He'll get in your face Litchfield blogger always eager for a cause
Andy Thibault spends a lot of time in shorts and sandals watching rabbits nibble in his Litchfield backyard. When he feels up to it, he climbs the steep stairs of his Victorian home on a quiet, tree shaded street, turns on the computer and takes on the world.
Muckraking may seem misplaced in such a bucolic setting, but it works just fine for a 55-year-old man trying to recover from stage 3 colon cancer while waging a feisty campaign that could have national significance in the free-speech arena.
Through his news blog, "The Cool Justice Report," Thibault is the prime mover in an effort to challenge the punishment of Avery Doninger, a Lewis S. Mills High School student from Burlington, for critical remarks she made last year on her blog about school administrators.
It is always nice to see one of Connecticut's many great Bloggers get some well deserved respect. Especially a Blogger that - on this I am pretty darned certain - would gladly kick a hornets nest if he thinks it would fix things.
Most working families today do not have homes that have anywhere near 10 rooms. John McCain has 10 houses. Many working people in America have to work two and three jobs to provide for their families and pay their car loans. John McCain hops on a private jet. Is it any wonder why McCain champions a George Bush agenda of cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, helping oil companies turn record profits, and leaving working families to fend for themselves? McCain's velvet world leaves him utterly unprepared to make the tough choices we need to restore the middle class and ensure that everyone in America has quality, affordable health insurance.
-Andy Stern, President, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
John McCain is soaring to new heights of hypocrisy on his wife's personal jet. He flies around the country bent on duping the public into believing he's "one of them," a regular guy who can empathize with Americans facing an overwhelming economic crush. What's more, he disparages those who oppose his ridiculous policy proposals as "elitist." But who's the real elitist?
The REAL McCain is a multimillionaire who owns ten luxurious homes. The REAL McCain backs President Bush's tax cuts for big corporations. The REAL McCain empathizes only with the interests of our nation's wealthy minority, not its money-strapped majority. But far too many are buying into McCain's deceit because the corporate press won't present the whole picture, so we created this video to educate the public about the REAL McCain.
Together, you have been a force in making sure The REAL McCain videos have been seen by nearly 6.5 million people. But as Frank Rich noted in his NY Times column yesterday, 40% of Americans hear too little about McCain from the mainstream media, meaning "the public doesn't know who on earth John McCain is." That's why it's crucial you ensure this video is seen by as many as possible, and that we use each and every tool at our disposal to get the word out. Send this on to five friends and family members, and tell them to send it to five people they know. Get it to your local news outlets and blogs and networking sites like Digg. Raise hell about McCain's economic duplicity!
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney summed it up best when he said McCain "simply doesn't understand the challenges America's working families are facing because he isn't remotely affected by them." It's up to us to tell people who McCain really is, a personal jet-setting elitist more concerned with corporate lobbyists than hard-working Americans.
Many of you already knew that we were probably losing our home in the first wave of foreclosures hitting this state and the country. I have been sort of busy the last couple of weeks with this issue and (some of) you may have noticed that my Blog has been dormant because I have been so busy.
The bad news? We have given up trying to save our home.
The good news? Unlike the many American families that are, right now, living in tent cities(from the morgtage crisis, floods and also from hurricane Katrina) we have been fortunate enough to find a house to rent. And we will not have to move from New Milford, either. The kids are happy about that second part. They have made friends and like living here.
Finding a place to live has not been easy. Being in the first wave of foreclosures, many landlords refused to rent to us. This issue will likely resolve itself for others later on as more and more people with foreclosures and bankruptcies on their credit reports will flood the renters market. For now it is still an issue. An issue we that we kind of lucked our way around.
Lemons Meet Lemonade
The house we are renting? It is a little bit smaller than the home we loved but it does have some serious plusses that make this a better place for us. First, it has a nice little wood stove in the living room to curl up in front of on those chilly New England nights. It will also save us money on oil. Second, it has a nice, big and sunny room that I plan on turning into my media room that will look right out over the back yard. Third, it is not on a main street so the kids and the dog will be a little safer playing outside. Fourth, we will be saving hundreds compared to what our original mortgage payment started at, never mind how much our ARM was by the time it doubled.
