Corpocracy and the Seven

When a legislator no longer represents our beliefs, we can vote them out of office; likewise, when presidents screw up, the people can kick them out the next time they go to the polls (or they can even be impeached by the legislators); but what do we do when the third branch of government messes things up by issuing rulings that will ultimately steer the nation in the wrong direction? Well, if you're Pat Robertson (yes, he of the Haitian deal with the devil quote), you can have a chat with your god to get things changed; if your the Ecuadorian Congress, you can just replace the whole lot; maybe you'll get lucky and they'll be convicted of, "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" deemed serious enough by Congress to constitute impeachment; but most likely all we can do is wait until they retire or die. Almost no matter how bad they mess up, they've got jobs for life.

While this job security is supposed to insulate them from the temporary passions of the public, it has also had the effect of allowing them to assert their ideological beliefs in making decisions which have had disastrous results. Perhaps the most infamous case was that of Dred Scott in which the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS from here on) ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants, whether or not they were slaves, were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States. The decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney is regarded as the single worst decision in the history of the court, ruining the reputation of the Chief Justice and leading the nation to the Civil War. As recently as 2000 SCOTUS decided to put an idiot king in the White House, with the same predictable result, war. Ironically, that 2000 decision may have been motivated by soon to be retiring Sandra Day O'Connor wanting to have her replacement named by a Republican president, thus maintaining the conservative composition of the court we still have today. Now that's powerful, better than 4 out of 5 dentist recommend testimonial propaganda! Chief Justice Taney died a vilified, penniless and broken man for his role in keeping the Republic under the control of slaveholders and bitterly dividing the nation; only time will tell if today's Chief Justice, John Roberts Jr. will also go down in infamy as the man who completed the transformation of his nation into a corpocracy.

In a 5-4 decision the court ruled in favor of Citizen United and overturned a variety of campaign finance laws enacted over the past century. For example, it nullifies part of a century-old statute known as the Tillman Act (1907), which barred corporations from using treasury funds to engage in the political process. It also vitiated similar prohibitions imposed on unions after World War II. Moreover, the decision invalidates part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold) that prohibited certain types of ads within 60 days of a general election and 30 days from a primary. (Supreme Court Opinion). Bottom line: Both corporations and labor unions may now use their general treasury funds to pay for unlimited independent expenditures, including advertisements, for or against candidates at any time. Free speechers cheered while civil liberty advocates jeered. The reason that those happy with the ruling are so rests on three premises, all of which we can intuit or show to be false.

One: Corporations are people and are therefore entitled to free speech protection. An odd  transfer propaganda technique but still easy to argue away, both intuitively (duh, um, people die, love, shit, breathe, have a conscience and compassion; corporations, not so much) and legally. The legal basis rests on a ruling made by the SCOTUS in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1886. While the court's actual ruling in the case was uncontroversial, (something about fences along train tracks - seriously) the court reporter added his own thoughts to the headnote. Wackiness, begin your work:

Headnotes are a short summary of the opinions, facts and arguments of each case the court rules on that precede the United States Reports (the books that tell the legal community about the courts decisions). These headnotes are "not the work of the Court, but are simply the work of the Reporter, giving his understanding of the decision, prepared for the convenience of the profession". The court reporter that day, J.C. Bancroft Davis, a former railway president (hellooo? conflict of interest anyone!) wrote in part: "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." Voila, while the court specifically didn't want to make a ruling on the 14th amendment, any mention of which is absent from the ruling itself, corporations have enjoyed the same rights as people under the 14th ever since. Not being a constitutional scholar maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like a pretty flimsy thin basis for corporate personhood.

Two: Money is speech. Really? Do I have to tell you why it isn't? OK, here goes. It should be enough that it sounds like something an amphetamine junkie like Ayn Rand would say but it goes deeper and unfortunately once again turns on a constitutional SCOTUS ruling. It was 1976 and this time it was Buckley v. Valeo in which the SCOTUS upheld a federal law which set limits on campaign contributions, but ruled that spending money to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech, and struck down portions of the law. The court also stated candidates can give unlimited amounts of money to their own campaigns (thus your Ross Perots, Michael Bloombergs, Mitt Romneys and their ilk). The suit arose after the first serious attempt by Congress to regulate campaign contributions and spending after the Nixon impeachment passed  despite a Ford veto. The plaintiffs claimed the legislation was in violation of the 1st and 5th Amendment rights to freedom of expression and due process, respectively. The court agreed. Again, easy to show how this is wrong on so many levels.

