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Why McCain should never be President
    #8286290 -

Part 1: the short-fused warmonger

I had mentioned this before, but I feel it deserves to be discussed at length. Much has been made of both Democrats' minor foibles, from Clinton's Bosnia lie to Obama's "I go to a black inner-city church" "scandal". But so far McCain's very serious faults have escaped notice, partly because the two Democrats are still battling it out and partly because the press has yet to dislodge McCain's penis from its collective mouth.

Now, McCain has a temper. He won't deny it, but usually spins it as being passionate about the issues. Of course, being passionate is good, and if you don't get mad about a lot of politics these days, you're either not paying attention or on Thorazine. However, there's a difference between channeling your outrage into effective and tenacious advocacy and simply losing your cool and making a fool of yourself. When you get mad, not only do you lose sight of what the smart move is, you also make your audience and your opponents defensive and all the more determined.

Now, finding instances where McCain lost his cool and broke the most basic rules of decorum are not hard to find. But here are a few snippets. From The Washington post:

Quote:
During a meeting Thursday on immigration legislation, McCain and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) got into a shouting match when Cornyn started voicing concerns about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive, according to multiple sources -- both Democrats and Republicans -- who heard firsthand accounts of the exchange from lawmakers who were in the room.

At a bipartisan gathering in an ornate meeting room just off the Senate floor, McCain complained that Cornyn was raising petty objections to a compromise plan being worked out between Senate Republicans and Democrats and the White House. He used a curse word associated with chickens and accused Cornyn of raising the issue just to torpedo a deal.

Things got really heated when Cornyn accused McCain of being too busy campaigning for president to take part in the negotiations, which have gone on for months behind closed doors. "Wait a second here," Cornyn said to McCain. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line."

McCain, a former Navy pilot, then used language more accustomed to sailors (not to mention the current vice president, who made news a few years back after a verbal encounter with Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont).

"[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room," shouted McCain at Cornyn. McCain helped craft a bill in 2006 that passed the Senate but couldn't be compromised with a House bill that was much tougher on illegal immigrants.


For reference, the curse words used (since the Post are a bunch of pansies apparently) were chickenshit and "fuck you" respectively. Now, Cornyn is an asshole and as much as I'd like to see him called out, it's not a Senator's job to do so in such a manner.

In 1998, McCain made a joke at a Senate fundraiser that received little media attention. The joke? " "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?/ Because her father is Janet Reno." Now I know some of you will probably laugh, but think about this for a second. He called an 18 year old young woman who held no elected office ugly, and implied that the sitting first lady and Attorney General were lesbians. Now, I like off color jokes, too, but I tell them in private amongst friends. To tell this joke in public where the targets of the joke would undoubtedly hear about it is not just cruel but stupid.

Amongst other public outbursts are the following:

Quote:
"Only an a------ would put together a budget like this," he told the former Budget Committee chairman, Sen. Pete Domenici, in 1999.

"I'm calling you a f------ jerk!" he once retorted to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.


And while I hate to use NewsMax as a source, there are quite a few juicy snippets here, such as:

Quote:
Former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson, a Democrat, encountered McCain's temper when he and other local mayors briefed the Arizona congressional delegation on local issues. After Johnson spoke, McCain said, "Hold it a minute. Somebody write down everything this guy has to say. You know what, we need to record him. It's best to get a liar on tape."

Johnson stood up and said, "Senator, if you have a problem with me, why don't we go out in the hallway and talk about it."

"You're goddamn right I have a problem with you," McCain said. "They've been treating you like a princess in Phoenix while they've been burning me over this dam deal, and I'm sick of it."

A longtime member of Senator Dennis DeConcini's staff, Judy Leiby, worked on veteran's issues and had differed with McCain on some of them over the years. After DeConcini announced he was retiring in 1994, McCain showed up in his office.

"I was standing around talking to about a half a dozen postal workers I'd worked real closely with," Leiby recalled. "And McCain came in. He walked down the line, shaking hands, and he ignored me. And one postal worker said, ‘Do you know Judy Leiby?' He said, ‘Oh, yeah, I know her.'"

McCain turned away from Leiby, trembling.

"You could tell he was so angry, he was white," she said. "He turned back to me and said, ‘I'm so glad you're out of a job, and I'll see that you never work again.'"

Of this incident, McCain said that because he didn't hold Leiby in "particularly high esteem," he thought it would be hypocritical to shake her hand. "I didn't raise my voice, didn't offer any disparaging remarks or insults," he said.

The previous year, 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.


Now, reports are leaking that according to a new book on McCain, The Real McCain, he publicly exploded at his wife:

Quote:
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.


Now let's think of the problems this will cause if, God forbid, he gets elected. The job of President is a very frustrating one. He will almost certainly be facing a strong Democrat majority in the House and Senate and the strongest public anti-Republican sentiment since, well, ever. He's going to have to deal with foreign leaders and diplomats who don't share his goals or outlooks and will have been emboldened by the precipitous decline in the esteem and influence that America holds. In short, he'll have all sorts of opportunities to get pissed off.

Now, these kinds of temper tantrums are bad enough for a Senator to have. But in the Senate, the damage is minimal. When he explodes at Republicans, they'll usually try to keep it quiet in the name of the party, and when he explodes at Democrats, well, they're usually at odds with each other to begin with. Moreover, since they spend a great deal of time together(more than say, the President and a foreign ambassador or leader does), the wounds can be quickly healed. Also, he represents only his home state, not the nation as a whole.

However, as President, he will be not only the "Commander in Chief"; he will be the figurehead and public face of the American government. If the President calls Angela Merkel a "cunt", think of the international repercussions. If McCain were to explode at the Chinese embassy officials, think of what could happen. Even if we're not talking about military actions, it could easily scuttle or at least delay trade deals or rapproachment. It would further alienate the US in a time when its status on the international stage has never been lower.

As President, he'll also be in charge of managing the country's diplomacy and will have the ability to send American troops to war. Now, we all know how much McCain likes war; he is the Senate's main cheerleader from the surge even though he apparently understands less about the conflict than the average Newsweek reader. Here are some choice anecdotes:

In the wake of the recent Basra offensive, in which the Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki, backed by the Iran proxy group the Badr Brigade as well as American forces attacked the Southern Shiite city of Basra as well as Sadr City in Baghdad, McCain had this to say:

Quote:
Mr. McCain, of Arizona, said he was encouraged that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government had sent its troops to reclaim Basra from the Shiite militias. “I think it’s a sign of the strength of his government,” Mr. McCain said Friday at a stop in Las Vegas. “I think it’s going to be a tough fight. We know that these militias are well entrenched there. I hope they will succeed and succeed quickly.”


Now let's examine just how stupid an interpretation of events this is: Maliki got the US troops to attack rival militias and did so unsuccessfully. The government's troops made little progress, the country erupted in protest, and Maliki's diplomats had to go to Iran to plead for a cease fire with al-Sadr. It was a humiliating defeat. Now given that McCain had visited Iraq only a few days previous and expressed shock at the events, the whole thing serves to highlight how little we know what's going on and how well Iran has managed to get the political upperhand: the ceasefire was negotiated and signed in IRAN; the most popular Shia leader, al-Sadr, is living in Iran, and the main partner in the government alliance, the SCIRI, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was founded in Iran and has close ties to the Iranian government. He wants us to stay in Iraq for a hundred years and yet he doesn't know the difference between an encouraging victory and a humiliating defeat(Yes, I know- he was referring to a Japan or Korea-like occupation, but the fact remains that for Iraq to be so pacified, we'd have to continue brutal counterinsurgency fighting for at least a decade if not more. And given that most of the ruling or potentially-ruling political parties in Iraq have lose ties to Iran and see the American military presence either as an insult to Iraqi sovereignty or their personal thugs, we'd also have to play some funny tricks with that whole "democracy" business we have going on)

Another stupid slip-up: McCain accused Iran of harboring Al-Quaeda:

Quote:
— Senator John McCain’s trip overseas was supposed to highlight his foreign policy acumen, and his supporters hoped that it would showcase him as a statesman, allowing him to meet with world leaders as the Democrats squabble.