As for the luck part? Well, we are renting the house from someone that was on the verge of losing it all, as well. She pretty much knows our situtation and, because of her own situtation, was a little more forgiving on our credit check. The lady who owns the house is where we were in the foreclosure process about 9 months ago. She did not have "ARM" or sub-prime issues, but employment/relocation issues. As the real estate agent that helped us find a place said, this is a win/win situation for everyone here. She won't be crushed financially like we were and we will have a roof over our heads.
I'll have more to write on this later but, for now, don't be surpised if my Blogging particiaption is a little bit irregular.
The four-minute video, produced by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, is called “McCain’s Mansions: the Real Elitist” and showcases various McCain homes and condominiums in Arizona, California and Virginia, with one valued at $4.66 million.
Nothing to add to this Barack Obama campaign ad showing the differences between Barack Obama and John McCain since it is factual and relatively straight forward and to the point:
As New Hampshire Republicans - unsatisfied with their terribly flawed candidates - start to glumly trickle into their voting booths today, a few may recall having seen Connecticut Congressman Chris Shays barnstorming around their state for the past week in support of John McCain.
This sight must have been particularly jarring: the former member of the Peace Corps, proudly displaying a reminder of that episode of his past life, while fighting for a candidate who wants a permanent American troop presence of Iraq:
Up in the McCain headquarters on the third floor of an old mill building, Connecticut's 4th District Rep. Chris Shays is sitting among the troops in a suit and Peace Corps cap, making the same get-out-the-vote telephone calls as everybody else. McCain has been using the Republican congressman as a surrogate at the smaller events he can't reach. Shays takes on the role a bit in headquarters at the lunch break...
Shays tells the workers their candidate is a reformer who can't be intimidated. He's got two things going for him, Shays says. "One is his character. The other is what we all hunger for in this country: straight talk."
"He has more positions on Iraq than Mitt Romney has on abortion," says Soltz, a veteran of the Iraq and Kosovo wars. "You never know where he sits on Iraq. He can tell you what he wants, but he is lined up with George Bush on this war."
"He likes to brag about how many times he's been to Iraq," Soltz adds, "but he's never served, and he doesn't really know how the military works...."
Fighting for endless occupation of Iraq... while wearing a Peace Corps cap. That pretty much says it all:
(Ilustration by Danny Hellman for Fairfield County Weekly.)
(Disclosure: Tparty, the author of that, proudly consults for Jim Himes.)
Along with other prisoners, he worked in the fields day after day, in rain and sun, during summer and winter. His life appeared to be nothing more than backbreaking labor and slow starvation. The intense suffering reduced him to a state of despair.
On one particular day, the hopelessness of his situation became too much for him. He saw no reason to continue his struggle, no reason to keep on living. His life made no difference in the world. So he gave up.
Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.
As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.
As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.
Solzhenitsyn slowly rose to his feet, picked up his shovel, and went back to work. Outwardly, nothing had changed. Inside, he had received hope.
[From Luke Veronis, "The Sign of the Cross"; Communion, issue 8, Pascha 1997.]
And McCain had just published his latest book of embellished tales. A Freeper posted the reference to the Cross-in-the-Dirt story, and Freepers accepted it with, lets say, something less than enthusiasm.
Do I sense a run for president coming up? Sorry if I'm too cynical.
Perhaps McCain is making obvious Christian statements to gain support for 2008. ---- Perhaps??? :-)
and of course:
This guy is so full of $hit his eyes are brown. He is a sellout RINO. I would not believe a word he says.
But my jaw hit the floor when I read this:
Hmmmm. Looks like McCain has been reading Solzhenitsyn. From The Mayor's daily posts at FR's Finest and The Canteen from the devotional "Our Daily Bread" comes Sunday's reading...
World-famous Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was sent to a Siberian prison because he criticized communism. Languishing there under intolerable conditions year after year, he decided to end his life. But suicide, he firmly believed, would be against God's will. He thought it would be better for a guard to shoot him.
So at a public assembly of the prisoners, he sat in a front row, planning to get up and walk toward an exit, compelling a guard to kill him. But to his surprise, another prisoner sat down, blocking his exit. That unknown man leaned over and, to Solzhenitsyn's astonishment, drew a cross on the dirt floor.
So... Both the left and the right seem to be in agreement that McCain is full of, ummm? Let's just say McCain has brown eyes, OK? [update]I have already written another post on this topic, but in the interests of correcting the origins of the story for people, like Rinehardt947, that find this archived post:
First of all, I would like to thank the people who have sent their encouragement and kind messages to me. I have been complimented on my "good citizen journalism" and have seen people take my idea and raise it to the level such that it is being talked about in the mainstream media.
