The Truth About John Sydney McCain ("JiSM")

McCain's Attack on Chelsea Clinton's Sexuality Gains Fresh Attenion Upon Her Marriage

2010-08-02T19:19:00.002-04:00

When I started this Truth-About-McCain blog to share facts about John McCain and to help prove that he ought never become president, it never occurred to me that the blog would continue to be relevant after the 2008 presidential election. However, because McCain continues to a US Senator, his past remarks continue to be relevant to his current political status. His attacks on famous others gain new attention when those others do things that are newsworthy.

So, it is that McCain calling Chelsea Clinton a lesbian sparks new interest on and around the day of the Chelsea Clinton's marriage. As I reported here on May 5th, 2008,

Slate reports, "When [John McCain] got caught telling a dumb, nasty joke about Chelsea Clinton--the kind of crack that might cripple the career of someone else in Congress--he apologized immediately, was forgiven by the president." "The idiotic joke, which McCain told at a Republican fund-raiser, went something like this:"
"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father and Hillary Clinton is her mother." Audience members gasped.

For so long as John McCain remains a public figure, the stench of his attacks on women, including his own wife, will never go away.

Anonymity at Blogs Spurs Irresponsibility, Says Afrosphere Atty. Francis L. Holland

2010-04-22T10:48:00.000-04:00

As someone who has been quoted in the Washington Post, Slate, The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Dallas Morning News, etc. (see below) I know that bloggers who have anything topical and relevant to say about the issues of the day, particularly those of us who engage in investigative journalism, will eventually be contacted by the mainstream media and we will have to make our names and affiliations known as the price of addressing our political ideas to a worldwide audience.

So, there are those of us who really are Internet journalists
and who have been compelled to divulge our names and to allow the public to compare our political writing with our political, corporate and private affiliations, as well as our campaign contributions.

In exchange, we have appeared e.g. on National Public Radio, Radio Pacifica, CBS, the Los Angelos Times, and in numerous newspapers.

Subtracting from those of us with the courage and determination to divulge our identities as part of our contribution to international political debate, there are others who hide behind "anonymity" while name-calling, posting nonsense in the comments of serious diaries, and generally making a determined and long-term effort to drive the progressive blogosphere train off of its tracks.

Take d3n4l1, for example. This screen name is associated at Honda Accord Forum with John Lacquey but, according to the Federal Elections Commission, this person has never made a contribution to a Democratic Party candidate (or any other candidate) for federal office.

Now, I know some readers will howl like stuck pigs that the blogosphere is intended to be a place where blowhard opinionators and government informants can make idiotic comments and then hide behind anonymity so that they will never have to take personal responsibility for anything they say or do on the Internet.

This makes the Internet a perfect place for Government operatives to manipulate the flow of information, drive and ban real journalists away from blogs, and do what the Republicans obviously want the blogosphere to do: nothing.
francislholland :: Anonymity at Blogs Breeds Irresponsibility, Says Afrosphere Atty. Francis L. Holland
There is another insidious purpose for the culture of blogger anonymity: When most people who comment at blogs do so anonymously, people like Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ) of DailyWhitosphere are empowered to go on the national media and pretend that they speak for all progressives, even when their political history associates them more with reactionary Republican politics and militarism than with progressivism.

I think if you have something to say about someone then it is important that you say it to the person directly. That's why I say, today, to d3n4l1, that if s/he had anything meaningful and original to say that was worth reading then s/he might have a blog that has 45,000 hits at Google, such as I have at The Truth About Kos.

To the contrary, anyone who has read d3n4l1's idiotic comments at whitosphere blog after blog knows that d3n4l1's only purpose is to cause intelligent conversations about progressive politics to devolve into conversations about d3n4l1 and others' personalities rather than their political contributions. Nobody even knows who d3n4l1 is.

And so I say to d3n4l1, why don't you take off the veil, tell us your name, and your profession, so that I can look you up at Google and at the Federal Elections Commission and demonstrate to readers that, e.g., you donate exclusively to Republican political candidates?

The answer is obvious: No one would bother to read your idiotic and flatulent comments if they knew that you were, (e.g.) a Republican who works for Lockheed and contributed to the campaigns of David Duke and George Allen. I'm sorry, but I just can't see the purpose of arguing with a "Lost in Space" computer name like "d3n4l1." If d3n4l1 provided us with a real name like Bill J. Jones of Ashland, VA then we could all look up Bill J. Jones at the Federal Election Commission database and conclude that s/he had donated $300.00 to the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.

Then, we could ignore for all time d3n4l1's assertions that s/he supports single payer health care. If you confessed that your name was "Phillip Anschutz," then we would quickly conclude that you were the "Billionaire Republican Campaign Donor [Who]Buys "Now Public" "Crowd Powered Media" Online Newspaper," the same anus who donated to Larry Craig and John McCain.

Or, if you told us your name was e.g. Samantha Caldwell, then we could once again look you up in the Federal Elections Commission database and conclude that you have never liked any Democratic party candidate sufficiently to put your money where your mouth is.

I'm proud of who I am and I'm proud that the American Prospect called me a "controversial African American blogger," when I intellectually deconstructed and helped to destroy the vapid presidential candidacy of John Edwards.

Below are some of my mainstream media credits identifying the causes to which I have contributed my time and effort. I want d3n4l1 t tell us who s/he is and what s/he has ever done that would make it worth our time to read his/her personal attacks that appear constantly in the context of political discussions.

Who I am is a matter of public record:

Washington Post quotes Francis L. Holland slamming DNCC for all-white state blogs corps:

Francis L. Holland, one of the vocal black bloggers, sent e-mails to DNC officials asking that 15 black-operated blogs be added to the State Corps. "There is nothing 'Democratic' about an all-white Democratic National Convention floor blogging corps," he wrote in an e-mail. Holland is also asking for the inclusion of 15 Latino-operated blogs."

Slate.com quotes Francis L. Holland regarding John Edwards' decision to endorse Senator Barack Obama for President:"Or, as Obama supporter Francis L. Holland puts it: "So, it shows tremendous courage, foresight and solidarity that Edwards has endorsed Obama after the media declared Hillary's campaign to be as good as dead, right? Oh, well! Better late than never!"

BlackEnterprise.Com quotes Francis L. Holland:

"Of the blogs covering the convention, black blogs will be 7.2% of the blogs present,” says Francis L. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition.

According to Holland, many states with a strong black Democratic presence and population are either underrepresented or not represented at all, even though black bloggers from these states did apply. “

The state of Tennessee, which often has over 25% blacks among its Democratic primary voters, will not have a single black blogger at the Democratic National Convention, for example.

The District of Columbia, which is 60% black, will be left out. Louisiana, which is 32.4% black, will be left out.

Illinois, the presidential nominee’s home state, which is 15% black, will be left out."

Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism cites Francis L. Holland:

In 2008, the Democratic "party came under fire from African American bloggers. Francis L. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition, complained to Black Enterprise magazine that [B]lack blogs only made up slightly more than 7% of the bloggers credentialed for the convention."

Francis L. Holland Blog in the Washington Post:"We are tired of Hillary Clinton telling America that we are less than American simply because we refuse to vote for her," said Francis L. Holland, an African American blogger." Ironically, the Clintons embraced us, and even embraced Pastor Jeremiah Wright for support during their impeachment scandal." Holland was speaking of the congressional trial that followed former president Bill Clinton's liaison with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. "She has forfeited the black vote for the foreseeable future with her color aroused appeals."

Francis L. Holland Blog in Dallas Morning News:

“November’s voter turnout depends on August’s blogger outreach,” said Mr. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition., a member of a national and international black bloggers’ coalition called “The AfroSpear.” “Blogs address constituencies, and it simply is not possible for blogs that are all-white to effectively reach diverse Democratic constituencies.”

Francis L. Holland Blog in Black Enterprise Magazine:

"Of the blogs covering the convention, black blogs will be 7.2% of the blogs present," says Francis L. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition. According to Holland, many states with a strong black Democratic presence and population are either underrepresented or not represented at all, even though black bloggers from these states did apply. “The state of Tennessee, which often has over 25% blacks among its Democratic primary voters, will not have a single black blogger at the Democratic National Convention, for example. The District of Columbia, which is 60% black, will be left out. Louisiana, which is 32.4% black, will be left out. Illinois, the presidential nominee's home state, which is 15% black, will be left out.

"Pacifica Radio:

"Francis Holland is a blogger from Afrospear, a national group of bloggers that advocates for African-Americans. When he looked at the list of State Bloggers, he saw no [B]lack blogs among them. Holland explains that the process the Democratic Convention planners used to choose the State Blogger Corps was bound to lead to this result. And he argues that the Democratic Party can scarcely afford to alienate [b]lack voters in this election year.

" (The original link no longer works, which is becoming a growing documentation problem on the Internet.)

American Prospect cites Francis L. Holland:

"Electing Edwards to challenge the status quo is like supporting a queen to challenge the monarchy or integrating an all-white club by adding more all-white club members. It is possible that electing yet another white man to the Presidency will end the poverty of the historically disenfranchised, with John Edwards serving as a "pass through" for those who have historically been disincluded legally and by custom. But this is a very convoluted way of achieving what could be achieved much more directly by electing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. ..." Huffington Post published Francis L. Holland's articles. Columbia Journalism Review quotes Francis L. Holland Blog.

Washington Post quotes Francis L. Holland slamming DNCC for all-white state blogs corps:"Francis L. Holland, one of the vocal black bloggers, sent e-mails to DNC officials asking that 15 black-operated blogs be added to the State Corps. "There is nothing 'Democratic' about an all-white Democratic National Convention floor blogging corps," he wrote in an e-mail. Holland is also asking for the inclusion of 15 Latino-operated blogs."

Slate.com quotes Francis L. Holland regarding John Edwards' decision to endorse Senator Barack Obama for President:"Or, as Obama supporter Francis L. Holland puts it: "So, it shows tremendous courage, foresight and solidarity that Edwards has endorsed Obama after the media declared Hillary's campaign to be as good as dead, right? Oh, well! Better late than never!"

Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism cites Francis L. Holland:

In 2008, the Democratic "party came under fire from African American bloggers.

Francis L. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition, complained to Black Enterprise magazine that black blogs only made up slightly more than 7% of the bloggers credentialed for the convention."

Francis L. Holland Blog in the Washington Post: "We are tired of Hillary Clinton telling America that we are less than American simply because we refuse to vote for her," said Francis L. Holland, an African American blogger." Ironically, the Clintons embraced us, and even embraced Pastor Jeremiah Wright for support during their impeachment scandal." Holland was speaking of the congressional trial that followed former president Bill Clinton's liaison with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. "She has forfeited the black vote for the foreseeable future with her color aroused appeals."

Francis L. Holland Blog in Dallas Morning News: “November’s voter turnout depends on August’s blogger outreach,” said Mr. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition., a member of a national and international black bloggers’ coalition called “The AfroSpear.” “Blogs address constituencies, and it simply is not possible for blogs that are all-white to effectively reach diverse Democratic constituencies.”

Francis L. Holland Blog in Black Enterprise Magazine: "Of the blogs covering the convention, black blogs will be 7.2% of the blogs present," says Francis L. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition. According to Holland, many states with a strong black Democratic presence and population are either underrepresented or not represented at all, even though black bloggers from these states did apply. “The state of Tennessee, which often has over 25% blacks among its Democratic primary voters, will not have a single black blogger at the Democratic National Convention, for example. The District of Columbia, which is 60% black, will be left out. Louisiana, which is 32.4% black, will be left out. Illinois, the presidential nominee's home state, which is 15% black, will be left out."

Pacifica Radio's Election Unspun: "Black Bloggers and Black Power," interviews Francis L. Holland:

"Francis Holland is a blogger from Afrospear, a national group of bloggers that advocates for African-Americans. When he looked at the list of State Bloggers, he saw no black blogs among them. Holland explains that the process the Democratic Convention planners used to choose the State Blogger Corps was bound to lead to this result. And he argues that the Democratic Party can scarcely afford to alienate black voters in this election year." (The original link no longer works, which is becoming a growing documentation problem on the Internet.)

American Prospect cites Francis L. Holland: "Electing Edwards to challenge the status quo is like supporting a queen to challenge the monarchy or integrating an all-white club by adding more all-white club members. It is possible that electing yet another white man to the Presidency will end the poverty of the historically disenfranchised, with John Edwards serving as a "pass through" for those who have historically been disincluded legally and by custom. But this is a very convoluted way of achieving what could be achieved much more directly by electing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. ..."

Huffington Post published Francis L. Holland's articles.

Columbia Journalism Review quotes Francis L. Holland Blog.

Now, you know who Francis L. Holland is and some of his political contributions. But, who is d3n4l1, who (if anyone) pays her/him to post so often at so many blogs in a manner that has the effect of derailing substantive conversations about progressive politics and what is the price to the blogosphere of d3n4l1's anonymity?

Don't Count Sarah Palin Out in 2012

2009-07-30T12:40:00.002-04:00

I am certainly not pro-Saran Palin. In fact, I personally interviewed and reported on the story of the Duke Ellington Orchestra member who said that Sarah Palin has refused to speak with members of the orchestra when she saw their skin color (brown).

Some blogs are saying her resignation speech was terrible and will exclude her from contention for the Republican nomination in 2012, but I think they're probably wrong.

In spite of the fact that I don't like Sarah Palin anymore than I would have wanted McCain for president (see my Truth About McCain Blog), I think Sarah Palin's speech was actually pretty good.

She mentioned the troops and the military several times. She described the state of Alaska in glowing and engaging terms that would make people less resistant to having a president from Alaska.

Palin talked about her commitment to all of the issues are seen as most important by the extreme right voters who decide the Republican presidential nominee: small government, low taxes, helping and respecting small businesses, opposition to abortion, commitment to family (she said that was part of the reason she was resigning).

I actually think that, for what she was trying to accomplish, which was to announce her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, the speech was very effective. Remember: She's not trying to convince liberals, leftists or the media. She's trying to create a coalition of right-wing hate groups who will support her candidacy in 2012, and I think she's doing that. At least, I think her speech was a successful run at it.

Don't count Palin out. The very fact that she is known all over the Internet for disparaging Blacks and Native Americans will HELP HER with the Republicans who vote in Republican primaries.

She's got an entire dead bear in her office in Alaska, which gives her the 100% support of the NRA going in.

The other thing she did in her speech that proved she is running for president is that she said she would work with and support people from any political party if they had good ideas, which was Sarah Palin emulating the "broad tent" strategy that put Barack Obama in the White House. It's the same thing Barack Obama said. He said he was not interested in labels and parties and he invites everyone to the table to help make progress.

That's exactly what Sarah Palin says, and her emulation of Obama on this point is another reason why I think she is running for president and I wouldn't count her out of the 2012 Republican nomination.

Remember something else about a Palin/Obama matchup. Americans supported Obama because their memories of Bush were fresh and raw. But, Americans often prefer a president who is at least as lacking in intelligence as the voters he represents. Americans often prefer a president who says he will do extreme things; Ronald Reagan promised to send troops to South Africa to protect the "stability" of the Afrikanner apartheid regime.

Palin's probably the most exciting candidate the Republicans have, compared to the flip-flopping Romney, who was liberal before he was conservative . . .

I'm glad I live in Brazil so that I won't have to suffer Palin on television as president every day if the liberals turn out to be wrong about her attraction to the right and to the whites-are-rights.

If the economy is still terrible in 2012 and unemployment is still at ten percent, Americans might go with the other Party and elect Sarah Palin. If US troops are still battling rebels in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even Iran, or with no progress on Iran, then Americans may be willing to believe (or risk) that the foreign policy team Palin is surely building could be better than Obama's team.

Remember that when Ronald Reagan was running for office he constantly misspoke and said things that offended the media but helped round up the hate-groups that constitute the Republican Party.

Ronald Reagan ran for the Republican nomination in 1976 and lost. He ran for the Republican nomination in 1980 and won, went on to win the presidency. Don't count Sarah Palin out. CAMPAIGN to keep her out, and don't assume that it will be easy!

Bye, Bye, John Sydney McCain, III!

2008-11-05T11:32:00.002-05:00

There's nothing left to say about John Sidney McCain and so much to do to support the policies and priorities of President-elect Barack Obama. Let's get started!

Auto Industry October Stats Show Economy in Deep Crisis Mode

2008-11-03T18:13:00.001-05:00

If the crisis in the American auto industry is any indication of the financial concern Americans will take into the voting booth tomorrow, a McCain (party in control) win would be a major miracle. The New York Times says today,

Vehicle sales in the United States tumbled to multi-decade lows in
October as tightened credit markets and an economic slowdown kept consumers away from dealerships.

General Motors on Monday reported an incredible 45 percent decline
in its sales, and Chrysler said its sales were down 35 percent. The Ford
Motor Company said it sold 30.2 percent fewer cars and trucks.
Toyota Motor said its sales were 23 percent lower, despite
offering no-interest financing and large discounts on many models. Sales were down 33 percent at Nissan and 25.2 percent at Honda. NYTimes

This is evidence of a generalized meltdown, not just of the American auto industry (Japanese car sales are only slightly better), but this is a meltdown of America's confidence in the economy and the ability to obtain credit to buy a car.
“If you adjust for population growth, this is probably the worst
industry sales month in the post-World War II era,” Mark LaNeve, G.M.’s vice president for sales in North America, said in a statement. “We believe there is considerable pent-up demand from the last three years, but until the credit markets open up and consumer confidence improves, the entire U.S. economy, and any industry like autos that relies on financing, will suffer.” NYTimes

John McCain is talking a lot about the "American Dream" on the campaign trail, but perhaps the first part of the American dream that any of us achieves, even before a high school diploma, is a drivers license and access to the family car. Even when we cannot afford to own a home, we can be proud of our cars and delight in the freedom they give us to move from place to place.

When Americans are doing all of that 40% less than they were last year, that's evidence of an economic crisis that goes far beyond the auto industry. One Ford executive cited in the above article describes the current Republican-led economic crisis as "similar to what we’ve seen after a natural disaster."

McCain Implicitly and Tacitly Concedes He's Unprepared for Oval Office

2008-11-01T16:55:00.000-04:00

John McCain's campaign has been telling audiences and America that Barack Obama's preparations for the the Oval Office are presumptuous. If McCain really believes this, then he must also believe that it would be presumptuous for McCain himself to make preparations for the Oval Office. If so, we can assume that McCain hasn't made any preparations and would take the country on a misguided seat-of-its-pants roller coaster ride, much like McCain's own disjointed and lousy presidential campaign.

Are we really supposed to believe that McCain has made no preparations to take office? Yes, because McCain is so unlikely to win. Aside from promising plum ambassadorships to political contributors based on the amount of their contributions and bundling, John McCain is probably being entirely honest when he implicitly declaims having made any preparations for a transition. McCain is just as unprepared as his criticisms of Obama's preparations imply.

The Insanity of John McCain on Meet the Press - A YouTube Video

2008-10-30T08:31:00.004-04:00

Hat Tips to Calitejano and Firedoglake.

When you see how incoherent John McCain is in the above Meet the Press interview, you realize that:

Interviews are far more useful than debates in showing how the candidate thinks (and fails to think);
John McCain cannot explain his decision to nominate Sarah Palin, because it is inexplicable in terms of the traditional purposes of selecting a running mate, and the polls are showing that most people agree.
If a man as incoherent as John McCain becomes the leader of the free world (or God forbid he has an aneurism and Sarah Palin takes control), America would be in for a biblical-sized time of self-immolation and implosion, even bigger than the Bush economic meltdown America is now suffering.

John McCain Voted With Bush 90% of the Time

2008-10-28T14:11:00.000-04:00

In John McCain's own words

John McCain Boycotts Family Reunions with the Black McCains of Slavery

2008-10-21T23:26:00.000-04:00

In the United States, we are so used to assuming that there is a solid line between white and Black people that we are surprised to learn that there are Blacks in the American South who are direct descendants of the descendants of John McCain who is now running for president. Eve though we know that whites owned Black slaves and that white men sired children with Black slave women, yet there remains a deep denial and fear of acknowledging the obvious fact that many whites alive now have Black relatives whom they need to acknowledge and invite to their family reunions. The fact that they are Black is no reason to ignore them, because "blood is thicker than skin color."

