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Well, the Congress might be on vacation but that doesn't mean there's any shortage of wingnuttery from the right. From Countdown's Worst Persons, Keith's winner takes the cake on amping up the crazy from the right.

GOP candidate calls for internment camps for ‘people that snuck into the country.’:

Speaking at a rally sponsored by Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, GOP state house candidate in Florida, Marg Baker, endorsed building concentration camps for undocumented immigrants:

We can follow what happened back in the 40s or 50s. I was just a little girl in Miami, and they built camps for the people that snuck into the country, because they were illegal. They put them in the camps, and they shipped them back. We can do that.

Runners up were Rush Limbaugh -- Limbaugh says "the top colleges are the functional equivalent of leadership schools from totalitarian nations"...

...and Grandpa McGrumpy promising to be as petulant as ever when it comes to working across the aisle. So much for that "Maverick" b.s. he thought we were supposed to be buying into -- McCain Promises He Won’t Work With Democrats On Immigration If He Is Re-Elected.

Note to President Obama... these people are not your friends. Quit kissing their butts when all they do is spit in your face.

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This is the McCain Media's idea of "breaking news". John McCain is outraged... outraged I tell ya' that Harry Reid would call out Republicans for their race baiting.

Actually this looked more like some feigned outrage to me. We all know what McCain looks like when he's really mad and this ain't it.

Good grief this man has some anger management problems.

From The Senate Democrats:

Senator Carl Levin attempted to set a time to bring up the Defense Authorization bill post-August recess today. Senator John McCain, however, had other plans. He objected to setting a time for floor debate for the bill, citing his displeasure with the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy being a part of the legislation.

Joe at Americablog has more:

And, he's wrong about hate crimes. There was no secrecy around it. In fact, there were two recent Senate votes amending hate crimes to the Defense Authorization bill. In 2007, the hate crimes amendment broke the filibuster by vote of 60 - 39 (McCain was absent.) In 2009, the hate crimes amendment broke the filibuster by a vote of 63 - 28. McCain was there. The debate lasted a couple hours, not weeks. Clearly, McCain is easily confused, especially when he's being homophobic.

This is just an early indicator of what the battle will be like in the Senate to pass the compromise DADT repeal bill. It's going to get ugly.

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The Democrats need to use this footage for some campaign ads this year. Rachel Maddow lays out how the Republicans have continually flip-flopped on their own campaign issues once Democrats decide to embrace them whether it be health care reform, campaign finance reform, aid to small businesses or cap and trade. As she said in the clip of this rank hypocrisy, they're just not embarrassed. But then since the media largely gives them a pass on this kind of stuff, why should they be?

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Arizona's first debate for the Republican primary race had a few memorable moments but none summed up the Republican Party's view on what is "pork" and what they consider their priorities on spending than than this bit by John McCain. Spending for teachers, it's pork, but we need to keep that military industrial complex going and make sure that the people "making those wonderful missiles"... the "job creators", have their taxes cut.

"Wonderful missiles"... I can't believe he said that, but he did. I can't think of a single reason to call missiles "wonderful" unless you think dropping bombs on people's heads is a "wonderful" thing. There's an argument to be made for "necessary" for civil defense which I'm not going to get into the weeds on here since IMO we're over-armed to a ridiculous extent for what's actually necessary for civil defense and have been for some time now, but "wonderful"?

I'll just leave it at this. When I hear the likes of McCain or any other Republican start talking about fixing our trade laws that encourage companies to ship jobs overseas instead of just more tax cuts for the rich and large corporations, I'll believe they're serious about protecting jobs in the United States. McCain is all hat and no cattle and sadly without cleaning them up as as Howie and others at this site have tried to do, we don't have a decent opposition party to this bull pucky.

I'll also just add that it's really just pitiful that it looks like Arizona is going to get McCain back as their Senator for another six years and that the fact that J.D. Hayworth is completely corrupt didn't arise as more of a problem for him in their state with his primary challenge to McCain.

