a variety of politics

Given the recent economic climate, its only reasonable that we begin with

1. John McCain's economic policies, revealed.
This is an absolute must-read on John McCain's economics from The New Republic. It categorically demonstrates the shortcomings of McCain economics:

1. His economic policies - designed to increase tax breaks to the extremely wealthy - will exacerbate the economic downturns of the last 8 years. By proposing massive tax breaks to put the budget surplus into the hands of wealthy Americans, rather than investing it to pay for future economic strains (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security), Bush singlehandedly reversed the surpluses of 2000. "It was the same argument conservatives had been advancing for more than two decades, ever since Ronald Reagan first made supply-side economics a cornerstone of Republican Party dogma. But, as in the past, the theory didn't turn out so well in practice. Predictions of self-financing tax cuts proved utterly wrong, as the Clinton-era budget surpluses quickly turned back into the deficits we still have now. The economy grew following a recession that hit during Bush's first term, but it was a notoriously anemic expansion. Wealthy Americans made out like bandits, but the typical American's wages did not grow at all relative to inflation, something that hadn't happened in any expansionary period since World War II. Job creation under Bush has been the worst since Herbert Hoover's time, and the percentage of families living in poverty has actually increased."

   "When history so clearly refutes your economic doctrine, the intelligent response is to reassess your thinking. A case in point is the Democrats. Precisely because the economy is heading in the direction of inequality--and because, absent other forces, the poor and middle-class will struggle--Democrats today are putting more emphasis on aggressive efforts to protect average Americans. But Republicans have reacted differently. Instead of taking the last few years as a cue that maybe it's time to offer something besides more Bush-style tax cuts, they decided that what the country really needs is ... more Bush-style tax cuts! And McCain's agenda indicates that he agrees wholeheartedly. After extending Bush's tax reductions, which are set to expire in 2011, McCain would trim taxes on corporate income and estates."

2. McCain's plans to pay for these exorbitant tax breaks are woefully insufficient and misleading. "Mostly, though, McCain has emphasized his intention to pay for the new tax cuts by slashing wasteful spending. And it's hard to overstate how laughable this is." Even cutting earmarks that everyone considers necessary (secondary school education, veterans' health benefits) would yield less than 15% of the money needed to overcome his tax cuts to fat cats.

3. As a result, McCain's economic plan would drive up federal debt far more than Obama's plan (by more than twofold), in order to pay for his tax cuts to the wealthy. Now try to listen to his campaign managers talk about Obama's plan to raise taxes (despite the fact that he cuts taxes far more than McCain does for anyone making less than $250,000/year) without laughing.

4. McCain's health care plan would make health care MORE expensive for most people, and less subject to state regulation. His health care plan - giving tax credits to families with which to purchase individual health insurance vaporizes the benefits of employer health care coverage (aka, employers typically offer their employees health plans that are more valuable than the equivalent salary compensation). By allowing purchasing across state lines, he would drive migration of health insurance companies to the most lax states, eliminating state mandates to cover any variety of conditions.

5. Read the article. Seriously.

What's the overall point here? Democrats and Republicans have always had divergent views on how to improve the economy (think of the GDP as a pie). Democrats have always been more concerned with dividing the pie up into sufficient slices for everyone. Republicans have felt that as long as the whole pie grows, everyone's slices get bigger, no matter who drives the growth in the short term (free-market economics). Supply side economics suggests that the most efficient way to grow the pie is to put the most money in the hands of the most rich, supposing that the richest people are the ones who drive economic growth. But this has been disproven serially over the last 30 years. In particular, what the last 8 years gave us is a situation in which not only did the pie piece for the richest grow exclusively, but it grew at the expense of the other slices. It's increasingly clear that maximizing productivity of the market requires protection (and economic support) of the middle class. McCain continues to tout supply side economics. It's a failure that we simply can no longer (literally) afford.

