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Why are you for or against John McCain?

I think McCain is going to have a difficult time, as republican nominee for the US presidency. I don't think he is ethical or exhibits steadfast convictions to his core beliefs, except for his paranoid reaction to our enemies, and towards the terrorists, but luckily for him, his republican supporters will not even notice those shortcomings.

I posted the following, on another thread, exactly two years ago:

My opinion is that John McCain's hypocrisy knows no bounds, and that he is not fit to hold elective office because he has a history of not knowing right from wrong, or of representing the best interests of his constituents.

Here are examples (From Dec., 2005, and in Sept., 1989) of McCain's flawed ethics and penchant for putting his own interests ahead of what is best for his constituents, and for you and me....

Quote:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10266650/

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to corruption, and here's a headline from the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Lobbyist Jack Abramoff helped fuel conservative successes, but his dealings could lead to a powerful ethical fallout ... Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed, antitax guru Grover Norquist, members of Congress, Administration officials, and a host of lobbyists have been drawn into Senate or Justice Department investigations of Abramoff's lobbying activities. ... The Abramoff story `is breathtaking in its reach,' [Sen. John] McCain said."
Do you expect indictments?

SEN. McCAIN: Oh, sure. And lots of them. This is--this town has become very corrupt. There's no doubt about it. And we need lobbying reform. We need to have some reform of lobbying. But the system here, where so much is done in the way of policy and money, in appropriations bills where line items are put in in secret, which nobody knows about or sees until after they're voted on, is the problem. That's the problem today. So therefore, someone who wants some money or a policy change hires a lobbyist who is well connected. They go to the appropriate subcommittee or committee, appropriations, and they write in the line item. That part has to be fixed, I think, as much as anything else.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, you said you're going to follow the money, but are you also going to investigate which legislators may have taken money and used that to influence legislation, to write into law what you're suggesting...

SEN. McCAIN: Tim...

<b>MR. RUSSERT: ...the behavior of senators, your colleagues? Are you going to investigate them?

SEN. McCAIN: The--I will not, because I'm a chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. This was brought to our--this whole thing started--was brought to us--attention by some disgruntled tribal council members in a small tribe in Louisiana, and we took it as far as we thought was our responsibility, which is where the money ends up.</b> I'm not as--we are responsible for Indian affairs. We have an Ethics Committee. We have a government--we have other committees of Congress, but we also have a very active media. And believe me...

MR. RUSSERT: Does the Ethics Committee work?

SEN. McCAIN: I don't think...

MR. RUSSERT: In all honesty?

SEN. McCAIN: I don't think the Ethics Committees are working very well. The latest Cunningham scandal was uncovered by the San Diego newspaper, not by anyone here...

Quote:

http://www.azcentral.com/specials/sp...cainbook5.html
Chapter V: The Keating Five

Bill Muller
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 3, 1999 12:12 PM

As a war hero and U.S. senator, John McCain's life has been chronicled in pictures.

There are grainy mug shots of a young McCain, printed in U.S. newspapers after his jet was shot down over North Vietnam. There are black-and-white images of his return, grinning and waving, his hair turned prematurely gray by 5 1/2 years of malnutrition and torture in a Hanoi prison camp.

In happier times, there is McCain holding his newborn daughter while his wife, Cindy, smiles from her hospital bed.

But it is an innocent vacation picture that symbolizes McCain's Achilles heel and carries the reminder of the scandal that threatened his political career.

In the picture, which was taken in the Bahamas, McCain is seated on a bandstand while wearing an outrageous, straw party hat. Next to him on the dais, a bottle tipped to his lips, sits Charles Keating III, son of developer Charles H Keating Jr.

McCain calls the Keating scandal ''my asterisk.'' Over the years, his opponents have failed to turn it into a period.........

....But McCain made a critical error.

In spinning his side of the Keating story, McCain adopted the blanket defense that Keating was a constituent and that he had every right to ask his senators for help. In attending the meetings, McCain said, he simply wanted to make sure that Keating was treated like any other constituent.

Keating was far more than a constituent to McCain, however.

On Oct. 8, 1989, The Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators.

The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.

McCain also did not pay Keating for the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433.

<b>When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself. When reporters first called him, he was furious. Caught out in the open, the former fighter pilot let go with a barrage of cover fire. Sen. Hothead came out in all his glory.

''You're a liar,''' McCain snapped Sept. 29 when a Republic reporter asked him about business ties between his wife and Keating.

''That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot,'' McCain said later in the same conversation. ''You do understand English, don't you?''

He also belittled the reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating.

''It's up to you to find that out, kids.''

And then he played the POW card.

''Even the Vietnamese didn't question my ethics,'' McCain said.</b>

The paper ran the story a few days later. At a news conference, McCain was a changed man. He stood calmly for 90 minutes and answered every question.

On the shopping center, his defense was simple. The deal did not involve him. The shares in the shopping center had been purchased by a partnership set up between McCain's wife and her father.

But McCain also had to explain his trips with Keating and why he didn't pay Keating back right away.

On that score, McCain admitted he had fouled up. He said he should have reimbursed Keating immediately, not waited several years. His staff said it was an oversight, but it looked bad, McCain jetting around with Keating, then going to bat for him with the federal regulators.

Meanwhile, Lincoln continued to founder.

In April 1989, two years after the Keating Five meetings, the government seized Lincoln, which declared bankruptcy. In September 1990, Keating was booked into Los Angeles County Jail, charged with 42 counts of fraud. His bond was set at $5 million.

During Keating's eventual trial, the prosecution produced a parade of elderly investors who had lost their life's savings by investing in American Continental junk bonds.
'THE ULTIMATE SURVIVOR'
In November 1990, the Senate Ethics Committee convened to decide what punishment, if any, should be doled out to the Keating Five.

Robert Bennett, who would later represent President Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones case, was the special counsel for the committee. In his opening remarks, he slammed DeConcini but went lightly on McCain, the lone Republican ensnared with four Democrats.

''In the case of Senator McCain, there is very substantial evidence that he thought he had an understanding with Senator DeConcini's office that certain matters would not be gone into at the meeting with (bank board) Chairman (Ed) Gray,'' Bennett said.

''Moreover, there is substantial evidence that, as a result of Senator McCain's refusal to do certain things, he had a fallout with Mr. Keating.''

McCain, the ultimate survivor, had dodged another missile.

Among the Keating Five, McCain received the most direct contributions from Keating. But the investigation found that he was the least culpable, along with Glenn. McCain attended the meetings but did nothing afterward to stop Lincoln's death spiral.

Lincoln's losses eventually were set at $3.4 billion, the most expensive failure in the national S&L scandal.

McCain also looked good in contrast to DeConcini, who continued to defend Keating until fall 1989, when federal regulators filed a $1.1 billion civil racketeering and fraud suit against Keating, accusing him of siphoning Lincoln's deposits to his family and into political campaigns.

In the end, McCain received only a mild rebuke from the Ethics Committee for exercising ''poor judgment'' for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating. Still, he felt tarred by the affair.

''The appearance of it was wrong,'' McCain said recently. ''It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do.''

McCain noted that Bennett, the independent counsel, recommended that McCain and Glenn be dropped from the investigation.

''For the first time in history, the Ethics Committee overruled the recommendation of the independent counsel,'' McCain said. ''I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I was the only Republican of the five and the Democrats were in the majority (in the Senate).''

But McCain owns up to his mistake:

''I was judged eventually, after three years, of using, quote, poor judgment, and I agree with that assessment.''

<b>If you or I extorted or defrauded money to the tune of milions of dollars from Indian tribes, do you think that John McCain would investigate and push for indictments against us?</b>

I'm am absolutely appalled that he may actually get the nomination. If he does he has almost no chance of beating Hillary or Obama. Democrats are coming out to vote in this primary almost 2 to 1 compared to the republicans.

Plus the only states John does well in during the primaries are typically liberal states in the general election which works against him. The only thing that 'might' save him is if there is another domestic terrorist attack or hillary/obama falls on its face.

The absolute worst thing he has done though is vote for the Military Commissions Act. I lost all respect for him when he did that. He publically came out against torture but voted for this bill that allows evidence to be use in court that was discovered through torture.

A despisable man.

I remember seeing an episode of the Daily Show in which a debate is set up using Bush recordings in 1999 and 2005, where the each are as different as black and white on key issues. I was shocked to realize just how drastically he had changed.

One could easily arrange the same thing with clips of McCain's different, bizarre incarnations. I can only come to two possible conclusions: either he's aware or he's unaware.

If he's aware, then he's (to used a coined title) a 'flip-flopper' of massive scale. His inconsistency speaks in volume of policies that are not his own but rather a weak reflection of what he believes that his party wants. I would argue that this is actually the better of the two options as it means he could be swayed to do the right thing.