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

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With a little over a month to go before the Arizona primary election on August 24th, John McCain finally faced off against his rival J.D. Hayworth and Tea Party candidate Jim Deakin in their first debate. As I wrote about back in March when J.D. Hayworth appeared on Rachel Maddow's show, John McCain's willingness to cover up Hayworth's involvement in the Jack Abramoff scandal when he chaired the Indian Affairs Committee is coming back to bite him once again.

Once again Hayworth claimed that McCain not bringing him up during the hearing proved his innocence in the matter and he went so far as to chastise McCain for calling him corrupt in one of his campaign ads. As I asked back in March, how's that cover up working out for you now John?

Moderator: When you were in Congress you were one of the biggest financial recipients of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, then there is you acting as a pitch man, which has been brought up from a questionable firm promoting free government money. Your critics such as Senator McCain have questioned your character, in fact today the McCain campaign sent out a release calling you J.D. Huckster. How do you respond to that?

Hayworth: Well, you know it’s really sad to see John McCain who should be revered as a statesman basically reduced to a political shape-shifter. John you’ve changed positions so much in this campaign, maybe we ought to set up an extra podium for you depending on which John McCain is going to answer which question.

Now the fact is rather than dealing with insults and I invite everyone because of my limited time here to go to the website jdforsenate.com to see extended explanations of that, but let me explain, this should be about the issues, about Mr. McCain’s record, yes on amnesty, coauthoring cap and trade, yes on the bailouts and the accompanying earmark spending involved there and of course no to tax cuts that help reinvigorate our economy.

John has a record that he does not want to run on. That’s why he’s engaged in this kind of attack ad and frankly it’s really unbecoming to you John. You’re not a statesman any longer. You’re simply a political shape-shifter.

Moderator: Senator McCain.

McCain: There you go again. Just as I predicted at the beginning of this debate, facts are stubborn things. Congressman Hayworth was one of the big spenders. He told people like Jeff Flake and me who were fighting against this earmark and corruption, he called us jihadists. He sponsored earmarks. This is corruption in Washington. My friend Dr. Coburn says it’s the gateway drug to corruption and that is one of the reasons why J.D. Hayworth was voted out by his constituents, because Republicans let spending get out of control. I fought against my own President and against my own majority to eliminate pork barrel earmark spending and I’m proud of my record.

[…]

Hayworth: John if you had told the truth about Barack Obama the way you’re spreading falsehoods about me, you might be President of the United States right now. The fact is John McCain is caught in cynical attack politics in Washington D.C. and one other note John; you chaired the Indian Affairs Committee hearings into undo influence of lobbyists. Never did my name come up. Never was it uttered.

John it’s sad you’d stoop to this. Shame on you. Arizona deserves better.

As I noted back in March, for more on McCain's cover up of Hayworth's role in the Abramoff scandal go read Dennis G's excellent post at Balloon Juice The Grifter and the Coward…. McCain should be ashamed alright, but not for calling Hayworth a huckster.

From The Daily Show July 8, 2010:

Arizona police officers can't arrest you for not carrying your papers, but if you don't have them, you can be detained. I guess that's what's known in Arizona as a "Catch Veintidos".

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MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has spent the last week embedded with US troops in Afghanistan and has discovered that a withdrawal deadline is absolutely necessary to complete the mission.

Maddow talked to NBC's Ann Curry Tuesday after touring the city of Kandahar.

"We've been hearing for a long time that the Kandahar offensive has been delayed," said Maddow. "It's been pushed back. That's the common wisdom, I think, in American circles. It's very clear here in Afghanistan that it's very much under way. It hasn't been delayed. It just doesn't look like a war movie."

"What you're looking at is setting up Afghan governance and there's a sense of urgency to do that because of the American deadline to start leaving next summer," she explained.

"There have been a lot of critics who have said that deadline doesn't make sense in terms of military strategy. But I think that's only true if you think of war, this kind of war, as if it's some kind of D-Day every day. It's really not like that. Counterinsurgency doesn't look like that," Maddow continued.

"The point of this counterinsurgency strategy is to set up an Afghan government so Afghanistan is essentially hardened against the Taliban coming back into power and against Afghanistan again linking up with these extremist groups," she said.

"The deadline is not for military strategy in pure military terms. The deadline is so the Afghan government feels like they've really got to get their act together and stand up and get it done."

