Great article. I'm glad to have learned more about such a momentus player on the right side of the political spectrum!

But she's not very consequential. If she weren't John McCain's daughter no one would have heard of her.

republicans can't be feminists in the normal meaning of the term. republicans are for lower taxes and smaller government. traditional feminists want higher taxes and bigger government in order to give tax dollars to special interests groups that benefit and employ only women.

a republican feminist would be more inclined to working towards something resembling gender equality, rather than female superiority and safe & easy jobs for women who really don't want to work that hard.

I know so little about this person. Great "perfect squelch" of fatass Glen Beck! A quick google search said she's a reefer fan, too. Stoned Republicans? Who would've ever known? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/18/meghan-mccain-wendy-williams-po...

Because while I think it is supposed to evoke a sense of prudence in managing the balance between government income and outlays, in practice it means nothing of the sort.

What it means is that "me and my family and my friends have much and will keep it. We won't feel guilty about it and will in fact continue to agitate for ever lower taxes on our wealth; this despite the fact that as a class we produce nothing of value."

And while "fiscal conservatives" will talk up a storm about cutting spending on social programs that improve society, they seem to have absolutely no impediments towards war mongering.

Before getting to your completely spurious assessment with regard to the gold standard, let me just point out that your perspective insipidly concludes (by not even addressing it) that government cutting taxes... and then cutting spending to match the taxes... is a valid practice, but raising taxes to match spending is somehow flawed.

This is the kind of vapid and or insane thinking that has gotten us to the point we are in. Let me ask you (rhetorically): when our nation embarked on a war to defeat fascism, were taxes *lowered* to pay for it? Fuck no. Taxes on the richest Americans were around 90 percent -- and yes there were plenty of tax dodges, but the fact remains that for the most part taxes on the rich financed the war.

Contrast that with the bullshit game your "fiscal conservatives" ran on the country during the Bush/Cheney administration. Fiscal conservatives my ass.

As for the gold standard, the idea of needing a flexible money supply has several bases. Such flexibility is needed to account for growth in the economy due to population growth alone, but the basic need for the un-planned capitalist economy to have outside controls so as to preclude the crushing boom and bust cycles it is otherwise perfect for creating is the paramount reason.

The problem with the Fed is not that it regulates the money supply, but that it does so according to the interests of the banksters that run it.