But all did not go according to plan on Tuesday in Amman, Jordan, when Mr. McCain, fresh from a visit to Iraq, misidentified some of the key players in the Iraq war.

Mr. McCain said several times during his visit to Jordan – during a news conference and a radio interview — that he was concerned that Iran was training members of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States believes that Iran, a Shiite country, has been training and financing Shiite extremists in Iraq, but not Al Qaeda, which is a Sunni insurgent group.


Now McCain claims he "misspoke". This would be credible if he only said it once or if he mistook Al-Quaeda for a similar sounding group. However, he said it several times in different speeches and his correction was "extremists", which is not exactly a homonym of Al-Quaeda. Kind of reminds of the time I misspoke and said to my girlfriend, "Gimme a beer now, you stupid cunt" when I really meant to say "Sweetie, have you seen the remote?" This isn't simply a gaffe; this indicates a very serious and profound ignorance of the Middle East. Iran is ruled by Shia revolutionaries. Al-Quaeda considers Shias to be heretics and has targeted Shiite pilgrims and destroyed amongst the holiest sites in the Shia sect. Moreover, Iran was fighting al-Quaeda and the Taliban before it was cool: remember the Northern Alliance? Guess who was supplying them? Moreover, Iran already has more clout amongst the ruling political groups, the SCIRI and al-Sadr than does the US. Why support a Shia-hating guerrilla group when you've got the government in your pocket? It doesn't make any sense, and McCain would know that if he know a damn thing about Iraq before cheering for more American soldiers and money to go to a war he apparently barely understands. Now, he is either grossly incompetent in the realm of foreign affairs or he's lying to create another Iraq by spreading obvious falsehoods and rattling his saber. Either possibility should preclude him from holding office.

Now, one of the major failings of the Bush administration's foreign policy has been its complete dismissal of diplomacy. Or at least anything a normal person would recognize as diplomacy: the Bush version of diplomacy seems to be "Do what we say or we'll attack you". If we are going to restore our political clout and international goodwill, this jingoistic warmongering has to stop. The problem is that McCain shows just as little tolerance for diplomacy as Bush does: when he doesn't get his way, he explodes; his first impulse is military agression as demonstrated above. Moreover, despite having served time in a Vietnamese POW camp, being tortured, he seems not to have developed any aversion to unnecessary wars and even saw the US' defeat in Vietnam as a vindication of his bellicosity and not the glaring refutation it clearly was. From The Nation:
Quote:
Rather than accepting America's defeat in Vietnam as a humbling one and a fitting end to an arrogant and vainglorious exercise of military power, McCain considers the war in Vietnam to have been a "noble cause," whose loss might have been avoided but for the timidity of America's political leaders. Like many Vietnam-era military men, McCain believes that the war could have been won had America sent ground forces into North Vietnam and launched a strategic bombing campaign using B-52s. "That," says Daniel Ellsberg, the Vietnam-era Defense Department official who leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers, "is an incredibly discredited point of view." McCain appears unworried by concern that such actions would have led to enormous US casualties and perhaps caused either China or the Soviet Union to enter the war.

McCain's gung-ho attitude toward the Vietnam conflict has its roots in the months he spent in Vietnam's skies. In Faith of My Fathers he describes how, looking down at Soviet ships unloading arms in Vietnamese ports and at the construction of surface-to-air-missile sites, he chafed at the "frustratingly limited bombing targets" that restricted air raids to military installations, roads, bridges and power plants, calling such constraints "senseless" and "illogical." "We thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots," he wrote.


Clearly, his superiors were idiots because they realized that attacking a USSR military ship could very well set off WWIII. For McCain, war is the answer no matter the question. Diplomacy, politics, all is secondary to military aggression and supremacy. While he touts the "success" of the surge, he fails to realize that we are no further to finding peace, which will depend not on how many soldiers are on the ground but on political compromise and stability, than we were before. His strategy for Iraq and the Middle East in general is ignorance, aggression, and a complete dismissal of politics or diplomacy. In short, he will make Bush look like Mahatma Ghandi in comparison. Vote McCain at your own(and the rest of the world's) peril. Me, I'm working on my bomb shelter.

Edited by Yossarian22 (04/15/08 11:00 AM)

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8286531 -

I wouldn't understand this, I'm a liberal.


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All I know is The Growery is a place where losers who get banned here go.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: afoaf]
    #8286560 -

What?

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8289152 -

anyone who digs Mccain is McInsane

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: AhronZombi]
    #8290385 -

> anyone who digs Mccain is McInsane

Ok, kindergarten is that way.  Here are some toys; have fun playing.  :rolleyes:

> The joke? " "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?/ Because her father is Janet Reno."

So McCain is unfit to be president because he made a lame (and slightly funny) joke about the butt ugly 'First Daughter' and Janet Reno?  Glad the media is focusing us on the important issues at hand... maybe tomorrow we shouldn't vote for McCain because of the type of toilet paper he uses to wipe his ...


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Seuss]
    #8290641 -

Seuss said:
> The joke? " "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?/ Because her father is Janet Reno."

So McCain is unfit to be president because he made a lame (and slightly funny) joke about the butt ugly 'First Daughter' and Janet Reno? Glad the media is focusing us on the important issues at hand... maybe tomorrow we shouldn't vote for McCain because of the type of toilet paper he uses to wipe his ...


This is your best rebuttal? No, it's not the best reason not to vote for McCain, just one of many. It fits a pattern of opening his mouth and seriously pissing people off. He rudely and publicly insulted the first lady, the Attorney General, and an 18 year old girl. Maybe he should tell some Chinamen jokes before the Olympics; that'd be great for international relations.

Edit: And quite frankly, if you don't realize that a public event, attended by the press, is not the best time to make a sexist joke, you're too fucking stupid to be President.

But go on, refute the more serious charges.

Edited by Yossarian22 (04/16/08 07:57 AM)

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8290656 -

> This is your best rebuttal?

No, but it was where I quit reading in the original post... I'm disgusted by all three remaining "choices" for president.


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Seuss]
    #8290709 -

That was a long post... a good one though.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Seuss]
    #8291309 -

Seuss said:
> This is your best rebuttal?

No, but it was where I quit reading in the original post... I'm disgusted by all three remaining "choices" for president.


I believe you suffer from the giant douche/turd sandwich dilemma.  You're gonna have to pick one, otherwise you're just some asshole who didn't vote :lol:


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notapillow said: "you are going about this endeavor all wrong. clear your mind of useless fear and concern. buy the ticket, take the ride, and all that.... "

ChrisWho said: "It's all about the journey, not the destination."

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Mickalopagus]
    #8291319 -

> You're gonna have to pick one, otherwise you're just some asshole who didn't vote :lol:

Although I am a US citizen, because I live outside of the US, I am not allowed to vote.  Go figure.