And yet, although John McCain's brother Joe goes to family reunions with his Black relatives who are McCain's, the Republican presidential nominee boycotts these reunions, having no apparent interest in meeting with those of his relatives whose skin is brown. This says something very bitter and shameful about the character of John Sydney McCain. Watch the videos below for more documentary information:

The New Republic Doubts the "Maverick" McCain "Ever Existed"

2008-10-20T20:29:00.007-04:00

1972 Maverick,
a Rust Bucket Bottom of the Line Piece of Crap

McCain says he's a "maverick" and that's why he should be president of the United States. But, what is a "maverick", anyway?" It's a 1957 television series about the Wild West. But, 1957 is fifty years ago, and Americans like me, who are not yet retired, may well feel the need for a serious politics for our country based solidly in the 21st Century, rather than a politics co-opted from a 51 years old Hollywood script about cowboys and Indians.

A lot has changed since 1957, like the Internet, color television, DVD's space flight . . . John Sydney McCain says he's a "maverick", and that's why we should elect him president. But, what does being a "maverick" have to do with being the leader of the free globalized and nuclear-tipped world? John McCain may be trying to recapture his youth, but he's about half a century too old and too late to play the Maverick he remembers from the 1950's.

We still need pioneers in the sciences, but let's face it: McCain's no pioneer in politics; he's a derivative from Republican cookie factory, mass produced and "branded" just like the old Ford Maverick of which he constantly reminds us.

Maverick is also the name of a very basic car that Ford offered from 1969 to 1978, from the time he John McCain was 31 years old until he was thirty nine years old, thus, the nostalgia.

Is that all "maverick" means? Merriam Websters Dictionary, offers a definition that may get to the heart of John McCain's adolescence:

Main Entry: ¹mav·er·ick
Pronunciation: \ˈmav-rik, ˈma-və-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Samuel A. Maverick †1870 American pioneer who did not brand his calves
Date: 1867
1: an unbranded range animal ; especially : a motherless calf
2: an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party

So, the first "maverick", Samuel A. Maverick, was a bit of an anarchist, refusing to participate in the system that had been established for knowing whose cows were whose, while undoubtedly shooting someone if he believed they had usurped one of his cows by accident or on purpose. That hardly seems like a model for the complex world in which we live.

One definition of "maverick" is "unbranded range animal"and John McCain's campaign of late certainly seems unbranded as well as un-house-trained. That hardly seems like a model for a complex society in which the failures of one economy to act respsonsibly have caused an international meltdown, and now require intense diplomacy to put the interconnected system back together again.

The other definition of a "maverick" is "independent individual who does not go along with a group or party". In 1992, we were inclined to believe this image, even though McCain had gone along with other US Senators in the Savings and Loan payoff scandal that cost the US Treasury Billions of dollars to resolve, just like the current mess only on a smaller scale.

But now, after seen George W. Bush reach historic lows in his public approval ratings while John McCain has voted with Bush 90% of the time, McCain even in the most recent debate found it impossible to name any significant instances where he had broken with meaningfully with his party. He opposed torture, but the torture continued under his party. He urged that the war in Iraq be expanded for as many as a hundred years and voilá! The war continues unabated.

He urged that health care be deregulated and that individual states be forbidden by federal law from implementing any consumer protections that the US Congress would not approve. In this way, our medical care could benefit from the same unbridled competition and speculation that has led to an international meltdown of the banking and insurance system, to be followed by a bailout of the very same insurance companies - the most irresponsible bad actors - that got us into the mess in the first place.

If John McCain had ever been a conscientious "maverick" with a different moral compass than Republicans like George W. Bush, then McCain wouldn't have been photographed having a birthday party for himself, holding a cake with Bush, during the very day that New Orleans was inundated with water.

The editors of the New Republic online magazine have endorsed Barack Obama but, equally importantly, have pointed out some essential truths about John McCain, "the maverick": above all, that he never really existed. Recent history has shown that the "maverick" personality was always more hype than hope.

If the John McCain of 2001 or 2002 were running, this might be a far closer call. At that time, this magazine considered McCain a truly great political figure. During the 2000 primaries, we endorsed Al Gore and John McCain, an unorthodox step for us. Better than anyone in Washington, McCain made the case against creeping income inequality and political corruption. Oftentimes, we found ourselves wishing that his Democratic counterparts spoke with such clarity. Indeed, a cover story we ran urged him to switch parties. We didn't expect that he would listen, but we didn't expect that he would transform himself into a Sean Hannity conservative, either. And we certainly failed to appreciate how his impulsiveness could lead him to such spectacularly bad decisions (Sarah Palin) and such a spectacularly incoherent campaign. The implosion of the old McCain, if he ever truly existed as we imagined, saddens us, not least because the candidate he's become is so poorly suited to the challenges of the moment.

So, there are two fundamental problems with John McCain's Maverick schtick for 2008:

1) The intervening years since his first presidential run have proven that he never was a maverick, just an impostor of 1950's movie characters and relic automobiles, and

2) Mavericks (be they unbranded cows, elderly actors or long-discontinued car models, are irrelevant to the complex problems of governance that our economy and our nation faces in the 21st Century.

Lies McCain Told in the Last Debate

2008-10-20T02:55:00.001-04:00

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Hat Tip to Agent X.

Author: McCain Called Wife Cunt, Trollop

2008-10-18T17:11:00.000-04:00

Author: McCain Called Wife Cunt, Trollop

In his book The Real McCain, author Cliff Schecter claims that John McCain made extremely ugly remarks about his wife Cindy McCain during a tirade witnessed by three reporters and two aides. "At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, 'You're getting a little thin up there,'" Schechter writes. "McCain's face reddened, and he responded, 'At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.' McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days." Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Here's Your Candidate, Whoever You Are

2008-10-16T17:28:00.001-04:00

Here's the caption from Reuters, via Americablog.com:

Wed Oct 15, 11:15 PM ET

US Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) reacts to almost heading the wrong way off the stage after shaking hands with Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) at the conclusion of the final presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, October 15, 2008. REUTERS/Jim Bourg (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008

(USA)

In Nationally Televised Debate, McCain Lies About Qualifications of "Joe the Plumber" Some Two Dozen Times

2008-10-16T16:30:00.007-04:00

Today, John McCain accuses ACORN (voter registration and poor people's organization) of being involved in historic vote fraud. But, not long ago, as this YouTube video shows, McCain was a special guest at an ACORN-sponsored rally in southern Florida. Hat Tip to Eddie G. Griffin (BASG).

Yesterday, in the last of the debates between Barack Obama and John McCain, McCain brought up one "Joe the Plumber" (Joe Wurzelbacher ) some two dozen times, using him as an example of hard-working American small businessman. Only, it turns out that "Joe the Plumber" is not a plumber, and he's not even a licensened plumber's helper. In possible contravention of Ohio state or local laws, Joe the Plumber performs plumbing work without ever having been formally trained to do so at all.

The point is not that he shouldn't perform plumbing work (that's for the local authorities to decide), but rather that John McCain should get his facts straight before he makes an obscure and unlicensed laborer into the centerpiece of his argument for his presidential campaign, while exaggerating Joe's professional qualifications to the American people.

We cannot help but remember when George W. Bush and his cronies filled the airwaves with false claims about Iraq, evidently caring little that they were easily disproven. The problem isn' that John McCain doesn't know the truth. The problem is that John McCain doesn't care about the truth.

ACORN at Rally with John McCain

2008-10-16T16:11:00.002-04:00

Source: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/a_lifetime_ago_sen_john.php

John McCain Hearts "Joe the Plumber" in Last Night's Last Presidential Debate

2008-10-16T09:37:00.002-04:00

In last nights presidential debate, Barack Obama was the winner hands down. He was steady, personable, expressed deep and credible concern for the middle class, and talked knowledgeably about his focus on the economy. (See C-Span video.)

John McCain was scattered and attempted to rely on a conceit: "Joe the Plumber". To understand what McCain was talking about, you have to understand the back story: Recently, while Obama was walking through a middle class neighborhood and knocking on doors, a man accosted him and insisted that Obama intended to raise his taxes (while implicity John McCain would not). The video of this encounter is making the rounds of YouTube and the television networks.

John McCain might have hoped to rattle Obama by mentioning "Joe the Plumber" (he didn't), but then McCain returned to the "Joe the Plumber" storyline more than half a dozen times at different times during the debate, as if the phrase had some magical quality that would convince voters of McCain's sincerity or of his contention that Obama might raise taxes.

McCain made some very important concessions. He conceded that the Federal Budget had exploded over the last eight years, but he insisted he and his pal George W. Bush were not responsible for it. Meanwhile, McCain also insisted that if Obama 'wanted to run against George W. Bush, he should have run four years ago.' Once again, McCain effectively conceded that the Bush years are a disaster and McCain's only political hope is to try to disassociate himself from them, as Gore tried to disassociate himself from Clinton in 2000. As Geraldine Ferraro attempted unsuccessfully to disassociate herself from her husband's shady tax returns in 1984.

Meanwhile, normal Americans are feeling the hurt. Although the Social Security Administration announced today an abnormally large increase of 5.8% in 50 million Americans retirement incomes,

"Right now many senior citizens are feeling depressed because things seem out of control. They feel like they are in a boat being whipped around by rough seas," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Smith School of Business at California State University. "Their purchasing power has been going down because of higher prices for food and energy and a lot of other things while their savings have taken a hit because of what is happening in the markets." Yahoo News

In last night's debate, Obama, without specifically mentioning George W.Bush, reminded voters several times in several contexts that the last eight years' economic policies have not worked, and voters can see this plainly, grimly with their own eyes, in their own finances. McCain, in response, rattled off a list of ways in which he had been independent from Bush, like torture (old news and irrelevant to the current crisis); Iraq (a war that McCain supported and continues to support, and which is similarly irrelevant to the current economic crisis, except as one of the obsessions that has distracted the Republicans from the US economy), and so on and so forth.

By asserting incredibly that the has been independent in other ways, but without mentioning the economy, McCain effectively conceded that he has been a Bush lackey on what now matters most.

John McCain began his response to a question by mentioning offhandedly and irrelevantly that he had attended a professional sports game last weekend (probably in a battleground state), and Obama interjected crisply, "Congratulations!" The economy is in full meltdown mode, and John McCain spends his afternoon at a football game. So, now we know McCain's priorities. Unlike McCain, America thinks it's important that we resolve the meltdown in our economy, not play games.

Did I mention "Joe the Plumber"?

McCain Would Tax Employment Based Medical Benefits

2008-10-15T22:21:00.002-04:00

Once again, in tonight's debate, Senator John McCain repeated his determination to tax the medical insurance provided to American workers by their employers. He says his goal is to discourage "Cadillac care," and yet his plan would tax the provision of ALL employer provided medical care, including the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This is undeniably a new tax on health care services that would affect American workers including the poor and the rich.

In a related health care matter, John McCain says he would forbid abortion that are necessary to save the life of the mother.

If we look closely, we can see a certain perverted logic in John McCain's neo-conservative thinking: By taxing health care benefits and making it harder for Americans to see doctors, John McCain hopes to reduce the number of abortions in which doctors participate. See the logic? If there were no doctors, nurses and hospitals, then there would be no abortions. And that is the foremost public policy goal of one of John McCain's key constituencies.

Can John McCain Kick Barack Obama's Ass in Tonight's Debate?

2008-10-15T19:45:00.001-04:00

Recently, John McCain publicly predicted and promised that he would "whip" Obama's "you-know-what" in tonight's presidential debate. This was a poor strategic move on McCain's part for a few of reasons: First, in the last two debates, McCain hasn't shown any ability to "whip" Obama in any way, shape or form, and so this bit of McCain bluster tells America how McCain would perform as president - as a loud-mouthed talker who can't size up his (our) situation and successfully put his fists where his mouth is when it comes to resolving conflict.

Second, McCain has set a high bar for himself that he probably cannot possibly meet. When the country sees that McCain was all talk, it will hurt McCain even more than if he hadn't made any predictions about the outcome of the debate at all. Moreover, McCain's prediction will increase the audience for a series of debates that have coincided with plummeting polling numbers for John McCain.

And tonight's debate format doesn't favor McCain, who has been unable to look Obama in the eye in past debates. The Washington Post points out that, "Unlike the two previous presidential debates, tonight's encounter will feature the two candidates seated at a table with the moderator." McCain is far more likely to get rattled and lose his cool, or seem angry and petulant, in this format than is Obama.

Third, McCain's bluster shows that he is desperate and that his supporters are egging him on to do something about the desperate state of his campaign. His promise to whip Obama is effectively a concession that he has failed to do so in past debates, and in the campaign in general.

If John McCain were smart, he'd have encouraged viewers not to watch the debates at all, since there's no evidence that the debates have done him any good. But, he might be of the opinion that the campaign is already effectively lost, based upon recent polling, so he has nothing to lose by promising that something will happen in tonight's debate that McCain has failed to accomplish in all the debates that preceded it.

I've found all of these debates to be ultimately pretty boring. Barack Obama has shown himself to be strong and steady, not surprising and making very little news through these debates. Meanwhile, McCain has meandered through his answers, calling the audience "my friends" in a way that is really annoying to those of us who don't consider him to be a friend of ours, including many Republican, Independent and undecided voters.

I'll watch tonight's debate but, with Obama in the lead and quietly trying to convince undecideds while running out the clock, it's hard to see how anything that happens there can be more monumental than the melt-down in the US and world economy that has dominated the news for the last few weeks.

Obama will keep doing what he has been doing in the last debates (making little news but seeking to reassure voters), while McCain may make a desperate move that will turn voters off even more than they already are - to him, to George W. Bush, and to their deregulated anything-goes banking, mortgage and health care systems.

The real news for the weeks leading into the General Election will be whether the candidates can get their voters to the polls and the Election Day chaos and spurious legal challenges to the final results that Republicans are preparing to submit to courts packed with Bush appointees.

Obama at 53%, Pulling Away from McCain

2008-10-13T12:40:00.003-04:00

A majority of American likely voters seem to have realized that John McCain simply is not the man to lead the nation. According to The Washington Post, Obama now leads McCain by 53% to 43%, a ten-point spread. And this represents clear progress for Obama in convincing undecideds, Republicans and Independents, while McCain is moving backwards.

By Anne E. Kornblut and Jon Cohen,Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 13, 2008; Page A01
With just over three weeks until Election Day, the two presidential nominees appear to be on opposite trajectories, with Sen. Barack Obama gaining momentum and Sen. John McCain stalled or losing ground on a range of issues and personal traits, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. WaPost

Overall, Obama is leading 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and for the first time in the general-election campaign, voters gave the Democrat a clear edge on tax policy and providing strong leadership.

Conservatives Losing Confidence in McCain?

2008-10-09T10:42:00.001-04:00

It seems as though some conservatives have lost hope and faith in John McCain. David Broder, a fairly conservative columnist at the Washington Post is pretty much endorsing Barack Obama, by pointing out that even many Republicans find Obama's leadership on the economy more credible than McCain's.

I was struck by the survey of economists reported in the current issue of
the Economist, the London newsmagazine that covers America so well. It found much greater confidence in the economic views and advisers of Obama than McCain. The 142 respondents included far more Democrats than Republicans. But even among Republicans, the Obama team was rated superior -- and among the unaffiliated, the choice was overwhelming. WaPost

And George Will said a few weeks ago that:
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential
candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too
high. And it's not Barack Obama. WaPost

They're referring to McCain as "childish" and "untethered".

McCain's V.P. Pick Wants Alaska to Secece from the United States

2008-10-07T21:01:00.002-04:00

Secession: That's the way to bring the country together.

By Paul.

It’s time that we discuss Sarah Palin’s associations.

What would Sean Hannity say if Michelle Obama was a member of a political party, for seven years, that advocated separating Illinois from the United States of America and whose founder talked about once professed his “hatred for the American government” and cursed the American flag as a “damn flag”?
Don’t you think he’d be on that subject night after night after night?

And what would Bill O’Reilly shout (he never just talks) if Barack Obama had attended a number of meetings of this hypothetical political party while being an elected official?
O’Reilly’s head would explode and cover our TV screens is gooey red mush.

But not so for the woman who will be a better VP than Thomas Jefferson AND John Adams (or so it seems).

The founder of the Alaska Independence Party — a group that has been courted over the years by Sarah Palin, and one her husband was a member of for roughly seven years — once professed his “hatred for the American government” and cursed the American flag as a “damn flag.”

More at the AfroSpear and Afrosphere Action Coalition's BlackPerspective.Net

Palin Billed Rape Victims for Rape Kits and Forensic Exams

2008-09-29T08:22:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reports,

Even in tough budget times, there are lines that cannot be crossed. So I was startled by this tidbit reported recently by The Associated Press: When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the small town began billing sexual-assault victims for the cost of rape kits and forensic exams. NYTimes

Sarah Palin Can't Answer Basic Questions About John McCain's Talking Points

2008-09-28T01:56:00.003-04:00

As African American Political Pundit points out, the above Katie Couric/Sarah Palin interview shows that Palin cannot answer even the most basic questions about John McCain's foremost talking points. For example, Katie Couric asks as her last question:

Couric: I'm going to ask you one last time. Name one thing John McCain has done to increase regulations on the banking industry.

Palin: I'm going to have to get back to you on that.

Agent X Says Obama Won the First Presidential Debate

2008-09-27T12:41:00.002-04:00

AgentX has left a new comment on your post "The First Obama McCain Debate is Victory for Georg...":

Me and the Pundit were talking about this on the Political Slugfest [online radio talk show] last night and it's pretty much a win for Obama. The CNN and CBS undecided voter polls show a clear swing to Obama.

McCain was not on his game tonight. He came across as uncalm, angry, and condescending. And this was his strong suit. I shudder to think how he's gonna do on Domestic Policy (surge of troops in the hood, remember that?? I hope the moderator brings that up) and Economy (the last topic I think). More people now trust Obama on Foreign Policy than McCain. Tonight and that Katic Couric interview by Palin have cost McCain huge points in the pollz. If you trust the pollz that is.

I'm not taking chances. I already registered absentee.

The First Obama McCain Debate is Victory for George W. Bush

2008-09-27T03:15:00.003-04:00

I watched the first Obama/McCain debate. McCain said over and over again, in a Reagan-like fashion, "I think you just don't understand", in an attempt to drive home his thesis that Obama would lack experience.

The problem is, and everybody knows it, that McCain got us into the Iraq War and now he has no plan to get us out. He ignores the Afghanistan war, even though it's killing more us US soldiers than Iraq is now.

And McCain wants to expand the wars in the Middle East. McCain did a great job of expressing his undying support for Israel, without stating explicitly that that would lead him into war with Iran. But it would, and has top adviser, Douglas Holz-Eakin, has said as much.

The following is from the Truth About McCain blog, citing the Financial Times:

Would John McCain's election result in perpetual war in Iraq and elsewhere? Well, just look at what John McCain's chief adviser has to say about that. John McCain's chief policy adviser is Douglas Holz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, heads the Greenberg Centre for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and here's what he says about the loss of Americans lives and the economic cost of the war:
[T]he current and future budget cost and loss of life and health probably give the right magnitude. If so, the annual war bill represents only about one cent of the $12,000bn of national income each year, and the total military cost at most, a nickel. And that is the right lesson: the foundation of US international influence is its large, powerful economy which can absorb the narrow, resource costs of war and free the US to pursue strategic [WAR, WAR, WAR] and security goals. FinancialTimes.Com (emphasis added)
John McCain is always wrong about Iraq, and his errors are very dangerous. As when,
. . . he said the war would be "brief" and be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues. Or as he was in the 1990s, when he championed extravagant State Department funding for the war instigator Ahmad Chalabi, who'd already been branded untrustworthy by the C.I.A. (The relationship between Mr. Chalabi and the former lobbyist Charles Black, now a chief McCain campaign strategist, is explored in a new book, "The Man Who Pushed America to War," by Aram Roston.) NYTimes
Read the whole article. With McCain's chief adviser's reasoning, we can expect even more wars like the one in Iraq under a McCain Administration, since the Iraq War continues to be such a great bargain for America, both in terms of loss of life and expense to the US Treasury.