2. XX Factor vs. Palin
I love Slate's XX Factor, particularly during the current Palin era. (The XX Factor is Slate's women blogging about politics). I clicked over to it today because the most recent entry purported to explain what 'flurge' meant. I found, to my great joy, a littany of back-and-forth about Palin's Charlie Gibson interview. Here are just some of the striking points:

1. Her casual suggestions of military engagement with Russia betray the same mixture of ignorance and 'pitbull' mentality that characterized our current president. "What troubles me is the utter shallowness of Palin's answers - in this case, a dangerous shallowness. She had obviously learned a few talking points...but she had absolutely no knowledge or judgment underneath that. But saying "perhaps" we'll go to war is the kind of throwaway statement that, when made by a VP candidate, has real world consequences for future United States-Russia relations. It dramatically ups the ante." - Rosa Brooks
2. Forget trying to recruit women: the inclusion of Palin is at least partially an attempt to silence McCain's significant track record of misogyny. "Seriously, I take all my cues on sisterhood from John, because who respects women more? That's why Obama'd have hardly anything to work with if he wanted to make an ad in response. Well, except for the footage of McCain laughing and then saying, "Excellent question'' when asked, "How do we beat the bitch?'' OK, and maybe that clip of the minister asking McCain if he really called his wife the c-word. I'm not sure Obama should rely on the 1986 story in the Tucson Citizen quoting McCain telling a joke about rape—even if it was a lot like the one that drove his buddy Claytie Williams out of politics. I guess if Obama really wanted to get down in the mud, he could reference the stripper McCain dated, or the gentlemanly way he behaved with his first—oh, who are we kidding?—with both of his wives. If Hillary's gotten over that—what's the word I want?—deferential joke he made about Chelsea, then who are we to go there?" - Melinda Henneberger
3. McCain-Palin drawing mythical large crowds from the lands of Narnia! OK, not really, but they've been, shall we say, a little overeager in describing crowd sizes at McCain-Palin rallies. "I love it both because it’s so desperate—like inflating a movie’s box office—but also because the irony of the strategy here is so palpable: 1) Slam the Obama campaign for being a cult of celebrity. 2) Try to create your own celebrity. 3) Fail. 4) Lie." - Dahlia Lithwick
4. You guys are welcome to read the articles carefully documenting Sarah Palin's terrifying track record of secrecy, vendettas, and nepotism while mayor and then governor. There's not much to comment on, though.

3. I, like Nancy Pelosi, find myself folding a little bit on offshore drilling.
This is all Joe's fault. Well, that, and Pelosi's proposal, which dictates that royalties derived from drilling would be directly invested into federal funding for renewable energy. Increased taxes on oil companies, another tenet of the proposal, would also fund investment in renewables. Could it be that this could ease the transition, rather than dampen the incentive to transition? God, I'm a terrible Democrat.

4. The media is not doing its job when it fails to aggressively pursue a hot-button issue that candidates are not as able to broach.
Here I am referring to mounting evidence that not only is victory in Iraq not categorically in sight, but the reasons being touted for success are increasingly questionable. First, Bob Woodward said it, and even Petraeus has said it. The extent to which the "surge" is more or less responsible for stability in Iraq than the voluntary cooperation of tribal leaders in the Anbar province (something Joe Biden has been touting for over a year) is difficult to address for the Obama or McCain campaign, because questioning the surge is a difficult move for either candidate. So, to the media, in the words of fake Hillary Clinton, "I encourage you to grow a pair." Challenge both candidates about the validity of the surge, the reproduceability of cooperation in Anbar, and how this affects the battle plan for Iraq. This is especially significant because not all reports agree on the stability of things in Anbar:

The “Awakening” saw thousands of tribal loyalists—many of them former insurgents—enlist in the Anbar police or local Iraqi army units. US-paid tribal militias, which were initially known as Emergency Response Units, worked alongside them. Islamist radicals were hunted down and slaughtered in their hundreds over the following months...
The much lauded stability, however, rests on fragile foundations. A significant proportion of the Iraqi army units in Anbar and the 28,000-strong provincial police are in reality a thinly-disguised tribal force. The Awakening movement has no loyalty to either the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad or to the current provincial government in Anbar, which is currently controlled by a rival of the tribes, the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP).

So lets not pretend that this stability is a permanent result of a temporary troop increase. Its not.