Of course, along with the good comes the bad, and I have been called a traitor, a terrorist, un-American, and someone who wants to destroy Christianity. I have been called a "pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons" player who loves to "disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement" by the McCain people. Because of these attacks, I feel that it is necessary to tell a bit about myself, and to highlight what it is that we are really up against in the candidate that is John McCain.
I served in the Navy as a Nuclear Plant Operator for over 14 years. I served onboard the USS Texas (CGN-39) in Operation Desert Storm. I served onboard the USS Arkansas (CGN-41) in support of Operation Desert Fox. I was a crewmember of the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) when airplanes struck the Twin Towers on 9/11, and our ship was the first ship that was flying attack missions into Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. I am a father, a husband, an active member of VoteVets, and I take personally any attack on my character or on my morality.
...snip...
They have used McCain's POW history to create a firewall to shield from all criticism, and as a universal qualifier for all things that pertain to foreign policy or to the military.
Here are some examples:
- Any question of McCain's integrity is instantly an insult to all military personnel and all veterans who have ever served.
- Any opposition to McCain's ideas must be prefaced with a disclaimer honoring his military service.
- Any McCain misstep or gaffe is instantly forgiven because he was once a Prisoner of War, and must be honored as such.
- John McCain's war hero status overrides the Ten Commandments, because according to Sean Hannity, his adultery is erased by the fact that he was imprisoned in Vietnam.
The Legend of John McCainTM has been perpetuated by the Republican party and the Corporate Media to crush all dissent and create a teflon candidate that is beyond reproach.
It's worth noting that pursuing the cross-in-the-dirt evangelical parable as it might have happened to McCain is in no way impugning anyone's war record. No one is disputing in any way what McCain did in Vietnam, his heroism, his sacrifice or any jot and tittle of his combat in arms and time in captivity. What we're curious about is how an urban legend in Christianist circles (attributed to Solzhenitsen but originating, so far as one can tell, in Chuck Colson) reshaped and altered an actual, utterly believable story of rare humanity in a prison camp. And how a campaign not only adopted the improved story but then wielded it in a campaign ad and as a critical message to evangelicals. If that ad is not actually true - and its depiction of the cross in the dirt we know is false (according to McCain, it was done with a sandal; in the ad it is done, as in Colson's account, with a stick) - it's a question of challenging a campaign's veracity, and what can only be called a cynical use of religion. Could the campaign confirm that the ad itself is visually incompatible with the Salter story? Or were they unconcerned with such detail, assuming no one would be foolish enough to question a war hero's unconfirmable anecdote - and eager merely to show the deeper (and true) point that McCain relied on God to survive the unimaginable?
“I don’t recall us talking specifically about our faith,” says Orson Swindle, one of McCain’s closest friends and a fellow POW. “We talked about our friends, families, our resistance posture, and that our country didn’t seem to have the will to win.”
Belief in a higher power helped them survive the routine torture and daily indignities, Swindle says. “It would help us endure what we had to endure. But we knew God wasn’t going to come down and wave a magic wand.”
I just want to point out that there's a chapter specifically devoted to three Christmases of McCain's captivity in The Nightingale's Song, Robert Timberg's critically acclaimed 1995 book, which helped put McCain on the map as a political celebrity -- and the cross story does not appear. Nor does it appear anywhere else in the book.
The chapter is titled "'Tis the Season to Be Jolly." It says that on Christmas Eve 1968, a guard tried to compel McCain to attend a church service that was being staged for the benefit of visiting photographers. McCain decided "to ruin the picture," letting out a series of curses ("'Fu-u-u-u-ck you, you son of a bitch!' shouted McCain, hoisting a one-finger salute whenever a camera pointed in his direction"). There's certainly no mention of a cross in the sand in this account.
On Christmas Eve 1969, we're then told, McCain had a civil conversation with the Cat, the one guard he's said in other accounts was considerate to him a guard called the Cat (see Calouste's correction in comments) -- but again there's no mention of a cross in the sand. (Timberg tells us that McCain and the Cat discussed the Cat's tie clip and cigarette lighter, as well as McCain's decision not to accept early release.)
