USA: America, and America's friends abroad, say farewell to a true American patriot

Americans and America's friends around the world, sadly say farewell to US Senator and Viet-Nam War Hero, John McCain. - A True American Patriot - May He Rest In Peace.

EU-Digest

USA: John McCain, a Last Lion of the Senate - by Carl Hulse

 John McCain was an essential element of the nation’s political conversation for half a century, an ever-present figure eager to challenge friend and foe through his singular temperament — sometimes angry, often funny, always ardent.

Now he is gone, leaving behind a storied life and a tear in America’s political fabric at a time when national unity — always a McCain theme and ultimate goal — seems especially elusive.

“We are losing someone who really, no matter who was the president, believed in the Senate’s role in checks and balances,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who was a frequent traveling companion of Mr. McCain on official overseas trips. “He truly was a giant in the Senate, a towering figure and someone who really made a difference not just on policy, but in asserting the Senate’s constitutional role.”

Read  more: John McCain, a Last Lion of the Senate - The New York Times

BBC : Will US voters face poll chaos? - by Laura Smith-Park

For the complete report from the BBC click on this link

US elections: Will US voters face poll chaos? - by Laura Smith-Park

In 2000 it was the problem of hanging chads, recounts and court decisions in Florida. In 2004, some voters endured an eight-hour wait to vote in Ohio. Four years on, a study by the Pew Research Center has warned of a possible "perfect storm" creating chaos at the polls - fueled by record numbers of voters, new voters, and shortage of polling station staff.Another report on 10 swing states, by The Century Foundation and Common Cause, found that "significant problems in the basic functions of American election administration system persist, and in a few cases have worsened".

For the latest poll updates click on this link

Monbiot.com : The Triumph of Ignorance - by George Monbiot

For the complete report from Monbiot.com click on this link

George Monbiot

The Triumph of Ignorance - by George Monbiot

How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind’s closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist?Besides fundamentalist religion, perhaps the most potent reason why intellectuals struggle in elections is that intellectualism has been equated with subversion. The brief flirtation of some thinkers with communism a long time ago has been used to create an impression in the public mind that all intellectuals are communists. Almost every day men like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly rage against the “liberal elites” destroying America.The spectre of pointy-headed alien subversives was crucial to the election of Reagan and Bush. A genuine intellectual elite - like the neocons (some of them former communists) surrounding Bush - has managed to pitch the political conflict as a battle between ordinary Americans and an over-educated pinko establishment. Any attempt to challenge the ideas of the rightwing elite has been successfully branded as elitism.

IHT: Obama's fans in Europe are in for a big surprise - by John Vinocur

For the complete report from the International Herald Tribune click on this link

Obama's fans in Europe are in for a big surprise - by John Vinocur

If Barack Obama is elected president of the United States next week, he'll bring into office with him the advantage of not being pre-cast as a villain in Europe. As pluses go, it may be an impermanent one. The realities of American interests, American responsibilities and the American presidency mean that all the soft power instincts and readiness for multilateral mosh-pit politicking attributed to Obama by Europeans can quickly look imaginary. Obama is not Michael Moore transmogrified. He will fulfill no one's dreams of a capitulating, apologetic United States. On Iran, there is little indication that European public opinion is listening closely either when Obama says, "We'll never take the military option off the table." Or on Georgia and Ukraine, when Obama insists that they must be given plans for NATO membership "immediately." Or on Afghanistan when he complains that some NATO countries, like Germany, are present there but not sharing the missions with the most murderous risks.

David Sturtevant Ruder, a former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission, America's market regulator, who has endorsed Obama, sees American capitalism eventually coming out of this "horrible situation" with a better version that's "a little tamer" and "a little more regulated." He added: "But the US is built on an appetite for risk. We don't want to be France."Almost surely, a newly elected President Obama would be too slick to tell the truth that way.

National Journal Magazine - Political Insiders Poll US Presidential Elections - by James A. Barnes and Peter Bell

For the complete report from the National Journal click on this link

Political Insiders Poll US Presidential Elections - by James A. Barnes and Peter Bell

This report contains the latest US polling information and predictions by National Journal Insiders.