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Seuss]
    #8291729 -

Part 2: the Spineless Flip-flopper



John McCain's a Maverick, a renegade. He plays by his own rules, bravely eschewing Republican ideology to find common ground with Democrats. Or at least that's how every article about him would have us believe. This comes as little surprise, given that he's hosted friendly BBQs with our oh so skeptical and objective press; of course, they returned the favor by welcoming him with donuts(with sprinkles, his favorite!); top newspaper editors called Obama a terrorist(Obama sounds like Osama, get it! Hyuk!) Of course, if the press spent more time researching and less time in line at Dunkin Donuts worrying whether their buddy would invite them to another barbeque, they'd know that he's nothing of the sort. True, in the past, he has staked out positions that put him in opposition with hardcore Republican dogma, but on just about every issue, he's long ago renounced the errors of his ways and has drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak.

At some points, he portrays himself as pro-science. In 1999, he dismissed creationism and said it should be up to local school boards whether or not to teach it. In 2005, he flip flopped:

Quote:
Daily Star: Should intelligent design be taught in schools?
McCain: I think that there has to be all points of view presented. But they've got to be thoroughly presented. So to say that you can only teach one line of thinking I don't think is - or one belief on how people and the world was created - I think there's nothing wrong with teaching different schools of thought.
Daily Star: Does it belong in science?
McCain: There's enough scientists that believe it does. I'm not a scientist. This is something that I think all points of view should be presented.


Yes, let's teach both sides of the controversy. Do babies result from the union of sperm and egg after sexual intercourse? Or do storks drop babies into chimneys? I don't know: let's teach the controversy. Is pi a rational or irrational number? I don't know: let's teach the controversy. Do objects fall to the ground because of gravity or because magical fairies sprinkle pixie dust on the objects causing them to fall? I don't know: let's teach the controversy. Apparently, there's no right-wing nutjob too stupid to pander to, no lowest common denominator for whose vote he's not willing to debase himself. What integrity.

Speaking of lowest common denominators, McCain has also flip flopped with regards to radical right wing Dominionists. In 2000, McCain famously referred to the right-wing hatemongers like Falwell and Robertson as "agents of intolerance". He now rejects this view and has cozied up to these vile bigots. He has since made peace with Falwell in order to avoid a repeat of 2000's South Carolina Primary. The fact that Falwell has since said things like the following hasn't convinced him otherwise:

Quote:
"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

Falwell, pastor of the 22,000-member Thomas Road Baptist Church, viewed the attacks as God's judgment on America for "throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked."


Now to be fair, he issued a half-assed apology, saying:

Quote:
"I do believe, as a theologian, based upon many Scriptures and particularly Proverbs 14:23, which says 'living by God's principles promotes a nation to greatness, violating those principles brings a nation to shame,'" he said.

Falwell said he believes the ACLU and other organizations "which have attempted to secularize America, have removed our nation from its relationship with Christ on which it was founded."

"I therefore believe that that created an environment which possibly has caused God to lift the veil of protection which has allowed no one to attack America on our soil since 1812," he said.
...
Falwell told CNN: "I would never blame any human being except the terrorists, and if I left that impression with
gays or lesbians or anyone else, I apologize."


So he would never blame anyone except the terrorists, except the people he just blamed(again). So repentant.

Here are some more wonderful quotes from that man:

Quote:
AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters.

The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior.

It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening.

The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.

AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.


Nope, absolutely nothing to denounce here(or reject). No intolerance or bigotry to be seen here.

He's also cozied up to John Hagee. In fact, Hagee claims that McCain actually sought out his support. So, let's recap: McCain does not attend Hagee's church, they do not know each other privately but have instead formed a purely political union, an alliance to advance each other's interests. So whereas Obama got slammed for sticking by a reverend with whom he had a deep and long-lasting personal and spiritual relationship, McCain sought out Hagee to advance his own political interests. Which is more distressing? So what has Hagee said that's so bad? For one thing, he wants to bring about the end of the world which will require a cataclysmic war in the Middle East as well as the conversion or mass murder of all non-Christian faiths. Having a presidential candidate who's been saber rattling against Iran and has (falsely and repeatedly) accused Iran of harboring Al-Quaida suck up to a preacher who "ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, “Jerusalem Countdown,” in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon (which will mean the death of most Jews, in his eyes) and the Second Coming of Christ" is terrifying. For another, he's said a lot of hateful shit:

Quote:
It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced
beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day... Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of antisemitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come.... it rises from the judgment of God upon his rebellious chosen people.[26]

Well Islam in general -- those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.

All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.

The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.

So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.


Sources: Wikipedia, NPR Interview.

Likewise, McCain has sucked up to another reactionary hatemonger, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Parsley] Rod
Parsley [/url], even going so far as to call him "my spiritual guide". Besides the typical homophobia, antisemitism, etc. that's commonly found amongst such preachers, Parsley is rabidly Islamophobic, arguing for genocide against Muslims. From his book, Islam: The Deception of Allah:

Quote:
I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.


This will certainly help us win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. I mean, could you possibly give Al-Quaida and other Muslim extremists a better propaganda weapon than "the President of the United States' spiritual adviser wants to exterminate Islam"? Being allied with the US is already the kiss of death to any moderate politicians in the Muslim world; are we really looking to alienate them further?

He's also flip flopped on the issue of campaign finance reform. The McCain Feingold Act is amongst his most famous legal initiatives. Yet it's interesting to note that McCain burst upon the national stage via a corruption scandal. Although the Senate Select Committee on Ethics ruled that no laws had been conclusively broken, they did note that:

Quote:
Mr. Keating, his associates, and his friends contributed $56,000 for Senator McCain's two House races in 1982 and 1984, and $54,000 for his 1986 Senate race. Mr. Keating also provided his corporate plane and/or arranged for payment for the use of commercial or private aircraft on several occasions for travel by Senator McCain and his family, for which Senator McCain ultimately provided reimbursement when called upon to do so. Mr. Keating also allowed Senator McCain and his family to vacation with Mr. Keating and his family, at a home provided by Mr. Keating in the Bahamas, in each of the calendar years 1983 through 1986.

From 1984 to 1987, Senator McCain took actions on Mr. Keating's behalf or at his request. The Committee finds that Senator McCain had a basis for each of these actions independent of the contributions and benefits he received from Mr. Keating, his associates and friends.


The fine tradition of publicly crusading for "reform" while skirting around the law is still alive and well with McCain. As ABC News notes:

Quote:
McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates, according to the latest finding from government watchdog group Public Citizen. The group, which advocates for public financing of elections, has identified more than 2,300 well-connected individuals, known as "bundlers," who have solicited contributions from friends and associates on behalf of a presidential candidate....When it comes to disclosing how much lobbyists are raising for his presidential campaign, however, the group found that McCain has fallen short, even by standards set by the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign which voluntarily disclosed on its Web site the names of bundlers who raised at least $100,000 and $200,000.


You know it's bad when Bush is being less corrupt than your campaign. And not only has he broken the spirit of transparency that he supposedly touts, he's also broken his own law. You see, he accepted public financing earlier in his campaign(back when his fundraising efforts were lagging) and then used the public financing as collateral to procure a loan. By using the promise of public funds however, he has committed himself to using these funds, which he obviously doesn't want to do now that he's the presumptive Republican nominee. Unfortunately, the FEC can't do anything because it lacks a quorum since Congressional Republicans want all 4 nominees to be voted at once, instead of individually(which is a problem because one of the nominees is Hans Von Spakovsky who has been implicated in voter suppression and in the Attorney General scandal wherein the Bush administration was caught attempting to make the Department of Justice the armed wing of the Republican Party). So, he's for campaign finance when it makes him look like an anti-corruption crusader, but has no problem accepting shady financing and violating the law when it suits him.

