John McCain

Bob Fertik — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:58:56 -0500

Display this full page for our collections of important facts about John McCain.

For ongoing stories in the news, check our blog:
http://democrats.com/john-mccain

Palin-McCain: Who Is Top Dog?

Bob Fertik — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:14:39 -0400

McCain - Palin becoming Palin - McCain?

The banners, buttons and signs say McCain-Palin, but the crowds say something else.

''Sa-rah! Pa-lin!'' came the chant at a Colorado Springs rally on Saturday moments before Republican nominee John McCain took the stage with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a woman who was virtually unknown to the nation just a week earlier. The day before, thousands screamed ''Sa-rah! Sa-rah! Sa-rah!'' at an amphitheater outside Detroit.

Palin Won't Answer Questions? Demand a Media Boycott

Bob Fertik — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:26:14 -0400

tnknoxrealtor is outraged that Sarah Palin won't answer a single question from reporters, and she wants the Corporate Media to boycott the McCain-Palin campaign until she does. What do you think?

McCain's Son Costs Taxpayer $500 Million

Bob Fertik — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:18:52 -0400

On Friday the FDIC closed Silver State Bank of Henderson, Nevada

the FDIC estimates that the cost to its Deposit Insurance Fund is between $450 and $550 million

Guess who was a director of the bank? John McCain's son Andy.

Kinda reminds you of John McCain's role in the Keating S&L, and Neil Bush's role in Silverado.

Why are Republicans so mixed up with massive bank failures that cost taxpayers a fortune? And why do we let them anywhere near public office?

Walter Reed Middle School???

Bob Fertik — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:18:27 -0400

Remember how rightwingers and their media whores spent days snickering about the "elitist" Greek columns at Mile High Stadium for Obama's big speech? (Those columns were even featured as laugh lines in GOP hate speeches.)

So McCain's speechwriters chose a different backdrop for his big speech: Walter Reed.

Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC, you say? Nope. Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California. WTF???

John McCain's entire campaign is based on his biography as a POW who survived torture, returned home, and overcame his injuries. That's been the mission of Walter Reed Army Medical Center since May 1, 1909. A photo is on the right. What does it tell you when John McCain's campaign doesn't know the difference?

1. They hate our injured soldiers who are recovering at WRAMC.
2. They are too stupid to run America because they don't even know how to Google.

Of course it's possible they did know the difference, but deliberately decided against using WRAMC when they discovered it had ... Greek columns!!

Cindy Wore Bush's Tax Cut for the Rich

Bob Fertik — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:45:12 -0400

Vanity Fair (h/t Nicole Belle):

Cindy McCain(’s first night of Republican National Convention outfit)

Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000-$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown: $600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100

Which just happens to be the exact amount the McCains got from Bush's tax cuts!

According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the McCains have received $313,413 thanks to George Bush’s tax cut.

If John McCain were President, she might have been able to add a bracelet to the ensemble. According to the same study under McCain proposed tax cuts they would have received tax breaks of $367,788.

For the six years Republicans controlled the White House and Congress, hardworking Americans got a $300 tax cut - while Cindy and John got $300,000.

Cindy wore an outfit worth that exact amount so she could laugh at the rest of us.

Update 1: Jonathan Stein lists some things you could buy for the price of Cindy's outfit:

Buy the average American home, which costs $266,00.
Fund the $5,000 tax credit John McCain proposes giving to working families to help with the annual cost of health care. You could cover 60 families.
Buy 30,000 anti-malarial bed nets, including distribution to Africa and education on use for recipients.
Pay the tuition of 59 Arizona State University students.
Fly a Learjet 60XR for two and a half days at the price of $4,800 an hour (it's the only way to get around Arizona, you know).
Provide 6,000 students with school desks taken away by a schoolteacher that Mike Huckabee knows.
Give tire gauges to 75,949 Americans hit hard by the price of gas, so they can get better mileage in their cars. Or so you can mock Barack Obama.
Send nine community organizers and one part-timer into the streets to work for a better America (hahahaha!).