Sofria Echo.com: US Elections : Could Barack Obama really be a president for Europe? - by Clive Leviev-Sawyer

For the complete report from the Sofia Echo.com click on this link

US Elections : Could Barack Obama really be a president for Europe? - by Clive Leviev-Sawyer

With five days to go to the elections, polls including those by RealClearPolitics give Barack Obama a comfortable chance of becoming the next president of the United States. It is well-known that were Europe able to vote, polls would be barely worth a glance because an Obama landslide would be a certainty. But for all the current flush of romance, a president Obama’s long-term relationship with Europe may not live up to expectations.Probably the most inspiring exposition of Europe’s expectations was expressed in a scintillating speech at Harvard in September 2008 by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. He told his audience that he had in his pocket a letter to the next president of the US, whoever that may be. The letter, which runs to about five pages, spells out a vision of hope for a new-era relationship between the EU and the US.Barroso underlines that the EU is a global player and a natural ally of the US. He explains their joint weight in the world economy, in trade and world finance, international organizations, the management of world security and in development aid. “But in these times of uncertainty, the EU needs the US and – yes – the US needs the EU more than ever.”

There is one consolation, though. Unlike Palin, McCain or that Action Man doll of contemporary Republican politics, Joe the Plumber, no one in Europe is ever likely to call president Obama a European Socialist.

Salon: US elections: The Republican shipwreck

For the complete report from the Salon click on this link

US elections - The Republican shipwreck

The modern conservative movement is dying in front of our eyes, and its death throes aren't pretty. As John McCain heads for likely defeat, the GOP is eating itself. Right-wing politicians and pundits who never criticized Bush in eight years are suddenly jumping ship like rats, while bitter-end loyalists angrily accuse them of being "pathetically opportunistic." After months of veering from one tactic to the next, McCain has finally settled on one message for his campaign, but it's absurd: claiming that the party whose signature is tax cuts for the rich is really on the side of Joe the Plumber. Meanwhile, 3.1 million real Joe the Plumbers across America are sending Barack Obama hundreds of millions of dollars, a torrent of cash that is helping to flush the GOP down the national toilet. Right-wing hacks like Palin and Minn. Rep. Michele Bachman respond by doing the only thing they know how to do -- attack, demonize and divide.

The Independent/Rolling Stone:: The US election - The Vote Grab: How the Republicans stole the 2004 election - by Peter Tatchell

For the complete report from the Rolling Stone click on this link

The Vote Grab: How the Republicans stole the 2004 election - by Peter Tatchell

Will next week's US presidential vote be free and fair? Based on the conduct of the last election, possibly not. The 2004 election was marred by vote-fixing that would disgrace a banana republic. Four years later, few new safeguards have been implemented to prevent a re-run of the voter exclusion and ballot tampering of 2004.This is the conclusion of Robert F Kennedy Jr, civil rights lawyer and nephew of JFK. In one of the most important pieces of investigative journalism in recent years, published in Rolling Stone magazine in 2006, he revealed how voting irregularities in 2004 were enough to steal the presidency for the Republicans.

Mainstream: US: Politics in the Age of George the Great - by Eddie J.Girdner

For the complete report from the Mainstream Weekly click on this link

US - Politics in the Age of George the Great - by Eddie J.Girdner

It has been eight years since the putsch in Florida by the neoconservative Storm Troopers stole the presidential election and installed George W. Bush on the White House Throne. The dark days had begun and these dark days have not yet ended.Indeed, it is difficult to think of any quarter, domestic or international, left untouched by the havoc brought to fruition in the Age of George the Great. Who would have thought, who could have imagined that such inordinate talent dwelt ensconced inside the scull of the former Governor of Texas? It is the great ineffable mystery of the Age of George the Great, who we have observed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. How do we unravel this inscrutable mystery?

Indeed, the trillion dollars for the two wars had been funded mostly by dollars the US did not have in supplementary off-budget funding. The national debt ceiling was raised to $ 11.3 trillion as the banks began to give up the ghost. George the Great had not got the Hogs out of the Dollar Creek. The Dollar Creek was so crowded that the dollars dried up, the banks collapsed and then the stock markets began to crash. As an experiment in neo-liberalism in the real world it was instructive. ‘One capitalist kills many.” Marx was certainly right about that. A herd of them can easily collapse the entire global financial system.

usglobalengagement.org: John McCain's Position on US International policy

For the complete report on McCains position on US International Policy from the usglobalengagement.org click on this link

McCain's Position on US International Policy by Category on :
* Position on Global Development and Health
* Position on Diplomacy
* Position on Aid Effectiveness
* Position on Other Foreign Policy Topics

EU-Digest: US presidential elections - Are Americans Better Off in 2008 Than they Were in 2000?

