Follow this logic:

Presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, opposed an equal pay bill in the Senate last week because it will lead to more lawsuits.

So ... the problem is so rampant and widespread, that if passed, tens of thousands of women (your wives, mothers, sisters, females of all related sorts ... remember that John Mayer song?) would have a legal way to be justly compensated for their work ... and we just can't let that happen. That problem cannot be solved through the courts.

One might wonder how else you would solve it in a civilized society.

The Center on Wisconsin Strategy gives a breakdown about what's going on closer to home. "Wisconsin women make 78 cents to the dollar compared with men."

Sweet!

The nasty news no one's talking about regarding this insane gas tax holiday supported by McCain and Clinton, is that more than 300,000 transportation workers will lose their jobs due to lack of funds.

300,000 mostly white men will lose their jobs. Got that? Paying attention now?

The association also estimates that suspending the tax would divert about $8.5 billion from the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for road and bridge repairs and already faces a shortfall of $3.2 billion. Taking that tax money from the trust fund could endanger hundreds of thousands of jobs — every $1 billion in highway money supports 33,000 jobs, by one estimate — and would push more maintenance and construction costs onto the states.

Read more.

via MAL Contends

Most rational, honest observers (those are not whom we see on cable TV) know that absent a historic meltdown by Obama, Hillary Clinton has virtually no chance of winning the Democratic nomination.

Her nine-digit win in the quasi-machine state of Pennsylvania excites only those with a vested interest in seeing her continue in the race.

Here's an updated reposting of one rationale explaining why Hillary stays in, consistent with known facts: A third-party/independent run.

In Hillary Clinton's willingness to blow up a historic Democratic constituency (the African-American vote, now voting against here nine-to-one), her embrace of John McCain's national security credentials over Barack Obama's, and her utilization of rightwing media organs to smear Obama, right as her money is drying up, one sees at least the outlines of a rationale for the messianic Hillary to morph into Joe Lieberman and stage an independent run for the presidency.

via MAL Contends
Madison, Wisconsin—Frank Rick has a piece in this morning’s Times arguing that Obama and Hillary  “are flat-out wrong” in condemning John McCain for McCain's allegedly having expressed a willingness “… to keep this (Iraq) war going for 100 years,” as the two Democrats on the campaign trail state their desire for withdrawal, contra McCain.

Rich, among the most perceptive columnists today, cites other writers and fact checkers making the same point, including tips [at] cjrdaily [dot] org in the Columbia Journalism Review.

So what are McCain’s words about the U.S. occupation/war made at a town meeting in January, and repeated since?

Obama advocates (especially voters in Wisconsin prideful that their state is the turning point in the destruction of Hillary’s Democratic coalition) concerned about the recent pro-McCain coverage on CNN and MSNBC as a precursor of biased media treatment to come can relax.

McCain is a fatally weak GOP candidate to face Obama, and it’s likely that many GOP movement wingers see him as a 2008 sacrificial sheep happily slaughtered to the 2012-2016 gods.

There's no open talk from GOP insiders of course, but there is a secret let-McCain-fall program: Call it McCainCon [a play on the secret EComCon conspiracy from the Seven Days in May movie based on the Fletcher Knebel- Charles W. Bailey II book].

I'm suggesting a plot by conservative movement officers to sabotage the GOP nominee for president of the United States.

And conservatives need only participate with faint energy in the campaign to add their support to this McCainCon conspiracy, watching a man they dislike take the fall in a Goldwateresque election for the GOP.

Consider some structural election facts and Democratic capabilities.

Update II: McCain Keeps up Al Qaeda-in-Iraq Talk Update: Obama Scores against McCain

Wisconsin knows a lot about political reformers and we're always looking for a reformer to run for president. And John McCain, you ain't it!

Update II: Cap Times: Apply McCain Standard to McCain

Update: See also: McCain's Character Is Now Fair Game for Reporters and Blogs

Suppose that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were the Chair of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee.

Suppose further that this hypothetical Committee Chair:

Madison, Wisconsin — “If the Democrats want to make this a brokered convention with a bunch of insiders (super delegates) deciding the nominee, the hell with them, I’ll vote for McCain. And I don’t even like McCain,” said a Barack Obama supporter over the weekend.

 It’s a sentiment being echoed across Wisconsin as its primary next Tuesday, Feb. 19, is garnering national scrutiny.

A brokered opinion is a suicide pact for the democrats.

The same gruff, independent sentiment with which Obama has successfully made common cause, has spurred Obama to the precipice of frontrunner status in the Democratic primary.

One of the few positive things that can be said of President Bush’s 2009 budget is that it reveals the outrageous priorities of the Republican Party as America dashes through the high-stakes 2008 campaign.

The GOP candidate(s) are going to have to decide whether to use the dead-on-arrival Bush budget as a punching bag or an embarrassing political imprecation from which they should run at full speed.

The Bush budget is devoid of commitment to the public welfare, revealing an ideologue’s mind-set to slash at anything that collectively advances human concerns.

From today’s NYT:

Assuming the GOP nomination is not settled by Wisconsin's primary on Feb. 19, one might believe that born-again frontrunner Senator John McCain would be a great fit for Wisconsin.

Self-proclaimed straight talker, with a reputation as a maverick, McCain has a lot of appeal.

But today's Wisconsin GOP is not that of 20 years ago, and McCain's appeal to political independents would fail here as his straight-talk express is revealed as another media creation lacking substance and conviciton.

Democrats, and the vast majority of Americans not adherring to rightwing ideology are looking forward to a John McCain GOP nomination for president, because it would come up way short.

McCain faces the impossible task of disentangling himself from George W. Bush and the close-to-impossible task of bringing along the religious right in a general election.