To those ideologues who would champion this decision as protecting the free speech I can only ask: "What can possibly be the purpose of the First Amendment other than to allow all voices to be heard in the marketplace of ideas?" With their vast resources, corporations will now be able to dominate that marketplace, ensuring that theirs is the loudest voice, effectively silencing opposing voices - precisely what the First Amendment was designed to foil. Even more egregiously, when we're not talking about corporations or the rich the court has no problem limiting speech. In the last few decades, the conservative justices dominating the court have limited speech rights for demonstrators, students, and whistle blowers; you still famously can't scream Rush is a fat, latinboyOxyContinlovingprick in a crowded theater, or fire; while they may be more annoying than political ads, Hare Krishnas had their right to distribute leaflets taken away. Try to exercise your right to speech in America without spending dollars and you'll often times find yourself behind bars. Repeatedly, the court has told us that some speech is more important than others.

Three: In their ruling, the majority somehow clung to the emperor's new clothes contention that corporate campaign cash has had no pernicious impact on public policy. "Independent (political) expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in the recent ruling. Alice in Wonderland had nothing on this corporations are just plain folks propagandist thinking. While the delusional will argue to the contrary, the evidence clearly indicates that money influences the way elected officials vote, so by giving those with more money the ability to 'speak' in unlimited amounts, they are ipso facto being given a more powerful vote than the poor.

Maybe they didn't notice the whole Wall Street bailout, it was pretty easy when "they [the banks] frankly own the place [congress]". House members who voted for the $700 billion bank bailout received 54 percent more campaign contributions from banks and securities firms than House members voting against the bailout. That is an average of $231,877 in bank contributions received by each House member voting "Yes", $150,982 for each member voting "No." Is there any wonder that big oil is already one step ahead of any sustainable energy project? Want to keep the National Weather Service from sharing the weather forecasts with the people? It'll cost about $7,750 to get a senator to introduce a bill to end "socialized weather" so that private firms like Accuweather can repackage government data and sell it to the public. Wanna influence the health care bill? It's pretty cheap and easy jedi reverse-Reagan name-calling propaganda, with the Cadillac name change from welfare queen to insurance plan. Well, that or about $400 million over the first 9 months of last year would buy you as much influence as the health care lobby. If only we could visually see the influence of 'speech' on the outcome of legislation? Or perhaps we tire of health care, cough, telecom immunity, where House Democrats who flipped their positions to favor immunity for telecom firms received an average of 68 percent more money from ATT's, Verizon's and Sprint's political action committees, compared with Democrats who remained opposed to immunity. That's $4,987 to each Democrat who opposed immunity and $8,359 to each Democrat who flipped positions to favor telecom firms. The brainwashed are sold that this latest ruling will encourage 'transparency' and 'leveling the playing field', some wishful card stacking propaganda, as if by some luck the market will distribute the money to candidates and lawmakers equitably. Or, maybe the Supremes have an ulterior motive: they want to show the world what happens in the extreme case by opening the floodgates to the highest bidder wins in order to how evil it is in order to justify the coming end of business buying government through a constitutional amendment. Yeah, and I've got some real estate in Florida to sell you.


Learn more here and here and here, then raise your voice "NO"

It truly makes one wonder what the effect of 30 years of the Reagan revolution has had on the brain of most conservatives who are lauding this decision as a victory for free speech. It was a Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, who was so worried about the power of the trusts (yes, corporations were mere trusts of states then) that he called for public financing of elections and told Congress, "All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law." He didn't get all he wanted but he did get the Tillman Act which has now been gutted. Founder and fourth Chief Justice John Marshall once referred to the corporation as an "artificial being, invisible, intangible"; and Thomas Jefferson, warned almost two centuries ago that America must "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

In order to catch a glimpse of the Pandora's Box that this ruling has opened, one need look no further than the connections to the case; the people who brought it to the court and what they have done in the past:


And a taste of a couple of the adds these men have made offer a sneak peak of what's to come this November:


Or, this one. Um, I guess we'll call that the fear of our propaganda septet.

