6/28/08

McCains Owed 4 Years of Taxes on Home

According to HuffPo and via ThinkProgress:
The article reports that the McCains had been delinquent in paying taxes until Newsweek inquired about the matter. The McCains then paid off $6,744.42 in back taxes, but still owe more. Newsweek writes:

When you’re poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you’re rich, it’s hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying. It’s a lesson Cindy McCain learned the hard way when NEWSWEEK raised questions about an overdue property-tax bill on a La Jolla, Calif., property owned by a trust that she oversees. […]

County officials say the trust still owes an additional $1,742 for this year, an amount that is overdue and will go into default July 1. Told of the outstanding $1,742, the aide said: “The trust has paid all bills shown owing as of today and will pay all other bills due.”


That settles that.

John McCain is the epitome of a
modern day "GOP fiscal conservative."


Trust fund babies that can't balance their own checkbooks, nevermind the budget of a country.

But this raises an even more important issue. In the military little things like unpaid bills and not paying your taxes can lose you your security clearance. It makes you a security risk in as far as the possibility of being blackmailed. I can't imagine the rules are much different for public servants and politicians.

John McCain is a security risk according to military standards.

John McCain and his wife's finances need to be fully investigated to ensure that this is an isolated incident. From the Army Adjudicative Guidelines for Determining Eligibility for Access to Classified Information:

Guideline F
Financial Considerations

The Concern. An individual who is financially overextended is at risk of having to engage in illegal acts to generate funds. Unexplained affluence is often linked to proceeds from financially profitable criminal acts.

Conditions that could raise a security concern and may be disqualifying include:

a. A history of not meeting financial obligations;

b. Deceptive or illegal financial practices such as embezzlement, employee theft, check fraud, income tax evasion, expense account fraud, filing deceptive loan statements, and other intentional financial breaches of trust;

c. Inability or unwillingness to satisfy debts;

d. Unexplained affluence;

e. Financial problems that are linked to gambling, drug abuse, alcoholism, or other issues of security concern.

Conditions that could mitigate security concerns include:

a. The behavior was not recent;

b. It was an isolated incident;

c. The conditions that resulted in the behavior were largely beyond the person's control (e.g., loss of employment, a business downturn, unexpected medical emergency, or a death, divorce or separation);

d. The person has received or is receiving counseling for the problem and there are clear indications that the problem is being resolved or is under control;

e. The affluence resulted from a legal source; and

f. The individual initiated a good-faith effort to repay overdue creditors or otherwise resolve debts.

(emph. mine)His security clearance, as a politician, must demand a full investigation of his family's finances given this news of his and his wife's tax delinquency. For what it is worth, and as far as his security clearance is involved, McCain also filed deceptive loan statements that have resulted in his breaking campaign finance law.

I mentioned earlier today that it was quite a thing to see John McCain denouncing Barack Obama for breaking his word on public financing when McCain himself is at this moment breaking the law in continuing to spend over the spending limits he promised to abide by through the primary season in exchange for public financing. (By the FEC's rules, we're still in the primary phase of the election and will be until the conventions.)

I want to return to this subject though because this is not hyperbole or some throw away line. He's really doing it. McCain opting into public financing, accepted the spending limits and then profited from that opt-in by securing a campaign saving loan. And then he used some clever, but not clever enough lawyering, to opt back out. And the person charged with saying what flies and what doesn't -- the Republican head of the FEC -- said he's not allowed to do that. He can't opt out unilaterally unless the FEC says he can.
Those are two huge red flags as far as John McCain's security clearance is concerned.

[update] oceanstar17 was kind enough to drop these links in comment at dkos:


the key standard for granting security clearances falls under the DCID 6/4. You can read about it here This website also has information about the adjucation process.



Furthermore, if you want to read cases of appeals that have gone up to the DOD, you can read about them here. You can see that applicants are allowed to have negative information about them. The key is how they handled their situations.



I guess I have some more reading to do.

