How long can he keep them and still run for President.

After reading this article, I just thought......... there it is. This is what is wrong with our political system. This is why the public gets so frustrated and feels like Congress isn't serving their needs.

And John McCain Takes a Big Risk

...as Mr. McCain races to play catch-up with his Republican presidential primary rivals before the end of the second quarter, he is only reminding military companies and lobbyists why they have never liked him. “Defense contractors are more concerned with winning the next contract than performing on the current one,” he charged at a recent campaign stop.

These industries donate heavily to campaign committee chairmen who allocate funds. Why? They are looking for their next contract and know which committe chairs can help them out with those special favors.

Mr. McCain also frequently irked the telephone industry by taking the side of consumer advocates, including trying to end the “universal service” fees the phone companies tack onto consumers’ bills. He earned the lasting enmity of the cable companies by attacking them as price-gouging, unregulated monopolies. He was the only Republican to vote against the 1996 telecommunications overhaul, bucking virtually the entire industry on the grounds that the legislation neglected consumers.

There is of course a political benefit to Mr. McCain in being seen as untrustworthy to those who control big pools of corporate and special interest money. But there is little doubt that his record in Congress has made remaining financially competitive in the presidential race more difficult.

John Q Public gets left out in the cold.

The military industry and its lobbyists, for example, always give heavily to the handful of lawmakers who control military spending; that is what fuels their business.

Last year, for example, the industry gave $244,000 to the chairman of the House armed services committee at the time, Representative Duncan Hunter, even though he faced scant opposition in his California district.

But military industry lobbyists say they have long dreaded the prospect that Mr. McCain might ascend to the chairmanship of the committee, much less the presidency. He is the Senate’s most outspoken critic of military procurement policies, big Pentagon contracts, and especially earmarks — the Congressional add-ons to military spending bills that contractors crave.

“McCain has been a one-man wrecking crew,” said a prominent military lobbyist, speaking on condition of anonymity because he lobbies the committee.

This isn't related to just military spending, it's all big companies. The people are not being served...... and there is no more glaring example than John McCains need for more campaign cash. He has bucked the system, and now needs to raise money.

There is something wrong with this picture. Do we have to hold corporations and not public officials accountable for US policies?

(The release of 'Sicko' will highlight how corporations play the largest role in not serving the people, but only the interests of big industry.)

[edit; sorry this is so long but the article is from the NYT so some people might not be able to read it.]

says he thinks Iraq is on the verge of a genocidal civil war.

Hamas got Gaza and all the economic problems that come with it, while Abbas still controls the more prosperous West Bank and his new PA cabinet will now receive hundreds of millions of dollars in previously frozen aid and taxes. It looks like there is a very real possibility of peace talks to establish an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank.

Things look to get better in the West Bank and much worse in Gaza pretty quickly, and that's partially intentional to marginalize Hamas. The best-case scenario is for Hamas to crack down on the splinter groups and end the rocket attacks and kidnapping attempts and to moderate their hard-line ideology to reflect the geopolitical reality of Gaza's tenuous situation. Hopefully the people of Gaza will not be allowed to suffer unnecessarily.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070618/ts_nm/palestinians_israel_dc

The European Union said on Monday it wants to resume direct aid to the Palestinians, but did not say when funds would be freed up.

U.S. President George W. Bush called Abbas to extend support and Abbas told him he was ready to "open the door" to renewed peace talks, an aide to Abbas said.

The United States is set to lift a ban on direct aid to the Palestinian government formed by Abbas for the first time since an embargo imposed when Hamas rose to power in early 2006 and refused to recognize Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in New York that Israel would release frozen tax revenues to Abbas and "take perhaps more risks" in cooperating with Abbas's government.

Washington wants to accelerate talks between Olmert and Abbas on Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, while isolating Hamas economically, diplomatically and militarily in Gaza.

Standards of evidence and double standards discussed .

American Right Wingers, like Newt Gingrich, have been busy gloating over France's recent election results with the win of conservative Nicholas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy, an urbane secularist who has appointed a leading socialist and one of the world's top human rights advocates to his Cabinet, is hardly an American-style yahoo conservative.

Sarkozy was being touted as a conservative reformer that so excited Newst, he has been writing things headlines like "A French Lesson for Republicans."

Instead the recent elections paint a different picture.

Instead, the UMP lost 45 seats, while the Socialists gained 36 seats and the Communist Party, which had been predicted to collapse, held onto at least 15 seats.

One of Sarkozy's top Cabinet picks, former prime minister Alain Juppe, was defeated by a Socialist and had to resign his position, while a number of the president's allies and aides lost.

No blank check for Sarkozy from the French voters. Hopefully Newt and his Republicans will discover a more nuanced reading of ..... a French lesson for Republicans.

R. I. P., Robert Wise; Robert Wise:

Although you're no longer alive, you clearly lived a long, full and rich life.
I'll always remember you and thank you for having directed and helped create my alltime favorite film, West Side Story.

In America, nothing is impossible.

the people clamoring for impeachment on dkos are such fools - no wonder the dkos management doesn't take them seriously. All those stupid calls are just that... so stupid.

Just brainless emotionalizing - impeach impeach impeach, fascism, nazis, blah blah, war crimes, impeach, impeach. Far left wing gone nuts.

Completely detached fantasy worlds is what they inhabit. Nothing even close to what they say Bush is guilty of is true, and nothing even close to what they say must happen will ever happen.

Bush sucks, but he is guilty of incompetence and will fade away into obscurity after 2009. Also for all his incompetence he is still fully capable of outplaying Dems at every turn. What does that tell us about Dems? You figure it out.