McCain
McCain Threatens to Oppose Interior Nominee Over Reagan Remark (3/12/2009)
John McCain, Warmonger, (note 1)
The Republican's hate message (video)
Is McCain another Bush (8/19/2008) Jack Cafferty
McCain More Dangerous than Bush (8/12/2008)
Don't Be Fooled by John McCain
McCain is a disaster waiting to happen
McCain's Health records must be released
McCain the Militarist (American Prospect, May 2008)
McCain's Kremlin Ties (The Nation, October 20, 2008)
McCain's ties to Neocon Hard Liners (8/21/2008)
The Week That Should Have ended McCain's Presidential Hopes July 10, 2008
McCain Fails my Mom's test Robert Borosage, July 8, 2008
McCain and the 'unitary' Presidency (5/13/2008)
Leading Republicans all support waterboarding.
McCain is a typical Republican. Like Reagan, he promises to cut taxes, balance the budget, and continue the war at increased levels of military spending. This is going to have the result that Reagan and Bush achieved: huge national debt, reduced social programs, further widening of the gap between rich and poor, more financial instability (be sure you know exactly who Phil Gramm is before voting for McCain, because he is still said to be an important advisor to McCain on economic policy.)
McCain’s economic advice from Phil Gramm, alone, should disqualify him. Gramm was the architect of the Enron collapse and current financial instability. Party change is necessary to throw out the cronies, lobbyists, and incompetents placed in office by the Bush administration.
Andrew Sullivan | McCain's Integrity
http://www.truthout.org/article/mccains-integrityAndrew Sullivan, The Atlantic: "For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so."
McCain and Pinochet
The Huffington Post website has revealed John McCain traveled to Chile in 1985 to have a private meeting with Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet.
According to a declassified US embassy cable, McCain described the meeting with Pinochet as "friendly and at times warm"
At the time of the meeting, the US Justice Department was seeking the extradition of two close Pinochet associates for an act of terrorism in Washington, D.C., the 1976 assassination of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his colleague Ronni Moffitt.
During his trip to Chile, McCain made no public or private statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of the democratic opposition in Chile.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/27/headlines
Keating Five: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis
McCain Ads
McCain and the Media
As Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, McCain controlled the FCC's budget. Media conglomerates got everything they asked for including huge new grants of air spectrum, relaxation of cross-ownership rules, and other special favors. So it is not surprising that McCain gets a free ride from media (See the book: 'Free Ride' by David Brock and Paul Waldman)
In a scandal, not much recognized by the press, McCain intervened for Paxon to buy a PBS station in Pittsburgh. The very same Pax (now ION) owns our local, New London, Ct. TV station, which has virtually no community presence.
McCain strongly endorsed Michael Powell, Colin's son, for Chairman of the FCC. Powell explained, shortly after he took office, to a legal forum that "the night after I was sworn in, I waited for a visit from the angel of the public interest. I waited all night, but she did not come. And, in fact, five months into this job, I still have had no divine awakening and no one has issued me my public-interest crystal ball." True to his word, the FCC does the will of the industry it is supposed to regulate, and nothing for the public. (Most all Bush agencies operate like that.)
One of the stories that you will not hear from broadcasters is this: Republicans have been leaders in the rush to further concentrate media. The result is not only loss of program diversity, but further loss of local accountability, and actual loss of jobs. The Republicans on the FCC attempted to hide a study that details the damage, but somehow it leaked to the Senate. Over the strong objections of practically everyone except the broadcasters, Powell and his successor Kevin Martin pushed for further media consolidation. (For insight, see Jeff Chester's book 'Digital Destiny')
About six corporations control everything you see on the news, and they have an agenda. In fact, it is the Republican corporate agenda (no environmental protection, minimum consumer protection, perpetual war, media concentration, union busting, cheap labor, dumped pensions, lax workplace safety standards, status quo healthcare, vanishing entitlements and don't forget privatization of Social Security.)
Congress often does the wrong thing because it is money driven, and McCain has been a leader in the fight to give broadcasters what they want: (Your eyeballs, your money, every detail of what you watch, no privacy protections, control of the internet, and the right to send unlimited advertising spam.) Main stream media does not serve journalistic standards, consumer protection, academic, cultural, entertainment, or much of any public service and that's just the way the industry likes it. Given McCain's strong support of Michael Powell, you should have a good idea how his Presidency will go.