The Things They Left Behind (or Didn’t Remind You About)

dlindorff — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:02:23 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

The introduction to John McCain at the Republican National
Convention last night was all about family values. There was the paean
to his mother and father, the touching story of his and Cindy’s
adoption of a baby girl from India, and then there was Cindy herself,
who was the focus of much of a gauzy introductory film on McCain, and
who also did the introductory speech, and who brought all the kids up
on stage with her at the end.

Oddly missing from this warm, feel-good picture, however, was a
single mention of McCain’s first wife Carol Shepp—the one who stood by
him, raising their three kids, through his trying five years in a
Vietnamese prison, only to be dumped upon his heroic return for a
younger woman, despite, or because of, her having suffered permanent
disabling and disfiguring injuries in an auto accident during his
absence. As in a Stalin-era photo, she had been air-brushed from the McCain family tableau, even as her offspring were up there on the stage on display with the rest of the Senator's spawn.

Now I’m not faulting McCain for leaving his wife for a younger,
richer woman. Who knows what the relationship was like at the time.
Maybe Shepp wanted him out of her life by the time he started slipping
off to date beer heiress Cindy Lou Hensley. But if McCain and his
campaign staff wanted to make him a poster child for “family values,”
they should have had the basic integrity to explain that he didn’t
always consider marriage a binding covenant, for better or worse,
richer or poorer, and in sickness or in health. (If you want an
unvarnished view of the real John McCain, read an interview with Carol
McCain published last June in the UK newspaper, The Mail, headlined The Wife US Republican John McCain Callously Left Behind.)

McCain’s party, and his fundamentalist Christian backers, are
always attacking efforts by gay Americans to win the right to marry by
saying that marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman, but
clearly, with over half of all those marriages between a man and a
woman ending in divorce, it’s not all that sacred, and McCain is living
testament to that hypocrisy.

But this was just the most blatant of a string of hypocrisies that ran on for four days in the Twin Cities.

There was the long list of speakers touting America’s “freedoms”
as, outside the convention hall, police thugs dressed in military gear,
and armed with huge batons and assault weaponry were bashing in doors
and terrorizing journalists, arresting others and dragging them face
down along the street, using teargas against peaceful demonstrators and
arresting them by the hundreds.

There was McCain talking about how everyone, including the “child
of Latino immigrants,” is an American, to an audience of Republicans
that was so embarrassingly white that you had to shield your eyes from
the glare of the screen.

There was Sarah Palin, complaining about a media focus on her
pregnant 17-year-old daughter Bristol, all the while shamelessly
parading that same daughter and her 18-year-old impregnator, who was
dragged down to the convention to be shown off after the two had been
somehow convinced to get married and make the baby “legal.”

There were the repeated characterizations of McCain as a battler
against corruption and the influence of “special interests,” without a
word of mention of his having been the recipient of over $100,000 in
cash from Charles Keating, a corrupt banker whose interests McCain
shamelessly pimped for in Congress, only narrowly escaping indictment
himself.

Perhaps the most outrageous hypocrisy of all was claiming that the
McCain/Palin ticket would be “taking on” the corrupt Washington
Establishment, as though that establishment hadn’t been predominantly
Republican for most of the past decade, and as though McCain and Palin
hadn’t been an integral part of it. McCain, after all, has spent those
years dutifully voting with his Republican peers over 90 percent of the
time, shoveling out perks to the rich and the corporations, while
Palin, first as mayor of the small town of Wasilla, and then as
governor of Alaska, employed an Abramoff-linked Washington lobbyist to
help win massive amounts of corrupt “earmarks” for her town and state.
She even backed the notorious $400-million earmark for the “Bridge to
Nowhere” until it became a national joke, yet there she was, in her
acceptance speech, claiming to have opposed that outrageous taxpayer
ripoff.