Meanwhile, Obama also knocked down on of McCain's (and all Republicans') chief criticisms of Democrats, as being pacifists unwilling to fight wars that are necessary for American security. Basically, the only thing a Democratic candidate has to do to win on this count is point out a country where he IS determined to fight a war, and show determination about it. Obama met the test.

McCain has been in Washington 22 years, watching the country get into the mess that it's in now, and providing some critical votes and support to this mess along the way, 90% of the time.

Between McCain and the battery of lobbyists that run his campaign, they probably have hundreds of years of experience - fleecing the American taxpayer on behalf of the rich and well-connected.

Americans want change and, precisely because McCain is so entrenched in the lobbyist merry-go-round, we know we will not get that change from John McCain.

If voters want another four years of George W. Bush, whom McCcain supports 90% of the time, then voters will support McCain, to continue the Bush legacy. If voters want change, clearly it's Barack Obama who offers change.

Viral Video Shows McCain's Lobbyist Connections, Glues McCain to Bush

2008-09-26T09:39:00.002-04:00

Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly 2 Millions Dollars

2008-09-24T23:17:00.003-04:00

John McCain says he's going to take on the lobbyists and the mortgage giants, but the AfroSpear's African American Political Pundit points out:

McCain's campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say. International Herald Tribune, via African American Political Pundit

McCain Brain Locks on African-American Question

2008-09-24T16:20:00.004-04:00

When John McCain is asked a two-part question, the second part relating to what he has specifically done for African-Americans, note how his brain locks up.

This is what happens when a compound, complex question is asked and a person has no answer for the second part. Just thinking about the second part of the question dislodges memory of the first part.

McCain Adviser Says Mortgage Problem Exaggerated, Isolated to "Urban Areas"

2008-09-21T10:18:00.002-04:00

John McCain has effectively announced that he would ignore Black urban areas if he were president, no matter how much they were suffering. Donald L. Luskin is a chief economic adviser to John McCain. In a Washington Post op-ed of September 14, before the AIG crash and the 700 Billion dollar mortgage bail out, Luskin said:

McCain campaign adviser and former U.S. senator Phil Gramm was right in July when he said that our current state "is a mental recession." Maybe he was out of line when he added that the United States has become "a nation of whiners." But when it comes to the economy, we have surely become a nation of exaggerators. Washington Post

To bolster his contention that the economy is not as bad as everyone says it is, and not as bad as the credit crisis would suggest, he says:

A housing "slump," a housing "crisis"? A "severe" price decline? According to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors, the median price of an existing home is up 8.5 percent from the low of last February. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median price of a new home is up 1.3 percent from the low of last December. Home prices may not be at all-time highs -- and there are pockets of continuing decline in some urban areas -- but overall they've clearly stopped going down and have started to recover. So why keep proclaiming a "crisis" after it's over? Washington Post

Two years ago, articles in USA Today and other national newspapers were pointing to increasing foreclosures and predicting a crisis. But Luskin argues, incredibly, that the mortgage crisis is not that bad because it is mostly limited to America's poorest people, "urban" neighborhoods, [and color groups]:

According to the MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association), 6.4 percent of mortgages are delinquent to some extent, and 2.75 percent are in foreclosure. During the Great Depression, according to Wheelock's research, more than 50 percent of home loans were in default. Moreover, MBA data show that today's foreclosures are concentrated in that small fraction of U.S. homes financed by subprime mortgages. Such homes make up only 12 percent of all mortgages, yet account for 52 percent of foreclosures. This suggests that today's mortgage difficulties are probably a side effect of the otherwise happy fact that, over the past several years, millions of Americans of modest means have come to own their own homes for the first time.

So, Luskin was still lauding and defending the predatory sub-prime mortgages that led to the current crisis, and could not be expected to oppose them even after all that has happened. Moreover, he thinks it is not cause for concern that 6.4 percent of mortgages are delinquent (and perhaps 6.4 percent of American homeowners are at some risk of losing their homes.) And he still hasn't understood that a cancer spread in America's poorest neighboorhoods has metastasized to a full-blown catastrophe for the nation as a whole.

Luskin's insistence that the housing mortgage crisis is limited to "some urban" (where Blacks live), and therefore is not really a crisis at all, is (a) not reassuring for Blacks who wonder whether a McCain Administration would show concern for us, and (b) still shows no understanding for the potential for bad loans in one sector to cause a generalized decapitalization and "run on the bank" in other sectors.

Anyway, how much cherry picking of statistics did Luskin have to do to compare the media price of homes now to the low of last December and declare that all is well? And Luskin cites, of all people, the Mortgage Bankers Association for the comforting belief that "today's foreclosures are concentrated in that small fraction of U.S. homes financed by subprime mortgages." After all that has happened, should the lobbyists for the Mortgage Bankers Association still be relied upon to determine when Bankers' abuses are grevious enough to require regulation, and whether the economy is threatened by their behavior or not?

The fact that John McCain's advisers were still talking like this on September 14 says that McCain is more concerned with reassuring his lobbyists and their mortgage lender clients than he was with preventing a meltdown in the American economy as a whole.

Good Thing We Didn't Privatize Social Security, Like the Republicans Wanted!

2008-09-18T22:46:00.001-04:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Original Graphic Collage

Contact: Francis L. Holland, Esq.
The Francis L. Holland Blog
http://francislholland.blogspot.com
The Truth About McCain Blog
http://truth-about-mccain.blogspot.com
(202) 657-4347
55 (73) 3288-1716
Skype: fazinformatica2005
MSN: francislholland@hotmail.com

How many Americans are wishing they had all of their retirement in mutual funds or the stock market today, after WallStreetizing their entire US Government Social Security retirement expectations? Not many, I'll bet!

Today,

Putnam Investments has closed a $12.3 billion money-market fund to limit losses to its investors, the large mutual fund company said today. The highly unusual announcement is the latest sign that tremendous financial pressures are now threatening even some of the safest kinds of investments. WaPost

The Washington Post says that there was effectively a 'run on the bank' at this fund, with its exclusively institutional investors all demanding their money at once. So, instead of giving the money out on a "first-come, first-served basis", with every successive withdrawal getting less of its money back than the last, until some got nothing at all, Putnam decided to just divide up what was left equally among the investors and liquidate this fund.

I know John McCain thinks the economy is basically sound, but the "bankruptcy" and liquidation of large money-market funds doesn't seem like a good omen to me. In fact, a lot of people have their retirement funds invested in mutual fund accounts, and such people have got to be increasingly nervous today, fearing that their hopes for retirement could be entirely wiped out.

One of the forces that could lead to a lot failures at these funds is that Moody's is downgrading the debt of a lot of banks, funds and other institutions, effectively making it harder and more expensive for them to raise money to cover their obligations. The more Moody's downgrades debt, the more companies will become cash-strapped and go under, in a downward spiral, unless the same brilliant president who got us into this mess somehow finds an unusually brilliant way to get us out.

Now, with money market funds in trouble, we can't help but ask ourselves what a mess we would be in now had we taken the Republican Party's advice and invested all of our Social Security retirement funds in the stock market? Wouldn't there be a lot of middle-aged and elderly people jumping out of windows right now, just like in the Great Depression?

It's a damned good thing we never let George W. Bush and John Syndney McCain, III privatize Social Security to invest the money in the institutions that are now going under!

Francis L. Holland, Esq.
The Francis L. Holland Blog
http://francislholland.blogspot.com
The Truth About McCain Blog
http://truth-about-mccain.blogspot.com
(202) 657-4347
55 (73) 3288-1716
Skype: fazinformatica2005
MSN: francislholland@hotmail.com

I just sent out the above press release, essentially saying that it's a damn good thing we didn't do as Bush/McCain suggested and invest everyone's retirement in the stock market and mutual funds instead of Government Social Security.

Imagine how much more complicated the bailouts would be now if they included ALL of the nation's retirement income!

Is John McCain's Cancer Back

2008-09-15T02:14:00.004-04:00

One only has to look closely at photographs of John McCain to see the evidence of cancer ravaging his face. If he were elected, he might be the first American president who was inaugurated with potentially terminal pre-cancerous growths on his face. He might be forced to give press conferences with oozing white gauze strips covering his cheeks.

Of course there is always the possibility that 72 year-old John McCain could survive for eight uneventful years, after having had cancer three times. But, in all likelihood, the cancer would come back at some point, and doctors would be forced to cut his balls-like growths off.

In the above video, a high school student asks McCain if he is simply too old, and McCain calls the student a "little jerk", indicating that McCain may be too angry.

Then, Sarah Palin would become president and American would enter the End Times, when Armegeddon makes us pay all of our debts at once - even the ones we owe to China and all our outstanding credit cards and student loans.

Video Shows McCain Lying about Iraq, Economy, Taxes and Katrina

2008-09-15T01:59:00.002-04:00

I think that because John Sydney Mcain, III (or 4th?) lies in the above video about Iraq, the American economy,his position on taxes and Katrina, it's safe to say that John McCain would say anything to get elected.

Secret Thoughts: From a Frog to a Prince

2008-09-04T10:30:00.001-04:00

Satire by Eddie Griffin

Thursday, September 04, 2008

When they turn the frog into a prince, we’ll have to fight like hell to keep him from becoming king and taking the throne. Frogs don’t go on to become king. He is a frog.

Why eight is enough? Is eight years of deepening depression enough? Is eight houses enough? If eight is enough, then we have one Supreme Court Justice too many.

Read my lips: No new war.

White man speaks with forked tongue. Peace pipe, no work magic!

Who do I hate today? The Viet Cong? The American Indian and other related savages? The Japanese because of Pearl Harbor? Al-Qaeda because of 9/11? How about the Communist Chinese? Or, the Russians? I know, today I hate the Taliban, tomorrow the Palestinians? I hate Mexicans that sneak across the border. I hate the African-American hip-hop low lifes. Tell me, who do I hate, today?

Surely, the frog is wise enough to know. As a prince, he will give me a hate list, enlist me in his army, and send me out to fight the enemy of the day… as long as the enemy is not the white man, upon whose shoulders he would build his castle… as if eight is not enough.

Did Phil Graham have a part in the Sarah Palin selection?

2008-09-03T13:35:00.001-04:00

Matthew Benjamin and Laura Litvan write in Bloomberg:

At today's event, Gramm also defended McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate.

“We went through a process of vetting all possible candidates,” narrowing it down to three before choosing Palin, he said.

When asked later whether he still has a role in the campaign, Gramm said, “I'm a supporter.”

I thought Phil Graham had resigned from John McCain’s campaign.

Gramm, 66, a vice chairman of UBS Securities LLC, stepped down as a co-chairman of the McCain campaign in July after telling the Washington Times that the U.S. is a “nation of whiners” facing a “mental recession”.

And, I thought John McCain distanced himself from Graham because of the comment.

After Gramm's July comments, McCain said, “Phil Gramm does not speak for me. I speak for me, so I strongly disagree.” People are not whining, he said, adding that “America is in great difficulty.

Could it be that Phil Gramm resigned only in word and continued to advise John McCain behind the scene? If so, he lied. If John McCain sought his input on his VP selection, then he is a hypocrite.

Governor "Abstinence-Only" Palin has 17 Year-Old Pregnant, Unmarried Teen Daughter

2008-09-01T23:33:00.004-04:00

John Sydney McCain has chosen Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, even though Governor Palin's 17 year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant while the Governor herself vociferously opposes sex education. The Governor says that Bristol and her sex companion, Levi Johnston plan to get married, which will make everything alright for this teenage pregnancy.

This seems to be yet another example of where Republican ideology and reality refuse to accommodaate one another, and so reality wins and ideology is embarrassed.

Palin backed abstinence-only education during her 2006 gubernatorial race. In an Eagle Forum Alaska questionnaire, Palin gave this response to the following question:
Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

Palin: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

*** UPDATE *** NBC's Abby Livingston adds that a McCain spokesperson in May 2007 said the Arizona Republican supported abstinence-only education, too. "Sen. McCain believes the correct policy for educating young children on this subject is to promote abstinence as the only safe and responsible alternative. To do otherwise is to send a mixed signal to children that, on the one hand they should not be sexually active, but on the other here is the way to go about it.
As any parent knows, ambiguity and equivocation leads to problems when it comes to teaching children right from wrong. Sen. McCain believes that there are many negative forces in today’s society that promote irresponsible and dangerous behavior to our children. The public education system should not join this chorus of moral equivocation and ambiguity.” MSNBC

Well, at least in the case of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, abstinence-only education doesn not seem to have prevented this pregnancy as well as a condom and foam might have.

Sarah Palin: Tar Baby?

2008-08-29T15:43:00.000-04:00

Eddie Griffin urges Caution

Friday, August 29, 2008

Who would have thought that John McCain would make a “steal your thunder” comeback, after Barack Obama hit it out of the park last night? No sooner had the confetti settled, John McCain shocked the world by selecting Alaska Gov.
Sarah Palin.

OMG, we were still hung over from last night’s jubilation and, WHAM!

“Wow. This is like a knife to the jugular for Obama and the Dems,” writes Sylvia.

Gina blogs: For those who read and contemplate political strategies, everyone is buzzing about Senator John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, and the first ever female GOP VP pick… This was a game changer. McCain is taking all of the oxygen out of the newsrooms this morning.

Gina observes that there was only the appearance of Hillary Clinton voters reconciled and unified with the Barack Obama supporters. What people see as festering in this deep seated wound in the Democratic Party provides opportunity for John McCain to tap into former Hillary supports.

Baratunde writes: - this is a big move by mccain, but i don't like to throw the word brilliant around lightly, and this is not brilliant. it is big. it is desperate. it is also risky.

- oh, and as for a group of political reporters believing this was a game changer, that's fine. but that doesn't make it so, and it doesn't say which way the game will end. political reporters, especially groups of them, have been known to be wrong again and again and again. if anything, their unanimity makes me suspicious.

RESPONSE FROM: Eddie Griffin

It is my habit to work from the “worse case scenario”. If we can find the solution to the worse case situation, all other problems become feasible for solutions.

What problem does Sarah Palin present to the Democratic Party? None, I see. Other than being the first female GOP Vice President candidate, she is a non-factor and a potential “tar baby”. If the Dems fight against her, they can only become entangled.

I subscribe to the Theory of Self-Destruction, as in John McCain being his own worst enemy. The less you bother, the more inclined to self-destruct.

McCain Says Construction Workers Under Stress Because They Won't Pick Lettuce for Fifty Dollars an Hour in Yuma Valley

2008-08-27T20:03:00.006-04:00

In the above video, John McCain insists that lettuce pickers in Yuma valley earn fifty dollars an hour "for the whole season". He tells a construction worker that he wouldn't do the same work, even for fifty dollars an hour, "because you can't do it, my friend."

I found the above video over at DailyWhitosphere. The user who posted this video hasn't got a single minority link on his entire user bloglist. That's why, as much as this participant might want to work against McCain s/he is bound, tied, and neutered by her/his own inability to join with others, regardless of skin color and ethnicity, in the fight for human and economic rights for all.

Has JiSM Physically Abused his Wife?

2008-08-25T14:29:00.002-04:00

AgentX has left a new comment on your post "McCain Uses the "Tar Baby" Phrase":

Ugh...Some people never change.

Angles I'm working on this week:

1) McCain may have beat/attacked his wife. Those arm injuries and her excuse don't quite seem to match. Although there's no clear proof uncovered yet, a lot of people aren't necessarily buying the excuse of "enthusiastic supporters".

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/comments_blog/2008/08/a-handshake-ind.html

If you recall, she was in crutches early in the campaign.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/09/04/cindy-mccain-on-crutches-at-campaign-stop/
as a result of a twisted knee. She says it was a accident.

It would be nice to believe her if it weren't for Cunt-gate or her husband's voting record or her own habit of lying (forgot about her siblings on TV).

2) McCain has/had houses under assumed names.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0808/The_GOPs_2008_nominee_isEldon_Smith.html?showall
3) McCain has no decent picks available to counter Biden.
4) McCain's lobbyist buddies may have been responsible for the War Within Georgia. Still waiting for a tip on that front.
5) McCain flipflopped on the draft, again. See the Field Negro blog for info on that.
6) How does the deal with Iraq to exit troops by 2013 affects McCain- I see some meat here if it gets signed.

So, is McCain physically abusive to his wife, in addition to the emotional abuse of calling her a "cunt" in public. Well, let's just say that she's clearly "accident prone."

McCain Uses the "Tar Baby" Phrase

2008-08-22T14:36:00.003-04:00

Hat Tip to the University of Dayton.

When John S. McCain uses the phrase "Tar Baby" in public, I think I know what words he uses in private.

How Many Homes Does John McCain Really Own?

2008-08-22T14:27:00.005-04:00

John McCain really stepped in the McShit when he acknowledged in a Politico.Com interview that he doesn't know how many homes he owns.

A week dominated by vice presidential speculation and the run-up to the Democratic National Convention was quickly overtaken by the McCain miscue. In an interview with Politico.com, the presumptive Republican nominee was asked how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, heir to a beer distributorship, owned.

"I think -- I'll have my staff get to you," McCain replied. "It's condominiums where -- I'll have them get to you."

Obama's campaign and the Democratic National Committee pounced with remarkable speed. By mid-morning, reporters had received a video log featuring Cindy McCain's childhood estate in Phoenix, an Architectural Digest spread on another property the McCains had owned previously, and tax records and photos detailing seven houses and condominiums -- in Coronado and La Jolla, Calif.; Phoenix and Sedona, Ariz.; and Arlington. By 11 a.m., the Obama campaign had produced a television advertisement titled "Seven" and was answering the question McCain could not. Washington Post

Well, John McCain's white, so to many people his "I'm one of you" chatter will sound relatively authentic no matter how rich he is and how many houses he owns. But, economically I know John McCain is nothing like me because (a) I know how many houses I own, and (b) I don't own anywhere near seven houses. And none of my houses have been featured in Architectural Digest.

Cindy McCain Says She's an Only Child, But She's NOT

2008-08-18T23:33:00.004-04:00

Why all of the lies?

Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau, writing for the Swamp, reports on a half-sister of Cindy McCain whose existence Cindy McCain regularly denies when she tells the media that she is "an only child."

In the interview airing on NPR's All Things Considered, Cindy McCain's older half sister, Kathleen Hensley Portalski, "talks about their estranged relationship, and the difficulty she has when she hears McCain described as an "only child" by the media, and by McCain herself,'' NPR reports of the talk with Southwest Correspondent Ted Robbins.

Kathleen Portalksi, retired now in Phoenix, was born in 1943, a child of the late Jim Hensley's first marriage, the network says, reporting that his second wife, Marguerite, also had a daughter from her first marriage. Cindy Hensley was McCain's second wife as well - he had a daughter with his first wife and adopted her two sons, and has had three children with his second wife and adopted an orphan from Bangladesh.

NPR's Robbins notes that Cindy McCain often refers to herself as an only child, as she did on CNN last month: "I grew up with my dad. I'm an only child. My father was a cowboy and he really loved me very much, but I think he wanted a son occasionally."

And that's true: She was the only child in her family.

Yet, Portalski tells NPR: "I'm upset. I'm angry. It makes me feel like a non-person, kind of."

Of her relationship with her late father, Portalski says: "I saw him a few times a year. I saw him at Christmas and birthdays, and he provided money for school clothes and he called occasionally."

Documents show Kathleen Anne Hensley was born to Jim and Mary Jeanne Hensley on Feb. 23, 1943. They had been married for six years when Kathleen was born. He flew as a bombardier on a B-17 during World War II. He was injured and sent to a facility in West Virginia to recuperate. During that time, NPR reports, while still married to Mary Jeanne, Hensley met another woman -- Marguerite Smith. He divorced Mary Jeanne and married Marguerite in 1945. Cindy Lou Hensley was born nine years later, in 1954.

