fragments

I do this thing, where I keep stories/blogs open that I feel like I want to post about, and create new tabs in my browser to accommodate them. Sometimes I don't end up posting on the material because it seems less interesting later, and sometimes I put it off and have a little collection going. Now I have so many tabs open on Firefox, that something has to be done. So here's my current political milieu:

A recent NYT oped by Frank Rich on why McCain still should worry about dissent within his own party (Repubs in PA voted in the Primary apparently just to show that they *don't* support McCain). Which is interesting, because he's flip flopped on so many issues in his mad dash to pay homage to the "lunatic fringe" of the right. So either the deference is too much too late, or some Republican voters are catching on that they don't want another 4 years of McSame policies. Anyways, I'm most interested in McCain and his attitude to the working class and working poor:

Last week found Mr. McCain visiting economically stricken and “forgotten” communities (forgotten by Republicans, that is) in what his campaign bills as the “It’s Time for Action Tour.” It kicked off in Selma, Ala., a predominantly black town where he confirmed his maverick image by drawing an almost exclusively white audience.

The “action” the candidate outlined in the text of his speeches may strike many voters as running the gamut from inaction to inertia. Mr. McCain vowed that he would not “roll out a long list of policy initiatives.” (He can’t, given his long list of tax cuts.) He said he would not bring back lost jobs, lost wages or lost houses. But, as The Birmingham News reported, this stand against government bailouts for struggling Americans didn’t prevent his campaign from helping itself to free labor underwritten by taxpayers: inmates from a local jail were recruited to set up tables and chairs for a private fund-raiser.

And this digestion (at Down with Tyranny) of why McCain is hypocritical when he says that Obama is "insensitive to poor people" (if I knew of an adjectival form of "cognitive dissonance" I'd include that as a likely diagnosis):

...when it comes to giving working families a break, McCain has been a nightmare. You want to know why American jobs get shipped overseas and why American workers who lose their jobs are left in the lurch? Just examine McCain's voting record, a voting record that has tossed the poor, native Americans, veterans, our country's children, and the unemployed under the bus. McCain was one of only 28 right-wing extremists who voted to kill the minimum wage and has long opposed legislation to increase the minimum wage, even filibustering to prevent working people from getting a hike in the minimum wage. Similarly, McCain has opposed health care for poor children and when Bush vetoed a bill that increased health care for children, McCain loudly rubber stamped his decision. Clearly, John McCain has been no friend to poor people.

Also, I kind of feel like adopting Arianna Huffington's Right is Wrong for some fun reading. Because it wouldn't hurt this country to reflect on the fear mongering tactics that the right will likely pull out again in this election:

During the 2004 race, there was an endless line of members of the Right's establishment eager to parrot the "al Qaeda wants Kerry to win" talking point -- including Senator Orrin Hatch, who made the despicable claim that terrorists "are going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry."

Even without a photoshopped photo of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi sporting a Kerry-Edwards campaign button, this "terrorists for Democrats" routine was laughable, loathsome, and a new low in American politics. It was also patently untrue. Why in the world would the terrorists have wanted to get rid of George Bush? He is their chief recruiter: a man who has alienated our allies, isolated us, and united the Muslim world against us.

The president's preemptive invasion of Iraq has been such a boon to al Qaeda that in 2004 the British ambassador to Italy, Ivor Roberts, called Bush the terrorist organization's "best recruiting sergeant."

And now I can finally close some tabs.