[update deux] More as a matter of curiousity... How does this effect any income taxes John and Cindy McCain may have claimed? From comment at HuffPo:

What exactly do these Trusts and S Corporations involve? Do they earn taxable income? One would think that things like Mortgage interest charges and property tax would be very important when the tax returns are done since they are tax deductable and reduce the amount of taxes owed. Does the failure to pay property tax indicate that they also failed to file tax returns for the trust involved in this little condo? Or they just paid more tax than they owed?
Its clear that mortgage interest and property taxes must be on Cindy's returns because they dont show up on the Schedule A for any of the tax returns that John has released.
Was she claiming tax deductions on these property taxes while not paying the actual taxes? Sounds like the republican way!

Cindy McCain needs to open her books for public scrutiny.

6/27/08

Craig, Vitter: AC/DC Marriage Protection Amendment

Given the hypocrisy of what these two wayward Republicans are up to:
Larry Craig and David Vitter — “two United States Senators implicated in extramarital sexual activity” — have named themselves as co-sponsors of S.J. Res. 43, the Marriage Protection Amendment. If passed, the bill would amend the Constitution to declare that marriage “shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.”
Just a quick reminder...

AC Craig:

Maybe Craig is Bisexual?

Maybe the media is asking the wrong question to a GOP member that has been trained in the rovian skill of hairsplitting?

He denounced the longstanding probes by the Statesman -- he called it a "witch hunt" -- for inspiring him to plead guilty to the offense even though he said he was actually innocent. He said he had been "viciously harassed" by the newspaper. "I am not gay," he said twice. "I love my wife."

...snip...

His full remarks on The Statesman read: "For eight months leading up to June, my family and I had been relentlessly and viciously harassed by the Idaho Statesman. If you’ve seen today’s paper, you know why. Let me be clear: I am not gay and never have been.

Gotcha Senator...
But are you or have you ever been bisexual?
I haven't heard you deny that one yet.

Via BooMan:

Sen. Larry Craig is a weird dude. I can't relate. But it's important to remember that Craig tried to weasel out his arrest.

After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report. At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, "What do you think about that?" the report states.

Nice attempt to pull rank, dontcha think?

You can snigger about Craig's sexual proclivities and hypocrisy...he deserves it.

But you would not believe what the freak did to get hauled in to begin with...

Via Yahoo News, a few of his hypocrisies in action:

This story would not matter if Craig wasn't using his position to advance the Republican Party's officially homophobic agenda. In November, 2006, Craig flamboyantly endorsed Idaho's successful anti-gay constitutional amendment, HJR 2, which banned gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships in his state. Pam Spaulding has more background on Craig's anti-gay voting record here. It's also worth recalling Craig's 1999 interview with Tim Russert in which he mocked Bill Clinton as a "naughty boy" for his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Craig is up for re-election in 2008. Will his carnality in public restrooms put an end to his career in public life? Idaho conservatives may be willing to reward bigotry, but lying is another matter.

No... No hypocrisy there. Just another typical republican gay-bashing gay man who happens to have some kind of shitty fetish. Perhaps a foot fetish as well?

Craig is now saying he is not guilty after, ya know, pleading guilty to this in court:
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer has reported that Larry Craig has resigned his appointment as co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, and the campaign has accepted his resignation.

...snip...

Sen. Craig has issued a statement in response to this story: “At the time of the incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct. I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously.”
There is still no word from the Romney campaign on whether Mitt and Larry ever shared a bathroom. What is it with Republicans and bathroom sex? Remember Florida State Rep Bob Allen? He isn't gay either. He just offered to give a man a BJ and $20 because he thought the guy would beat him up because, ya know, all black men only use restrooms to beat people up...

You remember a little while back we brought you the story of Florida McCain campaign co-chair, Rep. Bob Allen (R). Right on the heels of Giuliani Southern Regional Chairman David Vitter's exposure as a serial user of prostitutes, Allen got caught in a Titusville park restroom offering to pay an undercover police officer to allow him to perform oral sex on him.

Now it turns out that Allen revealed the true reason for the alleged park-john-offer in a tape recorded statement he made just after his arrest.