If he's not aware, then he's probably suffering from mild dementia due to his age and a few life experiences. The last thing we need is a man in the oval office who thinks it's 1963 and his kids are playing in the yard.

Needless to say, I'm against McCain. BTW, I'm leaving "Bomb bomb Iran" out of this thread because I get mad even thinking about it.

I think his flip flopping on and admitted illiteracy about economic and tax policy issues has the potential, by itself, to diminish his conseravtive support, but, it hasnt so far.....

Quote:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110007600
'Reform. Reform. Reform.'
John McCain explains his eclectic--and troubling--economic philosophy.
by STEPHEN MOORE
Saturday, November 26, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

....On a broader range of economic issues, though, Mr. McCain readily departs from Reaganomics. His philosophy is best described as a work in progress. He is refreshingly blunt when he tell me: "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." OK, so who does he turn to for advice? His answer is reassuring. His foremost economic guru is former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm (who would almost certainly be Treasury secretary in a McCain administration). He's also friendly with the godfather of supply-side economics, Arthur Laffer.

But Mr. McCain is no antitax supply-sider himself. He grandstanded against the Bush capital-gains and dividend tax cuts and even co-sponsored an amendment with Tom Daschle to scuttle the reduction in the highest income-tax rates. Why? "I just thought it was too tilted to the wealthy and I still do. I want to cut the taxes on the middle class." Even when I confront him with emphatic evidence that those tax cuts have been an economic triumph and have increased revenues, he is unrepentant and defends his "no" vote by falling back on class-warfare type thinking: "We have a wealth gap in this country, and that worries me."
...

Quote:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/..._its_abou.html
December 18, 2007

....McCain suggested to reporters Monday that American consumer culture offered a short cut to expertise. "The issue
of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," McCain said. "I've got Greenspan's book."...

It appears to me that Billary is gonna get the Democratic party nomination and that McCain is gonna get the Republican party nomination. If my guess is correct, the Republicans will have nominated the only person on the face of the planet incapable of beating Hillary. I would have thought that the Republicans would have been careful to avoid making the mistake that the Democrats made in the last presidential race. (John Kerry being the only person on the face of the planet that was incapable of beating dubya).

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

I think his flip flopping on and admitted illiteracy about economic and tax policy issues has the potential, by itself, to diminish his conseravtive support, but, it hasnt so far.....

And I have no clue why. I really hope some TFP conservatives and answer as to what this phenomenon is. His jumping around on abortion alone should be enough to shake the pillars of his whole campaign, but he raped Huck and Romey soundly on Tuesday. It doesn't make any sense.

McCain is just another Bush. He wants to stay in Iraq another 100 years.

Pat Motherfucking Buchanan said on Tuesday that McCain will make Cheney look like Gandhi.

If that's not enough: Lieberman endorses him.

I used to like McCain--enough that if he'd gotten the nomination in 2000, I'd have had a hard time not voting for him. Now he just seems like a sad, angry old man who wants to nuke the planet before he dies.

Everyone can come in illegally, No new oil wells, no tax cuts...

McCain almost got kicked out of the Naval Academy several times and finished at the bottom of his class. His career, until he got shot down, wasn't particularly noteworthy, at least in a postitive sense. As I've posted elsewhere, if he wins, he would be the first POTUS tortured by a foreign power.

Mccain is as liberal as hillary is conservative. this election is bass ackwards. Obama seems to be the only one presenting a positive image here.

The best thing for the republican party is for Obama or Hilary to win.

Its a short term loss for a long term gain.

My thoughts on McCain is that he has played the middle, but been a good republican when he was needed to be a good republican. I've never cared for him, but if he can mend fences with conservatives, or if Obama/Hilary scares them enough the republicans will come along.

Honestly if the democrats are worried about losing THIS election, they might as well shut down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

The best thing for the republican party is for Obama or Hilary to win.

Interesting thought. I assume that you've got Goldwater's 64 campaign in mind when you typed that. Or possibly Ford's 76 debacle?

Then again, Alan Keyes didn't do much to unite Illinois Republicans. They're still in shambles - as I'm certain you know.

If a Democrat wins the White House, they'll be held responsible for the inevitably messy cleanup of George W. Bush's presidency. The American people can be a fickle bunch, and when that cleanup doesn't go swimmingly - and it won't - they may very well blame the Democratic president, and vote for a Republican in 2012.

I'd like to be wrong, but I do see it as a possibility.

He's old. Ancient, even. Old like rode-a-velociraptor-to-work. I'm against voting in somebody who's probably handled a set of Roebuckers.

Apparently, the GOP didn't get the message in 2006. Letting McCain, Romney, and Huckabee get this far while letting solidly conservative nominees like Thompson and Paul flounder in the wake may have been solid for mainstream political entities such as big business, but only pissed off the conservative constituency by ignoring them. The next two election years will see alot of faux republicans get replaced with democrats. 2012 should be a strong showing of solid conservative candidates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

Illinois really isn't a fair state to to compare national conservatism to. Red in Illinois really means blue dog.

Illinois is a special case.

The Keys thing was just the band playing on a sinking ship.

We had a corrupt republican governor. He lost support of the party and on his way down he did everything in his power to torpedo the republican party in the state.

He succeeded, but the guy was a total scum bag so I can't fault the republicans for doing it here.

I do fault them for their piss poor recovery after and Keys running was assinine.

Here in the UK, Obama and Hilary are stealing all the US election headlines. The perception is almost as if the presidency is being contested between them at this stage rather than just the Democratic candidacy. I personally know very little about any of the Republican candidates.

McCain in 2008 is to Bob Dole was in 1996 to the republican party.

IMO

edit -> poorly written, but I'm sticking with it after doing some shots of Makers with my brother on his 32nd b-day.

McCain is wrong about the war in Iraq. I couldn't possibly vote for him because of that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy

McCain is wrong about the war in Iraq. I couldn't possibly vote for him because of that.

Hi guyy.

How so? It's a friendly question.

Alert the Media. I agree with Ustwo. Of course, that's why I wouldn't be all broken up to see McCain take the WhiteHouse. I'd rather he didn't, mind you, but it wouldn't send me into the foaming at the mouth fury that Dubya did.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tophat665

Don't feel alone. It's not that far from many opinions I've heard lately.

Oddly enough, I can live with McCain or Obama for very different reasons. McCain would not take the world to hell in a hand-basket (at least on purpose) and Obama would be a total adventure (weee?).

Hillary is a machine, I'm picturing Tawnya Harding kneecapping Nancy Carrigan if things get too close. She's a caricature, McCain and Obama seem more human.

I'm conflicted.

An interesting quote I just heard on tv last night.

One news person said (and I think it was James Buccanan),
"If McCain wins, he's gonna make Dick Cheney look like Ghandi."

Quote:

Originally Posted by hunnychile

An interesting quote I just heard on tv last night.

One news person said (and I think it was James Buccanan),
"If McCain wins, he's gonna make Dick Cheney look like Ghandi."

Since everyone knows that it requires a hammer, nacho flavored cheese-whiz, a vice-grip, and dancing with your arms in the air (raising the roof like the house is on fi-ya) to make Dick Cheney look like Ghandi, it's highly unlikely since McCain can't lift his arms above his nipples (thanks to Hotel Hanoi). It could be no less than fantasy to propose such a feat.

Be comforted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

He doesn't need to lift his arms to carpet bomb Tehran because he's so out of it he can't remember what year it is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Hi guyy.

How so? It's a friendly question.

The US presence is part of the problem in Iraq. In my view, staying 100 years, "surges", and the like will only create more problems. That's why he's not getting my vote.

I have noted that he's now saying that his plans are contingent on the success of Bush's strategy, thus implying that, well, maybe US troops would have to leave after all. I'd have more respect for him if he would just come out and say it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

He doesn't need to lift his arms to carpet bomb Tehran because he's so out of it he can't remember what year it is.

You had to bring that up.:)

There are many things that I find odd about the remaining Republican candidates, not the least of which that none have been endorced by the RNC and other conservative insiders. None of the three are capable of capturing the conservative base and a sufficient number of independents to win the general election.

I have to wonder what is going on with the nearly insurmountable Republican campaign machine. I can think of only two strategies that might be in play by them, and ustwo has already suggested one of them. The next four years are going to be hell on earth and why not let the Dems get blamed for it all in 2012?

The second strategy that I think might be in play is that another candidate has been waiting in the wings to reunite the conservative party. (Something like Fred Thompson, but with significantly more passion.) It would be Rovian brilliance to let this bunch continue their circular fireing squad at great expense to their campaigns, then introduce a savior of the party.

The wild card still waiting to be played is Bloomberg as an Independent.

