McCain is walking a tightrope? I’d say so.

PHOENIX (AP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain acknowledged the steep drop in U.S. jobs and said he would help the economy by cutting taxes, encouraging free trade, building nuclear power plants and launching other initiatives.
[...]
More than 400,000 jobs have been lost since December, he said, adding, “Americans are worried about the security of their current job, and they’re worried that they, their kids and their neighbors may not find good jobs and new opportunities in the future.”

Yeah? McCain wants to talk about jobs? How about booting the illegal immigrants out? How about encouraging Americans to take BACK all those jobs they once held? How about prison sentences for the owners and managers of the businesses who hire them (knowingly or not)???

THOSE EXACT WORDS HE SPOKE ABOVE have been said to Hispanic audiences too.

John McCain is a fucking hypocrite of the highest order.

On Tuesday, Sen. McCain will speak to the League of United Latin American Citizens, his second such address to Hispanic voters in as many weeks. He is expected to repeat his political sentiments about the need for comprehensive immigration reform — a view that appeals to Hispanics.

He panders to the very people who are using up our tax dollars via welfare benefits for illegals; his answer is to somehow “legalize” the criminal activity at the expense of Americans…can we afford to pay for this when our jobs are being offered to illegals?

Sen. McCain and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, share more similar views on immigration than perhaps on any other policy issue. Both propose securing the borders, introducing temporary worker programs and opening a path to citizenship that includes learning English and paying fines.

Uugh. They’re one in the same on this issue and THIS should concern people. American people that is.

In the general election, Sen. McCain appears to be trying to have it both ways. He emphasizes a need to secure the borders and to show compassion to illegal immigrants already here.

McCain can try to have it both ways. But he’s not fooling me. Or millions of others who happen to hold those jobs McCain has decided Americans shouldn’t want.

Again I know I have to vote for this asshole. And again, I will forever be in conflict with my conscience on that vote; and will never sleep soundly because of this vote.

When it comes to blue collar workers and Presidential politics, the current crop of candidates are both full of bullshit. Neither one has any desire to care about working class people; one has sold our jobs to foreigners and the other would tax us right out of existence.

The Republican Party is going after blue-collar voters and other key blocs that traditionally support Democrats but did not back Sen. Barack Obama in primary contests, a top party official said.

The party also is aggressively pursuing female, Catholic and Hispanic voters - groups that lean Democrat but which Republicans think could defect this year to likely Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said Frank Donatelli, deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee.

I think they’re dreaming. I really do. McCain is not popular among many of my working class friends who have called themselves Republicans all their life; never mind those who are Democrats.

Democratic leaders remain confident that the more blue-collar voters and others learn of Mr. McCain, his policies and his record - which includes voting against increases to the federal minimum wage - the less they will like him, said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney.

“John McCain is not a friend of American workers,” she said. “John McCain has not been someone who stood up for American workers and American jobs. … They will see Senator Obama is the right choice.”

The immigration debacle will come back to haunt. It’s on people’s minds: Are their jobs going to be jobs no American wants to do, all the sudden? Will they be laid off only to see their lost jobs be handed over to illegal parasites? It’s happened a lot, all over the country. I see here in my state- NH. Thousands of parasites have invaded and taken over so many of the jobs we used to be proud of. Pfft. My own career, nursing- is suffering thanks to the work of McCain. Patient care has been compromised by the invasion and nurses and aides are only seeing the beginning of the loss of this profession.

Obama is no better though…

But Mr. Obama got in hot water with blue-collar America by complaining at a private April fund-raiser in San Francisco that small-town voters were not supporting him because they are “bitter” and “cling” to guns, religion and nativism.

I am white; I cling to my guns; I am not religious nor I am I bitter. I love my country in spite of all it’s problems. I think Obama misses a bigger point: People don’t like him because he’s fake. A blue collared person can spot a phoney miles away- whereas people in the higher classes cannot.

His credibility with working-class voters also was strained in February by reports that a top aide secretly told Canadian officials to ignore Mr. Obama’s campaign rhetoric threatening to scuttle the North American Free Trade Agreement - a promise aimed at Rust Belt voters convinced the trade deal killed jobs.

NAFTA has killed millions of jobs. The GOP’s blind support of this is disheartening to say the least. Democrats have also benefited from this agreement as well though, and have no political will to end it. Even at the expense of the jobs so many of the voters will lose.

The big difference and probable vote grabber will be related to who is better prepared and willing and able to defend the US. National security will have it’s place in this election. It’s the ONLY reason I am going to vote for McCain: He will stand up and fight back. Obama will sit down, no, make that bow down, and serve up cookies and dialogue to our enemies. Many of my low life peers feel the same way I do.