"This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," said Allen, according to this article in the Orlando Sentinel. Allen went on to say he was afraid of becoming a "statistic."

I guess this raises the question of whether if you thought you were about to get mugged by a group of stocky black guys, your first plan of escape would be to try to give one of them a blowjob. But I guess maybe you had to be there.

One day the politicians in the GOP may figure out that most people, even most black people, actually use restrooms to go to the bathroom. The fact that some in the GOP seem think it is only a sexual playground or a boxing ring may explain why they are so full of shit.

DC Vitter:

David Vitter Family Jewels Edition

TPM Muckraker gives a few good gems in their round up on David Vitter's Family Values:

As for now, the race is on for who can pile up the most vividly hypocritical quote from the family values (or as he put it, "Louisiana values") conservative. In the running: Sen. Vitter maligning the "Hollywood left" for violating the "sanctity of marriage," and Vitter arguing that President Clinton should step down for his extramarital affair (Vitter, by the by, replaced Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA) after the speaker was forced to step down because of an affair). There are, you can be sure, many more. Glenn Greenwald has a rundown here.

Update: The prevailing quote of the day seems to be this one:

In 2000, Vitter was included in a Newhouse News Service story about the strain of congressional careers on families.

His wife, Wendy, was asked by the Newhouse reporter: If her husband were as unfaithful as Livingston or former President Bill Clinton, would she be as forgiving as Hillary Rodham Clinton?

“I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary,” Wendy Vitter told Newhouse News. “If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”

“I think fear is a very good motivating factor in a marriage,” she added. “Don’t put fear down.

TPM Muckraker



Have you seen
David Vitter's Bitter Penis:

If you see this lost member of the Lorena Bobbit Club in your community, please return it to its owner!

Come to think of it, might be better off to leave him alone?

He looks much happier not having to hang around with Vitter anymore.


[update] Integrative Media wonders just how much of a PR media nightmare this may be.

It is the DC Madam's kiss of death, IMHO.


Ahhhh! Republican sex scandals... The gifts that keep on giving!


ok...Mark Foley, David Vitter, Jim Kolbe, Glenn Murphy Jr, Larry Craig, etc.

Continuing to carry the republican family values banner in fine form they just keep digging deeper and deeper on sex scandals, hypocritical voting records, prostitution and gay/bisexual trysts outside of their "traditional republican marriages".

As I noted when Bob Allen and Larry Craig got caught in their respective bathrooms:

At least neither of these Republicans pulled a full GOP and tried pick up kids like Foley...Or, at least, nothing has been proven in Larry Craig's case, but I certainly do have to say: This has got to be the worst year for political sex scandals in the history of the GOP... And that is saying a lot.

6/23/08

Many White Supremacists Supporting Obama Presidency

But for all of the wrong reasons...

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center many of the Neo-Nazi's and KKK members want an Obama presidency in the hopes of starting a race war or, at least, in the hopes of using it as a recruiting tool:
With the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate clinched, large sections of the white supremacist movement are adopting a surprising attitude: Electing America’s first black president would be a very good thing.

It’s not that the assortment of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, anti-Semites and others who make up this country’s radical right have suddenly discovered that a man should be judged based on the content of his character, not his skin. On the contrary. A growing number of white supremacists, and even some of those who pass for intellectual leaders of their movement, think that a black man in the Oval Office would shock white America, possibly drive millions to their cause, and perhaps even set off a race war that, they hope, would ultimately end in Aryan victory.

...snip...

Opinion on the radical right is far from unanimous on the topic of a possible Obama victory. Many of those writing on the topic — perhaps half of those who have posted recently — think an Obama presidency would destroy the country and oppose it mightily.
These bigots are as sick as they are hateful.

And as a side note to Southern Poverty Law Center: It ain't just "neo-Nazis, Klansmen, anti-Semites and others who make up this country’s radical right," You can add the neoconservatives, theocrats, as well as the many other groups assaulting our Constitution, world stability, and the environment to the radical right. Just to mention a few...