I find it odd that people accuse McCain of so much, while forgetting Whitewater, commodities trading, illegal payoffs to her buddies that she convened for the health care reform committee, document shredding, subpoenaed documents "found" immediately after the statute of limitations expired, a close relationship with Ken Lay, and scads of pictures in the company of drug dealers.

And, of course
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/0...u.schwartz.jpg
and his $850,000.

I find it odd that we're focusing on McCain or Clinton, in light of how many times Lex Luthor has tried to kill superman.

http://superman.ugo.com/images/galle.../lex_1_180.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Necrosis

Congratulations on posting the biggest strawman in TFP Politics this week.

The topic is McCain, not Hillary. If you want to discuss her, we have a thread on her healthcare reform proposal, or you can create one that's less specific.

Back on topic, I have to wonder how the guy that's ALWAYS had a problem with authority (and one need look no further than his military record for confirmation of that fact) will act if he ever becomes the embodiment of the global power of the US. The two seem at loggerheads to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I have to totally agree, personally I think of Obama (over Hilary) wins he will have an even better chance of winning. To be blunt I think the race thing will keep Obama if he is nominated from winning unless the republicans really mess up.

As far as McCain goes, he has my vote but since I am in NYC it will count for nothing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

.....Back on topic, I have to wonder how the guy that's ALWAYS had a problem with authority (and one need look no further than his military record for confirmation of that fact) will act if he ever becomes the embodiment of the global power of the US. The two seem at loggerheads to me.

Uhhh....no need to wonder.....there is a recent precedent....

Quote:

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feat.../calhoun_bush/

....Large rewards have been offered -- by cartoonist Garry Trudeau, among others -- to any former Guardsman who can prove that Bush showed up in Alabama to serve, yet nobody has yet claimed the cash prize. And Calhoun won't win the money, either.....

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/ar...oane040908.htm

....Lawrence Korb, a former Assistant Secretary for Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs during the Reagan Administration, said it was apparent that President Bush "had not fulfilled his obligation."

"When I look at his records it is clear he didn't do what he was supposed to do," Korb says. "Since he didn't do these those things, he should have been called to active duty."....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer

...As Bush's father was considering a job offer in late 1972 from Richard M. Nixon to become chairman of the Republican National Committee, the younger Bush stayed with his parents in Washington for the holidays. In a now famous incident, he took his then-16-year-old brother, Marvin, out drinking and ran over a neighbor's garbage cans on the way home; and when confronted by his father, he challenged him to go "mano a mano" outside....

The only problem with McCain's nomination is that it happened 8 years too late. Since 2000 we've had 8 years of Bush instead, and at some point he decided to start pandering to the 'conservative base', which still doesn't like him (definitely a plus in my book), and threw out half the positions I respected him for, but considering the alternatives I'll take it.

Knowing the US (especially the South), I'm very worried that if Obama gets the Dem nomination, then he'll lose for the simple reason that so many people would rather have a white man as president (McCain). Fucking messed up, but too true to ignore... I've heard way too many people say that they won't vote for a black man (or some proxy reason).

I'm also concerned that if Obama, in fact, wins the election... that some racist asshat is going to assassinate him during those 4 years. The US is just that depressing, when it comes down to it. We MIGHT be ready to elect someone who doesn't look like John McCain (white man, regardless of his policies or anything else), but I'll believe it when I see it. I'm just too cynical about the US to believe that we're truly ready for this kind of revolutionary change.

However, if McCain does somehow end up getting elected, I'll gladly continue living in Iceland with my dual citizenship. I can't bear the thought of living under 4 more years of Republican rule.

I'm not 100% sure if this question referred to a McCain nomination as a positive in that he'd make a good President or that his candidacy improves the chances of a GOP win in November. I think that A) He'd be a better president than all the other Republican candidates, and B) He does significantly improve the GOP's chances of winning. However, he'd still be a terrible, horrible President and lightyears worse than any of the Democratic candidates.

WARNING: If you do not have an inquisitive nature, please stop reading, now!

I'm predicting that the NY Times will discover, in it's own archive, that a McCain presidency would usher in, at the least, a new first lady, Cindy Lou Hensley McCain, who is chairperson of a $300 million business, Hensely & Co., that she inherited from her father, a reputed "mob" soldier.

How could McCain not be aware of his financial backer, father-in-law's background?

Quote:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...porters&st=nyt
the New York Times
Feb 20, 1981

Five reporters who took part in a series of investigative articles on crime in Arizona were cleared today of libel charges filed by Kemper Marley Sr.

However, Mr. Marley was awarded punitive damages for intentional inflicting of emotional distress in a decision against one reporter, Bob Greene of Newsday, and the organization for which Mr. Greene and the four other reporters worked, Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc.

The case tried in the Maricopa Superior Court stemmed from the organization's reports after the 1976 car-bomb slaying of Don Bolles, a reporter for The Arizona Republic, who had been investigating corruption.

Mr. Marley, 74 years old, was awarded damages of $10,000 from the reporters' association on the emotional-distress charge and $5,000 from Mr. Greene..

..Mr. Marley declined to comment. The case went to the jury last Friday after a trial of five and a half months. The reporters came to Arizona in late 1976 and early 1977 to work on a series of 23 articles. It was distributed to more than a dozen newspapers and to the news agencies, which transmitted a large portion of the series.

John Harvey Adamson, the convicted killer of Mr. Bolles, told the police in January 1977 that he had been told by Max Dunlap, a Phoenix contractor, that Mr. Marley wanted Mr. Bolles to die...

...Mr. Adamson said in 1977 that Mr. Marley, in addition to wanting Mr. Bolles killed, wanted Mr. Babbitt killed because of his investigation of the liquor industry.

Jon Sellers, the chief investigator in the Bolles murder case, told the jurors that Mr. Marley, who has never been charged in the murder, was still a key suspect in the continuing investigation of the reporter's murder.

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...+Baron+&st=nyt
February 21, 2000
THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE ARIZONA TIES; A Beer Baron and a Powerful Publisher Put McCain on a Political Path
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ
When Senator John McCain of Arizona describes the people who shaped his life, he invariably dwells on the influence of his father and grandfather, both distinguished Navy admirals and larger-than-life figures. Less widely known are the roles played by two other powerful men in launching his political career.

Mr. McCain's father-in-law, a wealthy beer baron named James W. Hensley, gave Mr. McCain his first job out of the Navy and helped bankroll his crucial first race for Congress in 1982, enabling Mr. McCain, a political newcomer, to outspend and defeat better-known opponents.

Even today, Mr. McCain's position as one of the wealthiest members of Congress is derived from his wife's share of her family's Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship here and extensive real estate investments through the company, holdings worth more than $10 million.

In his rise to political influence, Mr. McCain, who had no ties to Arizona until he married Cindy Hensley and moved here in 1981, also won the critical blessing of the city's business establishment through his close friendship with another of the state's power brokers, Darrow Tully, the publisher then of the state's dominant newspaper, The Arizona Republic. ''Duke'' Tully led an ad hoc group of business executives and self-appointed political kingmakers known as the Phoenix 40, whose backing helped Mr. McCain in that first Congressional race and assured his Senate victory four years later.

Bruce Merrill, a professor at Arizona State University, who conducted polls for Mr. McCain's first Congressional race, said, ''In 1982, a lot of party leaders felt John was an outsider and he won a narrow victory largely because he had access to family resources and the support of The Arizona Republic.''....

..Many of those people have remained important benefactors. Hensley family members and employees have contributed more than $80,000 to Mr. McCain's campaigns since 1982, according to federal election records, and he has collected tens of thousands more from businesses in Phoenix.

Despite his family's financial ties to the beer business, Mr. McCain has not supported the liquor industry in Congress and has publicly excused himself from voting on measures affecting the business, according to antiliquor groups.

The Family Beer Business

Mr. McCain had thought of going into politics before moving to Arizona. In 1976, three years after his release from a North Vietnamese prison, he briefly considered running for Congress from Florida, where he was stationed with the Navy.

He was then transferred to Washington as the Navy's liaison to the Senate, and his appetite for politics grew. He was a charming war hero, and a skilled public speaker, and he also built up strong political connections in Washington. Still, as a third-generation Navy man, he had not lived in any one place for long, and he lacked a political base.

That changed after he met Cindy Hensley, his second wife. Mr. McCain went to work in public relations for Hensley & Company, his father-in-law's beer distributorship. It was his first job outside the Navy. People who knew Mr. McCain then said the job was merely a means for him to meet people in the state, and lay the groundwork for his political career.

''Hensley had the Budweiser distributorship for the entire state and he didn't need any PR,'' said William Shover, a retired executive at The Arizona Republic, who met Mr. McCain in those early days. ''They created a job for him.''