Another subject where his public image and his actual policy have little in common is torture. McCain himself was of course tortured in the Vietnamese POW camps and has to his credit spoken out against torture. Yet his voting record tells a different story. In 2005 he voted for the Detainee Treatment Act which "prohibits inhumane treatment of prisoners, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; requires military interrogations to be performed according to the U.S. Army Field Manual for Human Intelligence Collector Operations; and strips federal courts of jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus petitions filed by prisoners in Guantanamo, or other claims asserted by Guantanamo detainees against the U.S. government, as well as limiting appellate review of decisions of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals and Military Commissions". Of course, Bush, following his unprecedented theory of the Executive Privilege which considers the Presidency as more of a dictatorship than an equal branch of government, attached a signing statement essentially saying "Nah nah na boo boo we can't hear you!"(except for the part about denying Guantanamo Bay prisoners habeus corpus, he had no problems with that). Since then, he hasn't pressed the issue and has in fact voted against every bill that sought to stop torture. For instance, in October of 2008 he urged Bush to veto a bill that would have banned the CIA from torturing.

Apparently being tortured himself didn't motivate him enough to actually oppose it. Likewise, despite having served honorably in the Armed Forces, he's declared his intentions to vote against a new GI Bill. Although he claims that the way out of the military's growing problems with dwindling recruiting is "one of the thing we ought to do is provide them significant educational benefits in return for serving", he has stated his opposition to the bill that would do just that. Why? Because, as the Pentagon says, "The incentive to serve and leave," said Robert Clarke, assistant director of accessions policy at the Department of Defense, may "outweigh the incentive to have them stay." How dare those soldiers, many of whom have been deployed multiple times, think of themselves as anything other than cannon(or IED) fodder!

In another thread on this same forum, people were discussing McCain's "plan" to temporarily suspend gasoline taxes. Such a halt would reduce the price of gasoline a whole 5 percent but would only increase the government's ballooning deficit. Now one way to reduce this deficit would be to end the war in Iraq which has so far cost us 3 trillion dollars and counting, at the rate of 12 billion dollars a month. However, as the previous part showed, McCain has a serious hard-on for the war so that's not going to happen. Which brings us to yet another in a long line of flip flops, the Bush tax cuts. In 2001, he was against them, saying "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief.” Now he wants to make them permanent. Of course, these tax cuts in a time of war are causing our deficit to balloon out of control. And it's a basic rule of economics that when there's such a large deficit, the value of the currency will likewise plummet. As the value of the dollar on the international market falls, oil becomes more and more expensive(in US dollars). In other words, his remedy for the skyrocketing gas prices will only make things worse.

I could go on, but I think it's clear by now that McCain has sold every ounce of integrity he once had to ingratiate himself into the hardcore Republican fringe. As Bush and his now-discredited ideology becomes all the more unpopular , McCain seems all the more determined to take up Bush's mantle and continue his legacy of failure, economic foolishness, and pandering to the most vile elements of the far right. If you liked the last 8 years, man, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Edited by Yossarian22 (04/16/08 05:30 PM)

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Seuss]
    #8291732 -

Seuss said:
> You're gonna have to pick one, otherwise you're just some asshole who didn't vote :lol:

Although I am a US citizen, because I live outside of the US, I am not allowed to vote.  Go figure.


Actually, you can request a mail in ballot.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8291761 -

Yossarian22 said:
top newspaper editors called Obama a terrorist(Obama sounds like Osama, get it! Hyuk!)


It was clearly an honest mistake. He was questioning Obama and the way the man was speaking clearly demonstrated that he wasn't entirely in his skin and somewhat flustered. Just tonight I was saying something and thinking ahead to what I was going to say next and one of the words from the next sentence that had nothing to do with what I was presently speaking came out in place of another. I think your efforts to portray the media as cozying up to McCain while calling Obama "a terrorist" is completely baseless.


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: fireworks_god]
    #8291893 -

Oh, I know that it wasn't intentional(I was aiming for more of a light-hearted effect but I guess that didn't carry over well). That said, there's a very clear media bias; McCain himself has referred (only half-jokingly) to the media as 'his base'. Let's hope the media recognizes this and starts actually raising tough questions instead of buying him donuts.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8291910 -

Well, they eventually started putting Obama under scrutiny, so I think it may happen.


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: fireworks_god]
    #8291913 -

SNL has to do a skit about it first though. :shrug:


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: fireworks_god]
    #8292968 -

Quote:
The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed...



is this the new meme, make up some false premise and insist our nation
was founded upon it as a means to further a view?

jesus.


--------------------
All I know is The Growery is a place where losers who get banned here go.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: afoaf]
    #8294938 -

Please don't quote someone else and reply to me.


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: afoaf]
    #8294978 -

> Please don't quote someone else and reply to me.

Why would anybody ever do that?  :grin:


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Seuss]
    #8314329 -

A couple of articles recently came out that will hopefully capture the public's attention.

The New York Times recently reported on the shady going-ons involving Arizona real-estate magnate and star McCain donor, Donald R. Diamond. Long story short: Diamond has given a shitload of money to McCain and has repeatedly asked for "favors". McCain has, to his credit, refused some of these requests but has fulfilled many of them, using his leverage to secure Diamond some sweetheart deals. From the story:

Quote:
When Mr. Diamond wanted to buy land at the base, Fort Ord, Mr. McCain assigned an aide who set up a meeting at the Pentagon and later stepped in again to help speed up the sale, according to people involved and a deposition Mr. Diamond gave for a related lawsuit. When he appealed to a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain’s endorsement as “a close personal friend.”

Writing to officials in the city, Seaside, Calif., the senator said, “You will find him as honorable and committed as I have.”

Courting local officials and potential partners, Mr. Diamond’s team promised that he could “help get through some of the red tape in dealing with the Department of the Army” because Mr. Diamond “has been very active with Senator McCain,” a partner said in a deposition.
........
A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite fund-raisers Mr. McCain’s current presidential campaign calls Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far. At home, Mr. Diamond is sometimes referred to as “The Donald,” Arizona’s answer to Donald Trump — an outsized personality who invites public officials aboard his flotilla of yachts (the Ace, King, Jack and Queen of Diamonds), specializes in deals with the government, and unabashedly solicits support for his business interests from the recipients of his campaign contributions.

Mr. McCain has occasionally rebuffed Mr. Diamond’s entreaties as inappropriate, but he has also taken steps that benefited his friend’s real estate empire. Their 26-year relationship illuminates how Mr. McCain weighs requests from a benefactor against his vows, adopted after a brush with scandal two decades ago, not to intercede with government authorities on behalf of a donor or take other official action that serves no clear public interest.

In California, the McCain aide’s assistance with the Army helped Mr. Diamond complete a purchase in 1999 that he soon turned over for a $20 million profit. And Mr. McCain’s letter of recommendation reinforced Mr. Diamond’s selling point about his McCain connections as he pursued — and won in 2005 — a potentially much more lucrative deal to develop a resort hotel and luxury housing.

In Arizona, Mr. McCain has helped Mr. Diamond with matters as small as forwarding a complaint in a regulatory skirmish over the endangered pygmy owl, and as large as introducing legislation remapping public lands. In 1991 and 1994, Mr. McCain sponsored two laws sought by Mr. Diamond that resulted in providing him millions of dollars and thousands of acres in exchange for adding some of his properties to national parks. The Arizona senator co-sponsored a third similar bill now before the Senate.
...........