Jim Hensley, who founded one of the nation's largest beer distributorships in Phoenix, provided credit cards and college tuition to his grandchildren, and $10,000 gifts to Portalski and her husband, NPR reports. When Jim Hensley died in 2000, Portalski was named in his will, and she was left $10,000. Cindy McCain inherited his fortune and is chairman of the board of Hensley and Co.

Portalski's son, Nicholas Portalski, describes why the family decided to come forward: "I think the fact that we don't exist. The fact that we've never been recognized, and then Cindy has to put such a fine point on it by saying something that's not true. Recently. Again and again. It's just very, very hurtful." The Swamp

Granny says McCain is an Inveterate Bigot

2008-08-04T18:29:00.004-04:00

GrannyStandingforTruth points out, citing CapitolHillBlue, that John McCain has a long history of anti-ethnic, color-aroused, misogynistic jokes that he tells his friends and reporters whenever he gets the chance:

McCain's collection of off-color jokes are riddled with racist words and sentiments. Advisors have toned down the raunchy rhetoric of his early years in Congress but close aides say his attitudes have not changed.

McCain opposed making the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King a national holiday. During his 2000 campaign for President, he told reporters on his "Straight Talk Express: "I hated the gooks (North Vietnamese). I will hate them as long as I live."

Katie Hong of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, who reported the remark, wrote:

It is offensive because by using a racial epithet that has historically been used to demean all Asians to describe his captors, McCain failed to make a distinction between his torturers and an entire racial group.

It is alarming because a major candidate for president publicly used a racial epithet, refused to apologize for doing so and remains a legitimate contender.

For his 2000 campaign for President, McCain hired Richard Quinn, founder and editor in chief of Southern Heritage Magazine, to serve as his spokesman in South Carolina.

Notes Salon.Com:

Quinn's articles have called Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" and King a man "whose role in history was to lead his people into a perpetual dependence on the welfare state, a terrible bondage of body and soul." In another piece, Quinn said of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, "What better way to reject politics as usual than to elect a maverick like David Duke?" though he did condemn Duke's bigotry.

Irwin A. Tank, author of Gook: John McCain's Racism, notes a long and sordid history of racism from the presumptive GOP nominee, including:

McCain's use of the anti-Asian slur "gook" publicly for 27 years before dropping the use for his current Presidential run;
McCain's endorsement of George Wallace Jr., a frequent speaker at white supremacist events;
His vote against establishing a holiday for Martin Luther King's birthday and then another vote to rescind the holiday.
In answering a question about divorced fathers and child support, McCain called the children "tar babies."

The list goes on and on.

I tend to believe that McCain's calling his wife a cunt in front of a group of reporters is the incident that will most haunt him throughout this election cycle. Each of the other groups that McCain has targeted for bigoted remarks is a minority for whom the public might not have enough sympathy for the remarks to sway a vote one way or the other. But women are the majority of voters in the United States and, to my knowledge, the vast majority of them are VERY insulted when anyone calls them, or any other woman, a "cunt".

And that's why John Sydney McCain, III is NOT going to become president of the United States: Because women simply don't like being called "cunts", much less by the president of the country in which they live.

"Barack is 'The [Chosen] One', but is he Ready to Lead?" Asks McCain

2008-08-03T17:09:00.005-04:00

In the above YouTube video, focused entirely on Barack Obama and the religious subtext to his political message, John McCain concedes, "Barack Obama: He may be the One. But is he ready to lead."

It seems to me that in this ad John McCain falls into the trap of repeating and popularizing his opponents' best lines for the purpose of vaguely trying to punch holes in them.

America is a very religious country, with ninety percent of people saying they believe in God. So a candidate who says that he feels a mission to lead and has been chosen to do so may have a much better change than another candidate who ridicules the religous content of his opponent's mission, without offering any religious content of his own.

John McCain's slogan is, "Barack Obama: He may be "The One", but is he ready to lead?" If American decides that Obama is more ready to lead than McCain, then McCain's McCain may find that it is essentially over.

Religious people take leaps of faith, and "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen." If McCain's campaign depends on convincing religious people not to have faith, that makes him a negative naysaying, a tool of doom rather than the man to lift up the nation in troubled times.

Hat Tip to Agent X.

YouTube Video Depicts McCain as Klansman

2008-08-01T20:58:00.004-04:00

The above video is dispicable. Instead of focusing on the real historical evidence that John McCain doesn't like Black peeople, here and here:

"..McCain, speaking on ABC's "This Week," said he backs a proposed ballot initiative in his home state of Arizona that would prohibit affirmative action policies by state and local governments."
Field Negro

And yet, the abvoe video depicts McCain as a Klansman himself, when the truth is that he has only consorted with Klansman and relied on them for campaign contributions and political support, while taking policy positions calculated to win Klansman votes.

For instance, with 95% of Black in Louisiana supporting Barack Obama, 'I can't help wondering what JiSM was doing olding an (awful) campaign rally in Kenner, Louisiana [last month], considering Kenner's intimate connection with David Duke:

After spending a year in federal prison for mail fraud and tax evasion, David Duke was allowed to spend the final weeks of his sentence in a halfway house in Louisiana in April 2004. Needing employment to meet eligibility requirements, he worked for EURO (the European-American Unity and Rights Organization), his white supremacist propaganda organization.

Duke's sentence ended in mid-May 2004. To celebrate his freedom and to promote unity among white supremacist groups, EURO sponsored a conference on May 28-30 in Kenner, Louisiana, near New Orleans. Several significant neo-Nazi and racist figures attended the event, including speakers John Tyndall, founder of the British National Party; top National Alliance lieutenant Kevin Alfred Strom; Don Black, founder of the pioneering white supremacist Web site Stormfront; Willis Carto of the American Free Press and The Barnes Review; anti-Semitic attorney Edgar J. Steele; and Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf. In his own remarks, Duke urged the audience of 250 not to characterize themselves as white supremacists and racists but as devoted to the "white civil rights cause." AntiDefamationLeauge

Even McCain admits to the Washington Post that he was a "coward" when he flip-flopped on the Confederate Flag in South Carolina:

"I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I'd had the ambition for a long time."

That ambition led McCain into a moral lapse that appalled him. It involved an ongoing dispute in South Carolina over the tradition of flying the Confederate battle flag atop the state capitol, in Columbia. In a television interview, McCain said the flag was "offensive," and he appeared sympathetic to its critics. His aides were alarmed, fearing the consequences in the upcoming South Carolina primary, and they wrote a damage-control statement that McCain read repeatedly before television cameras. "I understand both sides," McCain said. "Some view the flag as a symbol of slavery. Others view it as a symbol of heritage. Personally, I see the battle flag as a symbol of heritage."

But that, McCain wrote a year later, was "a lie." The flag symbolized both slavery and the South's secession from "the country I love," and "should be lowered forever from the staff atop South Carolina's capitol."

"I had promised to tell the truth no matter what," McCain wrote in the book. "When I broke it, I had not just been dishonest, I had been a coward, and I had severed my own interests from my country's. That was what made the lie unforgivable."

Maybe, as Agent X says,

Anyway, also I'm sure you know about this too, McCain has a race card problem.
The celebrity ad has bit him on the ass (even the Hilton family, his biggest donors, are pissed at him, you can read this article on the Huff) and watch this video as he tries to defend himself by claiming that Obama played the race card against him- I think. Rick Davis, the campaign manager you outed as a lobbyist, was behind that attack.

And since the McCain camp has brought up the race card, I think it's time we delved into his past habits of racist remarks. Ask one of his former colleagues, Doug Thompson. Doug went to some of the same bars as McCain during his early days in the House and recalls several of his racist remarks.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x374031

This site republished the article from Capitol Hill Blue. Let's just say it puts yesterday's smear campaign into play.

Anonymous AgentX said...

From the article, a typical McCain joke:

Two dykes are talking at a bar and one leaves. As she walks toward the door, the other watches her leave and says out loud: "God, I've love to eat her out."

Two men are standing near by and one turns to the other and says: "I'd like to do the same. Guess that makes me a dyke."

Or another:

Question: Why does Mexican beer have two "X's" on the label?
Answer: Because wetbacks always need a co-signer.
When he ran for the Senate, I attended a gathering of GOP operatives at the National Republican Senatorial Committee where McCain outlined his campaign strategy:
"I play to win. I do whatever it takes to win. If I have to fuck my opponent to win I'll do it. If I have to destroy my opponent I won't give it a second thought."
See Agent X's report in Comments.

John McCain calls his wife a "cunt", he calls lesbian women "dikes", and he calls Mexican-Americans "wetbacks". I personally beleive his "cunt statement will turn out to be the "macaca momentof the 2008 election cycle, as soon as the debates arrive and he's forced to admit or deny the issue on national television.

Meanwhile, we've all seen this story before. Charges and counter-charges of "playing the 'race card', which Obama deftly blows off by focusing on the issues while his opponents increasingly focus on color, in an attempt to color-aroused the public. If it didn't work for Hillary Clinton, why would it work any better for John McCain, who is clearly a much less competent campaigner:

McCain Says He Might Increase Payroll Taxes

2008-07-31T08:18:00.002-04:00

Here's more of the truth, provided by Agent X:

Another hot tip for you; remember the story you covered back in February when he flip-flopped on new taxes? He's done it again.

Mr. McCain likes to tell voters that he's the presidential candidate who wants to cut taxes.

"Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won't," he often declares. Or: "If you want to raise taxes, then don't vote for me."

Except there is one tax Mr. McCain might be prepared to raise. When asked in an interview Sunday whether he was prepared to raise payroll taxes to correct social security's funding shortfall, he replied:
"There is nothing that's off the table. I have my positions, and I'll articulate them. But nothing's off the table. I don't want tax increases. But that doesn't mean that anything is off the table."
The Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group, found the response "shocking.
"Your comments yesterday send American taxpayers and businesses a mixed message about where you stand on this issue," the group's president, Pat Toomey, wrote Monday in an open letter to the senator.
So what is his actual position on Tax increases, if he has one?

JiSM's Had Skin Cancer Three Times

2008-07-28T19:18:00.008-04:00

Cross-posted at the Truth About McCain blog.

John McCain, Yahoo News reports, has had skin McCancer three times, (hey, talking about JiSM makes me tasteless) and gets check-ups in Nevada every three months to make sure the cancer hasn't come back. In fact, he was in Nevada today to have a

small patch of skin removed from his face and biopsied as part of a regular checkup with his dermatologist. ( . . . ) The fair-skinned Arizona senator, who suffered severe sun damage from his 5 1/2 years in Vietnamese prison camps, gets an in-depth skin cancer check every few months because of a medical history of dangerous melanomas." Yahoo News

The New York Times said Sunday,

"Along with his signature bright white hair, the most striking aspects of Senator John McCain’s physical appearance are his puffy left cheek and the scar that runs down the back of his neck. New York Times

We all are aware of the normal actuarial risks of being seventy-two years old now, and seventy-six years old when and if his first term expired before he did. However, if elected JiSM would treat the public to a "does he have cancer or doesn't he" check-up every three months. In fact, he'll be getting another check-up like this around November 28.

Everyone's days are numbered, but John McCain's days are more numbered than most everyone else's. Shouldn't we know what his November 28th 2008 check-up will say before we risk electing him president on November 4?

Elizabeth Edwards' possibly terminal cancer became a big issue in the Democratic primaries. Can John McCain's candidacy survive that kind of scrutiny of his health conditions, particularly the risk that cancerous lesions will appear on his face?

What kinds of fluctuations in the markets could we expect on a quarterly basis before and after John McCain's check-ups? If John McCain were elected president, how much of his face would have to be cut off before . . . 2012?

Let's, be realistic, though. Ronald Reagan was 175 years old when he was elected president; was shot; underwent operations for bowel polyps; and probably spent most of his presidency with early Alzheimers Disease. When many of us thought he was nodding meaningfully, some of us knew he was nodding portentously. But he still survived to make liberals miserable for eight years.

Obama Succeeding Brilliantly on Foreign Policy Trip Compared to McCain

2008-07-25T15:29:00.003-04:00

Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama, it seems to me, is making all of the right foreign policy moves his trip overseas. I take particular note of the following passage, found at Yahoo News:

PARIS - Democrat Barack Obama said Friday that Iran should promptly accept an international call to freeze its uranium enrichment program, which some nations see as a potential step toward obtaining nuclear weapons, and not wait for the next U.S. president.
The presidential candidate met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, where they discussed Iran, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, climate change and other issues.
Speaking later at a news conference, Obama said Iran should accept the proposals made by Sarkozy and other Western leaders. He urged Iran's leaders not to wait for the next U.S. president to push them "because the pressure, I think, is only going to build." Yahoo News

Recently, John McCain and other anti-Obama forces (e.g. here) were able to convince the mainstream media to report that European leaders were afraid that Obama would not pursue an Iran diplomacy consistently strict with what Europe has been doing.

By meeting with Sarkozy and promising that "the pressure, I think ,is only going to increase", Obama is promising to apply even more pressure than the Bush Administration has, but within the framework set out by the Europeans, which does not include going to war with Iran.

francislholland :: Obama Succeeding Billiantly on Foreign Policy

Yahoo News continues,

The two men recalled their 2006 meeting in Washington, when Sarkozy was the French interior minister. Obama said the only other U.S. senator who Sarkozy visited then was McCain, now the presumed Republican nominee for president.
Obama urged U.S. political reporters to seek Sarkozy's insight because "he seems to have a good nose for how things play out." Yahoo News

Obama is promising and demonstrating through his diplomacy that he is going to pursue a strategy consistent with that of our allies. Meanwhile, McCain is insisting that a war that all of Europe opposed (Iraq) is still necessary, and McCain promises to attack Iran militarily, which is utterly inconsistent and counter to the European approach.

The following is from the Truth About McCain blog, citing the Financial Times:

Would John McCain's election result in perpetual war in Iraq and elsewhere? Well, just look at what John McCain's chief adviser has to say about that. John McCain's chief policy adviser is Douglas Holz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, heads the Greenberg Centre for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and here's what he says about the loss of Americans lives and the economic cost of the war:
[T]he current and future budget cost and loss of life and health probably give the right magnitude. If so, the annual war bill represents only about one cent of the $12,000bn of national income each year, and the total military cost at most, a nickel. And that is the right lesson: the foundation of US international influence is its large, powerful economy which can absorb the narrow, resource costs of war and free the US to pursue strategic [WAR, WAR, WAR] and security goals. FinancialTimes.Com (emphasis added)
John McCain is always wrong about Iraq, and his errors are very dangerous. As when,
. . . he said the war would be "brief" and be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues. Or as he was in the 1990s, when he championed extravagant State Department funding for the war instigator Ahmad Chalabi, who'd already been branded untrustworthy by the C.I.A. (The relationship between Mr. Chalabi and the former lobbyist Charles Black, now a chief McCain campaign strategist, is explored in a new book, "The Man Who Pushed America to War," by Aram Roston.) NYTimes
Read the whole article. With McCain's chief adviser's reasoning, we can expect even more wars like the one in Iraq under a McCain Administration, since the Iraq War continues to be such a great bargain for America, both in terms of loss of life and expense to the US Treasury.

Yesterday,

Obama told reporters that "Afghanistan is a war we have to win." The Taliban and terrorist groups it supports, he said, pose an unacceptable threat to the U.S., France and other nations.

"We've got to finish the job," said Obama, who often has said the Iraq war was an unwise move that distracted the United States from efforts to find Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders and to root out the Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Yahoo News

In fact, there are very good alternatives to most wars the US might be called upon to fight, but most of the public wants to know that a president will be willing to fight a war if the need arises, and some actually want a war just for the fun or the lucre of it. The best way for a candidate to show that he has a war in him is to point out a place where he believes a war should be fought, and that's precisely what Obama did.

John McCain Skinning & Grinning before the NAACP

2008-07-17T17:10:00.003-04:00

Poor John! He just doesn’t get it.

I come not to bury Caesar, but to praise him

Senator John McCain speaking about his political opponent Senator Barack Obama:

*** Let me begin with a few words about my opponent. Don’t tell him I said this, but he is an impressive fellow in many ways. He has inspired a great many Americans, some of whom had wrongly believed that a political campaign could hold no purpose or meaning for them. His success should make Americans, all Americans, proud... Senator Obama talks about making history, and he’s made quite a bit of it already. And the way was prepared by this venerable organization and others like it. A few years before the NAACP was founded, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage and an insult in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the nomination of an African-American to be the presidential nominee of his party. Whatever the outcome in November, Senator Obama has achieved a great thing — for himself and for his country — and I thank him for it.

Eddie Griffin
Truth About McCain

McCain : The Lobbyists' Candidate

2008-07-14T21:16:00.003-04:00

by: tsingy and first posted at AfricanAmericanOpinion.Com.

Lobbyists should be shown the door. As far as McCain’s campaign goes, lobbyists are flying roughshod in the Republican side of the presidential election. They’ll screw up this election process with all of the commercial interests that are tugging at their coattails. What we’ll be seeing is a bunch of corporations in line to buy candidates’ favors. Lobbying is a fixture in Washington, but it’s never been part of a presidential election in this way.

There are lobbyists for any industry you can think of : automotive, pharmaceutical, energy, farming equipment, coal industry, you name it! These companies will pay anything to get bills through Congress that help them peddle their product. For example, a company that sells canned sardines hires a lobbyist to visit a bunch of congressional offices to do some tongue wagging and propose softer import restrictions. That way the sardines cost less to bring over from Sweden. Then there's companies that hire lobbyists to push to reduce restrictions on air emissions, so they can have their refineries on full throttle and completely pollute our skies.

There's probably a lobbyist out there for the tire industry bouncing around in Washington. A tire company would push for things like federal funds to build more roads : more roads, more cars and bingo, more tires. All of these people in McCain’s committees are following instructions from commercial interests, not from citizens! McCain’s town meetings must be a farce if his campaign is led by some of the top lobbyists in the country.

There are too many lobbyists interfering with our country’s legislation. A law that is supposed to increase the minimum wage can get railroaded by a dozen companies that hire lobbyists to prevent that.

A lobbyist from an automotive company could show up at every Congressman's office with a Powerpoint presentation showing why a higher minimum wage wouldn't work. At the same time, a group of construction companies could hire a lobbyist to go around Washington clamoring that the price of materials would slow down building if they had to raise everyone's pay. Along comes a lobbyist that the movie industry has hired because it doesn't want to pay a cent more for extras that stand on the sidewalk and chew gum. Or maybe just chew gum. There could be a handful of billion dollar companies hiring lobbyists to do and say whatever it takes to keep the minimum wage increase from passing through Congress.

Here’s an article that describes that situation from a while back : Minimum-wage Hike Faces Hurdles. This approach can be applied to bills that improve energy use, improve education, decrease costs of medicine, put more funding into bridge repair, improve manufacturing policies and whole bunch of things that this country needs to move ahead.

Let's take William V. Hilleary, for example. He's a lobbyist for Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. Copy and paste "William Hilleary Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal" into Google for more info. So William here is hired by companies that need certain government policies to pass that benefit their shareholders. Check out his page here William V. Hilleary. As a lobbyist, William is working in government everyday to push commercial interests. He's also jumped into McCain’s raft, acting as the Tennessee co-chair. He's probably doing alot of fundraising for McCain, with alot of money coming from previous clients. You gotta wonder, how do the donations from these companies reflect Americans?

Mega-million corporations putting up the bucks to ride on McCain's Merry-Go-Round.

See the rest of this article here.

John McCain Opposed Birth Control Coverage for Women, but Viagra is Covered

2008-07-11T13:19:00.004-04:00

In the above video, John McCain simply refuses to give a straight answer whether it's fair for insurance companies to cover Viagra but not birth control methods. It's seems like pure discrimination to me, but John McCain - twice married and with children - says he's never thought about it and can't respond at all, over and over again.