Republicans are claiming that this election will not be about
issues as much as about character. But given the incredible fraud that
was perpetrated on viewers by the four-day Republican extravaganza, I’d
say it’s more about caricature.
_________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback). His work is available at: www.thiscantbehappening.net

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What does it have to do with anything

tfo4 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:44:17 -0400

I honestly respect any man who serves our country! Let me say that first but...I have to ask.

What does John McCains being a POW have to do with ANYTHING!? His political views and whether or not anyone should vote for him has absolutely nothing to do with his service record. What he can or will do for our country or the average american has NOTHING to do with what happened to him while he was in the service. They make such a big deal out of this and I had to ask...do they think that means a damn thing to most of us?

Just for an FYI, much like McCain i grew up in a military family. My father has been in both the Army and Navy practically his whole life and is still currently in the Navy. My father who is a career man has had to work and work hard for everything he has! After asking him the same question he wasnt sure what McCain believes his service record has anything to do with the nomination for presidency.

I just dont know...

Meet the Truth-Challenged GOP Vice Presidential Candidate: Sure A. Pallin'

dlindorff — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:20:27 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Now that we’ve had a chance to see Sarah Palin and to hear her speak—or at least read the big rolling white block letters on the teleprompter in front of her—we can see that she’s prone to telling whoppers.

Now we know politicians as a group have a propensity to embellish the truth—particularly when describing their opponents or themselves—and even to lie outright, but Palin does it so well, she’s like a George Bush with reading and pronunciation skills.

In her acceptance speech last night, Palin told a whole string of lies. My favorite was talking about little Trig, her latest offspring, who was born with Down syndrome. Looking right out into the camera, she told the parents of America with special needs children that if she and John McCain win in November, “You’ll have an advocate in Washington.”

Hard to square that with the truth, though, which is that as governor, Palin as proposed a reduction in funds for special needs grants to schools in both her budgets—this at a time that the state of Alaska has been benefiting from record oil tax revenues, which Palin is pushing to return to citizens as cash rebates.

Left unsaid by Palin was the fact that McCain himself, in Congress, has voted against funding for the Head Start program, an early childhood program particularly important to children of teen mothers, and that he has opposed bills to increase funding for special education. So in fact, parents of children with special needs like Trig not only won’t have an advocate in the vice president’s office; they won’t have an advocate in the White House either.

Palin has also tried to turn a family tragedy—her 17-year old daughter Bristol’s getting pregnant by a local self-described 18-year-old “redneck” athlete from the same high school—into a virtue by saying that she and her husband will be helping their daughter “keep the child” and raise it. To keep things cool in the eyes of god, she also announced that the two teen parents would be getting married. Both kids were prominently on display at the Republican National Convention during her speech.

What Palin didn’t tell convention-goers or the national viewing audience was that as governor she cut the funds for a program in the state to support single teen mothers and that as a PTA member, mayor and finally as governor of Alaska, she has opposed sex education in the schools—something that her daughter and future son-in-law clearly could have used. Less advantaged single mothers in Alaska and, should she be elected, in the rest of America, will not have a friend in Blair House. She also failed to mention that McCain has voted against funding of teen pregnancy prevention programs in Congress.

Palin continued, in her acceptance speech, to spout another lie which she had already been making in her first days on the stump since being picked by McCain as his choice for running mate: that she had said “No thank you” to the $439-million “Bridge to Nowhere” which, as perhaps the biggest single earmark in a year of record earmarks last year had become a national joke line. The truth: Palin backed that bridge, and was even ready to add state funding to get it built, until it became a national joke. Then she thought better, and killed the bridge, while still taking the money, which the state’s senior senator, Ted Stevens (now under indictment for taking bribes from contractors), had earmarked.