Manufacturing Differences between Bush and McCain (6/17/08)
US Media gives McCain a free ride
Lobbyists
Immigration is a Republican wedge issue that capitalizes on economic insecurity. Lou Dobbs, who is on it every night, is an employee of the now very right-wing Time-Warner AOL. Richard Parsons, CEO, is on President Bush's hand-picked committee to overhaul Social Security. CNN, a division,
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McCain's Economics
McCain hates Social Security (See this Note.)
McCain would privatize Social Security
McCain says no new taxes...but willing to raise Social Security Taxes..
McCain defends the 'Enron Loophole'
Phil Gramm
Any candidate that thinks Phil Gramm should be their economic advisor doesn't belong in public office.
The six bankers and senator behind the creation of the Federal Reserve bank in 1910 were all wealthy republicans.
Those behind the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 were all lobbyists for the banks and the key politician behind it was republican senator Phil Gramm. This bill over turned the depression era Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and allowed competition among banks, securities companies and insurance companies and led directly to the current financial crisis we are now in.
Those behind the Commodity Futures Modernization Act Of 2000 were once again lobbyists from the financial sector along with Oil/Energy lobbyist who helped write the Act with republican senator Phil Gramm. This act led directly to high energy prices and energy black outs in California and record oil and gasoline prices and prophets thanks to the infamous "Enron Loophole"
I agree that members of both parties are to blame for the current crisis we are now in and are blinded by greed and beholden to the bankers, Wall Street and the corporations BUT it is the republicans who have pushed these three Acts which can be attributed to the financial ruin of American citizens and our country as a whole. (from a comment Sunday, March 22, 2009, 4:11:51 PM at ICH http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22211.htm)
Gramm was an architect of the latest financial crisis.
(from wikipedia) Phil Gramm was one of five co-sponsors of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000,[2] which critics blame for permitting the Enron scandal to occur.[3] At the time, Gramm's wife was on Enron's board of directors. Gramm left his Senate seat a few weeks before the expiration of his term in December 2002 so that his successor, fellow Republican John Cornyn, could gain seniority over other newly-elected senators.
John McCain and the simple Arithmetic of Republican Economic Failure
A quote from CLG news:
McNutjob
wants to eliminate Social Security: McCain promises to balance
budget 06 Jul 2008 Sen. John
McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to promise on Monday that he will balance
the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful
spending and overhauling eliminating 'entitlement' programs,
including Social Security,
his
advisers told Politico. The vow to take on cut Social
Security puts McCain in a political danger zone that thwarted
President [sic] Bush after he named it the top domestic priority of
his second term. [McCain doesn't realize that other elderly
people don't live as well as Beer
Bimbo
Cindy.]
McCain's Lobbying Connection (video)
Don't be fooled by John McCain (01/23/2008)
How John McCain's hypocrisy is laundered as reform: Ken Silverstein (Harpers Magazine 5/2008)
McCain's Health Plan Millions lose coverage, Health Costs worsen, and the Insurance and Drug Companies win.
BENJAMIN DAY, director@masscare.org, http://masscare.org executive director of Mass-Care, a health care advocacy coalition based in Boston, said: Its easy to build political consensus for expanded health coverage. But experience shows that you can't achieve universal coverage at an affordable price unless you throw out the insurance companies with their massive overhead and profit, and replace them with a more efficient single-payer national health insurance program. "Sen. Obama should learn this lesson," Day said. As for Sen. John McCain's health care proposals, "they are so obviously unworkable that its hard to take them seriously." (8/12/08)
McCain's Justice
Like Bush, McCain favors the corporate agenda not the national interest. That is why he promises to appoint Supreme Court Justices like Alito and Roberts. The Supreme Court most always favors corporations over people. (See Fascism.)
"...the agenda that was born in the Reagan years, nurtured by the Federalist Society, championed by the right wing of the Republican Party, and propelled by the nominations of Roberts and Alito: Expand executive power. End racial preferences intended to assist African Americans. Speed executions. Welcome religion into the public sphere. And, above all, reverse Roe v. Wade and allow states to ban abortion.,,the two new justices, plus Scalia, Thomas, and (usually) Kennedy, put all those goals tantalizingly within reach." (from Jeffrey Toobin's book: the Nine).
