Tag: John McCain

McCain, POWs, & the Stab in the Back

I have never been tortured. But I have worked clinically with those who have, including U.S. POWs. I can tell you it breaks the mind and the body, the soul and the spirit, in a way that can never be forgotten.

Now John McCain cites his experience as a POW and torture victim as an anodyne to every mildly injurious political attack. While his painful experience as a POW matters in the history of the man, in our nation’s history, what matters now is that McCain has betrayed that experience, and the lives of thousands he could both know and not know. In doing so, he also betrayed the ideals of American fair-play and justice, going back to George Washington (who forbid his revolutionary army to engage in torture, even if the British did). As everyone should know, those ideals were not realized fully, and we are still fighting for them today. But McCain has trampled them in the mud.

Some Choice: John “McLess” or “Obama Drama”

Original article by Phillip Faruggio, via dissidentvoice.org:

Yes, the campaign season is upon us. Once again, this One Party Duopoly has forged another beaut. It seems they always give the suckers choices: column A) from the extreme Right and column B) from the Center Right. Yup, sorry all you 9 to 5 Americans who watch shrinking paychecks and shrinking home values as you pump what truly has become “Black Gold.” Let’s look carefully at these two major candidates from the self perpetuating “lesser of two evils” school of thought.

Why autos are important to winning MI & Ohio

MI is still the home of the auto industry and dependent on them for its economic well being.  From Gov. Granholm’s state of the state:

… we will not concede the automotive industry to any other state or nation.

We are the state that put America on wheels – the state that put the “car” in NASCAR. There is no vision for Michigan’s new economy that does not include cars designed, engineered, and made in Michigan. The industry’s changing – but we in Michigan cannot – will not – abandon it. And we should not allow our government in Washington to abandon it either.

Because of MI sustained efforts to keep and attract automotive research and development companies,

Michigan has more employees and investments in that growing part of our economy than all of the other 49 states, plus Canada, plus Mexico combined.

I had NO intentions of doing this at all — but McCain just pushed it way too far! (Update)

This is my LTE to numerous newspapers, locally and nationally!

Mr. Out of Touch, McCain!

As of April 22, 2008,

” . . . .When George W. Bush took office in 2000, oil was $28 per barrel, the euro was $.87 on the dollar, gold was $274 per ounce, and the national debt was $5.9 trillion. Today, oil is a record $114 per barrel, the euro is nudging $1.60 on the dollar, gold is $945 per ounce, and the National Debt is $9 trillion. The country is presently engaged in a $2 trillion war in Iraq with no end in sight. The federal government has expanded over 30% under Bush. Wages for working people have stagnated, unemployment has risen, 47 million Americans are without health care, and the economy is slipping into recession. By every objective standard, the country is worse off today than when Bush first took office. . . . (source: “Message To Fed Chief Bernanke: ‘Enough With The Cuts, Already'” — Mike is a freelance writer living in Washington state.)

The Unplanned POW Diary

I had thought about writing and posting about McCain and his constant reference to being a POW. Then the flap over not being able to remember how many homes they own. There are things about his POW experiences that need to be put into perspective, because being a POW doesn’t automatically make you a hero or presidential material. If this is true of any POW it is true of McCain in spades. Follow me below the fold for some straight talk about the “straight talk express.”

McCain And The Ambition To Be President: Caught On Tape

As if there weren’t already enough examples of John McCain’s dishonesty and hypocrisy, he has delivered another strikingly brazen illustration of just how far he will go to promote himself and to demean his opponent, Barack Obama. And it’s all captured on video:

Brought to you by…

News Corpse, The Internet’s Chronicle Of Media Decay.

An open letter to Barack Obama

Mr. Obama:

  As one of the relatively few people in this country who saw through your act early on, and for the right reasons, let me first say how utterly ashamed I am to call myself a registered Democrat.  You are a disgrace not only to the party at large, but to the thousands — perhaps, dare I say — even millions of Americans who were and remain so desperate for someone to come and rescue our once-great nation from the fascists that they placed their hope and faith in you.  Hang your head in shame, and then look me straight in the eye and don’t turn away until I’m done.

  According to an article in New York Magazine, the electorate has had about enough of you.  A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has you running in a statistical dead heat with Republican John McCain, FiveThirtyEight.com’s poll doesn’t look good for your chances either, and Zogby has your GOP counterpart five points ahead.  Are you trying to blow this election for us?!?  Because it sure as hell seems as though you are.