Acquaintances describe Mr. Hensley as an astute businessman who never sought the limelight even after he became one of Arizona's richest men. Still, while he could give his only child's husband a job, he could not give him entree into the political and business elite. The liquor industry was never part of the civic hierarchy, and Mr. Hensley's own past was not a ticket to the establishment.

In World War II, Mr. Hensley was a bombardier on a B-17 shot down over the English Channel. After the war, he went to work for Kemper Marley Sr., a rancher who had grown rich and powerful selling liquor after Prohibition.

<h3>In 1948, while working for the Marley operation in Tucson, Mr. Hensley and his brother, Eugene, were convicted of filing false liquor records and conspiracy in the illegal distribution of several hundred cases of whiskey. James Hensley received a suspended sentence and Eugene was sentenced to a year in a federal prison camp. Five years later, James Hensley and Mr. Marley were charged with violating federal liquor laws again, but they were acquitted.</h3>

In 1955, James Hensley acquired the Anheuser-Busch distributorship for Arizona, and fueled by the state's rapid growth and booming economy, he built it into Arizona's 12th-largest privately held business and one of the nation's largest Budweiser distributorships. The company sold nearly 20 million cases of beer last year and has 500 employees. It also has diversified into real estate holdings throughout Arizona.

The business remains in family hands, but Mr. Hensley, now 80 and in poor health, has gradually withdrawn from the day-to-day operations. He declined to be interviewed for this article.

Mrs. McCain draws an undisclosed salary as the company's vice chairman and a major shareholder, but she is not involved in the daily operations.

Along with contributions to Mr. McCain's campaigns, Hensley & Company employees have been generous contributors to state legislators. In 1992, a former lobbyist accused the company of making contributions to state legislators in the names of its employees, an illegal tactic known as bundling. Company officials denied the accusation, the former lobbyist withdrew it, and no one from the company was charged with any wrongdoing.

Last Domicile Hanoi

After his arrival in Phoenix, Mr. McCain did not have to wait long for his chance at politics. Representative John Rhodes, a veteran Republican from the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, decided not to seek re-election in 1982.

Mr. McCain defeated two longtime Mesa Republicans in the primary, including a state senator, and he went on to win the general election. He defused accusations that he was a carpetbagger by saying the place he had lived longest was Hanoi.

Records show that he outspent his opponents in part through access to his wife's family wealth. He received $11,000 in contributions from Mr. Hensley and company employees. More significantly, though he had little money of his own because he had been a career naval officer, his wife's fortune allowed him to lend $167,000 to the campaign, which was permissible under campaign laws then.

Additional money was raised by another powerful Phoenix businessman who served as a big benefactor, Charles H. Keating Jr., the corrupt savings and loan operator whose ties to Mr. McCain continue to haunt the senator. Years later, Mr. McCain intervened with federal regulators on behalf of Mr. Keating's savings and loan, an episode that has tarnished the senator's reputation as a reformer.

Mr. McCain's wife and father-in-law retained an 8 percent interest in a shopping center project put together by Mr. Keating in 1986 until the project was sold in 1998.

The senator's financial disclosure filing with the Senate indicated that the investment was sold for a profit of between $100,000 and $1 million. But Robert Delgado, president and chief executive of Hensley & Company, said that Mrs. McCain and her father had lost half of the $360,000 they invested and that the transaction was reported as a gain because of complexities in Congressional disclosure requirements.

Mr. Delgado also challenged published reports suggesting that Mr. Keating had set up the investment as a favor to the senator. Mr. Delgado said he himself had proposed the investment after a discussion with one of Mr. Keating's lawyers in 1986.

Still, thanks to her father's business, Mrs. McCain, 45, remains wealthy. She has a 37 percent share of the family business and holds a stake in its profit-sharing and pension plans worth $250,000 to $500,000, a share in the corporate jet valued at more than $1 million and Anheuser-Busch stock worth at least $1 million, according to Mr. McCain's financial disclosure forms. The couple's four children own 23 percent of the company through trusts.

The McCains live behind gates and security cameras in a sprawling house on Central Avenue in Phoenix that once belonged to her parents, who live nearby.

A Friend at the Paper

The Hensley money was not the only key to Mr. McCain's first victory. He gained much-needed credibility from the editorial pages of The Arizona Republic and The Gazette and their publisher, Duke Tully.

Mr. Tully was a far different patron from Mr. Hensley. A swaggering, fun-loving 6-foot-4, he was comfortable with business executives and politicians alike. Mr. Tully, an accomplished pilot, loved to regale people with tales of his exploits flying jet fighters in the Korean and Vietnam wars. His house and office were filled with photographs of him alongside all manner of military aircraft.

''He'd point to his teeth and say, 'See these? They're steel. I lost the others when I crashed,' '' recalled Pat Murphy, a former columnist and editor at The Republic...

...More important for Mr. McCain's career, Mr. Tully's position as publisher meant he was already a fixture among the city's movers and shakers, and he eagerly championed Mr. McCain with the Phoenix 40 as well as on the editorial pages of the newspapers.

''I was a very, very strong John McCain advocate,'' Mr. Tully said. ''He was basically picked by the power structure as the guy who could get it done, and I helped with that.''

The Phoenix 40 was an unofficial group made up of the city's leading businessmen -- bankers, partners from the largest law firms, chief executives and, of course, executives of newspapers. The group was created in the early 1970's by Eugene C. Pulliam, the conservative founder of Central Newspapers and grandfather of former Vice President Dan Quayle.

The goal was to promote policies that its members felt were good for the city and state as Arizona expanded from a quiet rural state to a Sun Belt powerhouse.

It was also the closest thing to a political machine in Phoenix, and anointment by the Phoenix 40 almost invariably translated into victory at the polls.

Mr. Merrill, the Arizona State professor and political observer, said the power was exercised quietly and effectively.

''When you control the major newspaper, the TV stations and the people who make most of the political contributions,'' Mr. Merrill said, ''you have enormous influence''

Mr. Tully harnessed that influence to Mr. McCain's political career from the outset, leapfrogging him over Republicans who had waited patiently for a shot at Mr. Rhodes's seat in 1982.

''There was a lot of resentment among Mesa Republicans, none of whom had ever heard of John McCain until he was suddenly the designated hitter,'' said Terry Goddard, a Democrat and former mayor of Phoenix.

Mr. McCain won a close race for the vacant seat and retained it easily in 1984. When the opportunity arose for his next big step, Mr. Tully was ready again.

....Mr. Babbitt, however, already had his eye on a run for the presidency, and Mr. Tully and his colleagues threw their weight behind Mr. McCain. ...

As Mr. Tully explained it last week, the city's elite thought it would be better to have Mr. McCain in the Senate and Mr. Babbitt in the White House......

Background on McCain's father-in-law, James W. Hensley, his brother Eugene, and former employer and business associate and mentor Kemper Marley sr.:

Quote:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2000-...y-spirits/full
Haunted By Spirits
John McCain derived his wealth from his marriage to Cindy Hensley McCain, whose father started his road to riches as a bootlegger. As a politician, the senator has remained beholden to the liquor industry and the family business.
By Amy Silverman and John Dougherty
Published: February 17, 2000

Would United States Senator John McCain be a presidential contender if it weren't for his marriage to Cindy Hensley McCain, heiress to the Hensley liquor fortune?

Like his father and grandfather before him, McCain was a career Navy officer. His earning power and his inheritance were modest. At its peak, his pay as a captain was about $45,000.

But he retired from the military in 1980, divorced his first wife, wed Arizona native Cindy Lou Hensley and moved here to plunge into the world of politics. His first job in Arizona was as a public affairs agent for Hensley & Company, one of the nation's largest beer distributors. He was paid $50,000 in 1982 to travel the state, touting the company's wares. But he was promoting himself as much as he was Budweiser beer. A better job description might have been "candidate."

In 1982, Cindy drew more than $700,000 in salary and bonuses from Hensley-related enterprises as her husband was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in his first political campaign.

Today, McCain is ranked the 26th wealthiest member of Congress by Roll Call magazine. There are 535 members in the House and Senate.

From Day 1, Hensley money has enabled McCain to be a full-time politician, free from financial concerns.

This story examines the roots of the Hensley fortune and John McCain's implacable bond to the liquor industry -- how it has enriched him personally and as a politician, and how those ties have dictated his actions on questions of public policy.

John McCain's political allegiances to liquor purveyors and his father-in-law's interests are subtle. That narrative is marked by a pattern of patronage.

The Hensley saga, meanwhile, swirls with bygone accounts of illicit booze, gambling, horse racing, deceit and crime. James Hensley embarked on his road to riches as a bootlegger.

It was December 6, 1945. World War II had ended a few months earlier.