Blue collar workers aren’t as dumb as many like to think. We know what’s at stake and we’re willing to trade our jobs for national security as issues in this election.

If the country wasn’t facing the enemies we have now, I would not even consider voting this time. It’s pretty sad to say that I know my vote will kills millions more American jobs and that America itself will become much MUCH more Mexicanized under McCain; but by not voting for him America may cease to exist. The less of two evils. My vote for McCain will forever haunt me as well; I will never sleep well again as it goes against my conscience. Gah I hate it.

A lot of people like to hold Obama to account for his apparent hatred of America, or at the least, his lack of pride of his country…but we need to be fair and balanced on this. McCain is no better.

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John McCain admitted on Saturday it can be difficult at times to be proud of the United States.

“I’ll admit to you … that it’s tough in some respects,” McCain said when asked by a questioner at a town hall meeting how to be proud of the country.

“We have not always done things right and we mismanaged the war in Iraq very badly for nearly four years.”

I’m sure the McCain apologists will tell me this was taken out of context; that it meant something else. Whatever. America isn’t perfect and we have made mistakes.

But make no mistake on this: I am always proud of my country and, it’s never hard to be so. No matter what.

I don’t know HOW I missed this news. My support for McCain is quickly fading now. I learned of his potential choice of Mayor Michael Bloomberg for VP over at Bruce’s:

I still think McCain’s a complete piece of crap, but anything’s better than…

Huh?

What’s that newspaper you’re waving in front of my face?

Gimme that.

Oh, that’s real nice.

McCain’s now saying he wouldn’t rule out Michael Bloomberg as a possible running mate? Are you fucking kidding me? We are talking about the same Michael Bloomberg here, right? Michael Bloomberg, the very embodiment of the Nanny State? The same Michael Bloomberg who has made it his life’s mission to bury the firearms industry under mountains of costly litigation?

This would be a deal breaker for me too. To have Bloomberg as his running mate would cause me to NOT vote for McCain. I would write in another name or not even bother voting. Like Bruce, I might be found at the range unloading all day…feeling content and proud, soul intact.

I find myself becoming less and less tolerant of any form of government handout to people. I used to think unemployment laws were a good thing. People who got laid off needed a safety net with income until they could secure another job. Now, I see people abusing it for months, and some, for years. It’s a waste of money.

WASHINGTON - John McCain is just one of dozens of Republicans abandoning President Bush to join Democrats who want to extend unemployment payments.

“We have to extend the unemployment benefits,” McCain said yesterday on CNBC. “We have to . . . because we all know Americans are hurting.”

Why? Why do WE have to provide anything? What ever happened to the idea that we took care of ourselves? When I was a little kid, my Dad told me the first thing I HAD to do when I got a job, was SAVE money. Back then my “job” was to feed the dogs and make sure they got outside every morning. My pay was pennies of course…but even with that I managed to save several dollars over a years’ time.

Later in life, when I began working for a living, I heeded my Dad’s words and saved enough money to cover my expenses for 3 months…then I added to my security back up bank 6 months worth of income. Just in case something happened.

To this day I still have that much saved. I don’t need unemployment money. Why should I have to pay into the mass pool of people who don’t plan and save? This pool is cleverly called insurance- but it’s anything but that. It’s welfare, pure and simple.

Dozens of House Republicans are likely to abandon Bush on a vote this week to award 13 additional weeks of unemployment compensation to people who’ve used up their benefits. Republican leaders and staff aides conceded that they were unlikely to be able to prevent Democrats from getting enough votes to override a veto.

The legislation would make more than 1 million people immediately eligible for extended benefits, with 3 million more becoming eligible in coming months. A House vote is expected as early as tomorrow. Benefits vary by state, but the nationwide average is about $300 a week.

Why add more time? SO that people can sit around and suck their thumbs as they feel sorry for themselves over a lay off? COME ON!

I can guarantee one thing: If there were no such thing as Unemployment insurance, people would get off their collective asses and find work, FAST. The work might be “demeaning” (at a McD’s, oh my gosh!); it might be a job that doesn’t require a fancy degree or experience (Lord NO!!), or it might mean taking on two jobs to make ends meet. Whatever…it’s better than forcing everyone to pay for those who want to cherry pick a job and get paid 2/3’s of their previous years’ income while doing nothing so.

The GOP and others who are pushing this are not true Republicans. And not conservatives either. By paying people to stay unemployed, we’re adding to the unemployment numbers. Am I missing something here?

UPDATE: The House Refuses to Extend Unemployment Benefits.

GOOD.