Mr. Diamond is close to most of Arizona’s Congressional delegation and is candid about his expectations as a fund-raiser. “I want my money back, for Christ’s sake. Do you know how many cocktail parties I have to go to?”


So, he's self-righteous AND corrupt? What a maverick!

The Washington Post also recently ran a story on McCain's uncontrollable temper. I had already touched upon a few of these incidents in which McCain disgraced himself publicly and the disastrous results of such outbursts if McCain were to become the President, thereby also assuming the role of negotiator, diplomat, and commander in chief. That said, the story does have some juicy tidbits I neglected to mention here.

Quote:
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.
.....

Smith admits to not liking McCain, a point he has often made over the years to reporters. "I've witnessed a lot of his temper and outbursts," Smith said. "For me, some of this stuff is relevant. It raises questions about stability. . . . It's more than just temper. It's this need of his to show you that he's above you -- a sneering, condescending attitude. It's hurt his relationships in Congress. . . . I've seen it up-close."

Smith, whose service in the Navy included a tour on the waters in and around Vietnam, said he stood stunned one day when McCain declared around several of their colleagues that Smith wasn't a real Vietnam War veteran. "I was in the combat zone, off the Mekong River, for 10 months," Smith said. "He went on to insult me several times. I wasn't on the land; I guess that was his reasoning. . . . He suggested I was masquerading about my Vietnam service. It was very hurtful. He's gotten to a lot of people [that way]."
.......

During the early 1990s, McCain telephoned the office of Tom Freestone, a governmental official little known outside Arizona's Maricopa County. McCain had an unusual request. He wanted Freestone, then chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, to reject a job applicant named Karen S. Johnson, whose last governmental position had been in the office of a former Arizona governor and who had just interviewed for a position as an aide in Freestone's office.

According to two employees in the office, McCain told Freestone that the applicant's past political associations left her carrying unflattering baggage.

The pair of Freestone staffers thought it odd that a U.S. senator would even know that Johnson had applied for a job in their office, let alone that he had taken time out of his workday to pick up a phone and weigh in on a staffing matter so removed from the locus of Washington power. But McCain's disenchantment with Johnson was personal: A few years earlier, he had an angry exchange with her while she was the secretary for Republican Arizona Gov. Evan Meacham, who was impeached and forced out of office for campaign finance violations.

Around the time of Meacham's ouster, Johnson said, McCain paid a visit to him. Johnson recalled that McCain swiftly used the opportunity to lecture Meacham: "You should never have been elected. You're an embarrassment to the [Republican] Party."

A stupefied Meacham just stared at the senator. An indignant Johnson, as she tells the story, snapped at McCain: "How dare you? You're the embarrassment to the party."

As Johnson and another person working in Freestone's office remember, the surprised supervisor told Johnson about McCain's objections to her. "But I'm hiring you anyway," Freestone told her.

For Johnson, McCain's call raised questions as to whether he bore a lasting animosity against anyone who ever challenged him. "Everyone in [Freestone's] office thought it was all ridiculous . . . and petty," remembers Johnson, a devout Republican conservative who today is an Arizona state senator.

"Senator McCain says he has no recollection of ever making a phone call to block a job for Karen Johnson," Salter said.


This is real healthy: a self-righteous crusader with a chip on his shoulder and an uncontrollable temper when he doesn't get his way. And he's petty, too. This is exactly the asshole we need to represent our country and to preside over exhausting and diplomatically sensitive agreements and compromises.

Of course, McCain's been adept at playing the media like a cheap guitar. Perhaps some of you remember a February New York Times story detailing the inappropriately friendly relationship between McCain and an attractive young lobbyist named Vicki Iseman. McCain's camp managed to spin it into a "sleazy hit piece", focusing on (regrettable) insinuations about the, ahem, intimacy between the two instead of the troubling questions about the Senator's ethics. In other words, they turned a story about McCain's hypocrisy and unethical practices into a failed sex scandal, thereby silencing any questions about the propriety of an elected official playing footsie with a woman who was paid a great deal of money to charm and influence ugly, wrinkly old men(politicians). The paper summarizes McCain's history with the Keating 5 scandal and then discusses McCain's relationship with Ms. Iseman. Here's the actual meat of the story:

Quote:
But the concerns about Mr. McCain’s relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.

Mr. McCain promised, for example, never to fly directly from Washington to Phoenix, his hometown, to avoid the impression of self-interest because he sponsored a law that opened the route nearly a decade ago. But like other lawmakers, he often flew on the corporate jets of business executives seeking his support, including the media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Michael R. Bloomberg and Lowell W. Paxson, Ms. Iseman’s client. (Last year he voted to end the practice.)

Mr. McCain helped found a nonprofit group to promote his personal battle for tighter campaign finance rules. But he later resigned as its chairman after news reports disclosed that the group was tapping the same kinds of unlimited corporate contributions he opposed, including those from companies seeking his favor. He has criticized the cozy ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, but is relying on corporate lobbyists to donate their time running his presidential race and recently hired a lobbyist to run his Senate office.

“He is essentially an honorable person,” said William P. Cheshire, a friend of Mr. McCain who as editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic defended him during the Keating Five scandal. “But he can be imprudent.”
.........

Mr. Keating, a Phoenix financier and real estate developer, became an early sponsor and, soon, a friend. He was a man of great confidence and daring, Mr. McCain recalled in his memoir. “People like that appeal to me,” he continued. “I have sometimes forgotten that wisdom and a strong sense of public responsibility are much more admirable qualities.”

During Mr. McCain’s four years in the House, Mr. Keating, his family and his business associates contributed heavily to his political campaigns. The banker gave Mr. McCain free rides on his private jet, a violation of Congressional ethics rules (he later said it was an oversight and paid for the trips). They vacationed together in the Bahamas. And in 1986, the year Mr. McCain was elected to the Senate, his wife joined Mr. Keating in investing in an Arizona shopping mall.

Mr. Keating had taken over the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association and used its federally insured deposits to gamble on risky real estate and other investments. He pressed Mr. McCain and other lawmakers to help hold back federal banking regulators.

For years, Mr. McCain complied. At Mr. Keating’s request, he wrote several letters to regulators, introduced legislation and helped secure the nomination of a Keating associate to a banking regulatory board.

By early 1987, though, the thrift was careering toward disaster. Mr. McCain agreed to join several senators, eventually known as the Keating Five, for two private meetings with regulators to urge them to ease up. “Why didn’t I fully grasp the unusual appearance of such a meeting?” Mr. McCain later lamented in his memoir.

When Lincoln went bankrupt in 1989 — one of the biggest collapses of the savings and loan crisis, costing taxpayers $3.4 billion — the Keating Five became infamous. The scandal sent Mr. Keating to prison and ended the careers of three senators, who were rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee in 1991 for intervening. Mr. McCain, who had been a less aggressive advocate for Mr. Keating than the others, was reprimanded only for “poor judgment” and was re-elected the next year.

Some people involved think Mr. McCain got off too lightly. William Black, one of the banking regulators the senator met with, argued that Mrs. McCain’s investment with Mr. Keating created an obvious conflict of interest for her husband. (Mr. McCain had said a prenuptial agreement divided the couple’s assets.) He should not be able to “put this behind him,” Mr. Black said. “It sullied his integrity.”