Joseph F. Ratliff was just about to wrap up another day as office manager at United Distributors Company when two of his bosses, Eugene and James Hensley, paid a visit to Ratliff at the company's Tucson liquor distribution warehouse around 5 p.m.

The Hensley brothers were partners with a powerful Phoenix businessman named Kemper Marley, who had cornered a large share of Arizona's wholesale liquor business after Prohibition was lifted in 1933.

Ratliff had gone to work for United Distributors in September 1944. His job was to oversee shipments of whiskey into and out of the United Distributors' warehouse by keeping track of invoices, filing tax and sales reports with the federal government and monitoring cash flow.

During and after World War II, the sale of whiskey was tightly regulated by the federal government. Demand for whiskey was high, particularly on the black market, where prices were more than double the regulated market price.

"'Well,' Gene Hensley says, 'It is five o'clock, why don't you go home? It is time to close,'" Ratliff told Assistant United States Attorney E.R. Thurman in sworn testimony in March 1948.

Ratliff went home.

Upon his return to the warehouse the next morning, Ratliff found a disturbing sight.

"When the warehouse man came down and opened the warehouse, I started out through the warehouse to go to the men's room, and I noticed there was two rows of whiskey there the night before that wasn't on the floor that morning. So I went back to the office. I thought we had been robbed."

In his office, Ratliff found another surprise.

"There was a bunch of invoices in my desk that had been made out after I had left the office, apparently," Ratliff testified.

The invoices appeared to be related to the whiskey -- about 50 cases -- that had disappeared from the warehouse overnight.

Ratliff went outside to empty some trash and noticed "a pile of empty whiskey cases out there." Tangled up in the pile of boxes were federal tax serial labels that were supposed to remain with the liquor when sold to a retailer.

Ratliff recognized the handwriting on the invoices as belonging to then-25-year-old James Hensley, who had become general manager of the Tucson operation in June 1945 after a three-year stint in the military. James Hensley had served as a bombardier on a B-17 and was shot down over the English Channel on his 13th mission.

Ratliff wasn't sure what was going on until later that day, when James Hensley returned to his office.

"He came in and paid me for those invoices," Ratliff testified. "Cash sales."

Ratliff dutifully marked the invoices as paid.

The seven invoices prepared by James Hensley -- after the warehouse was closed -- indicated the liquor had been sold and delivered to seven establishments in southern Arizona. The Manhattan Club in Tucson supposedly got eight cases of Seagram's and Walker Imperial. Nu-Way Grocery in the Lowell district of Bisbee was credited with receiving 10 cases, while James Hensley showed the Merchants Cafe in Douglas to have received eight cases. The Blue Room in Douglas was credited with buying 10 cases; Lee Hop Grocery in Tucson got two. The Ar-Jay Store in Tucson, six cases. The Old Tumacacori Bar in Nogales, seven.

In fact, none of the liquor went to the retailers named in the invoices prepared by James Hensley. Nobody but James Hensley knows where it really went, and he never told authorities. He declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story.

What is certain is that what occurred that December day was standard operating procedure for the Hensley brothers between April 1945 and January 1947. During this period, a 1948 federal criminal indictment charged, the Hensleys made approximately 1,284 false entries related to the sale of thousands of cases of liquor by their two companies -- United Sales Company in Phoenix and United Distributors in Tucson.

Ratliff's testimony eventually led to James and Eugene Hensley's conviction on federal conspiracy charges "with the intent and design to hide and conceal from the United States of America, the names and addresses of the person or persons to whom the said distilled spirits were sent, and the prices obtained from the sale thereof."

A federal jury in U.S. District Court of Arizona in March 1948 convicted James Hensley on seven counts of filing false liquor records in addition to the conspiracy charge. Eugene was convicted on 23 counts of filing false statements and the conspiracy count. Eugene was sentenced to one year in prison, and James to six months. Neither brother testified during the trial, relying instead on their lawyers, who included Louis B. Whitney, a prominent attorney who served as mayor of Phoenix from 1923 through 1925.

After a two-week stint in the Maricopa County jail, the men were released on bond on May 17, 1948, pending an appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit. The appeals court affirmed the conviction on February 8, 1949.

Two weeks later, a judge sentenced Eugene to one year in a federal prison camp near Tucson, but suspended James' sentence, placing him on probation instead. Both men were fined $2,000. United Sales and United Distributors were also convicted and fined $2,000.

The criminal convictions had little immediate impact on the brothers' fortunes.

James Hensley profited handsomely from his association with liquor magnate Kemper Marley, a man police suspect ordered the 1976 murder of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, who had written about Marley's business and political dealings. The man convicted of placing a bomb beneath Bolles' car testified that Marley also wanted former Arizona governor and then-attorney general Bruce Babbitt murdered because Babbitt had filed an antitrust lawsuit against the liquor industry in 1975. (Marley, who died in 1990, was never charged in the Bolles case. Babbitt is now U.S. Secretary of the Interior.)

By 1955, James Hensley had launched a Budweiser distributorship in Phoenix, a franchise reportedly bestowed upon him by Marley, who was never indicted in the 1948 federal liquor-law-violation case -- or a subsequent one -- despite his controlling financial role in the liquor distribution businesses.

James Hensley's conviction didn't deter the State of Arizona from granting him a wholesale liquor license in the mid-1950s. The Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control turned a blind eye to repeated liquor-law violations at the company. State liquor regulators did nothing when James Hensley failed to disclose his federal felony conviction on a sworn 1988 disclosure statement to the department and the City of Phoenix.

Today, Phoenix-based Hensley & Company is the nation's fifth-largest beer wholesaler -- a privately held business that 80-year-old James Hensley still controls. He built the Budweiser distributorship into at least a $200 million-a-year business, with annual sales of more than 20 million cases of beer.

James Hensley owns nearly all of the voting stock, and most of the rest of the closely held securities are in trusts for his grandchildren or owned by his daughter, 45-year-old Cindy Hensley McCain -- wife of U.S. Senator and presidential hopeful John McCain.

By now, many Americans know John McCain's family story. His best-selling memoir, Faith of My Fathers, chronicles the lives of the senator's father and grandfather, distinguished admirals. The book takes readers up through John McCain's own military service, including his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. But Faith of My Fathers ends there, a few years short of John McCain's marriage to Cindy Hensley and the advent of his political career.

That's only half the family story.

The rest could be called "Cash of My Father-in-Law," a tale of how beer baron James W. Hensley's money and influence provided a complement to McCain's charisma and compelling personal story and launched him to a seat in Congress -- and perhaps to the White House.

Although Hensley wealth has helped propel McCain's political career, the senator will never get his hands directly on the Hensley fortune because of an antenuptial agreement he signed before his 1980 marriage.

A centerpiece in McCain's remarkable and sudden rise to national prominence is his promise of campaign-finance reform.

Yet McCain has relied heavily on the financial contributions from big corporate donors -- with the liquor and beer industry near the top of the list. McCain won -- one could say bought -- his first election to the House of Representatives in 1982 with lavish sums of Hensley beer money.

In a rare 1988 interview, James Hensley gave a glimpse of his political savvy.

"The neo-prohibitionists are real active about trying to dry us up all the time," he told the Phoenix Business Journal. "They're a constant battle. They're going after us in different ways now than they did in those days, trying to ban advertising, things like that.... We're legislatively involved very heavily... It's a way of life to protect our industry."

Since 1982, Hensley & Company employees have donated almost $200,000 to federal political candidates and campaigns. Since 1996, they've given Arizona state-level candidates more than $18,755.

McCain himself has received more than $60,000 from James Hensley and his employees -- and tens of thousands more from other beer-related interests.

John McCain benefits from James Hensley's money.

James Hensley benefits from John McCain's political power.

While McCain blasts his colleagues for falling prey to the influences of campaign contributions, the senator's record reveals his quiet support for the business that launched and has helped maintain his career. McCain declined to be interviewed for this story.

Liquor spirited from the Hensley brothers' warehouses helped fuel a lively nightlife at some of the Valley's most exclusive clubs in the mid-1940s. The Green Gables, the Silver Spur and the Cowman's Club were recipients of black-market shipments, according to testimony presented at the 1948 federal trial of the Hensleys and their two companies, United Sales Company in Phoenix and United Distributors in Tucson.

Jack Baldwin, a salesman and supervisor at United Sales, testified at the 1948 federal trial that Eugene Hensley regularly instructed him to draw up false invoices, transfer scores of cases of liquor offsite and deliver premium whiskeys to selected black-market clients.

Baldwin testified he was ordered by Eugene Hensley in September 1946 to kick in a door at the United Sales' warehouse on North 19th Avenue and take five cases of scotch for a black-market sale to the Green Gables.

In other instances, Baldwin testified that he took as many as 50 cases of whiskey from the United Sales warehouse and stashed them on the back porch of his central Phoenix home for later delivery to black-market buyers.