So, as we enter the age where we'll no longer have the senator from Iowa or the congressman from North Dakota, but the senator from Wal-Mart and the congressman from Goldman Sachs, a couple more small details. No limits exist to prevent foreign corporations from contributing to the kitty, nothing to prevent one of Osama bin Laden's relatives running any anti-energy self-sufficiency ad they want, as long as it's clearly labeled brought to you by Freemont Group. Lastly, and most ominous of all, what I see happening is that more often than not, corporations won't even have to spend a penny, as the mere threat of launching attack ads will be enough to influence members of Congress to behave like the good patsies they have been paid for to be, legalization of what will in fact become weapons of blackmail and bribery in the hands of the lobbyists of the greedy and powerful. Oh, and before we in the rest of the world begin to feel too smug about the superiority and cleanliness of our democratic systems, a couple of caveats. The Prime Minister of Canada, the one who can't really be as creepy as he appears, Stephen Harper, tried himself to loosen the financial restrictions for political campaigns in the true north strong and free just a few years ago. The rest of us, well, we shouldn't forget that for the past few decades, instead of looking inwards at what's wrong with the country, the US usually looks for scapegoats (usually using the bandwagon propaganda technique to drum up support) and decide that they don't like us practicing our own kind of government. (Sorry, look at me using the glittering generality and seventh technique)

If you made it all the way here, pssst, here's where I got the Dred Scott idea, from where else, duh?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What A Tangled Web We Weave - Lies Part I

They stand in front of the cameras and microphones with crooked smiles plastered to their faces as they tell the people what it's thought they want to hear. No, the sky isn't falling, yes, there will be a better tomorrow. The past 30 years or so has brought with it a new world order, one that promises a better future for everyone, but the reality is in sharp contrast. The facts seem to tell me that not only is the sky falling, the earth is also about to open up and swallow us, due in no small part to the fact that people seem to accept the lies that they are told. I don't have the slightest idea why we seem to keep buying the lies, but I do know that now that Hillary is out of the picture, the real campaign for the presidency will start in earnest, which will bring with it a whole new level of BS.

Let's start with the economy stupid. The biggest lie, and the one that is almost universally accepted, is that the Republicans and their candidate represent fiscal responsibility, an idea somehow pulled from their "belief" in small government. Or maybe it's still belief in Alan Greenspan who had to be pulled out of the closet to get the public ready for increasing interest rates during an "economic slowdown". Stagflation fears. The "spiral" in prices feared needs to come as we've, America in particular, spent ourselves too far into debt. Us, as individuals, and them as the government can't continue the borrow and spend ways of the past century or so. The red ink has been picking up pace since the 80's when Reagan spent the reds into the ground. But he also pumped up the monster that is the military complex to unsustainable levels while ordering the people to spend as recklessly to keep the economy ticking. The man who invented "Reagonomics", David Stockman, has been indicted for stealing people's money, but that is what the American government, most pronouncedly during Republican reigns, has done. Stockman later repented, decrying the policies he helped create, but we'll get more of the same if McBush gets elected.

The past 3 decades have brought us so much. Taxes on the rich have fallen, while taxes on the rest have risen with predictable results. Measured in 2005 dollars the net worth of the top 2% of American families more than doubled from just over $1 million to over $2 million from 1984 to 2005 while the bottom quarter saw their worth actually fall. In fact, the poorest 10% have a negative net worth. The US national debt has increased from $930 billion in 1980 to $9.5 trillion today. Consumer credit in the US has risen to over $2.5 trillion, adding around $10 billion a month. All for what? A better life? A new TV, or better yet, a new God Car. The neo-cons have completed their transformation of McCain into McBush and he is now a die-hard tax cutter for the rich, doling out the odd stimulus cheques so we can at least go to the mall once a month. Leaving the rest of us to work more to pay for the extravagances. The phenomenon isn't confined the the US, Europe is in similar straits, and the powers that be have decided that people simply have to work more, and have therefore raised the maximum number of working hours to 65 from 48. Of course, this only matters if you're lucky enough to have a job. Well, you need enough money to put gas in the car and food on the table. Oh yeah, those costs are rising too ... which brings us to part 2 of lies tomorrow.