On Christmas 1970, Timberg writes, McCain was transferred to a cell with his friend Bud Day -- "the perfect Christmas present" because he'd just spent two and a half years in solitary. Again, no cross.
(The chapter also includes an account of the car accident in which McCain's first wife, whom he later divorced, was seriously injured. The accident took place on Christmas Eve 1969.)
The problem is that in an era where things can easily be verified, “I don’t remember” is sometimes passable and “I never said that” or “I never did that” is unacceptable and easily verifiable.
Of course his wife Cindy lied about her recipes for cookies when she stole them from Family Circle magazine. Of course, stealing is something that she knows well, as she also stole painkillers from a veteran’s charity that she was in charge of.
And that is just off the top of my head and a quick search.
So let’s start calling him what he is. A full on liar. Not only “forgetful”, not only “misinterpreted”, not only “misquoted”, not only mean-spirited and stretching the truth.
But it turns out that this episode probably never happened to Solzhenitsyn at all, and according to a Solzhenitsyn biographer it appears nowhere in his published writing. Columbia University professor Michael Scammell, the author of Solzhenitsyn: A Biography, says the episode "never happened," and didn't appear in Solzhenitsyn's book, Gulag Archipelago, either.
This only solves a piece of the mystery, but it's a key piece. It doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility that McCain or his biographer, Mark Salter, picked up the tale that this happened to Solzhenitsyn elsewhere and embellished it for their own purposes.
But it takes one well-trafficked theory off the table: That McCain, a fan of Solzhenitsyn, picked it up straight from his works. More broadly, it also skewers once and for all the cherished right-wing falsehood that this happened to Solzhenitsyn at all.
Of course, it's still possible that McCain or Salter picked this up from the sort of right-wing circles that it first originated in. After all, this tale was bandied about by Chuck Colson and many other wingnuts for years; McCain or Salter could have picked it up from such circles, as the notes from Colson's 1983 book, Loving God, explain:
"The story about Alexander Solzhenitsen and the old man who made the sign of the cross was first told by Solzhenitsyn to a group of Christian leaders and later recounted by Billy Graham in his New Year's telecast, 1977. It has been retold subsequently, most publicly by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC)."
Those investigating this story have also pointed out that no one can find evidence that McCain referenced this episode until his 1999 book -- it didn't appear anywhere in a lengthy 1973 article McCain wrote about his captivity. It does seem odd that McCain would not have discussed such a pivotal moment until twenty-five years later.
IOW: McCain did likely plagiarize from someone... Colson, Jeremiah Denton, Billy Graham or Helms... Who knows who else because the story is so old. The similarities to the "origins" are one thing. The inconsistencies in McCain and his own campaign's recounting of everything is simply beyond the pale.
As for assertions that the "cross in the dirt" story was a "pivotal" experience in McCain's time as a POW, Salter said, "That's just plain bulls—t. His pivotal experience was his refusal of early release and the three or four days of torture he took for it, his confession, and his attempted suicide. That was his pivotal experience. He's never represented [the "cross in the dirt" story] to be that."
And in October 2007, according to the Christian Science Monitor, McCain said it was the most profound experience of his time as POW (emphasis added):
For McCain, there were other moments of grace in prison. While in solitary confinement, he would be left for the night with his arms tied back in a painful position. One night, a guard walked in and loosened the ropes, then came back five hours later and tightened up the ropes again, without saying a word. Two months later, on Christmas Day, McCain was allowed to stand outside for 10 minutes in a courtyard, and that same guard came up to him. The guard stood beside him for a minute, then drew a cross in the dirt with his sandal and stood there for a minute, looking at McCain silently. A few minutes later he rubbed it out and walked away.
"My friends, I will never forget that man," McCain recounts during a town-hall meeting with voters, his voice choked with emotion. "I will never forget that moment. And I will never forget the fact that no matter where you are, no matter how difficult things are, there's always going to be someone of your faith and your belief and your devotion to your fellow man who will pick you up and help you out and bring you through."
It was, he said later, the most transcendent and uplifting experience of his imprisonment.
It's obvious that Salter is trying to minimize a story that McCain himself was hyping just two days earlier.
Keep bringing this story up you right wing fools... Even John McCain is already trying to hide from this huge lie.
The John McCain campaign and the neocon smear machine are up and running saying all kinds of nasty things. In order to be "fair and balanced" I put together a negative add against McCain to help with the conversation.
