John McCain Voted With Bush 90% of the Time

In John McCain's own words

John McCain Boycotts Family Reunions with the Black McCains of Slavery

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"

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

Hat Tip to Agent X.

Author: McCain Called Wife Cunt, Trollop

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

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

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.