League of Democracies, Us vs Them

Picture it. John "McBush" McCain and Nicolas Sarkozy standing side by side. Except instead of wearing normal suits and ties, they're wearing superhero suits. I picture Super Sarkozy as Superman and McBush as Ironman. (Sorry Prime Minister Brown, I don't think you'll be around long enough to try on the tights) Yes, it's the new and improved Justice League, but this time it's called the League of Democracies. I have to admit, I missed it the first time and second time around. Apparently John "McBush, McWar" McCain gave a foreign policy speech a little over a year ago and yet again a couple months ago in which he advocated the establishment of a new League of Democracies. So what is it you may ask? Well, you take the countries who you like, you bring them all together, slap a name on it, something with democracy in it, and use it to forward your foreign policy goals. The first two questions that popped into my head were why would we need it and who would be included, let's take a look shall we.

The obvious answer to the why question is the necessity the McBush campaign feels to distance themselves from the disastrous foreign policy followed for the last eight years by George W Bush. The dangerous mix of the "war on terror" and the "global freedom agenda" has been an utter failure, leaving the world a more dangerous place than ever and the image of America in ruins and even Joe Voter is beginning to understand this. So, combining the attack of Obama's diplomacy strategy with the idea of a new "modern" UN to cope with global problems, Joe Voter sees new hope, all without having to talk to the enemy. A few excerpts from McWar's speech of over a year ago, a speech in which he quoted Hamilton, Truman, Madison, T. Roosevelt and Reagan!:
"...our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom, knowledge and resources necessary to succeed. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we must work to persuade our democratic friends and allies that we are right."
"like-minded nations working together in the cause of peace. The new League of Democracies would form the core of an international order of peace based on freedom. It could act where the UN fails to act, to relieve human suffering in places like Darfur. It could join to fight the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and fashion better policies to confront the crisis of our environment... It could bring concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma or Zimbabwe, with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval."
All sounds pretty good, except for the fact that we already have a world body called the United Nations that's supposed to do all that. Looking past it's obvious flaws (hello security council veto power) wouldn't it make more sense to try to improve the model we already have, one that includes all nations, instead of excluding a whole group of nations from the process. Wouldn't this new league inevitably lead to the formation of an international counterweight, perhaps a real life axis of evil...?

Which brings me to question number 2, who would be part of this new league? I wonder how they would decide on membership. Do you think there would be a slumber party at the White House and McBush, Sarkozy, Merkel et al. would stay up all night talking about boys, I mean other countries, which ones would be just right? If we take the number of countries that McBush threw out there of 100, how would we decide which 100 nations are democratic enough to join? Maybe they'd draw up a chart similar to say the one use by the Economist in their democracy index, or maybe the freedom of the world scores compiled by Freedom House. Let's take the Economist's list as it's much easier to read. I guess the 28 "full" democracies would be no-brainer choices (Sweden at number 1 and Iceland at 2, damn, I've gotta get to Iceland some day, also the happiest people in the world). If we're to get anywhere near 100, we also have to assume the 54 "flawed" democracies also get in there bringing our total to 82. This is a leap of faith though as we've got such democratic heavies as Timor Leste and Mali in there, plus the fact that Palestine and Israel would have to find a way to play nice together. This "coalition of the willing" still needs another 18 member to get to a hundred, and the pickings are pretty slim from here on in, what the Economist terms "hybrid regimes". OK, maybe a Turkey, a Ghana or even Tanzania, but Iraq? or Kenya? of course not Russia, it comes in at 102.

The biggest flaw in the reasoning is the idea that just because they are democracies, these nations will share the same interests on different fronts and will be able to work together as a whole by this virtue. The UN has international legitimacy because every nation in the world participates in its decisions. Democracies' legitimacy comes from the consent of the governed, once they act outside their borders, no such legitimacy applies. Yes, the UN needs to be reformed and re-thought to meet the challenges of the 21st century, but I'll take it any day over the idea of a League of Democracies.

Crouching Bear, Snarling Dragon

The first foreign visit by a newly elected president is a highly symbolic gesture. I remember a few years ago, well almost eight long and torturous years in fact, shortly after Dubya was "elected", the uproar caused in Canada by the fact that his first trip abroad was to see Vicente Fox in Mexico instead of the traditional visit to his northern neighbour. It was seen as a deliberate snub to the Canadian government and a move towards the south as the previous three presidents had begun a tradition of smiling to the north first. So what can be read into Russia's newly elected President's first foreign diplomatic trip? This weekend Putvedev is visiting China.