This presentation combines information on his military past from The US Veteran Dispatch and other sources which are hardly Left wing organizations. I also combined it with common knowledge from his own admissions and the public record of his life and career.
But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.
When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons
had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.
Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.
Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.
For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.
"His staff responded with the classic "he was tortured for his country." Yeah, we get it. The torture card. It's to McCain what 9/11 was to Giuliani's candidacy - the never-ending name-drop. Though what McCain's staff actually said was downright, um, we're being nice to Clinton now, so I won't say Clintonian. Here's the quote:
McCain campaign strategist Mark Salter said Monday night that McCain was technically disabled. "Tortured for his country -- that is how he acquired his disability," Salter said.
Technically? What does that mean? Usually, it means that under the strict reading of the law, you're covered, but in fact it's kind of a nudge-nudge-wink-wink situation - that's what "technically" means. It's called parsing, which is something you do to "technically" claim something is true, when on its face it really isn't. So is McCain "technically" disabled, and taking $58,000 a year tax free from the government, or is he actually disabled? I would imagine there are other solders who are actually disabled who could use the money. And if he is actually disabled, just how disabled is he?
I think our troops should only get the best, and we've beaten up the administration a lot for leaving our injured troops and vets in the lurch. But I also remember from those articles how hard it is for our current injured troops to get the health care they need (the military is actually refusing to diagnose PTSD in order to save money on benefits!). I'm just not sure that the McCains, who own "eight or nine houses," should be getting $58k a year tax-free from the government for a "technical" disability when others who don't have families worth a gazillion dollars could use that support a lot more."
Tortured for his country?Is that a nice way of saying he is batshit loopy? This is a legitimate issue, raised in this LA Times story:
McCain spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. After he was released in 1973, he returned home on crutches and began a painful physical rehabilitation. He later regained flight status and commanded a Navy squadron before retiring from the service in 1981.
McCain would be the oldest man to enter the White House if he is elected president, and questions have been raised about his health.
...snip...
The fact that he is legally designated with a disability pension may raise further questions.
“It is a legitimate question to ask about the commander in chief: Is he fit to serve,” said Robert Schriebman, a senior Pentagon tax advisor and tax attorney who recently retired as a judge advocate for a unit of the California National Guard.
If McCain can hike across the Grand Canyon, then why should he be getting disability payments from the government that are tax-exempt, Schriebman asked.
The truth that the GOP is trying to avoid discussing... Has nothing to do with the fact that McCain cheated repeatedly on his first wife, finally leaving her when he found a suitable stepping stone spouse for his political career. I could deal with The Real McCain's family values disgraces but I'll leave that to the ostriches in the conservative echo chamber to choke on:
According to Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief, February 1, 2008, "[John McCain] used nepotism to get ahead: When he was rejected by the National War College, he used his father's contacts with the Secretary of the Navy to make them reconsider." Skousen also notes that "McCain cheated on his first wife after she had a severe accident. He then divorced her and married his multi-millionaire mistress, whose daddy bought McCain a spot in the Congress."
It has also never been explained why the son and grandson of Navy admirals would not rise to the rank of Admiral himself. (He exited the Navy as a Captain.) Was it his numerous adulterous affairs or his violent temper? Or both?
In issuing a very specific, point-by-point denial of the NYT story, McCain specifically denied that he ever talked to Paxson's CEO, Lowell Paxson (or any other Paxson representative) about this matter:
No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay discussed with Senator McCain the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proceeding. . . . No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC regarding this proceeding.
Au contraire, my fuzzy, feathery pet neocons:
But Newsweek's Mike Isikoff today obtained (or was given) the transcripts of deposition testimony which McCain himself gave under oath several years ago in litigation over the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold. In that testimony, McCain repeatedly and unequivocally stated the opposite of what he said in this week's NYT denial: namely, that he had unquestionably spoken with Paxson himself over the pending FCC matter:
"I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."
While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue -- an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named -- "I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]."
It's hard to imagine how there could be a clearer contradiction in McCain's statements than (a) "I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]" and (b) "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay discussed with Senator McCain the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proceeding."
Set aside the issue of the nature of his relationship with Iseman, and you have the undeniable conflict of McCain, the chest-beating reformer, being so undeniably close to lobbyists. That, many have pointed out, is the real story. The man who's absurdly proclaimed that "I’m the only one the special interests don’t give any money to" is surrounded by lobbyists.