The information in this report comes from the Center for Economic and policy research

Are Americans Better Off in 2008 Than they Were in 2000?

During the final presidential debate of the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan, running against Jimmy Carter, turned to the camera and asked “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” The debate took place against a backdrop of spiraling inflation and rising unemployment. A week later, Reagan won the election by one of the largest margins in recent history. Now, with the 2008 presidential election just weeks away and the economy once again in turmoil, a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) updates the Reagan question by comparing economic indicators in 2008 and 2000, and finds that most indicators suggest that voters are worse off now than they were eight years ago. The study finds that 23 out of 25 indicators are worse in 2008 than they were in 2000. Some of the indicators examined included the unemployment rate, annual inflation, the “Misery Index” (the sum of the the unemployment rate and the inflation rate), job growth, wage growth, the poverty rate, the number of uninsured, college tuition costs, and gasoline prices. Of these, only inflation-adjusted median family income and productivity growth were higher in 2008 than they were in 2000.

FPIF: A Quick Fix: The Candidates and Energy Independence - by John Becket

For the complete report from Foreign Policy In Focus

A Quick Fix: The Candidates and Energy Independence - by John Becket

To get the recent $700 billion bailout passed, some "sweeteners" were added to the package by the Senate to attract votes from certain constituencies. Among them were $18 billion in tax breaks for businesses and individuals who want to make their homes and businesses more energy efficient and/or invest in green technology. Lacking an overall strategy and insufficient funds for the job, the "sugar high" will have little lasting impact. So goes the quest for "energy independence" touted by Congress and the presidential candidates. While Congress steadfastly declines to increase taxes on an oil industry making record profits — taxes which could be used to develop alternative energy — Europe and other nations, including China, forge far ahead in weaning themselves from dependence on petroleum. While the government stumbles all over itself to hand hundreds of billions to reckless speculators, only grudgingly does it support alternative energy. And although Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is likely to be more supportive of alternative energy than Republican John McCain, neither party's platform includes the sort of aggressive plan that America really needs.

The U.S., meanwhile, has nothing like a Minister for Sustainable Development. What passes as energy policy in America is a piecemeal, stops-and-starts approach that is often ill-conceived and just as often more rhetoric than action. In late 2007, Congress called for the nation to pursue 25 percent renewable energy by 2025. But Dan Arvizu, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Colorado-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory, told a Harvard University audience such a goal is laughable to Germany, where 25 percent is a business-as-usual mark. One hundred percent renewable by 2025, Arvizu said, is cited by the Germans as their "stretch goal." In fact, Arvizu said, U.S. public investment in renewable energy research has fallen 78 percent since 1978. To put things into proper perspective, the $150 billion total cost of alternative energy Obama's proposal is only about one-fifth of what Congress recently approved for the Wall Street bailout and one-quarter of this year's defense budget. What Obama is pledging to spend each year is slightly more than what the US is currently spending each month for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

EU-Digest/Arkansas Times: Deregulation fails big time

For the complete report from the Arkansas Times click on this link EU-Digest comments are included in the summary

Deregulation fails big time

Thoughtful people have warned of approaching economic disaster for some time, and these thinkers included professional economists. The recent noble prize winner Paul Krugman quickly comes to mind. Editorialists who regularly mocked Krugman's writings have grown quiet lately. But you really didn't need advanced degrees in economics to see the present mess coming. All that was required was some understanding of human nature, specifically the nature of the right-wing financiers who apply great influence on the American government. Greed drives them; moderation is repugnant. When deregulation became official government policy, when the upscale operators were no longer restrained by statutes or security guards, it was inevitable they would gorge themselves sick. They regard the American public as a dog regards a garbage can. They must be called off; they never quit voluntarily.

Note: EU-Digest: Even after we saw most of the stock market listed shares rise quickly again when governments around the world pumped billions of cash into what is basically a defunct Global financial and banking system, you can be sure the euphoria won't last. Unfortunately the present bail out plans applied are still based on the belief that a deregulated "trickle down" economic theory works.It does not. What really matters is to improve the financial health and economic status of the consumer.