How come illegals don’t know this?

Traditionally, marriage to a US citizen is one of the easiest ways for immigrants to gain legal residency. But now it can be an uphill battle, even for legitimate couples with children, mortgages, and scrapbooks filled with photos.

The government has long screened for sham marriages involving immigrants, including by asking applicants suchquestions as the name of the person who fixed them up or who attended their wedding.

But immigration lawyers say federal law is increasingly tough on real married couples, as well those in which the spouse has violated immigration law, such as crossing the border illegally. Federal law requires such violators to return to their native countries while their spouses apply for permission to bring them back.

One would think those who are seeking citizenship in our country would know the very laws about this. Oh wait I forgot…liberals and their flock people like John McCain have tried to make it as easy and simple as possible for illegals to become…legal.

We are reaping what we have sowed.

SHREWSBURY, Pa. | Republican voters increasingly say they have lost faith in the party and might not vote this year, compounding headaches for party leaders struggling to avert a November massacre at the polls.

“The Republican Party doesn’t represent me anymore,” longtime Republican voter Joseph E. Ayers, 57, said recently while grabbing lunch at an Amish market in this rural hamlet.

Mr. Ayers, an investment consultant, said he was disgusted with President Bush and Republicans in Congress for allowing massive government growth, runaway federal spending, escalating energy prices and a costly nation-building mission in Iraq.

“We were betrayed by Bush in a lot of ways,” he said, adding that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona lacks the conservative mettle needed to repair the damage.

“I won’t vote for McCain,” he said. “I might not even vote at all. That’s the way it looks now.”

Those who decide to sit out will be lambasted and ridiculed; they will be accused of costing elections. Yet, the GOP is supposed to stand on principals of individualism, free thought, free choice, free trade, ect ect.

The price is high.

“It is a clear sign Republicans have not yet come to grips with how big a hole they have dug for themselves and how much work it will take to get out,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who spearheaded the 1994 Republican win of the majority in Congress that ended four decades of Democratic control.

…yet well deserved.

At least 40 Republican-held House seats are vulnerable in November and the party’s Senate seats are at risk in the one-time strongholds of Alaska, Colorado, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas and Virginia.

The people will speak. Majorities will win, and people are not voting blind anymore. Party faith is a thing of the past. It is about ideas, agendas and platforms that mean something to Americans. Health care, Iraq, gas prices, the economy, immigration are all important issues to Americans. No matter what political party the belong to.

Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said voter disenchantment is not confined to the Republican Party and reflects widespread angst about rising gasoline prices, economic uncertainty, the prospect of higher taxes and the war in Iraq.

“Our effort is to reach out and [assure] them that we are fighting these things,” he said. “But there is clearly a big fight ahead of us in the election. … You get up and confront that challenge by fighting each and every day for the things you believe in.”

Mr. Cole said Republican voters will energize as campaigns draw stark distinctions with Democrats, who he said are set to raise taxes and surrender in Iraq.

“The stakes in the election are enormously high,” he said. “I think people have to wake up and realize what the consequences of not participating are.”

I know many die hard Republicans who are pissed off. They have been let down by Bush and company- many because they have lost jobs to illegals- laid off, and a couple months later watching the company they once worked for bring in “foreigners” to do the jobs they once did. Others are upset about the ear marks/pork bullshit; most are just fed up with the growth of government. People are not happy with the prices of everything; the government bailout programs and what not.

One friend put it this way: If they’re gonna go hog wild with spending, we might as well go all the way and give the Democrats our support; at least we know that’s what they intend to do.

People are angry. They feel betrayed. They’re not buying this old and stale arguments anymore. November, we will see the GOP’s judgment day.

One of the highlights of the Thrill-Spending add-ons to the below posted War Bill includes provisions for…yes…amnesty. It’s BACCCK.

This is why we keep close watch on Congress. In a bipartisan effort accomplished quickly and virtually under the table, Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) — in Senate Appropriations markup of the War Supplemental bill — obtained approval of an amendment that would create an amnesty for illegal alien farm workers. The measure, called the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act, was added to the War Supplemental bill in a 17-12 vote last Thursday.

War bill? You mean, the war on American workers?

Known as the AgJob amendment, the Feinstein-Craig measure revived instantaneously the controversy that caused conservatives to lash out at the White House and Congress last summer.

The measure would grant temporary legal status to 1.35 million illegal immigrants and their families currently working in the agricultural field. The legislation was passed out of committee at the request of agribusiness interests who have been insisting that they need illegal aliens to harvest crops and run horse shows. The legislation is nothing less than “comprehensive immigration reform” on a smaller scale.