Palin went on to lie about her opponent, Barack Obama’s, tax plan, saying it would raise taxes on businesses and on all Americans. In fact, Obama’s plan calls for lowering the corporate profits tax, while increasing the tax on dividends and capital gains, both of which fall not on businesses but on investors, and for lowering taxes on most Americans, while raising them for people earning over $250,000.

John McCain likes to ride around in a bus he dubs the “Straight-Talk Express.”

Sarah Palin, in her debut on the national stage since being named as McCain’s Number Two, has lied enough times to deserve the sobriquet “Sure A. Pallin’.
___________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Pitbull With Lipstick

Bob Fertik — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:18:16 -0400

Sarah Palin introduced herself to America and the world last night with the nastiest primetime convention speech since Zell Miller.

"They say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick."

If Sarah Palin wants to call herself a pitbull with lipstick, so be it.

John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis declared "This election is not about issues." Nope - for McCain-Palin and their Republican Party, it's exclusively about arrogant, sneering, vicious contempt.

Why? Because after 8 years of destroying America and the planet, contempt is all they've got. the last thing they want to talk about is issues, as Glenzilla explains:

The Republicans are well aware that they can't possibly win the election if it is even partially decided based on issues. They need and intend to win despite the fact that Americans hate their positions on the issues, and to do that, they want to ensure that a majority of Americans love and respect the strong, honorable, principled, culturally familiar all-American mavericks John McCain and Sarah Palin (even if they don't agree with them on everything) while strongly disliking that wishy-washy, snooty, foreign, exotic, self-absorbed Eastern elitist Barack Obama (even if he says the right things on issues).

Obviously the Republican campaign is not about reaching swing voters in the middle, which is where elections are won. Instead they're offering voters the simplest possible choice: you're either with them or you're against them. Too bad the overwhelming majority of Americans are against them.

Since that's the Republican campaign plan, all I can say is three words: Bring. It. On.

Update 1: Matt Stoller:

When I left [Minneapolis], this was a deadened and frustrated group. But now I see on TV an air chopping Giuliani dripping with hatred in a symbiotic relationship with a lustful and excited crowd. This hatred, this anger, this rage is what they love. This is who they are.

This party is aroused by a raw primal screeching bitterness. I don't know if independents see Rudy's prime time speech like I see it, but what I see is a vicious white mob who laugh and sneer at people losing their homes in the name of small town American values and who hate community organizers standing up for those people.

Update 2: Nate Silver says Palin's speech worked great - for Democrats:

In the past several hours, Dems I’ve spoken with and who’ve flooded my inbox are energized. A woman friend and Democrat who had not worked for Obama’s campaign: “I am volunteering tomorrow.” An Obama organizer who was operating on fumes five months ago: “They are not getting away with this. 10 hours of call time tomorrow.” A shorter read of the mood: “Let’s get it on.”

The mockery went too far. They played the “Obama doesn’t love America, just himself” card, over and over and over. For people already inclined to believe that (i.e., the hardcore Republican base), the speech was a smashing success. Maybe they will work a little harder, volunteer a few more hours, dig a little deeper into their pockets. But so will partisan Dems, who are far more plugged into watching the election coverage.

So my reaction: St. Paul loved this speech… and so did Chicago. Palin swung for the fences, mocking the very notion of community organizing. So did Giuliani. This was the day after “Service” was the theme, and Republicans fell all over themselves praising their party’s commitment to give back to the community. Jarring.

Fire up both bases equally, it’s not even close. Obama wins going away. In 2008, there are so many more Democrats, numerically.

Update 3: Attaturk says the GOP campaign is based on a surprising "ideal":

That Americans are stupid, base, resentful and bigoted. That if one can scream and bloviate loudly enough you can keep your Party in power even when it is about as popular as chlamydia. How Mavericky!...

Never mind what you will actually do once in power other than fire those not beholden to you and, oh yes, DRILL, DRILL, DRILL. Never mind policies, it is, after all, from your point of view, all about the personalities and not the issues. And to get there we must stop criticizing your children so you get a full on chance to exploit them? When does little Trig get passed to the loving arms of Tom DeLay anyhow? No wonder the consistent look on the face of John McCain's mother was one of badly repressed horror.