When the consumer stops or slows down on his or her spending habits, for a variety of reasons, including unemployment, the party basically ends for the corporations supplying the goods and services to the consumer. No matter how much the government pumps into the financial system. Right now this is exactly what is happening. What is required are government funded programs which stimulate job creation or at least programs that are a mixture of corporate bailouts and economic rescue plans for the lower and middle class. A study by Acxiom, a data collection company in Little Rock, Arkansas, estimates that 19 percent of US households are "digging in" by dramatically tightening their belts, while 48 percent are maintaining the status quo on. Whit Andrews, vice president at Gartner, Inc. the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, concludes: "a financial era is ending. The age of conspicuous consumption is over, and the age of conspicuous frugality starts now".

Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown, Barrack Obama and a few other enlightened politicians understand that capitalism needs an urgent overhaul and have been saying so.The formula is simple: job creation = spending power = economic growth. Unfortunately moving the "fat cats" from the strategic positions they presently hold will be a herculean task.

PalmBeach Post: US Elections - the dubious role of the Clarion Fund - The secret cell helping McCain - by Randy Schultz

For the complete report from the PalmBeach Post click on this link

US Elections - the dubious role of the Clarion Fund - The secret cell helping McCain - by Randy Schultz

Last week, an ad for John McCain came with The Post. But it wasn't labeled as an ad for John McCain. The stealth ad is a DVD titled Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West. The film's premise - and this will shock you - is that groups such as Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah and their copycats are worth worrying about. Why, though, is this an ad for John McCain? To sound like one of the speakers in the film, it's a matter of connecting the dots.Distribution of the DVD, whose producers say it will "change the way you look at the world," was timed with the post-Labor Day start of presidential election season. About 95 percent of the papers that contained the DVD are in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and New Hampshire. Notice a pattern? Right, those are the swing states that most analysts believe will determine the election. The issue on which polls consistently show John McCain ahead of Barack Obama is national security. One way to make voters worry less about the economy and more about national security would be to send out a DVD that opens with clips of 9/11 and includes scenes of Muslims chanting "Death to America!" Oh, and there's that lie recirculating on the Internet that Barack Obama is a Muslim. So, for good measure, the DVD went in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and a suburban paper north of New York. All have many Jewish readers. The DVD went in the World Jewish Digest. The clear intent is to plant the idea that electing Barack Obama would be like putting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Oval Office.The sponsoring group for Obsession is The Clarion Fund, based in New York. I left two messages for the media contact. Neither was returned. I e-mailed a request for an interview to a related Web site, radicalislam.org. I got no response.

The Clarion Fund was organized in 2006 as a 501(c)3, which grants it tax-exempt status as an educational nonprofit. But The Clarion Fund is not listed with Charity Navigator, which rates nonprofits based on efficient use of donors' money. You can find Planned Parenthood of South Florida and the Treasure Coast and United Way of Palm Beach County with the maximum four stars.

I called NSA Media in suburban Chicago. NSA placed the DVD with The Post, which - like the other publications - approved it after the usual review by the Advertising Department. NSA Media referred specific questions to The Clarion Fund. "It's all on their Web site." In fact, the Web site contains little information about The Clarion Fund. No names of directors. No sources of money. Just the mission statement, which includes this line: "Clarion Fund is helping Americans understand that the mainstream media is not adequately conveying the reality of radical Islam."

IHT:US Elections - Economy plays havoc with McCain candidacy - After all he voted 90% of time for Bush's disastrous proposals

For the complete report from the International Herald Tribune click on this link

US Elections - Economy plays havoc with McCain candidacy - After all he voted 90% of time for Bush's disastrous proposals

The American economic free fall has played havoc with Republican John McCain's presidential campaign, as he tries to distance himself from the unpopular Bush administration and walk away from his own history as a champion of government deregulation. McCain found himself in a particularly difficult spot Wednesday as the bellwether Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 450 points — slightly more than 4 percent and the second huge loss this week — after an $85 billion government bailout of one of the world's largest insurance companies, American International Group Inc. McCain had vigorously opposed the measure just hours before it was announced.