"I have to tell you that the counterinsurgency doctrine may not work. It may not work no matter what we do to try to try to set up the Afghan government here, but it definitely won't work without a deadline at least in Kandahar, not based on what I've seen after this latest embedding," Maddow told Curry.

Critics have called the 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing troops a mistake.

"I'm concerned about the perception of our friends and our enemies as well as the people in Afghanistan, as to the depth of our commitment," Sen. John McCain told ABC's Jake Tapper Sunday.

"I know enough about what strategy and tactics are about. If you tell the enemy that you’re leaving on a date certain, unequivocally, then that enemy will wait until you leave," he said.

Sen. Joe Lieberman also hopes that as the deadline nears Gen. David Petraeus and Obama will change their minds.

"The President has come some distance now in the last couple of weeks and clarified that. Whatever we do in July of 2011 will be based on conditions on the ground at the time," he told Fox News' Major Garrett Sunday.

"You know, the President made the right decision last December that America has a vital, national security interest on the line here in Afghanistan. We've got to win it. And therefore, you don't put that on a timeline," said Lieberman.

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The endless war brigade of BFF's John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman took a trip to Afghanistan this weekend and from there, all gave the bobble head shows some "EXCLUSIVE" interviews demanding that there be no deadlines for withdrawal in Afghanistan. And despite allegations of corruption Lindsey Graham says don't dare cut off any of the money we're sending over there. Since he thinks that's more important than unemployment benefits, maybe someone could ask him if that bribe aid money was paid for in the budget?

I feel like I'm having Iraq-redux syndrome every time I listen to these guys speak. Same tired bullshit, different country. Someone needs to ask them to explain just how we "win" an occupation.

McCain: Kandahar Is Key to Victory in Afghan War:

Sen. John McCain, who visited Afghanistan's largest city in the south on Monday with two other U.S. lawmakers, warned of tough fighting ahead and predicted that casualties would rise in the short-term.

"The Taliban know that Kandahar is the key to success or failure," McCain told a news conference at the airport in Kabul. "So what happens in this operation will have a great effect on the outcome of this conflict. But I am convinced we can succeed and will succeed, and Kandahar is obviously the key area. And if succeed there, we will succeed in the rest of this struggle." [...]

Lieberman said he understood that Obama wanted to use the July 2011 timetable to send the message that the U.S. would not be in Afghanistan forever. Still, he said he thought the president was wrong to set it. "We hear it everywhere we go here. They say they think we're leaving. We're not going to leave until we win." [...]

All three criticized New York Democratic Representative Nita Lowey, chairwoman of a key House panel that voted to cut off nearly $4 billion in civilian aid to Afghanistan pending an investigation into allegations that Afghan officials were blocking corruption probes and foreign aid was being pocketed.

Afghan officials have pushed back, saying she was wrong to suggest that government officials in Kabul had misused or pocketed donor funds, accurately pointing out that contractors and foreign capitals hold the pursestrings for the vast majority of international aid in the country.

Putting nearly $4 billion in civilian aid in doubt is self-defeating because it's impossible to defeat the Taliban until Afghanistan has more effective civilian institutions, Graham said.

"Congress needs to understand that statements like this at this point in time are ill-advised," Graham said. "People are making a decision who to side with. ... The money in question is just as important to the war effort in my view as additional troops."

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After being asked by Jake Tapper why President Obama is bringing up the issue of immigration reform now even though it doesn't appear there's any chance that something is going to get passed in the Senate, Al Hunt takes John McCain to task for his fear mongering interview earlier in the show where he lied about the crime rate in Arizona.

HUNT: I must say, John McCain, in his interview with you, Jake, that was extraordinary to say that crime is up there. He's talking about Mexico. Crime is down in Arizona. Every single academic study that's been done shows that immigrants commit fewer crimes.

RAMOS: That's right.

HUNT: We have a system where there are now three-and-a-half-fold more illegal immigrants than there were 20 years ago. It's a system that's broke. And for John McCain to say that there's been a dramatic change just simply is not the case.

It's too bad Al Hunt is the one bringing this up instead of Jake Tapper calling out McCain while he had him on the air.