  The NY Magazine article gives several reasons for your pathetic performance thus far, but it left out the most obvious: not only your consistent refusal to fight back against the smears of the far right and its tired old champion for this election cycle, but, most importantly, your deliberate alienation of your own political party’s base.  Time and again, you have demonstrated that you do not represent Americans on any issue of importance, and voters realize this.  Long before you secured the Democratic Party nomination to be the ringer candidate against the election sham’s already-chosen victor, you were taking positions including (but in no way limited to):

  That’s just off the top of my head, nor is it the most worrisome reason for your refusal to campaign like someone who wants to win.  I have a friend named Dave who has worked on numerous Democratic political campaigns, including yours.  He is witness to the stupid things you’ve got your people in critical states such as Ohio doing, such as:

  • Failing to even install a working telephone system in your Lakewood, Ohio, campaign office,
  • Sending your people out to register voters — REPUBLICAN-leaning ones at that — whom you MUST know will NEVER vote for you, and
  • Deliberately avoiding mentioning that it was under the presidency of Bill Clinton that average American incomes were higher, while it was under the shrub that those same incomes fell.

  This isn’t rocket science, Obama; it’s politics.  You’ve been in the proverbial game long enough to know this.  You seem hellbent on losing this election, and you need to explain why to those who placed their faith and hopes in you before you dash them just a little over two months from now.  It’s that, or pull your head out of your rear orifice and start trying to win this thing.  This race has never been, nor shall it ever be, about you; it’s about this country and the people in it, and turning back from the precipice of fascist empire your predecessors have brought us all to.

  That’s all I have to say to you, Obama.  You have your choice to make, though I am certain you made it long ago.  Just know this: no matter what happens in November, you’ll still be comfortably employed, while the rest of us will have to continue suffering the conservative policies you support.

Sincerely,

Archangel M

Sex, Lies and John McCain

CNN’s explosive interview with John McCain last night, where he talks about his first marriage:

Okay, fine, grannyhelen. You got me. Put “sex” in the title and have McCain squirm on CNN while trying to defend cheating on a sick woman who faithfully waited for him the entire time he was in Vietnam, and I’ll take a peek.

But what does this have to do with policy?

Follow me, young grasshopper…

Do You Know How Many Houses You Own? (UPDATED with more mockery)

If you know how many houses you own, congratulations!  Give yourself a pat on the back, because you’re smarter than a certain senator from Arizona.  When asked in an interview how many houses he owns,

John McCain answered:

I’ll have my staff get to you.

I see two problems in this answer.  The first, obviously, is the question of the actual count.  The second problem is that he apparently needs a staff to do his house-counting.  But when pressed about his thoughts on what constitutes being rich, he (or someone on his staff) came up with:

“I define rich in other ways besides income,” he said. “Some people are wealthy and rich in their lives and their children and their ability to educate them. Others are poor if they’re billionaires.”

Well, Senator, . . . I define “rich” as someone who DOESN’T KNOW HOW MANY HOUSES HE OWNS.

KO: Heroes and Speeches

Uggghhh. It is a sad day when people on the Left turn against Keith Olbermann for any reason.

KO is one of the sole voices pissing into the hurricane/tsunami of disinformation and neo-con propaganda from the Murdoch Empire and all Minions Fox and elsewhere… and people ask him to stop his Editorials.

Let Kieth be Kieth.

These are the same People who attacked Reverend Wright for speaking Truths in this country.

If Obama stayed Obama, a man who admired Rev. Wright, he would not be losing ground via handlers and media-whores.

Why is it that people are uncomfortable with Truths? Oh they claim to want Truth, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their TV pleasure viewing the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic games, the grandiose hoopla and the shiny young athletes.

America likes its Public Service Announcements snuggled in minute sound bytes during the breaks of their obsessive American Idol episodes… it makes their guilty pleasure of being brainless hedonists ease up a little to be able to yell “Right On” at a commercial that says “Green Power”.. all while turning up their Air Conditioning and keeping the volume on their TV’s cranked up to Prime Numbers.

But WATCH a whole documentary or turn off the TV and read a book about it?  Too depressing, man. They don’t want a bowl of whole-grain truths, when they can sprinkle a little fiber on their processed Sugar Puffs.

More about real heroes below.

McCain: Simple, Direct, Deceitful

Whether discussing his voting record on renewable energy, his relationship with lobbyists, or three wise men he would consult with, John McCain speaks simply, directly, deceitfully.

On issue after issue, coming to the fore is that John Maverick McCain has a problem with speaking truth.  

John McCain’s Sex (and Woman) Problem-Part II

First, let’s all take a page from the Maverick…sometimes you just have to laugh (in this case, to help from crying):

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