If this is "straight-talk" from John McCain, let's hope we never see him bullshitting, because that would really be embarrassing.

I guess John McCain doesn't like to talk about sex? He refuses to tell us why he called his wife a "cunt" in front of half a dozen reporters.

Think Progress is Helping John McCain Sometimes

2008-07-08T14:20:00.003-04:00

AgentX has left a new comment on your post "HAT TIPS to CNULAN AT SUBREALISM, and to ThinkProgress on the Veterans-related video":

"Lord have mercy; he's done it again! McCain got in front of a mike and embarrassed himself, again. And this one's a real whopper! It's been seen by 28,000 people in one day!"

In comments at YouTube, on commenter said,

That stupid laugh: "uh-huh, uh-huh". Is it me or is this guy just sickening? It's fun, but sad watching McCain in these Town Hall settings. On issues with the economy, foreign policy, Iraq and any other subjects, McCain is always quickly outwitted and overwhelmed. I listen to this old fool and his plans to make things better and just shake my head. What an embarrassment. That smug, arrogant look he always has makes me want to vomit. Pig5689

OK, Agent X, but where's the "whopper". Sure he mentioned "the Outdoor Footwear company Crocks", which has been insider trading and cheating shareholders:

Shareholders sue Crocs over stock price drop
Fort Collins (Colo.) Coloradoan | 231 days 6 hours 8 minutes ago
DENVER - Executives of shoemaker Crocs Inc. have been accused of misleading shareholders about operations while they sold at least $58 million in stock before the price plummeted on the third-quarter earnings report.

But, where's the big embarrassment here? Francis L. Holland writing at The African American Political Pundit Blog:

This is what I said at DailyKos, just before I was banned there:

I define “white male supremacy”: as “the belief that white males, no matter how much and how often they fail, are still, by virtue of their male gender and white skin, inherently more qualified than blacks and women who succeed.” – Francis L. Holland, December 13, 2006 at DailyKos.

And everything about this election in 2008, shows that I was correct: Barack Obama runs not just against a man, John McCain, but also and much more importantly, against the white male supremacy paradigm. Barack Obama has to show NOT ONLY that he will be a better president than John McCain, but also and more importantly, that John McCain is not inherently superior to Obama by virtue of John McCain’s white skin.
It ought not be hard to demonstrate that the party that prefers to end an expensive and futile war that is wildly unpopular is preferable to the party that proposes to continue that war indefinitely. It ought not be hard to convince the public that the party whose current president has a 29% approval rating ought not be selected to perpetuate the policies of that same lousy-ass president.

And polls show that when adding undecided voters to the McCain column, (as might arguably happen in November) the race is actually a dead heat.

I think many of the people watching this video are eating it up. They're part of the 29% that still love and support George W. Bush in spite of all of his failures, because he is a white man on a white supremacist mission that favors the rich and disadvantages the poor and the middle class, and anyone who has to work for a living.

However, there are even more people dedicated to some aspect of the Republican program, like anti-abortion, the perception of commitment to lower taxes, military adventurism of the sort we see in those popular Rambo and Arnold Schwartznegger movies, etc. To the extent that McCain speaks to these issues in his speeches, no matter how much he mangles them, ThinkProgress does a SERVICE to McCain by giving these videos extra play, more eye-views than they would have received otherwise.

The only videos of John McCain that should be circulated are those that show him to be unstable, a liar, or to hold positions that ALL Americans disagree with. For example, consider his votes against health care benefits for returning veterans. In spite of those votes, half of American still supports him, so highlighting those votes may actually result in greater turnout by the half of America that supports that for some reason.

This strategy of believing that everything that seems idiotic to progressives should be put into the Internet bullhorn could well backfire, giving McCain's proposals more play on the Internet than those of his opponent. Instead, Think Progress should exercise some discipline and disseminate ONLY those videos that EVERYONE, regardless of political stripe, will find to exclude McCain from the running.

John McCain will embarrass himself and show America that he cannot be president because he is unstable. But this video isn't that.

HAT TIP to CNULAN AT SUBREALISM

2008-07-03T10:59:00.002-04:00

A Hat Tip to Cnulan for bringing John McCain militaristic persuasion into focus.

The Truth about John McCain is that he does not “hate war”. He loves it. Can World War III be far behind?

Happy 4th of July!

MONDAY, MAY 05, 2008

The Militarist

Despite neoconservatism's close association in the public imagination with the Bush administration, and despite McCain's image as a moderate, a look at the record makes clear that McCain, not Bush, is the real neocon in the Republican Party.

McCain was the neocons' candidate in 2000, McCain adhered to a truer version of the faith during the early years of hubris that followed September 11, and as president McCain would likely pursue policies that will make what we've seen from Bush look like a pale imitation of the real thing. McCain, after all, is the candidate of perpetual war in Iraq. The candidate who, despite his protestations in a March speech that he "hates war," not only stridently backed the 2003 invasion of Iraq but has spent years calling on the United States to depose every dictator in the world. He's the candidate of ratcheting-up action against North Korea and Iran, of new efforts to undermine the United Nations, and of new cold wars with Russia and China. Rather than hating war, he sees it as integral to the greatness of the nation, and military service as the highest calling imaginable. It is, in short, not Bush but McCain, who among practical politicians holds truest to the vision of a foreign policy dominated by militaristic unilateralism. American Prospect current issue by way of P6

POSTED BY CNULAN AT http://www.subrealism.blogspot.com/

John McCain: A Man with a Temper

2008-07-02T15:06:00.002-04:00

By Eddie Griffin

A few weeks ago, I pointed out that John McCain’s most vulnerable area was his fiery temper, which could very well be his undoing. The one thing a man cannot hide is what’s on the inside of his heart.

General Wesley Clark struck a nerve with McCain when he said that “riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down” was not a qualification to be president.” To clarify, Gen. Clark elaborated that McCain’s military service, “by itself”, qualify him for the Whitehouse. (Read: “A Man among Men: General Wesley Clark”)

The off-the-cuff matter-of-fact statement reciprocated an outcry from McCain. “I think the time has come to not just repudiate Gen. Clark, but to cut him loose,” McCain advised Senator Barack Obama.

Repudiate General Clark? Cut him loose?

Is McCain that touchy? If he would repudiate a man of General Clark’s stature, what would he do in diplomacy?

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) tells of a physical confrontation John McCain had with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega while on a diplomatic mission in 1987.
"I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever. I don’t know what he was telling him, but I thought, good grief, everybody around here has got guns, and we were there on a diploma- tic mission," Cochran recalled.

Cochran startled many people this year with comments about McCain’s temper… He told The Boston Globe that "the thought of (McCain) being president sends a cold chill down my spine." McCain,” Cochran said, "is erratic. He loses his temper, and he worries me."

A former fighter pilot who goes around singing, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran”, worries me too. Forty years ago, it was “Bomb, bomb, bomb, Hanoi”, which is how he wound up a POW in the Hanoi Hilton. Since that time, the song hasn’t changed very much as McCain inches his way one step closer to the nuclear trigger.

John McCain: "I Really Didn't Love America...!"

2008-06-27T17:13:00.005-04:00

Hat Tip to the Think On These Things blog.

In the above video, John Sydney McCain, III (JiSM) tells an audience that he "really didn't love America" (until he was 31 years old, when) he came back from Vietnam.

"I really didn't love America until I was deprived of her company." So, the country is a woman whom McCain didn't appreciate until she left him. More misogyny from John Sydney McCain, III.

McCain Jokes About Beating His Wife

2008-06-27T11:51:00.002-04:00

On June 18, 2008, this blog predicted that John McCain's presidential candidacy would eventually be ended by one thing: that he called his wife a "cunt" and he can't deny it.

Now, Jack and Jill Politics points to an interview in which John McCain jokes about beating his wife. Jill Tubman says, "here's the money quote":

(On why he didn't choose Gov. Jim Gibbons to chair his Nevada campaign?)
MCCAIN: I appreciate his support. As you know, the lieutenant governor is our chairman.

JR: Why snub the governor?

MCCAIN: I didn’t mean to snub him,. I've known the lieutenant governor for 15 years and we've been good friends….I didn't intend to snub him. There are other states where the governor is not the chairman.

JR: Maybe it's the governor's approval rating and you are running from him like you are from the president?)

MCCAIN: (Chuckling) And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago….
Really? Joking about beating Cindy the Rodeo Queen? Not cool. Not appropriate. This is the man who seeks to be our country's chief representative in diplomacy with other countries? Ugh.

Man, I cannot wait for the Obama-McCain debates to begin. That is going to be incredible. Cuz Grandpa ain't got no game, nah mean?

On the one hand, I want to caution readers that Arnold Schwartznegger was elected governor of California in spite on considerable evidence of misogyny on his part in the somewhat distant past. On the other hand, there's mounting evidence that McCain always was and continues to be Jurasic on matters of women's rights and dignity, which only exacerbates the perception that he's just to f**cking old to be president.

Ultimately, it's going to come down to one thing. He called his wife a "cunt" in front of reporters, and NOBODY does that. Or if they do, sooner or later their wife will be seeking refuge from them in a battered women's shelter, it it hasn't happened many times already.

"Cunt" Remark to Wife Spells End of McCain Campaign

2008-06-18T19:08:00.012-04:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Francis L. Holland, Esq.*
Afrosphere Action Coalition
http://francislholland.blogspot.com
http://truth-about-mccain.blogspot.com
francislholland@yahoo.com
55 (73) 3288-1716

June 18, 2008

"McCain's 'Cunt' Remark to Wife Spells End of His Campaign,
says Truth About McCain Blog.

In his book The Real McCain, author Cliff Schecter claims that John McCain made extremely ugly remarks about his wife Cindy McCain during a tirade witnessed by three reporters. "At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, 'You're getting a little thin up there,'" Schechter writes. "McCain's face reddened, and he responded, 'At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.' McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days." Drudge Report

According to Google trends, the American public was probably unaware until recently that John McCain called his wife a "cunt" in public, in front of reporters, and that he confirms that he did by refusing to deny it.

Google trends shows the public's concern over the "cunt" remark has spiked dramatically since John McCain became one of two remaining alternatives" As many as a third of the hits at the Truth About McCain blog come from readers seeking to confirm that John McCain called his wife, Cindy, a "cunt" in public, in front of reporters.

"Americans simply will not elect a man
who calls his wife a "cunt in public."

In the case of George Allen, it was his "macaca" remark that has been seen over 300,000 times on YouTube. At the time time the Washington Post said,

In some European cultures, macaca is also considered a racial slur against African immigrants, according to several Web sites that track ethnic slurs. . . "This is trying to demean him, to minimize him as a person." WaPost

"In every losing electoral campaign, there is something the losing candidate says that crystalizes the public's conviction why the candidate ought not be elected."

The Truth About McCain blog predicts that John Sydney McCain's undoing result, above all, from John McCain's calling his wife a "cunt" in public, in front on reporters. He refuses to deny (and thereby confirms) that he did on video.

"John McCain will be unable to escape questions about his "cunt" remark.
For voters, it shows he lacks the stability and self control to be president."

In his book The Real McCain, author Cliff Schecter claims that John McCain made extremely ugly remarks about his wife Cindy McCain during a tirade witnessed by three reporters and two aides. "At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, 'You're getting a little thin up there,'" Schechter writes. "McCain's face reddened, and he responded, 'At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.' McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days." Drudge Report

The mainstream media has so far been reluctant to address the question, if only because their editorial standards forbid the use of the word "cunt" in print and require that the word be omitted if spoken during a broadcast. However, it is inevitable that the question will arise during presidential debates and in other forums.

"The issue will that it is just as unacceptable to use the "C" word in American public discourse as it is to use the "N" word."

Arguably, it is just as unacceptable for a public figure to to demean and degrade women in public, using unspeakable vulgarities based upon their gender, as it is to use such vulgarities to degrade Blacks based on their color. The election may well turn on the public's judgment of whether calling one's wife the "C" word in a public forum is as bad as calling a stranger the "N" word in public. And whether a candidate who uses either term can be elected president in the new millenium.

This is debate is already occuring in the blogosphere now and promises to dominate public debate during the rest of the presidential campaign.

REFERENCES

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_temper_boiled_over_in_92_0407.html

http://www.google.com/trends?hl=en&q=mccain+cunt&date=all&geo=US&ctab=0&sort=0&sa=N

http://truth-about-mccain.blogspot.com/2008/05/mccain-declines-to-deny-calling-his.html

http://www.google.com/trends?hl=en&q=mccain+cunt&date=all&geo=US&ctab=0&sort=0&sa=N

http://www.drudge.com/news/106692/author-mccain-called-wife-cunt-trollop

http://truth-about-mccain.blogspot.com/2008/05/mccain-declines-to-deny-calling-his.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r90z0PMnKwI

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/14/AR2006081400589.htm

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/04/straight-talk-e.htmll

Francis L. Holland, Esq.

Coordinator, Afrosphere Action Coalition

francislholland@yahoo.com
55 (73) 3288-1716
The Francis L. Holland Blog
http://francislholland.blogspot.com
The Truth About McCain Blog
http://truth-about-mccain.blogspot.com

Yobachi Boswell
Coordinator, Afrosphere Action Coalition
lionrunner777@yahoo.com
615-478-5204
http://www.blackperspective.net/

Daz Wilson
Coordinator, Afrosphere Action Coalition
Purple Zoe
http://purplezoe.blogspot.com/

CC: National Public Radio, Pacifica Radio, Politico, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Los Angeles Times, The AfroSpear, the afrosphere, Color of Change, African American Political Pundit, etc.

*Disclaimer: Although I am a trained and practiced attorney, I am retired and am not an active member of any state Bar. Therefore, I advocate in all matters on my own behalf and not as the legal representative of any person, group or organization.

John McCain Video Disproved by . . . John McCain Video

2008-06-14T15:56:00.004-04:00

The Babbling Idiocy of John McCain

2008-06-12T11:29:00.003-04:00

By Eddie Griffin

No wonder my ears are flapping in the wind. I heard him say it. But then he didn’t say. And, the American people listened on and forget what in the world he said to begin with.

HAT TIP to bravenewfilms for restoring my sanity. I did taw a putty tat. Just listen to John McCain himself in this video.

2008-06-10T12:05:00.003-04:00

This is John McCain's first wife, Carol McCain.

John McCain says he's an heroic war survivor, but the real survivor is his first wife, Carol McCain, whom John unceremoniously dumped when he discovered that she had been injured in a car accident while he was in Vietnam. According to MailOnline,

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons

had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

Carol McCain had been hurt. She was no longer the blond beauty he wanted, so he cheated on her, and then dumped her for a rich beauty queen heiress he'd met while his wife was in recovery from her accident. That's not bravery under fire. That cowardice, faithlessness and greedy opportunism.

Graham: McCain Policies Extension and enhancement of Bush

2008-06-09T00:44:00.002-04:00

Did Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC) really say that a McCain presidency would just be a third term of George W. Bush? Watch the above video and find out for yourself.

John McCain Embarrassed in David Duke's Kenner, Louisiana

2008-06-08T07:08:00.009-04:00

In the above video, John Sydney McCain, III (JiSM) bungles through one of the most awful speeches possible on the same night that Senator Barack Obama claims the Democratic nomination. The Appletree Blog says, "How bad was John McCain's speech? REAL bad!" So, watch the above video.

I can't help wondering what JiSM was doing in Kenner, Louisiana in the first place:

After spending a year in federal prison for mail fraud and tax evasion, David Duke was allowed to spend the final weeks of his sentence in a halfway house in Louisiana in April 2004. Needing employment to meet eligibility requirements, he worked for EURO (the European-American Unity and Rights Organization), his white supremacist propaganda organization.

Duke's sentence ended in mid-May 2004. To celebrate his freedom and to promote unity among white supremacist groups, EURO sponsored a conference on May 28-30 in Kenner, Louisiana, near New Orleans. Several significant neo-Nazi and racist figures attended the event, including speakers John Tyndall, founder of the British National Party; top National Alliance lieutenant Kevin Alfred Strom; Don Black, founder of the pioneering white supremacist Web site Stormfront; Willis Carto of the American Free Press and The Barnes Review; anti-Semitic attorney Edgar J. Steele; and Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf. In his own remarks, Duke urged the audience of 250 not to characterize themselves as white supremacists and racists but as devoted to the "white civil rights cause." AntiDefamationLeauge

Maybe JiSM though his speech would be so well received based on color-arousal that it's delivery made no difference.

I was one of those who initially believed that a third Clinton term would be a good idea, and that Hillary Clinton would be a shoe-in, with support from her ex-president husband. But, it turned out that Americans desperately wanted change, and so Obama will be nominated and there will be no third term of the Clinton Administration.

I can't help but think that this is a bad omen for John Sydney McCain, III (JiSM) and a good omen for America. America is simply not interested in perpetuating the policies and personages of the past this year. And the above video shows that JiSM has turned himself into a carbon copy of George W. Bush. Ever notice how carbon copies are often more emphatic than the originals themselves?

But look at the Jon Stewart send up of the above John McCain speech.

Above, here's Fox News panning the John McCain speech, saying "The oratorical gap between this speech and John McCain's speech was vast. John McCain sounded old." When Fox News pans a Republican speech, you know the guy's in trouble. "If it's a contest between speeches, Barack Obama is going to win."

Fetch My Axe Criticizes McCain "Crotch Shot" Graphic Seen Here

2008-06-01T20:38:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, May 24, we ran a graphic here in which a yawning vagina proclaims: "John McCain called his wife a 'cunt' in public, in front of reporters. Vaginas are beautiful. John McCain is disgusting."

Double-click on thumbnail above
for enlarged image.

The purpose of the graphic was simply to draw attention, in the most graphic possible way, to the fact that John McCain called his wife a "cunt" in public, and no man who would do that should be president of the male and female United States.

Why Did Sen. McCain Call His Wife a "Cunt"
in Public? (original article)

However, the Fetch My Axe blog takes exception to the graphic image, saying that it offends her and may offend other women and discourage them from reading this blog. The Fetch My Axe blog says:

And so then, I go to this -other- blog, and well, first of all, do not go here during work, because halfway down the front page is a nice big pink picture of a woman's vulva.

-Why- is there a seemingly completely gratuitous crotch shot on this blog called "The Truth About McCain?" Well,
I apologize in advance for this graphic image of female anatomy, but
I just can't think of another way of dramatizing the shock I feel that
John McCain called his wife a "cunt" in public, in front of reporters.
uh. maybe think harder.

I mean, appreciate the viva la vulva sentiment and all? but, well, "shocking" is really fucking boring. Just post the damn quote, you know? -I- hadn't heard it before, it would've been plenty on its own. Really. I wasn't looking to have my bourgeois epatéd; I was looking for -useful- shit. and: JiSM? the name of your blog is "JiSM?" (John Sydney McCain, geddit?! HAW HAW) Really? god, I'd almost forgotten why I'd been avoiding all this shit for so long...

Really, though, Beavis: wtf? Who is your intended audience here, and what is it you're trying to communicate? Serious question.

also, per the euphemism:

"if you're posting the picture, you really ought to be able to type it."

it's not C$%t. It's CUNT. mkay?

He (allegedly) called his wife a cunt, as an insult, in public, for teasing him about his hair. This would make him a mean, abusive, sexist (not to even mention racist-slur-throwing and gay-baiting and...) jerk with anger management issues and a bad tendency to gratuitously alienate and repel people, even the ones that are on his side. It sort of writes itself, really. Fetch My Axe

I certainly want to be sensitive to female and male readers, and I also want to express my utter contempt for a man who would refer to his wife in this way, degrading her in front of reporters, no less. I also think that expressing utter contempt for John McCain now may be part of the recipe for defeating him at the polls in November.

I want to know what readers think, so I've placed a poll in the sidebar, particularly with respect to referring to John Sydney McCain as "JiSM". If there is an outpouring of sentiment from Democrats and Independents that this is inappropriate, then I will remove it from the top of the blog and stop including it in the text.