McCain's judicial plans are in lock step with Bush.
Military Commissions Act
"The compromise on the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was hailed as a win for McCain and his allies. The New York Times foregrounded the fact that Bush dropped his demand to redefine the Geneva Conventions, dubbing it a victory for McCain....With that, another episode in the legend of McCain entered posterity. Courageously risking the anger of his fellow Republicans, he had demonstrated his independence, stood firm on principle, and won...
Or had he ? As legal experts and human rights advocates pored over the bill in the days following its passage, they came to an ominous realization: the "compromise" legislation was hardly a compromise at all. In passing the bill, Congress had effectively given the executive branch untrammeled powers that violated the very notion of checks and balances. The bill granted the president the power to designate and detain indefinitely any noncitizen he decides is an "illegal enemy combatant" with no judicial oversight. The bill failed to address the question of American citizens, whom the Bush administration has long claimed also can be declared enemy combatants and detained indefinitely. Any suspects detained under the act would be stripped of their due process right to challenge their designation as enemy combatants or the legality of their detention. The legislation also prohibited the courts from reviewing any aspect of the detainee program, except for the verdicts of the specially created military tribunals __which, because the bill imposed no time limits on the government, could be delayed as long as the president wants. Moreover, the bill immunized any government officials from prosecution for prior violations of detainee abuse laws. As for the Geneva Conventions McCain had said he was defending, the bill actually gave the president the 'authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions.' essentially giving him the power to ignore them if he wishes.
From Free Ride, John McCain and the Media: by David Brock and Paul Waldman pg 123-124
John McCain and Bush's Torture Powers (Salon)
Habeas Corpus
Eight centuries ago, when King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta, habeas corpus was the law used to limit the power of the king.
"Since 9/11, Bush's officials have played a seven-year game of legal keep-away: filing new motions, changing jurisdictions, improvising legal proceedings on the fly, stalling, appealing, amending, and then appealing some more. So much so that the matter of habeas has now become a hot-button issue on the presidential trail, Barack Obama applauded the high court's recent decision to extend habeas to detainees in Guantanamo; former POW John McCain said it was "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." Jack Hitt writing for Mother Jones, September 2008.
McCain will not fix Civil Liberties breaches
McCain:
I'd Spy on Americans Secretly, Too
http://www.truthout.org/article/mccain-id-spy-americans-secretly-too
Writing for Wired, Ryan Singel reports, "If elected president,
Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own
warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the
theory that the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal
statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by
his campaign Monday." Arianna Huffington
(5/15/2008)
Roe
In pledging to appoint new justices like Roberts and Alito, McCain is saying to his base that he would like to roll back Roe. Do women know that more justices like Alito and Roberts will do ? They will have no choice.
John McCain is Dr. Strangelove
John McCain, Warmonger (note 1)
"All of the leading Republican presidential candidates openly and nonchalantly endorsed using nuclear weapons against Iran unless Iran abandons its right to enrich uranium under the non-proliferation treaty, to which Iran is a signatory (unlike nuclear-armed Israel, India, and US puppet Pakistan)....What is moral degeneracy if it is not using nuclear weapons to murder masses of innocent civilians and spread deadly radioactivity over vast areas merely in order to force a country to do as we order? If this isn't barbarism, what is barbarism?" Paul Craig Roberts 6/8/2007
As Russia and Georgia clashed, Elliott Kalan, producer for the Daily Show with Jon Stewart wrote:
Luckily, John McCain made it clear he wouldn't have let this war pass us by. If McCain was in charge we'd be attacking Russia right now, and maybe China, Iran, and Italy just to be safe. That's because he knows the only way to get America back into fighting shape is to keep America fighting. Then, we'll be so busy battling that we won't have time to worry about anything else, and those problems will go away. It's a solution that's beautiful in its simplicity. McCain's proven he's the only candidate who has his priorities straight. We may not have enough jobs, gasoline, or medicine to go around, but under President McCain there'll be war enough for everybody !
Why I will not vote for John McCain (a soldier.)
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Why it is a bad idea to vote for Republicans
Links
Bibliography
Free Ride: John McCain and the Media: David Brock and Paul Waldman
The Real McCain, by Cliff Schecter
McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, by Matt Welch.
Great American Hypocrites: Glenn Greenwald