Sino-Russian relations are possibly at an all-time high. Both economies are booming and both are looking to flex their muscle. Apart they are strong, together they hope to bring down American hegemony, a fact the hasn't been lost by any of the American presidential candidates, even if the electorate has missed it. Maybe if we weren't so inured to Dubya's failings it might have been a bigger part of the news coverage, but George W truly scored a triple crown of incompetence over the past couple months of foreign trips. In addition to being rejected by King Faud in Saudi Arabia in his request for more oil and trying to compare Barack Obama to Nazi appeasers in Israel he was also rebuffed by outgoing Russian president Vladimir Putin in Sochi, on the Black Sea. So long Vladimir, remember me, I'm the guy who looked into your eyes and got a sense of your soul, let's be friends, let us point interceptor missiles your way. NO! Now, with Putvedev in China, along with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, they wasted no time signing a joint statement, marking the first time they have come together in denouncing the plan.

With the rise in US power since the end of the Cold War and fear of Islamic extremism in Central Asia, it should have come as no surprise that both Russia and China's unease would lead to closer ties. The Sino-Russian Treaty of Good Neighborly Friendship and Cooperation (yes, it's real name! Maybe I'll call it the SRTGNF&C),in 2001 marked a real turning point. Since then bilateral trade volume has surged from $10.67 billion in 2000 to $48.17 billion last year, with Putvedev stating a target of $60 billion for this year. Of that $48 billion, almost $7 billion of it is oil flowing into China, which will exponentially grow once the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline and its branch to China are completed. Of course all of this growth has been driven by the transformation of the USSR to capitalist Russia and the opening of the Chinese market to capitalism, as the west and especially America probably would have wished for 20 years ago. At the same time as buying Chinese goods and Russian oil, America has also done everything in it's power to improve their future prospects, seemingly investing in their future. While borrowing money mainly from China daily to fund a war whose most pronounced effect globally has been increasing terrorism and the price of oil from $25 to $135 a barrel. Driving the value of the dollar down, thus increasing the cost of importing, mainly from China to buy more crap and finance the debt. Oh, yeah, about that war on terror...

Ostensibly on the pretext of training for joint responses to terrorist threats (and extremism and separatism, hello Taiwan), the Russian and Chinese armies have been staging manoeuvres together since their inaugural Peace Mission 2005, a result of the war on terror and the aforementioned SRTGNF&C. The week of August 18-25 of that year saw joint war games involving 10,000 troops, cruise missile capable Russian heavy bombers and units of the army, navy, air force, marine airborne and logistics units from both countries. Week 2 saw an amphibious landing in Eastern China, not far from Taiwan. In what has been evolving towards an "anti-NATO" group, the SCO, or Shanghai Cooperation Organization (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), played host to more "anti-terror drills" in 2007 on an even grander scale. In addition, through this group, both China and Russia are seeking to increase their influence, and reduce American influence in Central Asia both economically and militarily. Not only are they securing oil supplies, they've gone so far as to demand the US military out of it's member countries, with Uzbekistan complying. Yes, the names may be unpronounceable, but they are important staging posts for the war in Afghanistan. Remember Nixon in China? Neither do I, but I've read that it was a trip designed to counter fears of Soviet hegemony in Asia, an attempt to enlist China's support in America's containment strategy. The present American administration seems to have done everything possible to push them together.

The American plan to balance this new alliance in Central Asia has been the velvet revolution idea, working off the successes in the Ukraine of the orange revolution and the rose revolution of Georgia. However, with the possible exception of Kyrgyzstan, it's been a complete failure, most notably in Uzbekistan where yet another American staged coup attempt went awry in 2005 in Andijan. Two other wild cards, both of whom are observer states in the SCO, are Iran and India. With Iran obviously tilting to the east, India's role of possible kingmaker is undeniable. Donald Rumsfeld might have said of the 2005 Peace Mission "...I guess I don't find it notable" and continued, "I mean, countries do that. We are obviously observing what's takes place, but I didn't see anything in it that was threatening to Taiwan or anyone else." However, America has taken notice, witness the latest good cop-bad cop game played by McBush and Bush before and during Bush's last visit with Putin in Sochi. The reality is, for those of us who missed it the first time around, a new cold war is definitely forming with most of the same players playing different roles.