Update 4: Here's the reaction from the focus group of Clinton-supporting Nevada women - the very women Palin needs to win over from Obama for McCain to beat him:

In the "married" group, when one attendee kicked off the discussion by saying "she's a good speaker, and a crowd pleaser," the rest of the room articulated their agreement. "I didn't expect to be as impressed as I was," said another respondent. But then another woman added: "Once she started mudslinging, I thought, it's the same old crap as other politicians. McCain used her to get the women's vote. And she's using McCain."

"Thank you," another woman responded. "That really upset me; there was no need for that. It was snippy."

The unmarried group also voiced similar objections to the harsh, partisan edge of Palin's remarks. "I'm not impressed with her at all as a person," one said, citing her "finger pointing" and general sarcasm after the group had generally agreed that she was a talented public speaker.

Update 5: Of course Palin repeated all the lies about her own record that have been debunked in the past few days:

I suspended the state fuel tax, and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. Strike One.

I told the Congress “thanks, but no thanks,” for that Bridge to Nowhere. Strike Two.

If our state wanted a bridge, we’d build it ourselves. When oil and gas prices went up dramatically, and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged - directly to the people of Alaska. Strike Three.

Update 6: Republicans did such a great job "working the refs" by complaining the "vetting" of Palin was raw sexism that most pundits turned off their brains after Palin's speech and declared it a "home run." But there were a few exceptions including Jeffrey Toobin.

Update 7: Good one-liners from some of our favorite bloggers:

Hunter: "Her as president. Just imagine it for a second. Her. As. President."
Kagro X: "The church lady with the nukular button."
TRex: Ann Coulter in a Reindeer Sweater
Unidentified Politico reader: "Mrs. Palin needs to be reminded that Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor."

Update 8: Will Bunch calls it Palin's speech to nowhere for many excellent reasons, above all

the great bulk of it was devoted to one thing, and that is the one thing that millions of Americans are talking about in 2008 when we talk about "change" -- to the ugliest kind of "pit bull" politics, to use Palin's words, that tear down the other side with cheap ad hominem attacks, surrounded by a cloud of half-truths (uh, those "Greek columns"...did you actually even watch Obama's speech? Because there weren't any) and ridiculous innuendo about "parting the waters" which means nothing but fires up a big hockey rink full of Dittoheads.

These kind of vicious attacks -- without having the grace to acknowledge that, despite some real differences on issues with Obama, that he has already accomplished something impressive that says something positive about America and the progress we've made -- were utterly lacking in class. And this is what Tom Brokaw considers "winning" -- have we really sunk that low as a nation?. The people of America want and deserve a real debate, not trash talk from the basketball point guard who was once called "Sarah Barracuda."

I hope America wakes up tomorrow and realizes that Sarah Palin's words were rousing -- and completely empty, that they offered no road map (let alone bridge) for America other than more of the bogus partisan name-calling that has gotten us into the mess that we're in now.

Actually, let me rephrase that.

I hope America wakes up tomorrow.

Update 9: Roger Simon apologizes to Republicans on behalf of The Media:

We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.

We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?

We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?

Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.

It is not our job to ask questions. Or it shouldn’t be. To hear from the pols at the Republican National Convention this week, our job is to endorse and support the decisions of the pols.

Of course Stephen Colbert said it better, and said it right to the Media's (and Bush's) face:

let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The President makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!

Update 10: Stirling Newberry urges us to "define" Palin as

a frenetic extremist who is a bundle of contradictions: a supposed free-marketeer whose state's residents get large checks from the government, a clean government campaigner who wins elections based on bringing home government pork, a Christianist extremist who is bent on reducing rights while claiming to be part of the Leave-us-alone coalition...