McCain is going after Obama because the latter told Joe the Plumber that he aims to “share the wealth.” Well, yeah. Isn’t that a good thing to do? What kind of country, what kind of people, doesn’t want to share its national wealth? And what’s the alternative? To not share the wealth? To keep it in the hands of the few? I’m not sure that I understand McCain’s thinking...

Is there a small group of people controlling global affairs? Millions of people around the world believe there is, and many of those point to a ‘club’ created in The Netherlands to try and knit the world back together after the catastrophe of World War II. It is called the Bilderberg Group. The topic of this article from Mexico’s La Jornada is whether an offshoot of the Bilderberg Group...

Larry J. Sabato’s ELECTORAL COLLEGE UPDATE: OCTOBER 16 OVERALL: John McCain’s position in the Electoral College continued to deteriorate in the previous seven days. We are making the following adjustments, accordingly. AR from Solid McCain to Likely McCain: The financial meltdown is lowering McCain’s percentage here, but as of now, we do not believe a McCain win is seriously threatened....

With only 17 days left until the election and many of my TMV colleagues jumping off the fence to one side or the other, the time is fast approaching for all of us to plant our flags. Today I would like to share my own observations and experiences regarding the various candidates through this seemingly endless campaign season and why, as the title of this piece indicates, I will cast my vote next month for Bob...

So what does the non-English speaking world think of ‘Joe the Plumber’ – made famous by Senator John McCain when he mentioned him at least a dozen times – during his third debate with Barack Obama? According to Patrick Etschmayer of Switzerland’s Nachrichten newspaper – McCain’s exchanges with Obama over ‘Joe’ – served to demonstrate once again that...

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with someone about the upcoming presidential race and I must have said something that made her asked if I was wavering in my support for McCain. I said no, but in reality, I was. At this point, I am not sure who I will vote for. There are certain things that make me pause with both candidates. No matter what I do, voting for McCain or Obama will have its risks. The thing that...

The government’s approach to the current economic concerns seems to change on a daily, if not hourly basis, with proposals coming in from all quarters. In order to get a better handle on this, Cindy and I sat down this week with economist and senior McCain campaign domestic policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer. Our goal was to sort out some of the possible confusion over the various proposals on the table...

A few days ago, a meeting of great significance to the United States took place in the Iraqi Holy City of Najaf. With Iraq on the cusp of signing a historic, long-term security deal with Washington, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sought the approval of that nation’s most powerful man: the reclusive Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. According to this article from Iraq’s Al-Sabaah newspaper, which outlines...

It took a heart of stone to watch PBS’ News Hour last night without breaking into tears over America in ruins– a collapsing economy with no end in sight, the falling-apart of charity and culture in Seattle, poor people without medical care in New Mexico and, to cap it off, a critique of how helpless the presidential candidates are to do anything meaningful about it. How did we get to be living in...

Is the ‘radical transformation’ of U.S. politics now underway a ‘tribute to American pragmatism’? According to Pierre Rousselin, editorialist for France’s Le Figaro: “In economics as in diplomacy, the most ideological administration in America’s modern history is about to end with a dramatic renunciation of the dogma it defended at its debut. … This is a tribute to...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com

The reason that John McCain and the rest of the GOP is failing this year is not because of media bias, or dirty tricks by the Obama campaign, but because conservatives have run out of ideas. McCain has never been an idea person, hoping that people would elect him on his august resume. But you can only go without new ideas for so long, which is why the GOP is getting its head handed to them come November. But...

Patrick Chappatte, Le Temps, Switzerland It’s a huge international story. For more info on the U.S. aspect of it, GO HERE.

The writer of this article from Uruguay mentions the need for a ‘visionary leader’ that will institute a modern – global ‘New Deal.’ Many will surmise that the author, Sebastián Da Silva, is talking about Barack Obama. But perhaps that’s too Democratic and U.S.-centric a view. In outlining the problem, Da Silva says among other things: “So far, no one knows the depths...

The negative turn taken by the McCain campaign over the past few weeks hasn’t escaped observers in other countries, and in fact has begun to elicit alarm. Today’s editorial in France’s Le Monde newspaper notes with concern: “For Republicans, disarmed by the unpopularity of Mr. Bush and the financial doldrums, the color of Mr. Obama’s skin is becoming the only argument left for...

Yesterday’s stock-market surge was at least a temporary all-clear for millions of Americans to emerge from the shock and awe that has devastated their financial lives. As they look around at the rubble of savings, 401ks and home values, what are they thinking and feeling? Across the country, there are reports of victims. “In some places,” CNN reports, “mental-health hot lines are jammed,...

As some of you know, I’ve been running a little civics experiment over at my blog. In it, I asked congressional candidates in local races whether they’d publicly commit to fiscal responsibility via PAYGO — and I was very careful in how I defined PAYGO: Once upon a time, in another era, the concept of ‘pay as you go’ was well understood. In recent years, unfortunately, partisanship and...

Today George W. Bush and Henry Paulson announced the partial nationalization of the banking industry. Bush insists that this is not an assault on the free market system. And the New York Times notes that this is not unprecedented. The government has nationalized various sectors of the economy before, most notably the collapsing railroad industry in the 1970s. The last time the financial services industry faced...

Paul Zanetti, Australia

With the election looking for all the world like a Barack Obama win, would there be any hint of complacency when Joe and Jill Biden and Bill and Hillary Clinton took the stage at a rally in the Coal Country of Pennsylvania over the weekend? I stayed glued to the teevee for the entire event, nicely-planned to end before the day’s most important happening, the Eagles-49ers game, to try to suss out whether...

Basing his thesis on a recent article from Slate magazine which psychoanalyzed the U.S. presidential candidates and President Bush, Jihad Al-Muhaisin of Jordan’s Al-Ghad newspaper concludes that the election of McCain would be “the greatest tragedy.” Pointing out that like Bush, McCain – based on the work of famed Psychologist Carl Jung – is classified as an ‘Artisan’,...

Ever hear of the “wobblies?” That was the nickname of the International Workers of the World, a radical labor movement that had many followers a hundred or so years ago. An outfit that promoted the idea of one big union of all the world’s workers to confront “the bosses.” Their one big union of working people idea never came off, of course, But a collective of a very different...

According to many observers around the world, whether or not Barack Obama wins the actual election – and it looks like he will – the financial catastrophe has insured that his philosophy of governance has already won. Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff of the German Newspaper Die Zeit writes in part: “The Obama government will quite possibly begin this week. No, not the tenure of President Obama. Because...

Or did they?