McCain said during the primary campaign — and likely to his everlasting regret — that he was not as well versed on economic issues as he would like. Compounding that, the 72-year-old former Vietnam prisoner of war has been closely tied to President George W. Bush, whose popularity is at near record lows and most likely falling further under the weight of the economic slide this week — a meltdown not seen going back nearly 80 years. Obama, who appears to have regained his focus in the White House contest, was hitting McCain hard as a product of a Republican drive over recent decades to deregulate the financial markets, moves that the first-term Illinois senator blamed for the mounting damage to the U.S. economy.

American Thinker: What Europeans are Saying about Sarah Palin - by Soeren Kern

For the complete report from the American Thinker click on this link

What Europeans are Saying about Sarah Palin - by Soeren Kern

Europeans have greeted the news of Sarah Palin's nomination for Vice President of the United States with a predictable mixture of anger, frustration, resentment and resignation. After more than a year of uncritically praising Barack Obama as a supernatural figure destined by fate to solve all of the world's problems, European elites are suddenly coming to terms with the unwelcome possibility that the junior senator from Illinois might just be another human being after all. European commentary on Sarah Palin has ranged from ridicule, to ridicule, to more ridicule, to reluctant acknowledgment that Barack Obama may have met his match. In any case, many European elites are sensing that the Democratic presidential candidate, by failing to pick US Senator Hillary Clinton as his running mate, may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Note EU-Digest: If the American electorate falls for this clever new strategy of the Republican Party to change the momentum from Obama to McCain and votes in favor of a Republican ticket, which includes a "polished Bush makeover" and an attractive but unexperienced female VP candidate, then we can also better understand America's fascination with the TV show "Dancing with the stars".

Poll finds Europeans favor Obama over McCain in US

International Herald Tribune

"Poll finds Europeans favor Obama over McCain in US

WASHINGTON: Despite some optimism in 12 European countries that Democrat Barack Obama could improve relations with Europe if elected president, most Europeans polled in a survey released Wednesday do not want closer ties with the United States.

Also, Europeans continue to be much more critical of President George W. Bush than of the United States more broadly, according to the survey conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a nonpartisan policy institution that promotes trans-Atlantic cooperation, and the Compagnia di San Paolo, a research center in Turin, Italy."

Swissinfo.ch: US elections - McCain says "change is coming" to America - by Steve Holland

For the complete report from the swissinfo click on this link

US elections: McCain says "change is coming" to America - by Steve Holland

Republican John McCain cast himself as an independent-minded reformer on Thursday and said he had the scars to prove it in a speech that promised Americans "change is coming" if they elect him on November 4. McCain accepted his party's presidential nomination in a packed convention hall, insisting he can pull off the kind of change that Democratic candidate Barack Obama talks about in a year Americans are hungry for new leadership. "Let me offer an advance warning to the old, big spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd: change is coming," said McCain, himself a U.S. senator since 1986.

Citizen-Times.com: US Elections - McCain can win only as a war president - by Robert Scheer

For the complete report from the CITIZEN-TIMES.COM click on this link

US Elections - McCain can win only as a war president - by Robert Scheer

"Just great! Nuclear-armed Pakistan is falling apart, Iran’s nuclear program is unchecked, and congressional legislation on cooperation with the Russians on controlling nuclear proliferation is now dead in the water. Horrid news except for Sen. John McCain, who thrills to a repeat of the danger lines of the Cold War, and now stands a good chance of being our next president. A very good chance, if the Russian recognition of the independence of two breakaway Georgia provinces can be elevated to the status of a major challenge to the security of the United States. It is an absurd claim: How can one justify uncritical support for the independence of Kosovo from Serbia earlier this year while denouncing a similar claim by a Georgian ethnic minority? It is also difficult to ignore that it was Georgia’s president and close McCain friend, Mikheil Saakashvili, who upset the status quo by invading first.McCain can win only as a war president. He neither knows, nor cares, much about the economic meltdown, which is the consequence of the deregulation mania that he has supported at every turn during his career in the Senate.

If McCain had to run on his economic policy record in the Senate, he might be a loser even in his home state of Arizona, whose residents are suffering mightily from economic disarray presided over by the Republicans. Better to dwell on the dubious success of the surge in Iraq than on the surge in home mortgage foreclosures and the price of gasoline that has crippled Arizona’s and the nation’s economy."