And The Washington Post, a day after it ran its own Iseman story on page one, goes with that story on today's front page under the concise headline, "The Anti-Lobbyist, Advised by Lobbyists."
"I don't have any more comment about this issue. I had a press conference yesterday morning, and I answered every question," McCain said.
"I'm moving on. I'm talking about the issues and the challenges of America and the big issues that Americans are concerned about. I addressed the issue and addressed every question that was addressed to me.
"I do not intend to discuss it further," he told reporters.
After omitting the fact that he lied at that press conference yesterday, McCain then goes on to exactly what he said he wouldn't do: Discuss it further:
"I square it one way," McCain said. "The right to represent interests or groups of Americans is a constitutional right. There are people that represent firemen, civil servants, retirees, and those people are legitimate representatives of a variety of interests in America.
WOOOHOOO! The old "Constitutionally protected" argument from a candidate that regularly ignores and tramples on The Constitution when it comes to your rights and mine. When McCain says he isn't going to talk about it anymore... He is really just praying that we will stop asking and digging on it. Good luck on that one!
So much for the Straight talk express. He’s been trying to spin the influence that Ms. Iseman had on him overall and specifically regarding the Paxson deal. McCain’s camp had this to say:
Statements from McCain’s office said Iseman met only with staff and indicated that a staff member was involved in drafting and sending the letter. Thursday’s statement went to lengths to say why McCain could not have met with Paxson.
There’s a slight problem with that. Bud Paxson basically called McCain a liar.
Broadcaster Lowell “Bud” Paxson yesterday contradicted statements from Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist before sending two controversial letters to the Federal Communications Commission on Paxson’s behalf.
Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson’s quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station.
And what about Vicki Iseman, you know, the lobbyist that McCain called a “friend?”
Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, likely attended the meeting in McCain’s office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting. “Was Vicki there? Probably,” Paxson said in an interview with The Washington Post yesterday. “The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings.”
Team McCain needn’t have worried. This was not your usual political TV show. Warren — Pastor Rick, around here — asked big questions, about big subjects; he wasn’t concerned about what appeared on the front page of that morning’s Washington Post. And his simple, direct, big questions brought out something we don’t usually see in a presidential face-off; in this forum, as opposed to a read-the-prompter speech, or even a debate focused on the issues of the moment, the candidates were forced to call on everything they had — the things they have done and learned throughout their lives. And the fact is, John McCain has lived a much bigger life than Barack Obama.
The fact is that John McCain presented nothing more than canned stump speech answers to most of the questions. Ya know? The same old same old you would expect from any republican campaign. Predictable in his own self reverence (X = Heroic, X= Courage, X= Mavericky touchy feely across the aisle in a way only a republican could ever do), the bulk of the McCain interview was straight off of the pages of a GOP talking point cartoon strip.
When McCain got the question, he was able to tell an old story with a sense of gravity and poignancy that he seldom shows in public. He described his time as a prisoner of war,
“I’ve always put my country first. And one of the times I had that test was years ago, and far way, in a North Vietnamese prison camp, when our North Vietnamese captors came to me and said: ‘You can go home early.’ Well my friends,
Cue this Blogs canned laughter to the canned stumped speech response.
And would the freak stop calling everyone "my friends"... MY FRIENDS understand that there is nothing funny going on with the disaster that is this countries economy and they also understand the view that "$5 million per year" as the line for separating the rich from the poor is not funny unless you are a clueless elitist with a rich wife that balances your checkbook and signs your checks. You can't distort that ridiculously callous statement.
Right now most of MY FRIENDS have cut back on expenses so much that many of them cannot afford one beer for themselves, never mind imagining they are going to be drinking with and from John and Cindy McCain's brewery heiress fortunes.
Calling everyone "my friends" is about as maverICKY as McCain can possibly get.
Some of the real issues that McCain needed to shore up and tried to maneuver as his positives? Here is his response to working with the opposition:
When McCain got the question, everyone in the room thought he would bring up campaign-finance reform, the issue on which he has alienated the Republican base for years. But he didn’t. “Climate change, out-of-control spending, torture,”
Let's look at how McCain reached out across the aisle on these issues, OK?