"I can name you 20 deals like that," Baldwin testified.

When an order came in for black-market whiskey, Baldwin would fill the bill.

"Well, the Green Gables wanted 10 cases of Canadian Club and the only thing I would do is just send down and get it, that is all there was to it," Baldwin testified.

To cover the illegal black-market sales, Baldwin testified that false invoices were prepared showing the liquor sold in small quantities to retailers throughout Arizona.

"It would be scattered over the state for two and a half and three cases at a time," Baldwin stated.

"Why would you make invoices that did not show the true fact situation?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Thurman asked.

"The liquor went someplace else," Baldwin stated.

"Under whose direction did you make these invoices?"

"Gene Hensley," Baldwin replied.

"After these were made out, these particular invoices, what did you do with them?"

"I took them home, burned them usually," Baldwin stated.

Information from the false invoices prepared by the Hensleys' employees was provided to federal liquor regulators with the Alcohol Tax Unit at the U.S. Treasury Department. When investigators compared the information reported by the Hensleys and what was actually delivered to retailers, they discovered a huge discrepancy.

Sometimes the Hensleys sold liquor to unlicensed individuals who would transport up to 55 cases at a time to states including Oklahoma and Utah. Carl "Kid" Carter from Ogden, Utah, purchased dozens of cases of whiskey at a time, loaded them into a late-1930s sedan, covering the illicit cargo with a blanket before heading home, 600 miles north.

"Sometimes he [Carter] would give me the money, and sometimes he would give Gene the money," Baldwin testified.

Before the liquor was loaded in Carter's car, Baldwin stated the federal serial numbers would be cut off the cases. Carter didn't have a liquor license in Arizona or Utah.

"Do you know what prices were paid, say, by Kid Carter?" Thurman asked Baldwin. "... Would they pay more than the ceiling price?"

"Oh, yes," Baldwin testified.

Carter must have been a prodigious drinker. He testified that he did make black-market purchases but wasn't trying to make a financial killing.

"I drank a lot of it and gave a lot of it to my friends," he told the court.

"Didn't you sell some of it?" Thurman asked.

"No, sir."

Another United Sales employee, Howard Wesson, worked as a warehouseman and truck driver from 1942 through 1945.

Wesson testified that he occasionally loaded whiskey on the warehouse docks and removed the federal tax serial numbers at Gene Hensley's instructions.

"He just had it come off so there would be no trace of it, or something to that sort," Wesson stated. Wesson recalled loading 25 to 30 cases of liquor into Kid Carter's car and testified that Carter told him he had "doubled his money."

It wasn't unusual, Wesson testified, to leave cases of whiskey on the warehouse floor in the evening and return to work the next day to find the cases broken apart and the whiskey gone.

The heavy black-market sales made it difficult for employees to keep track of the liquor.

Richard Eckert, a United Sales warehouse foreman, told the jury, "I had some trouble keeping my records straight on it. I couldn't make my books balance on it sometimes."

Eckert, who worked at the warehouse from 1941 through 1945, testified that he told his bosses about the problem.

"I complained that I couldn't keep the records with the salesmen and owners and one thing and another coming in there and taking whiskey away and giving it away and one thing and another and not billing it out," Eckert stated.

While the bootlegging operation was in full swing, the Hensleys and Marley dissolved their partnerships and created two corporations in September 1946 -- United Sales Incorporated in Phoenix, and United Distributors Incorporated in Tucson. At the time of incorporation, Eugene Hensley, 32, was president of the companies, while James Hensley, 25, served as secretary. Kemper Marley, 39, was listed as vice president of both companies.

Despite Marley's title, federal prosecutors stated that Marley had purchased control of the companies in January 1946.

Over the years, Marley built the companies, which became United Liquors, into Arizona's largest wholesale liquor distributorship. Along with his vast land holdings, political, gambling and prostitution ties, Marley built a fortune worth more than $39.2 million by 1980.

On February 26, 1953, James Hensley once again found himself charged with federal liquor crimes. This time, the government alleged that James Hensley and other officers of United Liquor Company and United Liquor Supply Company falsified records to reduce the company's tax bill.

On the opening day of the trial in federal court in Tucson, Judge James A. Walsh granted a motion by Hensley's attorney -- former Maricopa County Attorney Lynn Laney -- to dismiss all charges against Hensley and other individuals. The case continued against the two companies.

The government alleged the companies falsely stated that about 400 cases of whiskey were transferred from Tucson to Phoenix on December 30, 1950, and December 30, 1951, to avoid paying higher liquor taxes levied in Pima County, where Tucson is located. The government charged that the liquor never left the Tucson warehouses.

On the third day of the four-day trial, Kemper Marley -- owner of United Liquor and United Liquor Supply -- unexpectedly took the stand as a defense witness. Prosecutors successfully halted his testimony, claiming it was immaterial and irrelevant.

Defense attorneys argued that although the liquor was never transferred to Maricopa County, all taxes were nevertheless paid to Maricopa County, therefore nothing further was owed. Defense attorney Joseph Jenckes said the companies were simply trying to meet their tax obligations in the most practical way, according to an October 17, 1953, story in the Arizona Daily Star.

The next day, a jury acquitted the two companies on all 11 counts.

In December 1952, James Hensley joined his brother Eugene in the purchase of Ruidoso Racing Association in south central New Mexico. Prior to the purchase, Eugene Hensley operated a couple of nightclubs in Phoenix, including Hensley's Horseshoe Bar on Van Buren Street, with his first wife, Billy.

The New Mexico venture proved to be more trouble for the Hensley brothers, who became embroiled in a controversy with the New Mexico Racing Commission over hidden ownership.

The commission was concerned about the Hensley brothers' ties to Phoenix gambler Clarence E. "Teak" Baldwin (no relation to Jack Baldwin). The commission asked the New Mexico State Police to investigate in 1953.

According to a March 26, 1977, article in the Albuquerque Journal, the 1953 New Mexico State Police report stated that Teak Baldwin was a "bookmaker for leading tracks." According to the Journal article, the police report stated that the Hensleys' Arizona liquor business partner, Kemper Marley, "is reputed to be the financial backer for the bookies..."

The Journal story appeared shortly after a group known as Investigative Reporters & Editors -- spurred to action by the murder of Don Bolles -- unleashed a series of 23 stories on organized crime, land fraud and political corruption in Arizona.

The Journal reported that the 1953 New Mexico State Police investigation stated that Marley "owned a wire service formerly operated in connection with bookmaking of the Al Capone gang."

The Journal also reported that the state police report included a transcript of a phone conversation between an officer in Santa Fe and a Phoenix police officer who said, "... Our confidential files built up on Baldwin (and others) was loaned to some officials and never returned. We've never been able to locate them."

With the police report in hand, the New Mexico Racing Commission grilled the Hensley brothers in May 1953 about their ties to Baldwin. While the brothers were forthright in disclosing their liquor business ties with Marley and their subsequent federal felony convictions, they told the commission that Teak Baldwin had nothing to do with the track.

Eugene Hensley told the commission in May 1953 that Baldwin steered him to look at the track as a possible investment. Former commission chairman Tom Closson told the Hensleys "the commission would not have Baldwin connected in any way, shape or form down there [Ruidoso Downs]," the Journal reported.

The Hensleys denied that Baldwin had any interest in the track, the Journal reported.

But two years later, according to the Journal, records indicated that Baldwin actually had a one-third stock interest in the track with the Hensleys.

In November 1955, trustees for Baldwin filed a federal lawsuit against Eugene Hensley to recover 362 shares of Ruidoso Racing Association stock. The suit was settled for $40,000 and the stock was released to the Hensleys, the Journal reported.

Eugene Hensley told the Racing Commission that Baldwin operated a restaurant at the track and spent some of his own money for equipment. Baldwin filed suit in federal court in Albuquerque in 1955 over a concession contract he claimed to hold at the track. The suit was dismissed. A year later, Baldwin was convicted of income tax evasion.

In April 1955, James Hensley sold his interest in Ruidoso Downs, for which he was listed as secretary-treasurer, and had no apparent connection to the track thereafter.

Eugene Hensley's problems at Ruidoso Downs were just beginning. In 1963, Eugene Hensley was sued by minority partners for $415,000. The partners alleged Eugene Hensley used track money to make improvements to his Scottsdale home, used the track's airplane for personal pleasure and built and operated a guest house for his personal use. The lawsuit was settled the same year after Eugene Hensley agreed to return 1,000 shares of Ruidoso Racing Association stock that was by then worth $350,000.

The civil suit was prelude to an eight-count federal criminal indictment filed against Eugene Hensley in 1966, alleging income tax evasion. Eugene Hensley was convicted on all counts in a scandalous trial that revealed he had purchased several automobiles using track money and given them to his wife and a girlfriend.

