Forty-six percent (46%) of America’s Likely Voters favor a federal gas tax holiday this summer. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 42% are opposed and 12% are not sure. Most voters who earn more than $75,000 a year oppose the gas tax holiday. Most who make less than $60,000 a year favor that policy change. Among those make less than $20,000 a year, 62% favor the gas tax holiday while only 11% are opposed

OPEC may decide to increase production taking pressure off of prices and feightening speculators who account for 20-40% of crude oil costs. Analyst say there is an even change crude will fall below $100 a barrel if OpPEC increases production.

There’s no rest for the wicked. Let’s see what wickedness is afoot in today’s Ten Post Round-Up:

1: Pentagon threatens soldier’s pay over emergency war funding bill….

Gun to their heads …–Alternate Brain

2: Maybe Iraq could help pay for its reconstruction with their oil revenues?…

With House Poised to Spend $163 Billion, More Argue Iraq Should Use Oil Money to Pay for Reconstruction–AlterNet

3: Looks like GWBs “surge” strategy is being put to the test…

Pressure to Cut Costs, Troops Strains ‘Surge’–Anti-war.com

4: China is helping to fund GWBs presidential library…

Let’s See Who’s Funding The Bush Presidential Library–duckplops

5: Nevada governor is fighting to get back in the Governor’s mansion and oust his wife, in divorce dispute…

Governor wants back in mansion: Court battle brewing as Gibbons seeks to oust wife from official residence–Elko Daily Free Press

Syria plans to maintain and develop its strategic alliance with Iran. The regime of President Bashar Assad had sent messages via intermediaries to the United States that Damascus regards its ties with Teheran as vital. The Assad message also stressed that Syria would not revise its support for the Iranian-sponsored terrorists group Hizbullah. ● Al Qaida continues to undergo divisions in Iraq. The network is in such trouble that U.S. intelligence believes that Iraqi members could be persuaded to defect. Iraqi and non-Iraqi members were hardly on speaking terms. ● Over the last few weeks, American businessmen in Libya have received threats including bombing their residences. Despite the threats, the U.S. embassy has continued operations. The State Department has ambitious plans to expand the embassy in the former pariah nation. the U.S. embassy has warned Americans of an Al Qaida threat in Libya. In April, the Khaddafy regime released scores of Al Qaida detainees. ● Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by cooperative Yemeni officials. ● Western intelligence sources said Iran has been coordinating with Syria in the development of nuclear weapons. The sources said Iran has been meeting North Korean nuclear experts in as well as receiving material via Syria. “The Iranians use Syria to avoid being monitored,” an intelligence source said. ● An Iranian pavilion was dismantled and its delegation expelled from the exhibition, titled Defense Services Asia, which took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They said Iran exhibited missiles and other equipment in violation of a United Nations Security Council embargo. Malaysia came under pressure to expel Iran hours after the exhibition began. ● Officials here said scores of suspected Al Qaida operatives have been arrested in Turkey in 2008. They said Al Qaida has established cells in several major cities, including Ankara and Istanbul. “We believe the presence is bigger than ever,” a Turkish security source said. ● The Saudi government has disclosed an Al Qaida plot to kill Americans who work in the kingdom’s oil sector. Officials said Al Qaida agents sought to befriend Americans abroad and lure them to Saudi Arabia, where they would be abducted and killed. ● Egyptian security sources said the Hamas regime has been developing UAVs in the Gaza Strip in cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood. The sources said Hamas has acquired expertise and equipment required for the assembly of UAVs for attacks against Israel. ●The U.S. military’s Central Command has submitted plans for an air and naval strike on Iran, Middle East Newsline reported. The sources said the plan envisioned escalating tensions that would peak with an Iranian-inspired insurgency strike against U.S. military assets in the Gulf. The U. S. moved a second carrier strike group into the Persian Gulf. ● In a move clearly aimed at the U. S. Iran has halted crude oil sales in U.S. dollars. Iran is the second largest producer in OPEC. Teheran has been pressuring Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members to end their sales solely on the U.S. dollar, and instead rely on a basket of currencies. ● Iran continues to ship explosives into Iraq, and so far the U. S. has not entered Iranian territory to interdict those shipments although there is increasing pressures to do so. ● Iran cut off talks with the U. S. about Iraq until it agrees to stop combating Shiite militia that Iran is financing and supplying and who are killing Americans.