Mr. McCain has since described the episode as a unique humiliation. “If I do not repress the memory, its recollection still provokes a vague but real feeling that I had lost something very important,” he wrote in his memoir. “I still wince thinking about it.”
................

Mr. McCain’s confidence in his ability to distinguish personal friendships from compromising connections was at the center of questions advisers raised about Ms. Iseman.

The lobbyist, a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay, represented telecommunications companies for whom Mr. McCain’s commerce committee was pivotal. Her clients contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns.

Mr. Black said Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman were friends and nothing more. But in 1999 she began showing up so frequently in his offices and at campaign events that staff members took notice. One recalled asking, “Why is she always around?”

That February, Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman attended a small fund-raising dinner with several clients at the Miami-area home of a cruise-line executive and then flew back to Washington along with a campaign aide on the corporate jet of one of her clients, Paxson Communications. By then, according to two former McCain associates, some of the senator’s advisers had grown so concerned that the relationship had become romantic that they took steps to intervene.

A former campaign adviser described being instructed to keep Ms. Iseman away from the senator at public events, while a Senate aide recalled plans to limit Ms. Iseman’s access to his offices.

In interviews, the two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career. Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman. The two associates, who said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others.

Separately, a top McCain aide met with Ms. Iseman at Union Station in Washington to ask her to stay away from the senator. John Weaver, a former top strategist and now an informal campaign adviser, said in an e-mail message that he arranged the meeting after “a discussion among the campaign leadership” about her.

“Our political messaging during that time period centered around taking on the special interests and placing the nation’s interests before either personal or special interest,” Mr. Weaver continued. “Ms. Iseman’s involvement in the campaign, it was felt by us, could undermine that effort.”

Mr. Weaver added that the brief conversation was only about “her conduct and what she allegedly had told people, which made its way back to us.” He declined to elaborate.

It is not clear what effect the warnings had; the associates said their concerns receded in the heat of the campaign.

Ms. Iseman acknowledged meeting with Mr. Weaver, but disputed his account.
.....

Mr. McCain said that the relationship was not romantic and that he never showed favoritism to Ms. Iseman or her clients. “I have never betrayed the public trust by doing anything like that,” he said. He made the statements in a call to Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, to complain about the paper’s inquiries.

The senator declined repeated interview requests, beginning in December. He also would not comment about the assertions that he had been confronted about Ms. Iseman, Mr. Black said Wednesday.

Mr. Davis and Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s top strategists in both of his presidential campaigns, disputed accounts from the former associates and aides and said they did not discuss Ms. Iseman with the senator or colleagues.
.....

He and Mr. Davis also said Mr. McCain had frequently denied requests from Ms. Iseman and the companies she represented. In 2006, Mr. McCain sought to break up cable subscription packages, which some of her clients opposed. And his proposals for satellite distribution of local television programs fell short of her clients’ hopes.

The McCain aides said the senator sided with Ms. Iseman’s clients only when their positions hewed to his principles.

A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a crucial issue for Glencairn Ltd., one of Ms. Iseman’s clients. He introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations; Ms. Iseman represented several businesses seeking such a program. And he twice tried to advance legislation that would permit a company to control television stations in overlapping markets, an important issue for Paxson.

In late 1999, Ms. Iseman asked Mr. McCain’s staff to send a letter to the commission to help Paxson, now Ion Media Networks, on another matter. Mr. Paxson was impatient for F.C.C. approval of a television deal, and Ms. Iseman acknowledged in an e-mail message to The Times that she had sent to Mr. McCain’s staff information for drafting a letter urging a swift decision.

Mr. McCain complied. He sent two letters to the commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman. In an embarrassing turn for the campaign, news reports invoked the Keating scandal, once again raising questions about intervening for a patron.

Mr. McCain’s aides released all of his letters to the F.C.C. to dispel accusations of favoritism, and aides said the campaign had properly accounted for four trips on the Paxson plane. But the campaign did not report the flight with Ms. Iseman. Mr. McCain’s advisers say he was not required to disclose the flight, but ethics lawyers dispute that.


As I said, the insinuations are rather unnecessary. Let's discount the possibility of a sexual relationship and assume that, as McCain's staffer Mark Salter said, “I never had any good reason to think that the relationship was anything other than professional, a friendly professional relationship,”. Lobbyists and congressmen aren't supposed to be "friends" nor are they supposed to flirt. A Congressman's job is to represent his constituency and to do what he thinks is best for the nation: a lobbyist's job is to convince politicians to do what's best for their employers. The two should not cozy up. Agreements don't have to be quid pro quo to be corrupt; when a Senator consults and relies upon primarily people paid to represent, say, the oil companies with regards to environmental legislation, he's going to be a lot more likely to vote in the direction the oil companies want, instead of the way that would best benefit his constituents. Influence peddling is an insidious practice and is a Hell of a lot more effective than naked bribery(although McCain's been implicated in both). While McCain presents himself as a crusader against corruption, he's filled his campaign with lobbyists, ingratiated himself to people who see campaign contributions as direct investments, and has repeatedly blurred the line between lobbyists and "friends". But I guess we should be arguing about Obama's bowling score instead of the fact that McCain will be continuing in the fine tradition of the Bush administration, blindly following disastrous and debunked policies and violating every ethical rule known to man.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8319224 -

Are there any debates available online between Ron Paul and John McCain?


--------------------
Man has to be man--by choice; he has to hold his life as a value--by choice; he has to learn to sustain it--by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—-by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”-- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8452443 -

So an update. It's no secret that Mr. Good-Governance himself, the patron saint of the anti-corruption Crusade, has violated the ethical code he so sanctimoniously advocated. Recently, the press started getting off their collective ass and asked questions about why a politician whose signature campaign issue was for a long time(and which gave him the "maverick" moniker he has so long ago shed) has his campaign filled with paid lobbyists. It was discovered that some were involved in some very shady and immoral practices, like lobbying for brutal dictators. And now it turns out that his chief economic adviser was a paid employee of UBS(the Swiss bank) while advising McCain on economic policy, and the credit crisis in particular:

Quote:
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s national campaign general co-chair was being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis at the same time he was advising McCain about his economic policy, federal records show. [See sidebar.]

“Countdown with Keith Olbermann” reported Tuesday night that lobbying disclosure forms, filed by the giant Swiss bank UBS, list McCain’s campaign co-chair, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, as a lobbyist dealing specifically with legislation regarding the mortgage crisis as recently as Dec. 31, 2007.

Gramm joined the bank in 2002 and had registered as a lobbyist by 2004. UBS filed paperwork deregistering Gramm on April 18 of this year. Gramm continues to serve as a UBS vice chairman.

News of Gramm’s involvement as a paid advocate for the banking industry, simultaneous with his unpaid work on McCain’s economic policies, comes as McCain’s campaign continues to reel from the purge of four other lobbyists. Two weeks ago, McCain banned lobbyists from advising him on the same subjects covered by their lobbying work.

As early as October, 2006, RealClearPolitics.com reported that Gramm was advising McCain on economic issues. Politico.com quoted McCain advisors saying that Gramm had input on McCain’s March 26 policy speech about the mortgage crisis. McCain himself has often cited Gramm’s influence as a way to establish his bona fides with economic conservatives.

When Gramm chaired the Senate Banking Committee, he wrote and passed deregulatory legislation in more than one industry, establishing himself as a pre-eminent foe of government regulation. McCain’s March 26 speech recommended further deregulation of the banking industry as his response to the mortgage crisis.