Despite his 1966 conviction and subsequent five-year prison sentence, Eugene Hensley remained free on bond and continued to control operations at Ruidoso Downs until the New Mexico Racing Commission banned him from the track in 1968. After his criminal appeals were denied, Eugene Hensley entered a federal prison in La Tuna, Texas, in 1969.

That same year, Eugene Hensley sold his remaining interest in the track to NewCo Industries Incorporated, which immediately signed a 20-year concession contract with Emprise Corporation of Buffalo, New York.

Emprise had documented ties to organized crime, and was the concessionaire at Arizona dog tracks. One of the company's strongest Arizona supporters reportedly was the Hensleys' old business partner -- Kemper Marley.

In the early 1970s, Arizona racing officials began to clamp down on Emprise after the company was convicted and fined $10,000 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for its hidden ownership in the Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The IRE series reported that as a defendant in that case, Emprise was linked to several prominent organized crime figures.

Emprise reorganized in Arizona as Ramcorp and was allowed to keep its lucrative concession contracts while its Los Angeles conviction was appealed. But all the company's proceeds from dog tracks were funneled through a trustee, former Mesa rancher and farmer Dwight Patterson.

Patterson, according to the IRE, urged then-Arizona governor Raul Castro to appoint Kemper Marley to the three-member Arizona Racing Commission, a position Marley reportedly was eager to get. Marley would replace Robert Kieckhefer, who had been an opponent of Emprise.

Castro received more than $19,000 during his 1974 gubernatorial campaign from Marley, and another $5,000 from Marley's daughter -- colossal sums at the time for an Arizona political campaign. Castro appointed Marley to the racing commission in 1976.

Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles wrote a series of stories documenting Marley's questionable performance in appointive posts he'd previously held. Bolles' stories doomed Marley's appointment, forcing him to resign soon after being named to the Racing Commission.

On June 2, 1976, Bolles was mortally wounded by a car bomb. Before lapsing into unconsciousness, Bolles uttered the words, "Adamson, Emprise, Mafia." He died 11 days later...

..After selling his interest in Ruidoso Racing Association, James Hensley turned his attention to a wholesale beer distributorship he reportedly founded in 1955 in Phoenix with 12 employees.

Details about the inception and remarkable growth of James Hensley's company are sketchy. Hensley and his wife, Marguerite, have kept a low profile. While the couple is listed in the Phoenix society's "Red Book," there is a dearth of news stories, photographs or even references to the family in the Phoenix media.

Some liquor industry observers say Hensley was given the Budweiser distributorship by his old business associate Kemper Marley, but a search of public records has not confirmed this theory. What the records do show is five decades of steady growth for Hensley's enterprise under the lax supervision of the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control.

James Hensley has given conflicting information to the department concerning the early days of his business. Efforts to search liquor department files are hampered because the agency destroyed all records more than 30 years old -- and many more recent. The lack of historical state documents on the state's largest beer wholesaler makes it impossible to determine when and under what circumstances James Hensley was granted his first wholesale liquor license.

One can only speculate how a convicted felon who falsified federal liquor records managed to obtain a state and federal wholesale liquor license within a few years of his 1949 conviction and 1953 indictment. But apparently, Hensley did...

..The confusing maze of companies continued for more than four decades as James Hensley created a series of wholesale beer companies -- operating as many as three different entities in the Phoenix area at one time. He consolidated the operations in 1993 under the present banner Hensley & Company. The company reported $48 million in assets in December 1996, the last year the Corporation Commission required detailed financial disclosure.

Hensley & Company is reported to be the 12th largest privately owned company in Arizona, with nearly 500 employees and a sales and delivery fleet of more than 300 vehicles, according to a September 1999 article in the trade journal Beverage World.

The company controls more than 60 percent of the beer market in Arizona, selling more than 20 million cases of Anheuser-Busch and other brands each year.

The privately held company remains controlled by chairman James Hensley, although he's relinquished day-to-day operations to Robert M. Delgado, who serves as president and chief operating officer.

Company records show that as of January 1996 James Hensley controlled through a trust 2,110 shares of stock, of which at least 1,655 shares were voting stock. Cindy McCain owned the largest block of stock with 7,436 shares, but only 177 shares were voting...

..In 1982, John and Cindy McCain reported an income of $801,056. Of that, the only amount unrelated to Hensley was McCain's $31,038 Navy pension.

McCain lent $167,000 to his campaign -- a huge chunk of the $569,545 it took to get him elected that year. (Another major contributor that year was Charles H Keating, a former Navy fighter pilot who later ensnarled McCain in the biggest scandal of his political career.)

In addition, James and Marguerite Hensley and their employees donated $11,000 to McCain's first campaign; Anheuser-Busch's PAC gave him $1,000.

McCain easily won reelection in 1984. Fortune -- or McCain's foresight -- smiled again when Senator Barry Goldwater announced his retirement in 1986. McCain was the perfect candidate to succeed the straight-talking Goldwater, who was also a retired military pilot.

McCain jumped for -- and won -- the Senate seat.

Every election season, contributions from Hensley & Company and other liquor interests continued to fuel McCain's electoral triumphs -- victories McCain was beginning to take for granted.

In October 1986, just days before McCain was elected to the Senate, the Associated Press broke a story that the McCains had been quietly remodeling Cindy's childhood home -- a $500,000 spread still owned by Jim Hensley and located in north central Phoenix, outside of Congressional District 1 -- so they could relocate after the election...

Quote:

http://www.azcentral.com/specials/sp...es-dunlap.html
Dunlap supporters maintain innocence after 2 convictions
Megan Irwin
Special to The Republic
May. 28, 2006 08:18 AM

If you stay behind bars long enough, the other prisoners are likely to start calling you “Pops.”

That’s the case with Max Dunlap, who turned 76 last May, marking a year not much different from the past 13 years he has spent inside his cell at the Arizona State Prison Complex at Lewis.

“Pops,” as he’s known to fellow prisoners, is serving a life sentence for his role in the murder of Don Bolles, an investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic who was killed when a bomb exploded under his car on June 2, 1976. Dunlap is the only person implicated in the Bolles’ murder who is still serving time in prison, although he insists to this day that he shouldn’t be there at all....

...The family interest in horses brought the Dunlaps even closer to the Marleys. The families developed a social relationship in addition to the working relationship Dunlap and Marley already had. Barbara said they went to the races together and one year, Marley took the whole family to the Kentucky Derby.

“If we hadn’t shown horses, we wouldn’t have been so close [to Kemper],” said Mike Dunlap, one of Dunlap’s sons. “My Dad loved him, but it wasn’t a father-son kind of love. It was just that if he [Dunlap] had a problem or a question about something, he had someone to ask.”

Indeed, Dunlap went to Marley for help many times over the years -- for loans to buy more land or advice on horse racing. Between the horse races, land development, family vacations and sporting events, Barbara said she and her husband settled comfortably into the rhythm of family life.

“We were just parents. We went to everything our kids did,” she said. “The whole family was very outgoing. The kids were all sports minded, we were happy, got along fine and were all very busy. Isn’t that normal?”

The arrest

Any sense of normalcy ended on a Sunday morning in January 1977, the day Max Dunlap was arrested in connection with the murder of Don Bolles. Barbara said police surrounded her house with guns drawn as they took Dunlap away.

“There was no need for that except it made the Sunday edition” of the newspaper, she said. “They could have called Max and he would have met them.” Barbara said the family went into shock after his arrest but never expected that Dunlap would actually be convicted.

“We’d never even heard of this guy [Bolles],” she said. “We were innocent and we knew we were innocent.”

Phoenix police and the state attorney general disagreed. And indeed, the evidence against Dunlap was strong. Among the facts of the case: On June 2, 1976, Bolles an investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic who had written a series of reputation-damaging articles on Kemper Marley’s involvement in land fraud, got a call from a source asking for a meeting at the Hotel Clarendon in downtown Phoenix. The source never showed, and when Bolles returned to his car a bomb went off, destroying the car and landing Bolles in the hospital where he died 11 days later. Evidence quickly led to Dunlap.

According to George Weisz, a special investigator for the attorney general the second time Dunlap was convicted, the case against Dunlap hinged on two important things: the testimony of a local, small-time criminal named John Harvey Adamson and a mysterious money exchange between Dunlap, Adamson and Phoenix attorney Neal Roberts a few days after the murder.

The first clue that led authorities to Adamson came from Bolles himself when he said, “John Adamson set me. They finally got me … the Mafia … Emprise” as he was being placed on a stretcher.