The second poll asks readers whether I went too far with the graphic. If Democratic and Independent readers agree that I went to far, then I will not use this graphic again at this blog for the foreseeable time being.

Fetch My Axe Criticizes McCain "Crotch Shot" Graphic Seen Here

2008-06-01T20:05:00.006-04:00

Double-click on thumbnail above
for enlarged image.

Why Did Sen. McCain Call His Wife a "Cunt"
in Public? (original article)

However, the Fetch My Axe blog takes exception to the graphic image, saying that it offends her and may offend other women and discourage them from reading this blog. The Fetch My Axe blog says:

And so then, I go to this -other- blog, and well, first of all, do not go here during work, because halfway down the front page is a nice big pink picture of a woman's vulva.

-Why- is there a seemingly completely gratuitous crotch shot on this blog called "The Truth About McCain?" Well,
I apologize in advance for this graphic image of female anatomy, but
I just can't think of another way of dramatizing the shock I feel that
John McCain called his wife a "cunt" in public, in front of reporters.
uh. maybe think harder.

I mean, appreciate the viva la vulva sentiment and all? but, well, "shocking" is really fucking boring. Just post the damn quote, you know? -I- hadn't heard it before, it would've been plenty on its own. Really. I wasn't looking to have my bourgeois epatéd; I was looking for -useful- shit. and: JiSM? the name of your blog is "JiSM?" (John Sydney McCain, geddit?! HAW HAW) Really? god, I'd almost forgotten why I'd been avoiding all this shit for so long...

Really, though, Beavis: wtf? Who is your intended audience here, and what is it you're trying to communicate? Serious question.

also, per the euphemism:

"if you're posting the picture, you really ought to be able to type it."

it's not C$%t. It's CUNT. mkay?

He (allegedly) called his wife a cunt, as an insult, in public, for teasing him about his hair. This would make him a mean, abusive, sexist (not to even mention racist-slur-throwing and gay-baiting and...) jerk with anger management issues and a bad tendency to gratuitously alienate and repel people, even the ones that are on his side. It sort of writes itself, really. Fetch My Axe

10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

2008-05-26T17:08:00.000-04:00

Hi,

There are some things I never seem to hear about John McCain from the media. I thought you should see this list from MoveOn.org. Please check it out and pass it on!

10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.¹
According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."²
His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.³
McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."⁴
The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.⁵
He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.⁶
Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."⁷
McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.⁸
McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."⁹
He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.¹⁰

John McCain is not who the Washington press corps makes him out to be. So forward this email to your personal network! And if you want stay in the loop on MoveOn's work to get the truth out about John McCain, sign up here:

http://pol.moveon.org/mccaintruth/

Thanks!

SOURCES:

1. "The Complicated History of John McCain and MLK Day," ABC News, April 3, 2008
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/the-complicated.html

"McCain Facts," ColorOfChange.org, April 4, 2008
http://colorofchange.org/mccain_facts/

2. "McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq," Bloomberg News, March 12, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aF28rSCtk0ZM&refer=us

"Buchanan: John McCain 'Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi,'" ThinkProgress, February 6, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/06/buchanan-gandhi-mccain/

3. "McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill," ThinkProgress, February 20, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/20/mccain-torture-veto/

4. "McCain says Roe v. Wade should be overturned," MSNBC, February 18, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17222147/

5. "2007 Children's Defense Fund Action Council® Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard," February 2008
http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_learn_scorecard2007

"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion," CNN, October 3, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/

6. "Beer Executive Could Be Next First Lady," Associated Press, April 3, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-S1sWHm0tchtdMP5LcLywg5ZtMgD8VQ86M80

"McCain Says Bank Bailout Should End `Systemic Risk,'" Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHMiDVYaXZFM&refer=home

7. "Will McCain's Temper Be a Liability?," Associated Press, February 16, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4301022

"Famed McCain temper is tamed," Boston Globe, January 27, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_mccain_temper_is_tamed/

8. "Black Claims McCain's Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: 'I Don't Know What The Criticism Is,'" ThinkProgress, April 2, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/mccain-black-lobbyist/

"McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man," ABC News, January 29, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251

9. "McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam," Mother Jones Magazine, March 12, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3519

"Will McCain Specifically 'Repudiate' Hagee's Anti-Gay Comments?," ThinkProgress, March 12, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/12/mccain-hagee-anti-gay/

"McCain 'Very Honored' By Support Of Pastor Preaching 'End-Time Confrontation With Iran,'" ThinkProgress, February 28, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/28/hagee-mccain-endorsement/

10. "John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record," Sierra Club, February 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/environment/77913/

Why Did Sen. McCain Call His Wife "Cunt" in Public?

2008-05-24T12:14:00.002-04:00

The graphic artist is also editor of the Francis L. Holland Blog.

I apologize in advance for this graphic image of female anatomy, but I just can't think of another way of dramatizing the shock I feel that John McCain called his wife a "cunt" in public, in front of reporters. So, here's a photo of the reference McCain made to his wife in front of reporters. I hope this will spark a discussion of whether a man who says things like this should be president of the United States.

In this video, JiSM reiterates his opposition to a Congressional bill that would restore women's right to seek court redress when they discover that they are being paid less than their male counterparts for the same work. The U.S. Supreme Court has held, and JiSM agrees, that if a woman discovers she is being underpaid AFTER the filing deadline has run on her claim then she can NEVER sue about it, even if that means she will continue to be underpaid for the rest of her natural life with the employer.

Of course, employers are ecstatic with this ruling. If they can just hide from women the fact that they are being underpaid until the filing deadline on their claim expires, then they can continue to underpay these women for the rest of their lives!

JiSM called his own wife a "c*&t" in front of reporters once. Considering how little respect he has for his own wife, it's no surprise he doesn't believe women should receive equal pay for the same work.

So, who should be John McCain's vice presidential running-mate? The foremost criteria should be sanity. John McCain needs a running-mate whose level-headed sanity balances McCain's post-torture explosiveness, and McCain needs a running-mate who has never called his wife a "cunt" in public, in front of reporters.

"Bomb, Bomb" McCain has Lost His Bearings (Video)

2008-05-24T00:35:00.004-04:00

Hat Tip to Godless Liberal Homo.

McCain Rejects Pastor's Backing Over Anti-Semetic Remarks

2008-05-23T06:11:00.003-04:00

Now, John Sydney McCain has finally been compelled to disassociate from a minister he hugged when accepting his endorsement, because Pastor John Hagee has said that the Holocaust was ordained work of God.

By Juliet Eilperin and Kimberly Kindy Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 23, 2008; Page A01

STOCKTON, Calif., May 22 -- Sen. John McCain on Thursday repudiated the presidential endorsement of the Rev. John Hagee after learning about a sermon in which the megachurch pastor from San Antonio declared that God allowed the rise of Adolf Hitler because it resulted in returning Israel to the Jewish people.

The Arizona Republican's decision to distance himself from Hagee came after months of mounting criticism, particularly from Roman Catholics, over his acceptance of Hagee's endorsement in late February. Hagee has called the Catholic Church a "false religious system" and a "false cult system" and has suggested that the church played a role in the Holocaust.

Hagee, 68, is one of the country's best-known Christian television evangelists and is known for his fervent support of Israel. But he has a conflicted relationship with Jewish organizations. He spearheaded a group called Christians United for Israel, but not all Jewish groups embrace him, because he does not support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are also leery of his support because he has suggested that their "rebellion" against "Jehovah" has caused much of their suffering, including the Holocaust. Washington Post

Some voters may draw the conclusion that JiSM is anti-Semitic because he accepted John Hagee's embrace while knowing full well of Hagee's views. Other voters will conclude that McCain, while not anti-Semitic, simply lacks a moral compass in his craven pursuit of the Oval Office.

YouTube Video: McCain, Fire Lobbyist Charlie Black!

2008-05-21T04:41:00.001-04:00

DNC Targets McCain Campaign's Lobbyist Army

2008-05-20T16:41:00.004-04:00

Is being a lobbyist a requirement for working on the presidential lobbying campaign of Sen. John McCain?

The Huffington Post has a story on a 1997 Bill sponsored by John McCain, which would have banned lobbyists from campaigns. This on news from this morning that his campaign manager lobbies for foreign entities without registering as a foreign lobbyist and setting up meeting between McCain and russian oligarchs.

McCain's '97 Lobbyist Bill Would Cripple Current Campaign

Senator John McCain has a lobbyist problem. This past week, as several aides resigned because of their work representing unsavory governments, his campaign implemented a new policy governing these potential conflicts of interest. That led to the departure of additional staffers, including former Rep. Thomas Loeffler, a key adviser and fundraiser.

The McCain camp has insisted that the resignations are nothing more than evidence of the Senator's sincerity in combating outside influences. But the truth, reform groups say, is far from adulatory: McCain's current policy simply doesn't compare to the ethical commitments he championed earlier in his career.

Just twelve years ago, when McCain was politically recuperating from his involvement in the Keating Five scandal, he introduced legislation that would, if implemented today, cripple his presidential campaign.

In March 1996, McCain took to the Senate floor to offer a bill that, in his own words, "would ban a candidate or a candidate's authorized committee from paying registered lobbyists."

In order to root out the moneyed influences, McCain continued, Congress had to unequivocally cut off the flow of campaign cash.

"Registered lobbyists who work for campaigns as fundraisers clearly represent a conflict of interest," he added. "When a campaign employs an individual who also lobbies that Member, the perception of undue and unfair influence is raised."

The legislation, introduced twice, never passed.

Fast-forward a dozen years and the political dynamics have clearly changed. Now the GOP standard barer, McCain has 115 lobbyists either working or raising money on his behalf. Many of these individuals have taken a leave of absence from these positions in order to help with the campaign. But others have held, simultaneously, fundraising and lobbyists positions.

In addition, the Senator has 70 registered lobbyists who have bundled money on his behalf - raising at least $100,000. On top of this, the Center for Responsive Politics reports that the Arizona Republican has received more than $610,000 in direct donations - not bundled cash - from lobbyists.

His recent, self-implemented, campaign policy is designed to counteract the image that such a fundraising apparatus suggests. "No person with a McCain Campaign title or position," the document reads, "may participate in a 527 or other independent entity that makes public communications that support or oppose any presidential candidate."

But critics and reform groups not only argue that the policy is too little too late, but that McCain can no longer claim the ethical high ground on which he has built much of his political career.

"I think because Mr. McCain believes himself to be an ethical man he believes you can't question his ethics. But the fact of the matter is, he has talked a good game but he isn't walking it. And you can't be the guy who positions himself as a reformer and then plays fast and loose with the rules," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "I think he was sincere after Keating Five, and he obviously really believed in campaign finance reform, because he pushed it when it really didn't helped him. But I think over time that's changed. At the time he [made this speech] he wasn't thinking how it would affect his presidential run."

Moreover, they add, it is not just the quantity of lobbyists who have surrounded McCain. It is the quality. Indeed, some of the very people funding the Arizona Republicans run for the White House are those who would be interested in favors should he get there. As the New York Times reported in April 2008, several of McCain's bundlers have business interests before the Senator's own Commerce Committee:

Kirk Blalock, of the lobbying firm Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, leads Mr. McCain's young professional group and has raised over $250,000 for him; his clients include Sprint Nextel and Viacom.
Kyle McSlarrow, chief of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the lobbying arm for the cable industry, has raised over $100,000 for Mr. McCain. He and others in the cable industry recently butted heads with Mr. McCain over a proposal that would allow customers to pick and choose which channels they received.

McCain's supporters insist that his ethical compass is sound enough to ignore these potential conflicts of interest. And indeed, as McSlarrow can testify, raising money for McCain's campaign doesn't always bring with it a return of legislative favors.

"When it comes to McCain," Wayne Berman, another McCain bundler whose clients are affected by McCain's chairmanship at Commerce, told the New York Times, "there's just absolutely no concern whatsoever that he is going to be influenced by lobbyists. He takes on issues as he sees them. It doesn't matter whether his best friends are on the other side or not."

But as it stands now, critics believe that McCain's bevy of lobbyists represents a political liability. On Tuesday, Moveon.org put out one in what will likely be a series of campaign commercials, cataloging the "worlds worst tyrants" for whom Charlie Black, one of McCain's top aides, had previously worked. The list includes Ferdinand Marcos, Mobuto Sese Seko, Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi and Ahmad Chalabi.

"Charlie Black said he didn't do anything wrong," the spot says. "John McCain should tell Black he did."

McCain's Finance Co-Chair Resigns in Ongoing Lobbyist Purge

2008-05-19T00:00:00.002-04:00

Tom Loeffler resigned from the McCain campaign today. (Associated Press)

Why doesn't JiSM just quit?

It seems like there's a stampede out of John McCain's presidential campaign as he tries desperately to demonstrate that an entire campaign composed of lobbyists doesn't mean that he, himself, is just a informal lobbyist who has been elected to the US Senate. According to the Washington Post,

Tom Loeffler, the national finance co-chair for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, resigned from the campaign today because of his lobbying ties, a campaign adviser said.

His is the fifth person to sever ties with the campaign amid a growing concern about whether lobbyists have too great an influence over McCain and the campaign. Last week, campaign manager Rick Davis issued a new policy that requires all campaign personnel to either resign or sever ties with lobbying firms or outside political groups. WaPost

Now, this is some fertile territory for research and someone seems already to be mining it very effectively. Let's see how many more of John McCain's top aides turn out to be mercenaries for the same large corporations that are already bleeding the US Treasury dry.

Mr. "Straight-Talk" is a Straight-up Liar

2008-05-18T22:46:00.005-04:00

In the above video, which I found over at the AfroSpear's Jack and Jill Politics, JiSM contradicts himself about New Orleans (Bush should have been there and not at John McCain's birthday party), and he contradicts himself about the Bush tax cuts (he voted both for them AND against them, he says; and he contradicts himself about the economy ("There's an argument to be made that it has improved," but "No, I don't think it has improved," he says; and he contradicts himself about his security during his trip to Iraq (he says it was so safe that he didn't need body armor, but news clips show that he did). Oh, just watch the news clips and see for yourself.

JiSM can't can't his story straight, and that's because he lies according to needs of the moment, and then can't remember what he last said.

Oh yeah! Catch the part where John McCain says on numerous occasions that he doesn't know anything about the US economy! Just what we need, as we're slipping into a depression!

JiSM Has More Lobbyists Than Bats in His Belfry

2008-05-16T12:55:00.003-04:00

Agent X continues on the trail of information about the lobbyist connections of JiSM, who seems to know and consort with more lobbyists than real Americans.

AgentX has left a new comment on your post "The John McCain Lobbyist Football Team":

Here's some more lobbyist dirt.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/15/mccains-murderers-row/#more-29220

In this posting, the guys over at Firedoglake have discovered 3 of the worst (Black, Madigan, and Loeffler). These K-streeters lobbied for Sese Seko of Zaire, Somali and Equatorial Guinea dictators, Angola's Savimbi, and Saudi Arabia and Dubai- while not a totally evil nation, he was covering their tracks over the camel jockey slavery story.

And people say William Ayers is bad.

The Washington Post is on the story as well, with rundown of all the lobbyists McCain has been forced to dismiss while insisting that his chief lobbyist buddy, his campaign manager Charles Black, is not a lobbyist at all (anymore).

UPDATE from Agent X:

The campaign against McCain is having its effects.

McCain's Lobbyist Scandals Prompt Additional Scrutiny (Huffington Post)

Basically, the article says that McCain and his non-lobbyist staff wants to find out how many lobbyists are on his campaign. Apparently, he ain't know. Well, one of his crew, Craig Shirley, has left because he was working for a 527 smear group while working for McCain. Eric Burgeson, his energy policy adviser, is also out as well.

He knows NOW that he can't get away with having scumbags on his staff. How many horses will be tossed from this ship? You'll just have to wait and see . . .

McCain's Pastor Apologizes for Calling Catholic Church a "Whore"

2008-05-14T07:55:00.003-04:00

One of JiSM's chief religious supporters acknowledged yesterday that his hateful remarks toward Catholics were offensive and wrong:

[Y] esterday, pastor John Hagee, a McCain supporter whose controversial comments about Catholicism angered church leaders, issued a letter of apology to the president of the Catholic League, who heartily accepted it.
In the letter, Hagee admitted that he "may have contributed to the mistaken impression that the anti-Jewish violence of the Crusades and the Inquisition defines the modern-day Catholic Church. It most certainly does not."

Hagee, an evangelical who has been outspoken in his support for Israel, had enraged Catholics with statements about the "apostate church" and the "great whore." He said in his letter that he meant neither of those to apply to the Catholic Church.

Question is, why did John McCain welcome the support of John Hagee even before Hagee made this announcement? Does John McCain also hate Catholics and the Catholic Church? Or was JiSM so desperate for Hagee's help that he would accept Hagee regardless of his views? Or is that both JiSM and Hagee want to bomb Iran? Whatever the case, this just proves what all of us have been saying: John Sydney McCain, III is dangerous in his beliefs and associations to be president of the United States. Or, at least I certainly hope so!

JiSM Supports Less Pay for Women

2008-05-13T22:50:00.006-04:00

Hat Tip to Agent X.

JiSM called his own wife a "cunt" in front of reporters once. Considering how little respect he has for his own wife, it's no surprise he doesn't believe women should receive equal pay for the same work.

John McCain Celebrated While New Orleans Was Inundated

2008-05-13T21:28:00.002-04:00

by Not Brit, at DailyKos

This story originally posted at DailyKos by its author, Not Brit.

Mon May 12, 2008 at 09:36:23 PM PDT

I know the photo of McCain hugging Bush is popular around here, but this may be the most powerful image for the general election:

Just for a bit of history, this is President George W. Bush in Phoenix as he joined John McCain in a small celebration of McCain's 69th birthday Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. The President later spoke about Medicare to 400 guests at the Pueblo El Mirage RV Resort and Country Club in nearby El Mirage.

As if it were bad enough, I copied and pasted the above text directly from WhiteHouse.gov.

Here's what else was happening that day:

Not Brit's diary :: ::

All of these photos were literally taken the same day. Our president was too busy to worry about any of it. He had a party to attend. And a speaking engagement. About Medicare.

And the Republican's current nominee for president? Well, he was just fine. Celebrating.

There are more than a few reasons we should be using this photo all the damn time. Here's a start:

#1 It ties McCain to President Bush. Better than the hug photo in my opinion.

#2 It represents the Republican's complete incompetence. Remember, this photo was taken 4 days after Katrina first landed in Florida.

#3 McCain voted against relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

#4 It highlights McCain's domestic agenda. More precisely, his total lack thereof.

#5 It correctly paints McCain as the complete opposite of a Maverick. (Can we please start calling it the Straight Jacket Express?)

#6 It reminds us that McCain is older than the polio vaccine (They were celebrating his 69th birthday... 3 years ago)

#7 Let them eat cake.

#8 The emperor fiddled while Rome burned.

#9 John McCain doesn't always wear an American flag lapel pin.

#10 "Judge me on my own record..."

Would anyone like to add to the list?

#11 (ht ThatSinger) Reminds us of McCain's endorcement from John Hagee.

#12 (ht fhcec) Exposes Republican hypocrisy on Myanmar, etc.

#13 (ht soul creator) ...doesn't care about black people.

#14 (ht Norm DePlume) That the media conveniently under-reports actual tragedies perpetuated by our elected officials while bombarding us with trivialities.

#15 (ht DocGonzo) New Orleans is still fucked. (Please read his entire comment here)

#16 (ht ImpeachKingBushII)

#17 (ht CineJay)

Tags: John McCain, 2008, Katrina, George W. Bush, Recommended (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

The John McCain Lobbyist Football Team

2008-05-12T07:09:00.004-04:00

Agent X says in comments here,

In today's update, it has come to my attention that McCain has more lobbyists than a football team.

Speaking of those lobbyists, one of them worked for the infamous regime in Burma.