McCain and Gramm have been friends for more than a decade. McCain chaired Gramm’s 1996 presidential run and Gramm says the two men speak every day. McCain reportedly has hinted Gramm might serve as his Treasury secretary.

Last summer, Gramm was widely credited with saving McCain’s presidential campaign.

But even before lobbying emerged as an issue, some of his own advisors told the Washington Post last month that they questioned how Gramm’s legislative record might affect McCain’s campaign.

After Gramm passed a law easing regulation of energy-commodity trading, California experienced a sharp run-up in energy costs. The energy-trading company Enron was blamed and soon collapsed.

In 1999, Gramm successfully undid the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, removing the decades-old wall between commercial banking, which was heavily regulated, and investment banking, which was not. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act did not extend significant new regulation to investment banking.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said that Gramm is "not benefitting from John McCain's plan." He also said that McCain preferred to focus on homeowners "truly in need" and opposed bailouts for affected banks, an aspect of the crisis that was not addressed in "Countdown"'s report.

Some economists fault Gramm’s deregulatory successes, as well as lax enforcement of remaining oversight powers, not just for the subprime mortgage crisis, but for its spread to other sectors of finance. Even Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has expressed interest in toughening regulations.

Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute told the Washington Post, “McCain is counting on people having very short memories and not connecting some pretty obvious dots here.”

The final UBS form listing Gramm’s work as a lobbyist says he was lobbying the Senate in the second half of 2007 regarding the Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act. The bill would have let bankruptcy judges rewrite mortgage terms for Americans facing foreclosure so they could repay their loans and keep their homes.

The banking industry opposed this measure. The bill failed.


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Al [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8456872 -

On the topic of shady dealings, let's talk about McCain's new line of attack, that Obama's only been to Iraq once. Now let's leave aside the fact that a presidential candidate would never be allowed to just stroll around and talk to whoever he wants- he'd be cordoned off by hundreds of troops and given the same tour that journalists, scholars or Senators would get. In other words, it would be a fine photo-op but it wouldn't really advance anyone's understanding of the situation.

And let's not focus on the false claim that Obama would meet with Ahmadinejad; Obama has never claimed that. Instead, he promised to meet with Iran's leadership in order to negotiate. McCain has tried to conflate "Iran's leadership" with Ahmadinejad, which only shows his own ignorance for as even Wikipedia knows, "he has much less power than the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Iran and has the final word in all aspects of foreign and domestic policies." Let's also forget that McCain has previously advocated talks with Hamas and Syria(a state sponsor of terrorism).

No, let's not focus on all that. Let's focus instead on the striking similarity between Vets for Freedom, a 527 organization, and the McCain campaign. According to the campaign finance legislation that McCain has championed, it is strictly forbidden for political campaigns to work in coordination with such organizations since these organizations are not bound by the same transparency or donation-limiting guidelines as political campaigns. And yet, his new talking point is almost verbatim from one of Vets for Freedom's ads and two of his advisers also work with the 527. Even if it doesn't violate the letter of the law, it certainly is skeezy and unbecoming of a man promising a clean and honorable election. From The Huffington Post:

Quote:
John McCain has gleefully pounded Barack Obama in recent days for having traveled to Iraq only once since he entered Congress. But his arguments virtually mirror those used in a new attack ad by an independent conservative group, adding to the perception that there is a coordinated effort between McCain and the outside groups that his campaign has sought distance from.

On Wednesday, McCain ripped into Obama during an appearance in Reno, Nevada, claiming the Illinois Democrat lacked the leadership to navigate international waters in times of war. The language he used was telling (emphasis added below).

"Senator Obama has been to Iraq once. A little over two years ago he went, and he has never seized the opportunity, except in a hearing, to meet with General Petraeus, with General Petraeus! My friends, this is about leadership and learning," McCain said. "Now, why is it that Senator Obama wants to sit down with the President of Iran, but hasn't yet sat down with General Petraeus - the leader of our troops in Iraq?"

Last Friday, the organization Vets for Freedom, a non-partisan pro-Iraq war organization, released an advertisement attacking Obama with the same language.

"Obama wasn't available to meet with us [combat veterans]," Sgt. Garrett Anderson (Ret.) of Illinois' Army National Guard says to the camera. "But we weren't surprised. Because he hasn't once, sat down one-on-one with our in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus. Worse, he hasn't been to Iraq in two-and-a-half years. He's unwilling to get the facts on Iraq, yet he is willing to travel to Iran to meet with their leader or anyone else who hates our country. The question for America is, if Barack Obama won't listen to us, who will he listen to?"

Message coordination between like-minded candidates and interest groups is hardly a novel concept in politics. In fact, around the same time as McCain's speech, the Republican National Committee started a clock tracking the number of days it has been since Obama visited Iraq.

But the Arizona Republican has positioned his campaign as a decidedly distinct entity from groups that dabble in attack politics. He has even implemented an internal campaign ethics policy that restricts campaign officials from collaborating or serving with these very organizations.

"No person with a McCain Campaign title or position may participate in a 527 or other independent entity that makes public communications that support or oppose any presidential candidate," the new policy reads.

Already there are questions about the firmness of that pledge. As the Huffington Post reported last week, Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, both of whom hold chairs for the McCain campaign, are also on the board of advisers of Vets for Freedom.

In response to the onslaught of attacks, the Obama campaign - taking the hook of former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's new book - shot back.

"On the day after the former White House press secretary conceded that the Bush administration used deception and propaganda to take us to war, it seems odd that Senator McCain, who bought the flawed rationale for war so readily, would be lecturing others on their depth of understanding about Iraq," said Obama press secretary Bill Burton in a statement. "Senator Obama challenged the President's rationale for the war from the start, warning that it would divert resources from Afghanistan and the pursuit of Al Qaeda and mire us in an endless civil war. Senator McCain stubbornly insists on pursuing the failed Bush policy..."


Let's hope the media doesn't stay asleep on the job and echo this idiotic attack without rehashing McCain's previous trips. When he went to Iraq and claimed there are neighborhoods an American could walk freely unescorted. Of course, that's nonsense: he was wearing body armor and had 100 soldiers and 5 helicopters protecting him so he could have a photo-op. As mentioned before, McCain's lack of knowledge about Iraq is startling- he has made the stunningly inaccurate and wildly provocative claim that Iran is helping Al Quaida for instance even though the two are longtime and bitter enemies who have diametrically opposed political and strategic goals. He was also one of those visionaries who believed the US troops would be welcomed as liberators by the Iraqis. But he's made more visits to Iraq, got the "my soldiers were killed and maimed and all I got was this stupid T-shirt" shirt and bought a few postcards.

The question we should be asking isn't, who knows how to beat the wardrum harder, or who has taken more Iraq photo-ops, but rather who's shown better judgement and understands the situation better? The answer of course is Obama- he understood from the beginning that the war was a mistake and that the bellicose and idiotic foreign "policy" advocated by Bush and McCain has only hurt us and strengthened terrorists and dangerous extremists.

In the words of Clay Davis, this is some shameful shit right here.

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Re: Al [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8457333 -

I hope the press is awake for the general as well. I can't wait to see McCain squirm after a few media wrenches are dropped in. Obama can handle the crap media dumps on him but for some reason I don't think McCain will do so well in handling himself.

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Re: Al [Re: cottlestonpie]
    #8457463 -

`Completely McCain isn't good on the spot especially all the shit he has to back up.