The Feinstein Amendment would have accomplished all of these objectives, but Senator McCain voted against it, presumably because he wishes that the CIA be permitted to continue the use of other of its enhanced techniques, apart from waterboarding. Those techniques are reported to include stress positions, hypothermia, threats to the detainee and his family, severe sleep deprivation, and severe sensory deprivation.
You can be certain that entrenched Iraqi politicians and power brokers learned many lessons well, on how to cause government breakdown and failure, from the entrenched politicians and power brokers in the GOP currently working hard to give their hand picked successor, John McCain, a shot at continuing bush failures on into the future.
Outside the administration, there is still a lobby pressing for a move against Iraq, but it is President Bush's strong political standing as a wartime commander in chief that will be essential in preparing the country and its allies for an Iraq campaign, foreign diplomats and administration officials say.
On Dec. 5, Congressional leaders sought to frame the justification for attacking Mr. Hussein in a letter to the president.
''For as long as Saddam Hussein is in power in Baghdad, he will seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them,'' said the letter, signed by Senators Trent Lott, Joseph I. Lieberman and John McCain, among others.''We have no doubt that these deadly weapons are intended for use against the United States and its allies. Consequently, we believe we must directly confront Saddam, sooner rather than later.''
Arizona Senator Skipped Every Crucial Vote in 2007
Washington, D.C.--In the 2007 National Environmental Scorecard released today by the League of Conservation Voters, John McCain receives a score of ZERO. McCain was the only member of Congress to skip every single crucial environmental vote scored by the organization, posting a score lower than Members of Congress who were out for much of the year due to serious illnesses--and even lower than some who died during the term. By contrast, the average Member of Congress scored a 53 in 2007. McCain posts a lifetime score of only 24.
Statement of Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director
"We were appalled two weeks ago when John McCain was the only Senator who chose to skip a crucial vote on the future of clean energy in America-dooming the measure to fail by just a single vote. As it turns out, this was merely the most recent example of a clear pattern of missing the most important votes on energy and the environment--as his abysmal LCV score clearly demonstrates.
"McCain missed votes to save his constituents $499 million dollars at the pump and at least $550 million on their energy bills, while creating more than 10,000 new clean energy jobs in his home state.
"Out of 535 Members of Congress, John McCain is the only one who chose to miss every single key environmental vote scored by the League of Conservation Voters last year. When it came time to stand up and vote for the environment, John McCain was nowhere to be found.
"Every other Member who received a zero from LCV last year at least had the temerity to show up and vote against the environment and clean energy time after time. And unlike John McCain, I doubt any of them would claim to be environmental leaders or champions on global warming.
"The votes chosen by LCV represent the most important votes on the most pressing environmental matters facing us today: energy, global warming, clean water, stewardship of our public lands, and other crucial issues. Republicans and Democrats alike in both chambers received perfect scores of 100 this year, proof that being green isn’t a question of red or blue.
"John McCain’s LCV score exposes the real record behind the rhetoric: a lifetime pattern of voting with polluters and special interests instead of consumers and the planet when it comes time to stand up and be counted. Or perhaps worse yet: a consistent refusal to stand up and be counted at all. We encourage people to contact John McCain and tell him it’s time to start showing up to vote when the environment is on the line."
A private roundtable with McCain will be held for his Colorado Finance Committee at 5:30 p.m. at The Petroleum Club at the downtown Denver Athletic Club. Attendees at the roundtable were to raise $25,000 apiece, according to the invitation.
That will be followed by a photo opportunity with McCain for $2,300 per person, then a general reception for $1,000 per person.
According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.
Despite McCain's status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama
McCain, when trying to define "marriage" in one of his canned responses, never seemed to mention - nor did Rick Warren call him out for it - the fact that his definition of marriage didn't mention that you could be a serial marriar in his little world and enjoy multiple affairs unquestioningly. That defines McCain's position on marriage and McCain's real faith right there.
McCains personal actions speak volumes about his real faith where his words failed to reveal the truth about his real political positions.
Though McCain does have big, big - HUGE - credibility issues - not just the with many of the voters that showed up at that forum - this was a forum that was made up of what, in the recent past, was a near guaranteed vote for his corrupt side of the campaign aisle.
I am going to give this pastor the benefit of the doubt on all of this before tonight's debate between Obama and McCain since his background seems to show a little more enlightenment than most of the religious types we have seen spoon-fed to the masses on TV news in the last couple of decades:
"As a pastor, I believe in the separation of church and state, but I don't believe we can separate religion from politics, because one's faith determines one's worldview, which informs one's decisions and determines how one would lead," Warren said.