He has since left the campaign after that was revealed, but this gives me an idea; Mr. Holland, if someone gave you a list of McCain lobbyists, would you go on a 'fishing expedition' to find out what these guys have REALLY been up to? I'm sure you'd find another Burma up in there...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Republican's Party Down, and McCain's Out of His Mind

2008-05-10T21:26:00.003-04:00

Politico.Com says that the Republican Party is tanking in special elections and in opinion polls in the run-up to the November General Election, [which bodes ill for John McCain, particularly since he is simultaneously losing his bearings.]

By JIM VANDEHEI & DAVID PAUL KUHN | 5/10/08 12:49 PM EST
Text Size:

McCain risks looking inauthentic and conventional if he solidifies standing with conservatives and then races back to the middle to appeal to swing voters.

Photo: AP

John McCain is planning to run as a different kind of Republican. But being any kind of Republican seems like some sort of death sentence these days.

In case you’ve been too consumed by the Democratic race to notice, Republicans are getting crushed in historic ways both at the polls and in the polls.

At the polls, it has been a massacre. In recent weeks, Republicans have lost a Louisiana House seat they had held for more than two decades and an Illinois House seat they had held for more than three. Internal polls show that next week they could lose a Mississippi House seat that they have held for 13 years.
In the polls, they are setting records (and not the good kind). The most recent Gallup Poll has 67 percent of voters disapproving of President Bush; those numbers are worse than Richard Nixon’s on the eve of his resignation. A CBS News poll taken at the end of April found only 33 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP — the lowest since CBS started asking the question more than two decades ago. By comparison, 52 percent of the public has a favorable view of the Democratic Party. Politico.Com

In a way, Hillary Clinton has been right in her analysis. Blacks will certainly vote for Obama, as will the whites who have put Obama over the top in the polls. In the current environment many Independents and even some Republicans will support Barack Obama for president. So, the only question is whether white voters who support Hillary Clinton would rather elect the first Black president or would rather vote to continue the Iraq War for 100 years, while also starting a fresh war with Iran before the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are concluded. The answer will tell us an awful lot about the progressive bonafides of Hillary Clinton supporters.

Is John McCain "Losing His Bearings"?

2008-05-10T14:21:00.002-04:00

The question we need to ask about John McCain is whether he is emotionally stable enough to be president, or whether he is, instead, progressively and implacably "losing his bearings"?

NEW YORK - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday that Republican John McCain was "losing his bearings" for repeatedly suggesting the Islamic terrorist group Hamas preferred Obama for president.

That brought an angry response from McCain's campaign, which accused Obama of trying to make an issue of McCain's age.

Age is a touchy subject for McCain, who turns 72 in August and would be the oldest person to be sworn in as president if elected. Yahoo News

That McCain surrogate Joe Lieberman (Lieberman Party :)) sped to John McCain's defense shows the McCain's campaign's fear that this particularly issue will lead to his defeat in November.

In my opinion, John Sydney McCain's age alone should not make him ineligible for the presidency, unless there is strong evidence that McCain's advancing age is exacerbating an already unstable personality. And so we have to review the evidence and ask ourselves, is John McCain mentally stable enough to be president of a nuclear country? Or, is John Sydney McCain "losing his bearings"?

John Sydney McCain ("JiSM") called his wife a "cunt" in front of several reporters. He doesn't deny it.

"McCain's Temper May Become an Issue," says the Washington Post, because John McCain has shown an increasingly explosive temper over the years.

The Washington Post also quoted an editorial from the Arizona Republic, McCain's hometown newspaper, saying,
"If McCain is truly a serious contender for the presidency, it is time the rest of the nation learned about the John McCain we know in Arizona. There is also reason to seriously question whether he has the temperament . . . " WaPost

Even conservative blogs and websites and US Senate colleagues have offered convincing evidence that John McCain has at least one longstanding mental problem: he just cannot control his burning temper:

"I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues," said former Senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on Republican policy committees. "He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that." Red State Patriot

The Red State Patriot offers a litany of other examples of JiSM behavior showing that he flies off the hook in all sorts of situations, particularly when people make him mad.

Robin Silver and Bob Witzeman, both medical doctors, met with McCain at his Phoenix office to discuss the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel. At the mention of the issue, McCain erupted.
"He slammed his fists on his desk, scattering papers across the room," Silver said. "He jumped up and down, screaming obscenities at us for at least 10 minutes. He shook his fists as if he was going to slug us."

After Silver pointed out that his behavior was inappropriate, "He apologized and was contrite," Silver said.

Indeed, senators joke among themselves about their collection of "McCain Notes" — apologies McCain sends after he has unleashed a tirade. The question on the minds of those who know him is whether a man who seems so out of control should have the authority to unleash nuclear weapons.

"I think he is not fit to be president," said former congressman LeBoutillier. Red State Patriot

Is this all of the evidence? With such a profoundly important decision to make, shouldn't we be looking at the whole record, as well as John McCain present behavior, to discern whether John McCain is "losing his bearings"?

100 more years in Iraq, says J.S.M

2008-05-07T12:24:00.004-04:00

How much longer should U.S. troops be in Iraq? 50 years? "Maybe a hundred, that's find with me," says John McCain in the above video.

Voiceover: If all John McCain offers is more of the same, is John McCain the right choice for America's future? That's a lot of JiSM! Hat Tip.

McCain Persecuted Non-Profit Employee Who Disovered Wife Addiction, Theft of Controlled Drugs

2008-05-05T06:03:00.002-04:00

According to the Pheonix New Times, John McCain had to know his wife was addicted to prescription drugs, and he may well have known she was stealing those drugs from an international medical charity in which she was involved. But, because of the family's wealth and connections, Mrs. McCain waltzed away from the scandal with no prison time, while others broke rocks in the pen:

From September 1991 to January 1993, Tom Gosinski was the director of government and international affairs for the American Voluntary Medical Team, a nonprofit organization headed by Cindy Hensley McCain.
Gosinski says McCain started behaving erratically in the summer of 1992. He says he and other AVMT staff members became convinced she was addicted to the prescription narcotics Percocet and Vicodin. They believed she was obtaining these drugs illegally in the names of her employees and the public charity she founded.
Gosinski's multiple claims--the knowledge of which, he says, led McCain to fire him in January 1993--were central to a federal investigation, a civil lawsuit, the extortion investigation and, finally, a statewide media circus.
( . . . )
New Times obtained a copy of Gosinski's private journal. It covers the period from early July 1992 through January 1993. Gosinski did not grant New Times permission to print excerpts from the journal, but neither did he disavow their accuracy. The 52 journal entries, recorded during Cindy McCain's drug meltdown, paint a disturbing picture.
July 27, 1992: I have always wondered why John McCain has done nothing to fix the problem. He must either not see that a problem exists or does not choose to do anything about it. It would seem that it would be in everyone's best interest to come to terms with the situation. And do whatever is necessary to fix it. There is so much at risk: The welfare of the children; John's political career; the integrity of Hensley & Company; the welfare of Jim and Smitty Hensley; and the health and happiness of Cindy McCain.
The aforementioned matters are of great concern to those directly involved but my main concern is the ability of AVMT to survive a major shake-up. If the DEA were to ever conduct an audit of AVMT's inventory, I am afraid of what the results might be. . . . It is because of CHM's willingness to jeopardize the credibility of those that work for her that I truly worry.
During my short tenure at AVMT I have been surrounded by what on the surface appears to be the ultimate all-American family. In reality, I am working for a very sad, lonely woman whose marriage of convenience to a U.S. Senator has driven her to: distance herself from friends; cover feelings of despair with drugs; and replace lonely moments with self-indulgences. Pheonix New Times

McCain, Campaign Manager Met with Russian Billionaire Suspected of Organized Crime Links

2008-05-05T05:46:00.003-04:00

McCain's Keating five scandal (McCain Received $110,000 from Bank Whose Failure Cost US Treasury 2Billion Dollars) is not his only link to mafia-like swindles. The Pheonix Times reports:

As I mentioned in a February 5 blog item, The Washington Post recently reported on McCain's meeting with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who had his visa revoked by the U.S.government because of his "suspected links to anti-democratic and organized-crime figures." McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis assisted in putting the two men together in 2006.
Davis told the Post that his contacts with Deripaska "all relate to my private business and have nothing to do with Senator John McCain." The Post said there was no evidence of wrongdoing, or of some sort of tit-for-tat. Still, such coziness with a billionaire recalls a certain coziness with a high-roller named Charles Keating.

Indeed, the ghost of the Keating Five scandal is always close by McCain. I was reminded of this in watching grizzled old legal warhorse Robert Bennett being pulled out of the barn to defend McCain in this recent joust with The New York Times. Attorney Bennett (who's famous for defending Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky case), led the Senate ethics investigation in the Keating affair back in the '80s. Bennett was criticized by another member of the Keating Five, Senator Dennis DeConcini, in his recent memoir, Senator Dennis DeConcini: From the Center of the Aisle.

In the book, DeConcini, a centrist Dem, charged that Bennett was attempting to make the controversy a "Democrat scandal" by steering it away from McCain, the scandal's sole Republican. DeConcini asserts that McCain was knee-deep in guilt. As I wrote in the Bird column "McCain Shame,"

McCain made out like a bandito, scoring a whopping $112K from Keating's [fundraising]efforts. Indeed, McCain and the slimy S&L-er were thick as thieves. While serving in the House from 1983 to 1986, McCain flew with Keating to the latter's private retreat in the Bahamas aboard Keating corporate aircraft. And the senator's trophy wife, Cindy McCain, along with her pops, invested $359K in a Phoenix shopping mall developed by an offshoot of Keating's American Continental Corporation.

McCain Campaign's Arizona Co-Chair Indicted for Extortion, Money Laundering

2008-05-05T05:39:00.002-04:00

The Pheonix Times reports,

McCain's corruption eruptions are more serious than those of the bimbo persuasion.
Take the very fact that Congressman "Slick" Rick Renzi's the AZ co-chair of McCain's campaign. Everyone here in Sand Land knows Renzi's ethically-challenged, and today's indictment of Renzi and two business associates by the U.S. Attorney's office on numerous counts including "wire fraud, extortion and money laundering, and conspiracies to engage in these acts" is no surprise. Most with a political clue knew Renzi was the target of an ongoing corruption probe by the Feds. Last summer, Renzi announced he wouldn't run for Congress again, probably because he was aware something like this was coming.

So why would McCain be so stupid as to make Renzi his co-chair in AZ? I could understand the misstep if Renzi was an unknown pol repping him in some other state, but this is in McCain's own back yard. Renzi and the allegations swirling around him have been well-reported. It certainly makes you wonder if McCain has a political blind spot large enough to blot out the very state he represents.

McCain Joke Calls Hillary an Ugly Lesbian

2008-05-05T05:26:00.003-04:00

Slate reports, "When [John McCain] got caught telling a dumb, nasty joke about Chelsea Clinton--the kind of crack that might cripple the career of someone else in Congress--he apologized immediately, was forgiven by the president." "The idiotic joke, which McCain told at a Republican fund-raiser, went something like this:"

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father and Hillary Clinton is her mother." Audience members gasped.

John McCain Twice Opposed Commission to Study Katrina Response

2008-05-05T04:43:00.003-04:00

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109^th Congress - 2^nd Session

as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Vote Summary

Question: On the Motion (Motion to Waive CBA Clinton Amdt. No. 2716 )
Vote Number:	6	Vote Date:	February 2, 2006, 07:51 PM
Required For Majority:	3/5	Vote Result:	Motion Rejected
Amendment Number:	S.Amdt. 2716 to S.Amdt. 2707 to H.R. 4297
Statement of Purpose:	To establish a congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Region of the United States especially in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and other areas impacted in the aftermath and make immediate corrective measures to improve such responses in the future.

Vote Counts:	YEAs	44
	NAYs	53
	Not Voting	3

John McCain (AZ): NAY, don't study Bush's greatest domestic failure!

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109^th Congress - 1^st Session

as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Vote Summary

Question: On the Motion (Motion To Suspend Paragraph 4, Rule XVI RE: Clinton Amdt. NO. 1660 )
Vote Number:	229	Vote Date:	September 14, 2005, 01:06 PM
Required For Majority:	3/5	Vote Result:	Motion Rejected
Amendment Number:	S.Amdt. 1660 to H.R. 2862
Statement of Purpose:	To establish a congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Region of the United States especially in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and other areas impacted in the aftermath and make immediate corrective measures to improve such responses in the future.

Vote Counts:	YEAs	44
	NAYs	54
	Not Voting	2

John McCain (AZ): NAY, don't study Bush's greatest domestic failure!

NYT Addresses McCain's Embrace of Pastor John Hagee, Catholic-Hater

2008-05-05T04:30:00.004-04:00

Here's what Frank Rich of the New York Times has to say about one pastor whose embrace John McCain has received warmly, perhaps because they agree that the US should start a first-strike nuclear war with Iran:

Mr. McCain has been shocked to learn that his clerical ally has made many other outrageous statements. Mr. Hagee, it’s true, did not blame the American government for concocting AIDS. But he did say that God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its sins, particularly a scheduled “homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came.”
Mr. Hagee didn’t make that claim in obscure circumstances, either. He broadcast it on one of America’s most widely heard radio programs, “Fresh Air” on NPR, back in September 2006. He reaffirmed it in a radio interview less than two weeks ago. Only after a reporter asked Mr. McCain about this Katrina homily on April 24 did the candidate brand it as “nonsense” and the preacher retract it.
Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee’s calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright’s. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee’s church.
That defense implies, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain was a passive recipient of this bigot’s endorsement. In fact, by his own account, Mr. McCain sought out Mr. Hagee, who is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a pre-emptive “holy war” with Iran. (This preacher’s rantings may tell us more about Mr. McCain’s policy views than Mr. Wright’s tell us about Mr. Obama’s.) Even after Mr. Hagee’s Catholic bashing bubbled up in the mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr. Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging of Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.” NYT

As Rich says in this essay, "If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick."

McCain declines to deny calling his wife a "cunt."

2008-05-04T21:22:00.007-04:00

In the above video, a questioner at a McCain town hall meeting asks McCain, "Is it true you called your wife a cunt" in public?

In his book The Real McCain, author Cliff Schecter claims that John McCain made extremely ugly remarks about his wife Cindy McCain during a tirade witnessed by three reporters and two aides. "At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, 'You're getting a little thin up there,'" Schechter writes. "McCain's face reddened, and he responded, 'At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.' McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days." Drudge Report

In the above video, McCain does not deny the accusation, but instead says the question is inappropriate at a town hall meeting. If so, then it would also be inappropriate to hurl that epithet at your own wife in front of a bunch of reporters, a public meeting with the media, right?

The US Supreme Court has declared that "a person accused of crime in a public forum would ordinarily deny or explain the evidence against him if he truthfully could do so". If he doesn't deny an accusation made in public, it may well be because the accusation is demonstrably true and all denials would be futile.

And therefore,

. . . failure to explain or to deny by his testimony any evidence or facts in the case against him may be commented upon by the court and by counsel, and may be considered by the court or the jury. GRIFFIN v. CALIFORNIA, 380 U.S. 609 (1965)

The Comments to the Federal Rules of Evidence say that:

(B) Under established principles an admission may be made by adopting or acquiescing in the statement of another. While knowledge of contents
would ordinarily be essential, this is not inevitably so: "X is a
reliable person and knows what he is talking about." See McCormick Sec.
246, p.527, n.15. Adoption or acquiescence may be manifested in any
appropriate manner. When silence is relied upon, the theory is that the
person would, under the circumstances, protest the statement made in his presence, if untrue. The decision in each case calls for an evaluation
in terms of probable human behavior. FEDERAL RULES OF EVIDENCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

If someone asked me in public whether, in public, I had called my wife a "cunt", then I would certainly deny it unless it were manifestly and undeniably true. If you apply the above rule to McCain's failure to deny a damning accusation in the above video, it can only mean that McCain DID call his wife a "c*nt". If he denies it, he know the public will find out the truth between now and the election, and then he'll be proved a straight-up liar as well as an abusive cad to his wife.

McCain Pastor Says America is Damned!

2008-05-01T23:07:00.006-04:00

If you're a Republican presidential candidate and your skin is white, then your pastor can curse and damn America as much as he wants, and the media doesn't care. Take John McCain's favorite pastor, John Hagee. Apparently whitosphere blogger Bruce Wilson at Propeller.com has read from Hagee's 1997 book, "Day of Deception", and here's what he found, and his comments:

"As a nation, America is under the curse of God, even now." That ominous slam at America came from Pastor John Hagee, whose endorsement Republican presidential candidate John McCain sought, secured, and recently affirmed to ABC News that he is "glad to have." Hagee claims God's "curse" and "doom" is upon America because of two key issues: reproductive freedom and broad support for the teaching of the theory of evolution.
Although Senator McCain recently told George Stephanopoulos in an interview that his seeking of Hagee's endorsement was "probably" a mistake, he then doubled back to affirm his approval of Hagee's endorsement, stating, "I'm glad to have it.
"If McCain did not know of Hagee's belief that God is against America, he should have: Hagee's pronouncement of God's "curse" and "doom" on our nation was not a passing comment. It was a major theme of Hagee's book, Day of Deception (1997). In fact, Hagee devotes a whole chapter to it. Here's the curse and doom quote in context:
In "America Under a Curse," a seventeen page chapter in "Day of Deception" ($0.01 cents used at Amazon.Com), John Hagee wrote, "As a nation, America is under the curse of God, even now. Look at the scriptures and see for yourself. The stand we have taken on abortion, the stand we have taken against God in our classrooms, just may have sealed or doom."
( . . . )
America is also collectively cursed for specific reasons, such as legalized abortion and a Supreme Court decision against sectarian Bible classes in public schools but also, more generally, for rebelling against God. As a consequence of America's disobedience and rebellion, according to McCain-endorser John Hagee, God's has cursed America and that curse has caused American military defeats, in Korea and Vietnam, plagues such as AIDS and social blights like violent crime. God's curse on America has also led "hundreds of thousands" to secretly sacrifice children to the devil. Propeller.com

If John McCain and John Hagee were Democrats or, even worse, Black Democrats, then this would be big news. As a professor once told me in law school, if you want to convince the public of something, you have to base it on a theme in which they already believe. Since many white people already believe that Blacks aren't really American (we're not white afterall), it's a simple matter to convince them that we're unpatriotic and anti-America.

If John McCain and John Hagee were Democrats or, even worse, Black Democrats, then this would be big news. After all, the Rev. John Hagee, founder of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, "has called the Catholic Church "the great whore of Babylon" and "the anti-Christ." But, since they're white men, they can damn America as much as they want. It's their country, afterall?

The author is the editor of the Truth About McCain Blog and the American Journal of Color Arousal (AMJCA).

McCain Now Opposes Equal Pay Remedy for Women

2008-04-23T23:41:00.005-04:00

Sen. John Sydney McCain, III has announced that he opposes a bill that would allow women to sue to receive pay that is equal to that of their male co-workers. The bill "is named for Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'s plant in Gadsden, Ala., who sued for pay discrimination just before retiring after a 19-year career there. By the time she retired, Ledbetter made $6,500 less than the lowest-paid male supervisor and claimed earlier decisions by supervisors kept her from making more." Yahoo News

"The bill sought to counteract a Supreme Court decision limiting how long workers can wait before suing for pay discrimination. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 last year to throw out her complaint, saying she had waited too long to sue." Yahoo News

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that if a woman must file a discrimination claim within just months of the time when the discrimination began, otherwise she loses all right to file a complaint for her lifetime. So, if a woman began to receive unequal pay in 1980 and has been paid unequally ever since, she cannot file a complaint today because the filing deadline has already run. Her time to file has run out, even if she has only now discovered the discrimination.

There were a number of legal theories the Supreme Court could have adopted to preserve the woman's right to a claim and to give her a chance at equal pay. For example, the Court could have found that Congress intended for the filing period to begin to run when the woman discovered she was being unequally paid, rather than when the unequal pay secretly began. The Court could also have found that, when the discrimination is ongoing, each successive unequal paycheck is part of a continuing act of discrimination, and the clock on the filing deadline only begins to run when on the date of the last act of discrimination, e.g. the last unequal paycheck, not the first one.