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Re: Al [Re: Rebirtha]
    #8457958 -

i think im going to vote for mccain, the faster shit hits the fan the faster we can all die, be officially enslaved, or rebuild

i know theres prob not a difference between partys, but if there is a slight one, i think ill choose the faster approach to the end result


--------------------
We were sent to hell for eternity :hellfire: Ø:omgawesome:h®
We play on earth to pass the time :foreheadslap:

Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.

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Re: Al [Re: makaveli8x8]
    #8458384 -

hes had melanoma 3x in the last 8 years hes gonna die


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Phil Gramm Financial Wizard / Enron Hack / All Around Douche [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8638028 -

Older...

Quote:
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2008/051908Leopold.shtml

May 19, 2008—Sen. John McCain says he opposes the $307 billion farm bill because it would dole out wasteful subsidies, but his chief economic adviser Phil Gramm also wants to stop its proposed regulation of energy futures trading, a market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s electricity prices in 2001.

Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.

Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.

Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,” not only filling the Arizona senator’s acknowledged void on economic expertise (“I don’t know as much about the economy as I should”) but recognized as one of McCain’s closest friends in politics. The two men talk daily.









Newer...
Quote:
Let’s stop the whining. I mean it. It is ruining the country.

If we all stopped whining, the economy would recover, the banks would stop failing, the stock market would go up, the value of your home would rise and you could fill your gas tank for less than the cost of a diamond tiara.

OK, so maybe that last one is optimistic. But good things would happen.

And that is because almost all problems are mental.

Phil Gramm says so. And when it comes to mental, Phil Gramm knows a thing or two.

Gramm, a former U.S. senator and congressman and now a wealthy banker, has been a close friend and economic adviser to John McCain.

And Gramm said recently that we are not in a real recession, just a “mental recession,” and that our real problem is that we have become “a nation of whiners.”

He caught a lot of flak for this, but why not give his theory a test?

The average cost of regular gasoline is about $4.11 per gallon right now. (It is much higher than that in my neighborhood, but my neighborhood is filled with whiners.)

Ask yourself, however, why it costs that much. Isn’t it because your mental attitude stinks?

What if you drove into your local gas station and said to the mopey guy in the glass booth who is just there to sell cigarettes to teenagers, “Top o’ the morning to you! Isn’t it a great day? I think so. And, gee, you’re looking great. You been working out?”

Then you could say, “So can I get my gasoline for $3 a gallon today? Like I did a year ago?”

And you know what? This will work! The pump price will drop before your very eyes!

This is Phil Gramm’s Stop-Whining-Be-Happy Theory of Life that states that if you just stop whining about things, they will get better.

Gramm knows what he is talking about. He ran for president in 1996, raising $20 million, which was more than anybody else and real money in those days. (In today’s dollars, it would be about $12.95.)

At every campaign stop, Gramm reminded people that he had “flunked the third, seventh and ninth grades,” which means he was certainly smart enough to become a U.S. senator, but I guess people felt he needed to flunk a few more grades before he could become president.

Gramm decided to spend his money losing two contests that few people had ever heard of — the Alaska and Louisiana caucuses — so he could have a solid record of two losses even before he got to Iowa, where he came in fifth.

(John McCain was his national campaign chairman, and McCain learned a valuable lesson: Lose nothing before you lose Iowa.)

Gramm dropped out of the presidential race, but did he whine? No! Instead, he continued as a U.S. senator, retiring in 2002 and going on to become vice chairman for UBS Investment Bank, where he lobbied Congress, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department on banking and mortgage issues.
You can see how successful he was at that.

And there is no reason to limit Gramm’s theory to economics. It is all about attitude and how that affects everything.

Take the Iraq war. Sure, it has lasted longer than World War II. Sure, it has lasted longer than World War I. Sure, it has lasted longer than the Korean War and the Civil War.

But the Revolutionary War lasted longer and the Vietnam War lasted longer. And we batted .500 for those two!

So quit yer whining.





http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11744.html



Great thread, by the way.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8638108 -

mccain should never be POTUS for the simple reason that he would be a 3rd and 4th term for bush...


--------------------


"anchor blocks counteract the process of pontiprobation..while omalean globes regulize the pressure"...

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Annapurna1]
    #8638305 -

McCain just keeps making his Keating Five mistake over and over again
...associating with people who run businesses into the ground, screw the
stockholders and make out like bandits!

McCain has *admitted* he doesn't know enough
about the economy...and now THIS GUY is
Quote:
...what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain",

?:what:

I wouldn't trust Phil Gramm with my
daughter's piggy bank...certainly not with
the finances of the entire country!



Reminds me of Cheney's role with Halliburton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney#Private_sector_career

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton#Iraq_controversy

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: blackegg]
    #8820566 -

wow, I never realized how awesome mccain was!  I love the joke about janet reno being chelsea clinton's dad!  There was some other good stuff there too like calling his wife a cunt.  simply awesome.  i'm not too fond of republicans, but i think i like this guy just might be the shit---not to mention the other option is a nigger!

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: bonghulio]
    #8820604 -

Wow, grow up.

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Redstorm]
    #8820685 -

:rofl2:


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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Yossarian22]
    #8820788 -

Old fuckers also are much more likely to push the "War on Drugs" bullshit.  Goddamn old fuckers need to hurry up and die so I can eat my drugs w/o any paranoia.  Fucking old people smell, too.
EDIT
Black people smell funny too though.

I don't know...


--------------------
Ludwig von Mises Institute,Campaign for Liberty.,The Oath Keeper's

Edited by Mr.Al (08/24/08 04:05 PM)

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Mr.Al]
    #8821319 -

Mr.Al said:
Old fuckers also are much more likely to push the "War on Drugs" bullshit.  Goddamn old fuckers need to hurry up and die so I can eat my drugs w/o any paranoia.  Fucking old people smell, too.
EDIT
Black people smell funny too though.

I don't know...


Joe Biden, Obamas VP pick, wrote the laws of the office of the Drug Czar, wrote and passed the RAVE act, has the same stance on medical marijuana as McCain.

If McCain gets elected the drug war will be status quo, if Obama/Biden is elected expect some anti medical marijuana act to be passed and consequently the DEA to receive supplemental funding and resources/agents to shut down all dispensaries, among other things.


--------------------
Alcoholics Anonymous

Narcotics Anonymous

Get help, help is free and available 24/7/365.

God bless you all and I hope you receive the help you need to turn away from your lives of sin.

Mushrooms and drugs make you gay, you can reverse this homosexual condition with rehab, get help! Stop being gay!

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Chemy]
    #8821324 -

naw obama wont allow biden to do that


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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Coaster]
    #8821334 -

Coaster said:
naw obama wont allow biden to do that


Do you know much about the George Bush Sr. drug war during his term, then the Clinton drug war?


--------------------
Alcoholics Anonymous

Narcotics Anonymous

Get help, help is free and available 24/7/365.

God bless you all and I hope you receive the help you need to turn away from your lives of sin.

Mushrooms and drugs make you gay, you can reverse this homosexual condition with rehab, get help! Stop being gay!

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Coaster]
    #8821335 -

Coaster said:
naw obama wont allow biden to do that


just you wait


--------------------
Lazy...

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Re: Why McCain should never be President [Re: Chemy]
    #8823807 -

Fuck, I didn't know much about Biden...  The first black Prez would be a likely target for a shooting, too.  If he does get elected he'd better plan on not visiting the south much. The War on Drugs does seem to be a generational thing.  It is appalling the D.E.A. and feds get away with classifying m.j. as having no medicinal value when the A.M.A. and various Universities know that is not the case.


--------------------
Ludwig von Mises Institute,Campaign for Liberty.,The Oath Keeper's

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