His views on many of the political problems we face appear to be more encompassing - to include all of the very real problems of AIDS, poverty, the environment - as well as the other issues we usually hear about from the one-trick pony that Dobson's Focus on the Freepers has become. There are too many important issues that Dobsonites have purposefully and completely ignored and, even, fought hard to suppress in the religious discussions of politics.
McCain talked the canned talk but, and this is where McCain's silly walk express falls flat on it's huge BUTT, his voting record clearly shows disdain for all of the other issues where he never walked the walk. Heck, most of the time he didn't even care enough about issues enough to bother to show up to vote.
And, in failing to address these issues honestly and thoughtfully...
McCain lost this debate big time to the newer and younger voters that are going to look at his words, hit the internet... And match his words up against his record.
McCain lived a big lie last night, but has never lived a bigger life than Obama.
The NRO should be embarrassed by their pitiful propaganda piece.
McCain often mentions how his faith sustained him while a prisoner of war in Vietnam, telling how one of his captors treated him humanely and once secretly drew a cross in the first to signal his own faith.
McCain also talks about his stewardship of the environment and care for the poor — his wife helped found the American Voluntary Medical Team and led 55 medical missions overseas to deliver emergency medical care to the poor. Asked to provide medical care to two babies from Mother Theresa's orphanage, McCain brought one home and the McCains adopted her.
McCain, reared an Episcopalian, now attends a Southern Baptist church in Arizona. He opposes abortion rights.
Obama has talked about how his Christian faith influenced his public life, which included working as a neighborhood organizer trying to help people who lost their jobs. He became a practicing Christian as an adult, joining the Trinity Church of Christ headed until recently by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama quit the church during the primary campaign after inflammatory comments by Wright hit the Internet. He supports abortion rights.
What I want to know: Why do they have to write the story to say that McCain attends a different church - You know? Different from the one that gave McCain his faith that was so rock solid that it carried him through his POW experience on into his multiple affairs (not even mentioned in this story on personal faith) and divorce (not a word on that either?) - But Obama?
Obama QUIT the church.
Yep! McCain simply attends a different church but Not Obama... Obama quitthe church. All things considered, is that a fair assessment and honest message coming from any of the traditional media given this topic of personal faith? Interesting choice of words. Kind of straight out of a Frank Luntz school of framing for the media.
How are we supposed to judge a debate focusing on giving "a place for America to hear the candidates' hearts by going beyond moral issues and their virtues, to also share their values and vision for leadership" when important facts are misrepresented and left unchecked in the media before the debate has even started?
Hopefully the pastor will give an honest effort illuminating the issues that are truly in the public interests. But, equally important, I hope that the pastor has done his homework on the many issues that are too often left answered - or are reported on - in a dishonest manner by politicians and media stenographers.
Anyways... The debate, the first time Obama and McQueeg, err, McCain will meet to put forth their positions from any point of view - faith based or not - is tonight at 8 P.M. for your own personal viewing pleasure - Faith based or not.
“Though appearing separately, the candidates will field similar questions about their faith, abortion, same-sex marriage and humanitarian efforts abroad,” writes Maeve Reston in The Los Angeles Times. It is a chance for both to hone their comments on sensitive topics and practice connecting with an audience not chosen by their tightly controlled campaigns.”
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has reaffirmed his stance that marriage is "the union between a man and a woman," although he supports civil unions for gay partners.
Sorry, but I am for marriage equality... Because you can't pick and choose who has a right to freedom. Never mind the fact that I never had to get permission from gays, lesbians and bisexuals in order for me to be allowed to get married to my wife. Why should they have to get my permission?
A note on Warren -- he helped Bush get elected in 2004. And Serious Person of Faith Andrew Sullivan calls him "pernicious."
For the record, this practicing Roman Catholic thinks this is absolutely terrible for the republic and a huge freaking embarrassment. But aided by a pretty decent pinot noir, I'll give you my thoughts, in real time.
Get your Tivos revved up... This really is campaign comercial stuff dreams are made of:
$5 million per year is rich??? How out of touch with the realities of today's economy can McCain possibly be? $5 million per year is uber-ultra-elitist rich. You can bet that Cindy McCain, his second wife, is the one that watches their money 'cause McCain is clueless when it comes to the cost of living.
