John McCain is a maverick senator, Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war for 5 years in North Vietnam. In 2000, he nearly beat George W. Bush by being an outspoken, even honest politician, which stunned everybody. He also is known for crafting bipartisan approaches to issues such as smoking and campaign reform.
This time around though, at 71, he apparently decided "now or never" and seems to have sold his soul, suddenly adopting a bunch of boilerplate conservative positions he was brave enough to resist 8 years ago. Now, conveniently, he's even claiming to be a Baptist instead of an Episcopalian.
It didn't look like anyone was buying it for a while there, but danged if he hasn't come back and pretty much sewed up the Republican nomination. McCain went from front runner to 3rd or 4th in various polls, spent all of his huge pile of cash and lost most of his staff, and worked his way back into a dominant position.
John McCain grew up Episcopalian. He went to an Episcopalian high school. For at least 15 years, he has been listed as an Episcopalian in authoritative directories such as the Almanac of American Politics and Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America 2008. He told a reporter from McClatchy News Service in June 2007 that he was an Episcopalian.
Suddenly, in September 2007, he's campaigning in South Carolina, the heavily Baptist state where George W. Bush barely managed to stop McCain's presidential campaign 8 years ago. And guess what? McCain tells a reporter "By the way, I'm not Episcopalian. I'm Baptist."
When pressed, he said he's attended the North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona for more than 15 years, though he has never been baptized in that church. Now see, that's exactly the problem. Baptism is kind of a big thing in the Baptist Church. (That's how they got the name.) No baptism, not Baptist.
Anyway, details aside, this is one very clear indication of how McCain has changed. Now, he's just another hungry politician, happy to pander if it helps him win. Which eliminates the very reason people were excited about him in 2000 -- his honesty.
Back in the old days, defendants in famous trials got numbers -- the Chicago Eight, the Gang of Four, the Dave Clark Five, the Daytona 500. McCain was one of the "Keating Five," congressmen investigated on ethics charges for strenuously helping convicted racketeer Charles Keating after he gave them large campaign contributions and vacation trips.
Charles Keating was convicted of racketeering and fraud in both state and federal court after his Lincoln Savings & Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $3.4 billion. His convictions were overturned on technicalities; for example, the federal conviction was overturned because jurors had heard about his state conviction, and his state charges because Judge Lance Ito (yes, that judge) screwed up jury instructions. Neither court cleared him, and he faces new trials in both courts.)
Though he was not convicted of anything, McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating after Keating gave McCain at least $112,00 in contributions. In the mid-1980s, McCain made at least 9 trips on Keating's airplanes, and 3 of those were to Keating's luxurious retreat in the Bahamas. McCain's wife and father-in-law also were the largest investors (at $350,000) in a Keating shopping center; the Phoenix New Times called it a "sweetheart deal."
In 1995, McCain sent birthday regards, and regrets for not attending, to Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonano, the head of the New York Bonano crime family, who had retired to Arizona. Another politician to send regrets was Governor Fife Symington, who has since been kicked out of office and convicted of 7 felonies relating to fraud and extortion.
McCain has a reputation as a politician who has difficulty keeping his pants zipped, according to Republican sources. He acknowledges that his adultery broke up his first marriage. His second wife Cindy, the daughter of a wealthy Budweiser beer distributor, was addicted to prescription narcotics and even stole hard drugs from a medical charity that she ran. McCain acknowledges that she didn't want him to run, and only agreed once he promised that she doesn't have to go to New Hampshire or Iowa.
The odd blending of instrumentation on this
album jarred my sensibilities. I likened my experience of listening
to "Living With War" as to listening to a new Radiohead
or Wilco album. I was able to wrap my head around the 100 person
back-up vocal track and the trumpet after about 4 passes, at which
time I concluded that this may be Neil Young's best album since
Ragged Glory. It differs from Ragged Glory in the sense that "Living
With War" is more of a forward-thinking conceptual piece than
a straight forward Crazy Horse Album. The piece as a whole is reminiscent
of Roger Waters' "Amused to Death." When the individual
songs connect with you, they hit you like Viet Nam-era Bob Dylan.
Give it a chance. After the first few listens, the lyrics stop sounding
like the headlines and they start sounding like songs.
Scooter Libby drops dime
on Dick Cheney in Valerie/ Plame CIA leak
case: "(Scooter was) authorized to disclose information about
the National Intelligence Estimate to the press by his superiors."
From DemocracyNow.org
New evidence has emerged linking Vice President Dick Cheney to the
outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Investigative journalist
Murray Waas has revealed testimony from Lewis “Scooter”
Libby – Cheney’s indicted former chief of staff -- before
a federal grand jury. Libby testified he had been “authorized”
by Cheney and other White House “superiors” to disclose
classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration’s
use of prewar intelligence in making the case to invade Iraq. Larry
Johnson, a former intelligence official and colleague of Plame's
said: "This was not some rogue operation, but was directed
at the highest levels, and specifically by Dick Cheney. Libby was
definitely a man with a mission, but a man who was given a mission."
January 26,2006
George W. Bush is a saint
President Bush was scheduled to worship
at a small Methodist Church outside Washington, D.C. as part
of Karl Rove's campaign to reverse Bush's rapidly deteriorating
approval ratings. A week before
the visit, Rove called on the Methodist Bishop who was scheduled
to preach on the chosen Sunday.
"As you know, Bishop," began Rove, "we've been getting a lot of
bad publicity among Methodists because of the president's position
on stem cell research and the like. We'd gladly arrange for
Jack Abramoff's friends to make a contribution of $100,000 to the
church if during your sermon you would say that President Bush
is a saint."
The Bishop thought about it for a few minutes,
and finally said, "This
parish is in rather desperate need of funds ... I'll agree to do
it."
The following Sunday, Bush pompously showed up for the photo op,
looking especially smug even while attempting to appear pious.
After making a few announcements, the Bishop
began his homily: "George
W. Bush is a petty, vindictive, sanctimonious hypocrite and a nitwit.
He is a liar, a cheat, and a low-intelligence weasel with the world's
largest chip on his shoulder. He used every dirty election
trick in the book and still lost, but his toadies in the Supreme
Court appointed him. He lied about his military record in
which he used special privilege to avoid combat, and then had the
gall to dress up and pose on an aircraft carrier before a banner
stating "Mission Accomplished."
He invaded a sovereign country for oil
and war profiteering, turning Iraq into a training ground for
terrorists who would destroy our country. He continues
to confuse the American people by insisting on a nonexistent
connection between the horrors of 9/11 and the reason he started
his war in Iraq .
He routinely appoints incompetent and unqualified
cronies to high-level federal government positions and as a result,
hundreds and hundreds of Americans died tragically in New Orleans
. He lets corporate
polluters despoil God's creation and doom our planet. He
uses fearmongering to justify warrantless spying on American citizens,
in clear violation of our Constitution. He is so psychotic
and megalomaniacal that he believes that he was chosen by God.
He is the worst example of a Methodist
I have ever personally known. But compared to Dick Cheney and
Karl Rove and the rest of the evil fascist bastards in this administration,
George W. Bush is a saint."
September
8,2005
August 16, 2005
Real-life Redneck Rampage in Crawford
Texas. A Waco Man in truck runs over the crosses of the Arlington
West Memorial.
What
exactly is the Salvadorian option? The Pentagon is debating
an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan
administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency
in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war
against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported
death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.
Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives
consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths
of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages
scandal. Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send
Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi
squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite
militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even
across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar
with the discussions.
