bush is almost certain to accept the agreement, according to U.S. officials. The administration believes that the deal doesn't require congressional approval and won't present it to U.S. lawmakers.

PRESS RELEASE
Thursday, August 21, 2008

No one wants to keep the Republican out of The White House more than I do.  I support Obama and I will vote for him.  

Call it my personal catharsis.

There is something rotten in Denmark.  Something is not computing.  Why is Obama campaigning still against Hillary and McCain?  Democratic party, why are you letting this occur?

It's easy to mock John McCain for his comments on wealth in American society. Or Phil Gramm's comments that we are suffering from some kind of mental recession, I thought it would be a bit of a laugh to point out a few gems of "class-based" comedy that point to greater truths. Hope it lightens your day while we all wait for the VP pick. (I couldn't bring myself to write about that after watching diaries scroll by for days).

Georgia on My Mind
By Jerome Grossman

During his long presidential campaign when he also had responsibilities and duties as a United States Senator, John McCain found the time to make three separate trips to the nation of Georgia, a country of less than 5 million people, whose main claim to importance was a pipeline carrying oil from wells owned by western companies in the Caspian Sea basin.

It took a lot of phone calls and emails, but the Obama for America Campaign has officially distanced itself from the controversial "Africa for Obama" group led by one Professor Ndi Okereke-Onyuike.

In a strongly-worded letter that leaves no wiggle room for misinterpretation, the Campaign forcefully dissociates itself from efforts by the controversial head of the Nigerian Stock Exchange to raise funds with the expressed intention of remitting such funds to the Obama Campaign.

More below the fold.

As you know.. This election has been close as heck.. A big Obama lead has slowly crumbled as people turn to their old fears of terra terra terra and greed and want of instant gratification..

I have noticed the Republican fans running from forum to forum touting democratic weakness, I have seen ads attacking on taxes and so on an so forth..

So while I had shunned Obama and supported Clinton after he backed down and voted for telecom immunity.. McCain's recent boldness has forced me back into the game..

I will discuss my views on the situation and what I think we need to do about it..

Words have to be more than just words. As we reach the apex of another election cycle it is time for words to start having real meaning. Unless you were the neighborhood bully one of the first platitudes thrown at you came from your mother, "Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never harm you." Nice sentiment but as we grew up we learned that words can be more harmful than sticks and stones. The words I would most like to see us work into the fabric of our government come from Pres. Eisenhower and Sen. Robert Kennedy.

There's a thing going around called, "Why I'm Voting Democrat." As can be expected, it's idiotically wrong-headed and scurrilous, citing false point after false point of jingoism and scare politics. Most of you have probably seen it, or will see it.

Here is my response. If you want to send it out in answer to the Democrat one, or just in general if you like it, feel free to do so. You may use any or all of it, edited or unedited, for content or length. I know it's kind of long, because once I got started ...  

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I’m voting Republican because Al Gore is a Democrat and he has started this hoax about global warming, and wants to make me pay more for gas, or drive a tiny car, instead of my All-American Hummer (which the Republicans gave me a tax deduction for!!). Or else Al Gore will force me to drive a slow electric car, like his gay friends in Hollywood. I believe that if someone investigated it (not the New York Times, which is socialistic) they would find that Al Gore has used the money from all those baloney awards he won to pay off scientists and news liberals to say that there is global warming. Because Al Gore hates my car.  

At what point to political speculations go beyond mere amusement and bet-fodder to outright spooky? It’s one thing to have predicted Obama to take the nomination nearly a year before he throws his hat in the ring but that’s nothing next to predicting McCain in early December of ’07 (in the now epic The Republican Candidates are the Most Unelectable Gang of Freaks in American History). But then to go on and nail down Senator Joe Biden as Bama’s Veep in late May of this year? I know what you’re saying: who is this iSenseChange and how is he so dead-on-balls accurate for this election? How can we reward this latter-day NeoNostradamus for the sheer prescience involved in these utterly uncanny picks of his? What glorious accolades can we lay at his freshly oiled feet, what leafy laurels around his surely massive skull? Judging from the lackluster response to my admittedly weird entries thus far, I’m guessing a handful of reads and less than ten comments. Half of which are my own. Fuck it, says I. Ignore me at your peril. I am the Kossack Kreskin. And I have massive nuts.

John McNicotine is now for the tobacco lobby after years of working against it.  He not only opposes the cigarette taxes he used to support but also opposes FDA regulation of the tobacco industry after years of supporting it.  McNicotine is an ex-smoker and should understand just how addictive nicotine is, and he even acknowledged the exceptionally high death rate for tobacco users when he joked that cigarette exports to Iran were part of his plot to kill Iranian citizens.  For McNicotine to cave in to the tobacco cartel is the ultimate flip-flop:
http://www.boston.com/...

Why has McNicotine caved in to the interests of the tobacco drug cartel?  It couldn't possibly have anything to do with hiring tobacco lobbyist Charlie Black as his senior adviser.  Move along folks.  There's nothing to see here:
http://firedoglake.com/...

Now let's use the traditional Rethug "moral values" and "sanctity of life" frames against McNicotine!  There's more in the flip.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

Hi. John Sidney McCain III, here. I know a lot of you Daily Kossacks aren't of a mind to listen to my straight talk, but being the original maverick that I am, I am going to very publicly and proudly cross the aisle and tell you just how, in my own words (more or less, with the help of one of your regular contributors) share with you over the next several days how my experiences as a prisoner of war for seven years in Vietnam shaped my life, my character, my resolve, my views and my candidacy to become the next President of the United States who, despite sharing the same party, the same views, the same talking point and the same most wonderful special mancrush of a hug, will in no way be like the previous administration.

So, I'd like to start off this first part of what I think will be a five part series with the easiest, least controversial topic in American politics: Abortion.

As you hip netroots types like to say: More below the break. Heh!