Instead, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to exacerbate the problem of unequal pay by determining that if a company can pay a woman unequally until her filing deadline runs, then they can continue to pay her unequally for the rest of her life!

What an embarrassing day in the American injustice system. What an indictment of Sen. John Sydney McCain, III, who supports this absurd decision and opposes a Congressional remedy.

Video of McCain's Biggest Flip Flops, In His Own Words

2008-04-21T22:33:00.002-04:00

On Iraq, gay marriage and the Confederate Flag, John McCain is all double-talk.

NYT: McCain Campaign Guilty of Plagiarism

2008-04-21T01:38:00.008-04:00

Hat Tip to Field Negro.

The New York Times reports that a prominently placed section of the John McCain website that was devoted to his wife's cooking recipes was actually copied verbatim from the Food Network:

Until early Tuesday morning, visitors to John McCain’s campaign Web site could find seven of “Cindy’s Recipes,” among them three elegant and healthful offerings: passion fruit mousse, ahi tuna with Napa cabbage slaw and farfalle pasta with turkey sausage, peas and mushrooms.
Only problem was, all three, listed as favorite family recipes of Cindy McCain, Mr. McCain’s wife, were taken verbatim from the Food Network. NYTimes

Doesn't this mean that John McCain's campaign has engaged in deliberate "plagiarism"? Cornell University's policy on plagiarism says:

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is misrepresenting somebody else's intellectual work - ideas, information, writing, thinking - as your own. In other words, it is a misuse of source material. Whether intentional or unintentional, plagiarism is a serious violation of Cornell's Code of Academic Integrity. Cornell University

For example, in the 1988 Democratic Primary race, "Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr., a U.S. senator from Delaware, was driven from the nomination battle after delivering, without attribution, passages from a speech by British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock." WaPost.Com

Now we discover that McCain's campaign deliberately took entire recipes from the Food Network and presented them, on McCain's official website, as Cindy McCain's "family recipes," which was a bold-faced lie.

Also on Tuesday, the Wonkette site posted a recipe, “Cindy McCain’s 3-Minute No-Bake Cookies,” which appeared in the December 2007 issue of Yankee Magazine and was identical to a recipe from Quaker Oats. Mr. Bounds said he would look into it. NYTimes

Are John McCain's claims to "straight-talk" really just a lot of flatulence?

Of course, McCain blames the plagiarism on an intern and claims that the intern has been fired. Who is that fired intern? Is he or she available for an interview to confirm or deny the McCain campaign's version of events? Did the same low-level McCain aide plagiarize both the articles published in 2007 and those published a year later, in 2008? That strains credulity.

What's clear now is that the McCain campaign has "plagiarized" and the media, including the New York Times, is loath to use the precise term that most aptly applies.

John McCain is Older than . . . FM Radio!

2008-04-20T12:43:00.003-04:00

This video tells all things younger than John McCain.

Could the World Survive John McCain's Temper?

2008-04-20T12:09:00.003-04:00

If he swears at his own Republcan Senate colleagues, could he make a cautious and reasoned decision about dropping nuclear bombs on Iran?

Today, the Washington Post explores the question of whether it would be dangerous to elect John McCain president because of his explosive and sometimes uncontrollable temper.

[O]ver the years, no one has written more intimately about McCain's outbursts than McCain himself. "My temper has often been both a matter of public speculation and personal concern," he wrote in a 2002 memoir. "I have a temper, to state the obvious, which I have tried to control with varying degrees of success because it does not always serve my interest or the public's."
That temper has followed him throughout his life, McCain acknowledges. He recalls in his writings how, as a toddler, he sometimes held his breath and fainted during moments of fury. As the son of a naval officer who was on his way to becoming a four-star admiral, McCain found himself frequently uprooted and enrolled in new schools, where, as an underappreciated outsider, he developed "a little bit of a chip on my shoulder," as he recalled this month.

( . . . )

"As a young man, I would respond aggressively and sometimes irresponsibly to anyone who I perceived to have questioned my sense of honor and self-respect. Those responses often got me in a fair amount of trouble earlier in life." McCain: A Question of Temperament

Whoaooooooooo now! Should a nuclear super-power elect a hot head who can't control his temper and who overreacts and personalizes slights?

Former senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican, expresses worries about McCain: "His temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him." McCain: A Question of Temperament

The Washington Post retells one of many documented accounts of John McCain getting into fist fights, or nearly so, with lawmakers of his own party, who mostly vote like he does in the U.S. Congress.

John McCain cupped a fist and began pumping it, up and down, along the side of his body. It was a gesture familiar to a participant in the closed-door meeting of the Senate committee who hoped that it merely signaled, as it sometimes had in the past, McCain's mounting frustration with one of his colleagues.

But when McCain leaned toward Charles E. Grassley and slowly said, "My friend . . ." it seemed clear that ugliness was looming: While the plural "my friends" was usually a warm salutation from McCain, "my friend" was often a prelude to his most caustic attacks. Grassley, an Iowa Republican with a reputation as an unwavering legislator, calmly held his ground. McCain became angrier, his fist pumping even faster.

It was early 1992, and the occasion was an informal gathering of a select committee investigating lingering issues about Vietnam War prisoners and those missing in action, most notably whether any American servicemen were still being held by the Vietnamese. It is unclear precisely what issue set off McCain that day. But at some point, he mocked Grassley to his face and used a profanity to describe him. Grassley stood and, according to two participants at the meeting, told McCain, "I don't have to take this. I think you should apologize."

In the video above, we have reports of John McCain calling a Republican Senate colleague "chickenshit" and saying, "Fuck you! I know more about [immigration reform] than anyone else in this room. This type of speech toward elected officials used to decorum has led to more than one fist-fight or near fist fight in the US Senate. So, what would it lead to between John McCain's country and countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and even France? Can we really afford the civilian death toll of World War III?

"Wow! Read all the dirt about John McCain in one place!"

2008-04-20T10:46:00.003-04:00

The Gossiplist.com blog follows the activities of movie stars, but they're not about to let John McCain become president without a fight, and blow us all to the stars. Gossiplist.com says, "Wow! Read all the dirt about John McCain in one place!" And here's there March 25th compilation of all the dirt they've found at "Truth About McCain"!

McCain is on holiday in the Middle East playing 'pretend President'. Meanwhile, someone has written a blog containing a massive amount of dirt on him. Some of the pearls contained:

McCain Financial Scandal Cost US Treasury Two Billion Dollars - A review of New York Times archives from 1990 and 1991 shows that Senator John McCain was a subject of a major financial and bank scandal, known as the "Savings and Loan Scandal", that dominated news coverage of the US Congress during that period.

McCain Retracts "No New Taxes" Pledge After Two Weeks
McCain Received $110,000 from Bank Whose Failure Cost US Treasury 2Billion Dollars - McCain was caught "intervening with regulators on behalf of Mr. Keating at a time when his Lincoln Savings and Loan Association was on the verge of collapse."

McCain Would be the Oldest Man Ever Elected President - Now he is hoping to be the oldest man ever elected to a first term as president. Even if the melanoma returns, he would not be the first sitting president to have had cancer. - Who will be his running mate? This really matters now. The VP spot is usually worthless, but this guy is ancient and living on borrowed time anyway.

Republican Ex-Senator Bob Dole Says McCain is a Hot-Head - With a top campaign adviser and extreme religious zealots advising McCain to go to war with Iran, one wonders what would stop McCain, in a moment of stress, from starting a first strike nuclear or coventional war with Iran. And once he starts it and can't get his "mission accomplished" moment, what will he do when the war insistently refuses to live up to his expectations?
John McCain was not born in the USA, he was born in Panama. According to the Constitution only US born citizens can be elected President. Read more.

Lord knows that the whitosphere and the afrosphere don't agree about everything, but there's one thing about which we are in complete agreement and allied and joined at the hip: John Sydney McCain, III must NEVER, EVER become president of these United States.

US Military Contractors lost 35 Billion Tanker Bill to France After McCain & Co.'s Lobbying for France's Airbus Corp.

2008-04-20T00:22:00.004-04:00

Would John McCain help a French corporation get a 35 Billion dollar Defense Contract just because his top campaign aides were working for the French corporation? The Washington Post provides information supporting that conclusion:

McCain finance chairman Thomas G. Loeffler and Susan E. Nelson, who left Loeffler's lobbying firm to be McCain's finance director, both began lobbying for Airbus's parent company in 2007, Senate records show. William L. Ball III, a former secretary of the Navy and frequent McCain surrogate on the trail, also lobbied for Airbus, as did John Green, who recently took a leave from Ogilvy Public Relations to serve as McCain's legislative liaison.

"Airbus, I have to give them credit," said R. Thomas Buffenbarger, the president of the International Association of Machinists, which represents Boeing employees. "They know they need that kind of lobbying help. And they went after people who could deliver."

It is not clear what specifically the McCain campaign advisers did for Airbus. Lobbying registration documents list only "initiatives and interests regarding the KC-30 Aerial Refueling Tanker Program." Loeffler did not respond to e-mail requests for an interview. WaPost

McCain himself got involved before the contract was taken from Boeing and give to a the French:

McCain has confirmed sending two letters to Defense Department officials urging them to level the playing field for a deal that would provide a fleet of in-air refueling planes for military aircraft. In one 2006 letter, McCain urged officials to change their criteria for evaluating bidders for the tanker contract.

( . . . )

Airbus parent EADS North America more than tripled its contributions to U.S. lawmakers after 2004, as it pursued the Air Force contract, according to an analysis done by the Center for Responsive Politics. McCain was the top individual recipient of contributions from company employees and the company's political action committee in the 2008 election cycle. WaPost

McCain Deceived, then Divorced First Wife

2008-04-19T23:56:00.003-04:00

Mother Jones says it's quite hypocritical of John McCain to cast himself as the family values candidate, when his own life evinces family disregard:

The ol' family values schtick—and McCain's family values—happen to incorporate military values. But for more on McCain and family values, let's turn to a 1999 Arizona Republic profile of McCain (which does not appear to be available on-line):
He prides himself on his personal integrity yet admits he wasn't faithful to his first wife, Carol, who was injured in a horrific car accident while McCain was in Vietnam....

McCain needed a divorce from his wife of 14 years, Carol, who had been badly injured in a car accident while McCain languished in Hanoi.

The marriage had been strained by his years of absence, along with McCain's admitted affairs after returning from Vietnam.

In February 1980, less than a year after he met Cindy, McCain petitioned a Florida court to dissolve his marriage to Carol, calling the union "irretrievably broken."
McCain's entitled to use his life's story as part of his campaign narrative. But if his campaign is going to play the family card, there's more than, as the ad references, "honor, courage, duty, perseverance and leadership" in the story of John McCain, family man. Mother Jones

Apparently, John McCain doesn't value his second wife much more than the first. He's called her a "c*nt" in public.

John McCain Attempted Suicide

2008-04-19T23:33:00.005-04:00

Newsweek tells reports, based on John McCain's own accounts, that McCain has attempted suicide on two occasions:

After he parachuted into a lake in the middle of Hanoi, a North Vietnamese guard shattered his shoulder with a rifle butt and plunged a bayonet into his ankle and groin. Near death, McCain survived in prison camp by sheer cussedness. The same belligerence that got him into trouble in school worked to maintain his spirits as he cursed and taunted his guards in solitary confinement. Yet he discovered that he could not make it alone. He began to drift off in terrible, dangerous reveries.

"On several occasions, I became terribly annoyed when a guard entered my cell to take me to the bath or to bring me my food and disrupted some flight of fantasy," he writes. With regular beatings, the guards tried to break him and make him confess his sins as an "air pirate." Despairing, "fearing the close approach of my moment of dishonor," he climbed on his waste bucket and tried to hang himself by tying his shirt to a window shutter and wrapping it around his neck. Before he could kick the bucket, the guards stopped him. (He tried a second time, in a more halfhearted way; "I doubt I really intended to kill myself," he writes.) Newsweek

The Holy Bible says that attempting suicide is a sin:

"If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (1Corinthians 3:17). whatsaiththescripture.com

McCain Graduated Fifth from Last in His US Naval Academy Class

2008-04-19T23:24:00.003-04:00

According to Newsweek, John Sydney McCain, III graduated fifth from last in his class at the US Naval Academy. So, this November may present a choice between one candidate who was editor of the Harvard Law Review and barely graduated from college at all. This will be the year in which Republicans argue that educational attainments don't matter, that meritocracy doesn't extent to electing presidents based on their academic ability, effort or attainment, but instead on two other qualities that are easier for Americans to see: being white and being a man.

"McCain's Temper May Become an Issue," Says WaPost.

2008-04-19T22:35:00.012-04:00

Hat Tip to OldManMcCain.Com.

On October 13, 1999, during John McCain's first run for the presidency, the Washington Post said,

Sen. John McCain is facing questions about what some Arizona political leaders view as his quick temper – and whether it might hinder him as president.
In a front page article and separate editorial Sunday, The Arizona Republic said it wanted the nation to know about the "volcanic" temper McCain has unleashed on several top state officials.
Those who have been on the receiving end of a McCain uproar include Republican Gov. Jane Hull, former Republican Gov. Rose Mofford and former Democratic Mayor Paul Johnson of Phoenix.
Mrs. Hull, a supporter of GOP presidential front-runner George W. Bush, has acknowledged that her relationship with McCain has been cool and told an interviewer recently McCain "has to keep control" of his temper. WaPost

The Washington Post also quoted an editorial from the Arizona Republic, McCain's hometown newspaper, saying,

"If McCain is truly a serious contender for the presidency, it is time the rest of the nation learned about the John McCain we know in Arizona. There is also reason to seriously question whether he has the temperament, and the political approach and skills, we want in the next president of the United States." WaPost

John McCain snaps at female journalist on campaign plane.
At least he doesn't call her a c**nt this time.

McCain's furious temper anger and quick temper are a lifelong character flaw, according to Newsweek: "As an angry toddler, he would hold his breath until he passed out (his parents' cure was to drop him fully clothed into a bathtub of icy water)." Newsweek

A shocking anecdote from a biography of McCain, reported in the Editor at Large blog as well as elsewhere, really is something that McCain should either confirm or deny: "an excerpt from the upcoming book "The Real McCain," by John Schecter, reveals that McCain is more than just an ill-tempered ogre:"

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, 'You're getting a little thin up there.' McCain's face reddened, and he responded, 'At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.' McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

"If McCain is elected president, we will all have many long days," says the Editor at Large blog.

Meanwhile, Huffington Post reports that McCain physically attacked a fellow Congressman in 2006:

Perhaps the most remarkable story of McCain's temper involved Arizona Congressman Rick Renzi. Two former reporters covering McCain, one who witnessed the following events and one who confirmed the facts provided by the first, relayed it to me as follows:

In 2006, the Arizona Republican congressional delegation had a strategy meeting. McCain repeatedly addressed two new members, congressmen Trent Franks and Rick Renzi, as 'boy.' Finally, Renzi, a former college linebacker, rose from his chair and said to McCain, "You call me that one more time and I'll kick your old ass." McCain lunged at Renzi, punches were thrown, and the two had to be physically separated. Huffington Post

Watch the video here of McCain denying this fight ever took place at all. I have come to the conclusion, based on this video and others, that you can tell when John McCain is lying (or trying desperately to control his explosive temper) because his voice becomes very impassive, even-toned, he smiles weakly, and seems to be making an immense effort to sound reasonable.

His temper lurks—controlled, but sometimes barely. I asked about a report that McCain's handlers need to caution him against blowing up during presidential debates. "No," he said. "They told me to appear presidential." McCain flashes a smile from time to time that is more like a smirk, "a defense mechanism—to smile, not appear angry or frustrated," he acknowledges. Newsweek

The uninitiated my actually be taken in by this, if they don't look out for the signs.

I haven't read much about McCain's temper in the mainstream news this go-round. Maybe that's because George W. Bush was the media's candidate for 2000 and McCain is the media's chosen candidate for 2008.

Six More Months for 100 Years? A Message from MoveOn

2008-04-10T12:28:00.004-04:00

An e-mail blast from MoveOn:

No matter what happens in Iraq, the Bush administration and John McCain always have an answer: 6 more months.

When the "surge" began a year ago, they told America things would get better by September. In September, they said we'd know more by spring. And this week, General Petraeus is on Capitol Hill asking for—you guessed it—6 more months. Senator McCain and President Bush couldn't agree more.

They don't have a plan for getting us out of Iraq. So they're trying to sell endless war on an installment plan.

Six more months won't change anything—except the body count and the price tag. It's critical that the news media and voters know that the Bush-McCain strategy in Iraq is to keep us there indefinitely—6 months at a time. So we've put together a video exposing their "6 month" gambit. Please check it out and pass it on:

Yesterday John McCain said the same thing he's been saying for the last 5 years: We have to stay in Iraq, but "success is in reach."

And General Petraeus told the Senate that it would be fall before he could say whether, or when, to draw down troops below the "pre-surge" levels. (Specifically, he recommended a 45-day period for "evaluation" starting in the summer, followed by an open-ended "assessment" process to decide what to do next).1

It all boils down to this: Demand more time and promise that victory is just over the horizon. Unfortunately, according to experts from the Iraq Study Group, the "surge" has gotten us "no closer to being able to leave Iraq than [we were] a year ago."2

More than 4,000 Americans are dead. We've spent almost $500 billion on this war. A year after the "surge" began, Americans are no safer, and there is no end in sight.

With the Bush-McCain wait-and-see strategy, we can expect to hear "6 more months" for years and years to come.

We can't just sit by. We've got to speak out now—please help spread the word.

Thanks for all you do,

–Nita, Justin, Eli, Marika, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

P.S. If you had trouble clicking on the video above, try this link:
http://pol.moveon.org/sixmonths/?id=12416-9013782-LC_omn&t=3
Sources:
1. "Petraeus Calls for Troop Withdrawal Halt," Associated Press, April 8, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3556&id=12416-9013782-LC_omn&t=4
2. "Report: US No Closer to Iraq Goals," Associated Press, April 6, 2008.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3555&id=12416-9013782-LC_omn&t=5
Support our member-driven organization: MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by our 3.2 million members. We have no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you'd like to support our work, you can give now at:
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John McCain Calls His Wife a C**NT.

2008-04-08T09:25:00.005-04:00

Firedoglake points out another reason why John Sydney McCain would make a dangerous president: His explosive and uncontrollable temper. Firedoglake says:

How can John McCain possibly lose in November?"
How, indeed. Maybe when he calls his wife a "c*nt" in public, that's how.*

From the upcoming The Real McCain, by everybody's favorite pit bull, Cliff Schecter, we learn that

In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c*nt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day.

Oh, John, you manly man! I swoon before your elegant, refined masculinity, you paragon of chivalry and courtly manners! Sir Galahad would have fallen upon his own sword rather than compete against you for the affections of the royal ladies. Sir Walter Raleigh would be forced to eat his own mud-covered cape in the face of your gentlemanly deportment!

Cliff's point about this McCain explosion (and it's a very valid one) is that it hardly bodes well for American diplomatic relations if the guy very publicly blows his stack at something as minor as his wife teasing him about his hair, not to mention that he might be especially ill-tempered if he gets a phone call at 3:00 a.m.

I would caution Democrats against believing that this, alone, would prevent McCain from becoming president. Arnold Schwartznegger had a well-documented history of misogyny when he was elected governor of the state of California. He convinced the voters that it was all in fun, that it was playful, that he had overcome and apologized for it, and that, in any case, it wasn't sufficiently relevant to governance for the voters to reject him over it. He convinced the voters, perhaps, that it was manly behavior.

John McCain could play this issue like a harp, accusing those who criticize him of being "politically correct" and demanding a place in the public square where white men like him can say whatever the fuck they want.

So, don't stop looking for the goods on John Sydney McCain, III just because the word "C*&NT" is part of his vocabulary and he calls his wife that in public.

Hat Tip to Agent X.