Congratulations to Hillary Clinton on being the likely Democratic nominee for Vice President in the 2008 Presidential Election. I refuse to answer now and on these pages if I am one of the voting Super Delegates.

If the Democrats want to ensure that the Republicans do not pull a rabbit out of their hat and win a race most pundits thought they had in the bag from the beginning, that the race was their to lose given the unpopularity of the Bush Admin policies they should proceed soon down Obama/Clinton Lane.

In this election, The Super Delegates have proven dysfunctional because they are afraid to do anything other than ratify the popular vote and delegate counts, an authority they were specifically given. Regardless, they do have an opportunity to provide collective leadership and convince both camps this is the best way to insure a victory in the unlikely event Bush policies start to register success. What a laugh, huh?

It is unlikely but what if some combination of these and other events occurred?

1) Iraq violence stops and the political process succeeds in dividing oil revenues and convinces Iran to publicly and truly back off and stop their support of continuing violence where ever they can promote it inside Iraq with training, money and guns. Not likely in 2008.

2) the economy bounces back in a way voters feel less distress (housing, oil). Not likely in 2008.

3) Israel and Palestine agree to the terms of a settlement that creates a separate Palestinian state, first openly proposed by a US President when Bush called for it and if such agreement is supported or not violently opposed by Hamas and others who so far have benefited from continued violence. Not likely in 2008.

McCain could win under certain conditions.

Barack (and his advisors including Kerry) needs to be convinced to do so. Barack is very capable of doing it although he will have concerns about providing such a stage to Bill Clinton. He could appoint him as Public Relations Ambassador at Large then he would have a goal if not a formal portfolio.

Hillary, I think is also capable of doing it, her problem being the same as Barack, what would happen if husband Bill was given access to any White House stage, with or without portfolio, would he continue to upstage her and is she willing to permit that?

Or is Bill, under any circumstances, willing to be a part of the second team, which would put an unwanted spotlight on his new international investment cronies, demands for transparency and disclosures and the inevitable spiderweb of related conflicts, real and imagined, that will come to a cable news network near you as well as a couple of blog sites.

Fellow Super Delegates, Step Up To The Plate! Put the icing on the cake with Democratic Dream Team Obama/Clinton!

Someone working on the Maps of War site has done a wonderful job of graphically portraying the development of the major religious groups through history in the video entitled “History of Religion.” There are slight errors, for example the portrayal of all of Spain as under Islam in the eighth century AD, when the northwest corner remained steadfastly Catholic, but overall it is an excellent history lesson. What strikes me, though, is that the Jews were never particularly interested in converting people, but that the Christians took off from their base in Judaism and spread over much of the world through persuasion.

That was at the beginning. With their so-called triumphalism in place, the “Christians” lost their biblical bearings and began massacring people (including each other) in the name of their faith. Islam didn’t bother with any initial restraint, but spread mainly by way of conquest from the outset. Its representatives have been called “meataxe missionaries.” As for the Eastern religions, their emphases, in particular Gautama Buddha’s insistence that “life equals suffering,” inhibited any movement to improve the lot of the people in material terms for many centuries.

Oh, religion! What crimes have been committed in thy name!

John McCain recently slithered down to the lower 9th Ward in New Orleans just to walk a few blocks and tell the American public how appalled he is by the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina. To the area hardest hit by Katrina, he vowed, “never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way it was handled.” This is classic political posturing to help McCain look like somebody who might actually have an ounce of empathy for the downtrodden. John McCain was an active member of the Senate throughout the entire Katrina ordeal. To suggest that he was surprised about the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina is hypocrisy at its best. In fact, he helped to shape that response by voting down several measures that would have helped the Katrina victims.

McCain voted against the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill of 2006, which would have provided, among other funding, $28 billion for hurricane relief. He also voted against a measure to provide emergency health care and other types of much-needed relief to Katrina survivors, such as access to Medicaid, $800 million in compensation to those providing care to Katrina evacuees, and access to the TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) Contingency Fund for the states affected by Katrina and those taking in Katrina evacuees. If John McCain truly cares about ensuring a more appropriate response to the next natural disaster, then why did he vote – not once but twice – against establishing a commission to provide a “post mortem” review of the response to Katrina? The final insult came in 2005 when McCain voted against extending up to 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to those affected by Hurricane Katrina. These are not the votes of a compassionate conservative.