Ahh…keep the invasions small and compact in an effort to make it SEEM less the invasion that it really is.

NumbersUSA, an organization fighting illegal immigration, called the amendment “outrageous” and urged constituents to contact their political leaders. They noted that because families can also obtain temporary legal status through the amendment, it could reach almost 3 million people.

“The most important point to stress is that there is no need for an amnesty to provide growers with workers…there already is an H-2A foreign agricultural worker program that provides growers with an unlimited number of temporary workers if the growers agree to pay a decent wage and ensure that they go home at the end of the season,” said NumbersUSA news release.

So they’re trying to con the American people once again…being sneaky and underhanded. My own state rep is involved with this bullshit and he’s not getting my vote ever again.

Congress needs a constant vigil; they prove to us over and over again that they are not honest and they do not have American citizens’ best interest at heart. American business, profit driven desires are who counts. We can end this crap by making our numbers count, with our votes and who we do business with.

Now this is different and refreshing news.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite numerous veto threats, senators in both parties have loaded up President Bush’s war funding bill with a grab bag of domestic programs, including work permits for immigrant farm labor and heating subsidies for the poor.

How unusual. And out of the box planning on the part of the Dems.

The Senate was scheduled to begin debate on the measure Tuesday, just days after a key panel added more about $28 billion to Bush’s budget request for this year and next, with almost $50 billion more for a big expansion of veterans benefits under the GI Bill over 2010-2018.

The new GI Bill and Democratic priorities like extending unemployment benefits are simply the big-ticket add-ons, both of which have drawn veto threats. There’s also $50 million to track down child predators, $400 million to help rural schools and $350 million fight western wildfires, just for starters.

Spend, spend, and spend. But it’s not just Democrats- it’s Republicans too. This is crazy.

REMIND me why I’m being asked to support this RINO?? I just got sick.

Sen. John McCain said yesterday that Republicans have shed support among Hispanic voters because of the party’s get-tough approach to illegal immigration, but he predicted that his enforcement-then- legalization approach will rebuild those bridges.

Using a Mexican holiday, Cinco de Mayo, as a launching point, Mr. McCain’s presidential campaign announced a Spanish-language Web site (www.johnmccain.com/ espanol), and said the senator from Arizona will speak to this year’s National Council of La Raza convention in San Diego in July to try to court Hispanic voters.

“I believe the majority of the Hispanics share our view that the border must be secured, and the border must be secured first. But they also want us to have an attitude, which I think most Americans do, that these are God’s children, and they must be taken care of, and the issue must be addressed in a humane and compassionate fashion,” Mr. McCain told reporters at an Arizona news conference yesterday.

Yeah, yeah…humane and compassionate is happening. It always will. THAT’s not even a point. WHAT is a point, that McCain never mentions, is the high HIGH costs placed upon American citizens who WORK legally for a living. There is nothing inhumane about sending the illegals BACK HOME. It’s as simple as that. All these weepy eyed words are bullshit. To McCain, it is all about cheap labor for the business lobby. And nothing more.

Can I say WOW?

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

I’m an angry white woman too- who understands the angry white man and wishes she could change some of this.

The sneaky, behind the curtain antics of Congress are what piss people off…and once again, THEY’RE AT IT!

Some House Democrats are having behind-the-scenes discussions about creating a special visa for illegal aliens they believe will enjoy considerable Republican support. Under the plan, illegal aliens who can prove they have jobs, pay a fine, and pass a criminal background check will receive the gift of legal status for 5 years. The plan is designed to attract pro-business Republicans and those who backed the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill by also increasing the number of visas issued for technical, temporary and agricultural workers.

Their plan appears to be to create a bi-partisan alternative to the bi-partisan
SAVE Act (Secure America with Verification Enforcement), which focuses on reducing illegal immigration instead of rewarding it.

Rep. Heath Shuler’s (D-N.C.) SAVE Act now has 144 bipartisan signers in the House and Senate.

Who signed onto this? 89 Republicans!

I’m contacting my elected RINOS and the others to let them know this is wrong. Let’s put Americans to work first. Not illegals immigrants.

McCain doesn’t need the support of Conservatives.

And…

At last check StopMcCain.com, NoWayMcCain.com, ConservativesAgainstMcCain.com and RepublicansAgainstMcCain.com are all taken, as is IHateMcCain.com and the pointed VietnamVeteransAgainstJohnMcCain.com.

I bet he wishes now, more than ever, he silenced people who choose to use the Internet to voice their discontent.

It’s going to be a long campaign.

Russ Vaughn sent this via email and I reposting it here in it’s entirety.

Entertaining Considerations

Russ Vaughn