McBush

As the Democratic party slowly kills itself in the months (or is it years) running up to the November election, the Republican party has been able to sit back and relax, already knowing John McCain will be on the ballot and secure in the knowledge that Obama and Clinton are doing their dirty work for them. With that in mind, their real work is the transformation of the man once known as John McCain into the man (monster?) that all real Republicans want, someone who will from here on be known as McBush.

Just who is this 71 year-old senator for the state of Arizona, and more importantly what does he believe in? The answers to this question could only be answered if you specified what period of time you were asking about, pre-presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, or the monster that is in the morphing process of becoming McBush. What's the big deal you may ask? Surely the American people won't be duped into voting for a Republican again after eight years of Bush. If you are so certain, your memory is worse than those who will vote for McBush in huge numbers come November as you've already forgotten the 2004 election. At the time I would never have imagined a world where America would vote Bush back into the White House, but they did, in what was a near landslide victory. War in Iraq? Who cares?! Economy sliding into recession? (see stagflation article below) Whatever! Osama Bin Laden nowhere to be found? A mere nuisance! All of this can only be explained by the magic of the American electoral system, one where money and power have far greater influence than ideas and wisdom. Convince the right people that having your man in the oval office will mean more money in their pocket for the next four years, and you win.

Let's rewind to 2001. President Bush pushes his plan for one of the biggest tax cuts in history to jump start the economy. At the time, the man still known as McCain said that he could not "in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans." This was a tax cut aimed directly at the rich, with cuts mostly to capital gains and dividends. He becomes one of only two Republicans to vote against the plan. Along comes 2003 and Bush needs to keep his rich supporters happy before the next election and therefore comes up with another tax cut to match the first. The man still known as McCain called this cut "irresponsible" and saying "At a time of war, at a time of economic stagnation, at a time of rising national debt . . . one might expect our national leaders to pursue policies calling for shared sacrifice to achieve shared benefits. Regrettably, that is not the case." This man went on to be one of only 3 republicans to vote against the cuts, $674 billion that mostly helped the affluent (surprise!). Fast forward to today and a country in far worse economic shape still stuck in a quagmire overseas which will still cost trillions more and we see the outcome of the transformation process. Not only would McBush make the tax cuts introduced by Bush permanent, but his economic plan will add more cuts. This is something that most people would have said was impossible to hear out of the mouth of the man formerly known as McCain (MFKM from here on). Part one of McBush's plan is the suspension of federal taxes on gasoline and diesel from the end of May to the beginning of September to encourage Americans to drive more over the summer holiday, just what the world needs, help for the oil companies. The next part of his plan is based on lowering taxes for the rich (those making between $65,000 and $130,000) and (surprise!) lowering corporate taxes. This plan has been viciously attacked almost across the media spectrum.

Now, I'm not arguing again Keynesian economics, yes, tax cuts can help to stimulate the economy, it's not only Republicans who believe in this principal. I liked this video of JFK explaining his cuts of 1963 to the American people:


I just want to know when the brain operation was performed, or if it's just some kind of slow morphing potion that they fed poor ol' MFKM. The hard core republicans were afraid of a couple of MFKM's "shortcomings", one that he may not of been as "fiscally responsible" as they would like, and two that he was an not an evangelical Christian. Remember that this is a party in which three of the candidates for president openly declared that they did NOT believe in evolution. Reading the transcripts of what was said in the debate on June 5, 2007 in New Hampshire hosted by Wolf Blitzer of CNN:

Senator McCain, do you believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the nation’s schools?

SEN. MCCAIN: No, I believe that’s up to the school districts. But I think that every American should be exposed to all theories. But I can’t say it more eloquently than Pastor Huckabee — Governor Huckabee just did, and I admire his description, because I hold that view.

The point is that the time before time — there’s no doubt in my mind that the hand of God was in what we are today. And I do believe that we are unique, and I believe that God loves us. But I also believe that all of our children in school can be taught different views on different issues. But I leave the curricula up to the school boards.

If you're interested in what Mike Huckabee had said earlier, the entire transcript is here. MFKM's response wasn't particularly controversial of course but I just wanted you to know what he thought before the transformation was complete.