The ultimate indignity for the people of New Orleans is John McCain using their city as a political prop, painting himself as the ‘kinder, gentler’ GOP candidate and vowing that such a disgraceful response will not happen if he’s elected. That’s great John, but the people of New Orleans are probably wondering just exactly what you’re going to do to help them out of the mess they are in right now. When asked about rebuilding the lower 9^th Ward, he fumbled around for an answer that ended up being clear in the end: He didn’t know if he would rebuild it or tear it down if he is elected president. I’m sure it’s a comfort to those who live there that McCain can authorize a $12 billion-a-month war but he cannot commit to providing affordable housing in an area devastated by natural disaster. There’s something wrong about that.

McCain’s PR handlers and the mainstream media can spin him any way they want, but his actions are at direct odds with what they want us to believe. In 2001, after being defeated by Bush, he voted against the administration’s tax cuts. From the Senate floor he stated that he could not “in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of the middle class Americans who most need tax relief.” That was six years ago when he had lost his bid for the presidency and was, by several accounts, disgusted with the way the Bush campaign was waged.

It’s 2008 and John McCain is fighting for his political life. Do not ever misjudge his drive to become president. Bush’s tax cuts will expire in 2010 and now Mr. McCain is in favor of making the majority of those cuts permanent (the one exception being the inheritance tax). Nothing has changed about them. The cuts are still weighted to the wealthiest people in America. What has changed is McCain’s situation and whom he must assuage to reach what he no doubt feels is his destiny. It gets even more ugly when McCain is left to think for himself. He also has his own plan to eliminate the alternative minimum tax (originally created to prevent the wealthy from exploiting tax loopholes) and reduce the tax rate on corporate profits. The middle class may not be the only victim of McCain’s tax plan. Some experts are concerned about the nation’s solvency should this plan go into effect.

One other connection here that is rarely made by the mainstream media is the fact that John McCain’s net worth is in the $40 million dollar range. His wife is the chairwoman of the third-largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship in the nation. They also have impressive real estate holdings. It is said that McCain and his wife own eight homes. Seems that the McCain family is in a perfect position to reap the benefits of those tax breaks. The media attention McCain receives for his position of wealth is minimal compared to the scrutiny given to John Kerry and John Edwards. McCain’s supporters, of course, point out that it’s really not his wealth. It’s his wife’s. So was John Kerry’s, but that didn’t stop the media from having a field day with it.

Throwing the public a bone

McCain’s extraordinary compassion has inspired him to suggest rescinding the 18-cent gas tax through the summer. It saves the public about sixty cents a day (or $4.20 per week; just about where gas will be per gallon this summer). McCain went on to place his foot in his mouth by acknowledging it’s not much money, but it will provide the American people with a “little psychological boost.” This is absolutely useless to the people suffering sticker shock at the food stores and getting gouged for profits at the gas pumps. By the way, the money for this idea would be taken from funds used to build and maintain our roads and bridges. This money actually does create jobs and stimulate the economy.

While he’s throwing the public a bone with the gas tax, he’s collecting $58,358 a year in tax-free disability benefits for his war injuries. Disability payments suggest that he can no longer perform certain duties. In fact, McCain came back from Viet Nam in 1973 and proceeded to undergo extensive physical therapy to work his way back to fighter pilot status. He then became the commanding officer of the VA-174 “Hellrazors,” the Navy’s largest attack squadron. He did not retire from the Navy until 1981. When his advanced age is mentioned, McCain insists he has the stamina to out-campaign his younger foes. He recently boasted about how he hiked the Grand Canyon with one of his sons, so it’s not clear what disability he is being compensated for. One staffer suggested he’s being compensated for the torture he endured while a POW in Viet Nam. Without belittling Mr. McCain’s ordeal, the question remains what is a millionaire U.S. Senator with no overtly apparent disability doing collecting a stipend funded by the taxpayers?

Things are not as they seem

A good hard look will show that John McCain has degenerated into the political double speak that characterizes the present administration. There is not much difference between his projected policies and the ones Bush has in place now. If anything, he holds even more ‘hawkish’ views than Bush, which ensures the long-term occupation of Iraq and the increased potential of an attack on Iran. His voting record suggests he is anything but compassionate, nor is he an ally of the middle class. When people ask why he is so well perceived by the American people, the standard response is that its because the Democrats are still fighting it out among themselves rather than focusing on McCain. This is a convenient answer, but not the only one. The reality is that the mainstream media is still the primary carrier of information to the general public, and remains committed to the image that they have created for McCain even when the facts dispute its veracity.