Adamson was arrested quickly and, as part of a plea bargain, told a story that implicated both Dunlap and Chandler plumber James Robison in masterminding the murder. Adamson’s story had Dunlap hiring him to kill three people, including then-Arizona Attorney General Bruce Babbitt.

“All of a sudden Don Bolles became more important and had to be done right away,” Weisz said. “So Adamson went ahead and did it.”

As damning as Adamson’s story was, it was another piece of evidence that ultimately put Dunlap away: On June 10 around 6 a.m., a stranger showed up at the Dunlap residence asking to speak to Dunlap. The stranger handed Dunlap a sack filled with $100 bills, amounting to $25,000, and told him Roberts wanted the money changed into small bills and delivered to attorney Tom C. Foster by that afternoon. Dunlap took the money to his bank, changed it into small bills and delivered it to Foster’s office that afternoon, where he found Adamson waiting to accept the money, presumably to help him escape the Valley to cool off after the murder.

Weisz said the fact that Dunlap followed orders so unquestioningly speaks to his guilt....

Sit tight....it's going to be a "bumpy" campaign.

donkey wearing an elephant suit.
nuff said...

I wouldn't vote for McCain simply for the fact that he's a warmonger. He's happy about the Iraq war, and clearly wants war with Iran.

Quote:

Originally Posted by robot_parade

I wouldn't vote for McCain simply for the fact that he's a warmonger. He's happy about the Iraq war, and clearly wants war with Iran.

BINGO - That says it ALL for my not voting for him. :no:

Any Democrat is going to be a better, smarter choice for the future of America IMHO.

<h3>Below the two newspaper page images, I have posted a transcript of what I read on the two pages, concerning the background's of John McCain's father-in-law, James w. Hensley, and his brother Eugene.</h3>

<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/hensley2.png" length=2025 width=1350><br>
The article begins above this sentence, at the right bottom of the page above.

<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/hensley3.png" length=2025 width=1350><br><p>

Quote:

Riudoso Race Track Owners Tied to Arizona Gambling

By Robert V. Beier

Former associated of Phoenix wheeler dealers and gambling interests once controlled Riudoso

Downs race track and whiile in New Mexico they apparently kept their business operations to

themselves.

Eugene V. Hensley and his brother James W. Hensley who purchased controlling stock of Riudoso

Racing Assn in December 1952, once worked for and with Kemper Marley, Phoenix millionaire

rancher and wholesale liquor dealer.

<h3>And When the Hensley brothers purchased control of the Lincoln County track, Phoenix gambler

Clarence E. "Teak" Baldwin simultaneously bought one third of the race track stock-- something

the Hensleys denied in a State Racing Commission hearing in May, 1953.</h3>

Marley, 70 was named recently in a police affadavit as the man who requested the contract

killings of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, slain in a bomb attack last June and Arizona

Atty Gen Bruce Babbitt.

No attempt was made on Babbitt's (continued on A-16)

(Continued from A-1)

Ex-Owners Knew Arizona Gamblers

life. Marley has not been criminally charged.

An Investigative Reporters and Editors "IRE" report in it's Phoenix Project revealed Marley also

ran an organized crime ???? wire service for bookies that was managed at one time by Baldwin who

was convicted of income tax evasion in 1956.

The IRE investigation showed the Hensleys were associates of Marley and Baldwin in the 1930s,

1940s and early 1950s in Phoenix.

A search of commission records in Albuquerque by the Journal showed the racing body in the early

1950s was aware of the associations and leary of Mr. Baldwin connected with the Hensleys in

their purchase and operation of the track.

At a May 1953 commission hearing in Albuquerque records show the Hensley brothers readily told

of their connections with the Arizona wholesale liquor business and Marley in the 1930s and

1940s and the federal convictions in 1948 for making false entires on government records

regarding ???? liquor sales.

However, the Henleys denied at the same hearing that Baldwin their old croney in Phoenix, had

any stock interest in Ruidoso Downs.

But two years later, at another hearing records reflect Baldwin did have stock interest in the

track.

And the records show a federal lawsuit against Eugene Hensley in Albuquerque filed by trustees

for Baldwin to recover 362 shares of Ruidoso Racing Assn stock was settled for $40,000 and the stock was released to the Hensleys. This was in November, 1955.

Efforts by the Journal to contact the Hensley brothers were unsuccessful. Eugene, who now lives in El Paso, and James, a resident of Phoenix, were reported in Mazatlan, Mexico.

At the May, 1953 hearing, records show that the late Tom Closson, as chairman of the commission, told the Hensleys, "The namr of Teak Baldwin keeps creeping up as we go along in what the commission conveyed to you. The commission would not have Baldwin connected in any way, shape or form down there at Riuduso Downs."

The Hensleys, records show told the commissioner Baldwin had no money in the track, known as Hollywood Race Track prior to 1953.

It was brought out in the May 1953 hearing that Baldwin had been charged in Phoenix of doctoring drinks of patrons at his restaurant and then fleecing them in gambling games, according to IRE.

Baldwin later was acquitted of grand theft charges. Eugene Hensley revealed it was Baldwin who steered him to look at Ruidoso Downs which he and his brother purchased from the late OM "Hop" Lee Sr., a member of the commission and some Texas proncipals in December, 1952.

Eugene Hensley told the commission Baldwin was allowed to run the ???? men's kitchen at the track and had spent some of his own money for equipment.

In 1965, Baldwin also sued over a concession contract he allegedly had at the track. The suit in federal court in Albuquerue was dismissed.

As a result of reports concerning an alleged connection between the Hensleys and Baldwin, the commission in 1953 had the New Mexico State Police investigate the trio in Arizona.

The State Police investigation revealed Eugene Hensley had filed a suit against Baldwin in 1951 in an Arizona Court seeking $6,500 he allegedly had loaned to Baldwin. No disposition of the civil suit was mentioned in the records.

After his federal conviction and nine months in a Tucson federal prison camp Eugene Hensley told the commission he owned and operated a number of bars and cafes in Phoenix until ge purchased the Ruidoso Downs track.

James Hensley sold out his interest in the track in April, 1955. He was secretary-treasurer of the Ruidoso Racing Assn at the time and record do not reflect any further connection with the track.

Also testifying at the May 1953 hearing was RS "Stan" Snedigar, who was designated as secretary of racing at the track.

Formerly connected with Phoenix tracks as a racing official, Snedigar told the commission he was acquainted with the Hensleys and Baldwin in Arizona and detailed for the commission his knowledge of their business interests.

Snedigar later became a member of the Ruidoso Racing Assn board of directors and a minor stockholder in the track.

An IRE report lists RS Snedigar as a partner with Baldwin and others in three Phoenix restaurants and bars.

<h3>The 1953 State Police report in connection with it's Arizona investigation of the Hensleys and Baldwin noted Marley "owned a wire service formerly operated in connection with bookmaking of the Al Capone gang."

The same report listed Baldiwn as a "bookmaker for leading tracks" and said that Marley "is reputed to be the financial backer for bookies..."</h3>

The 1953 State Police report to the commission also included a transcript of a phone conversation between an officer in Sante Fe and a detective with the Phoenix Police Dpt. who said, "Our confidential files built upon Baldwin (and others) was loaned to some officials and never returned. We've never been able to locate them."

In November, 1966, Eugene Hensley was convicted of federal income tax evasion and failure to file income tax returns. Later, Eugene Hensley was barred from Ruidoso Downs by the Commission.

After unsuccessful appeals of the federal income tax comnvictions and the serving a sentence at ?? ????, Tex. federal reformatory, Eugene Hensley and his former wife, Martha Hensley, sold their controlling stock in the track in 1969.

I searched for and found the 1977 article after reading the reporting displayed in the middle of my last post, at this link:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2000-...y-spirits/full

The Albuquerque Journal ran their story of the Hensley brothers to coincide with the 23 part "Arizona Project", a 1-1/2 year investigative journalists' effort to find out who killed Arizona Republic newspaper's investigative reporter, Don Bollles, in June, 1976.

If you download the two Albuquerque Journal pages, you can read one installment of the 23 part IRE report that 40 journalists issued after their Arizona investigation, it appears next to the Hensley brothers article on page A1 and A16 and details more about the Hensley's patron, Kemper Marley.

My point is that John McCain used, at the least, flawed judgment in working for James Hensley, accepting his consistant campaign financial backing, and the political backing from Hensley's cronies.

Added to this is the "problem" that McCain's wife would be, if he won the presidential election, a first lady who is chair of a $300 million Arizona corporate conglomerate that was clearly founded and financed via "mob" connections and activities.

At what point in the founding and then in the progression of a business such as Hensely & Company beer distributors, is the company and the proceeds from it, suddenly "clean money"?

I cannot answer thatr question, and I don't think anyone else can. It is a situation which seems to tell us that it would be best to take a pass on John McCain, and his run for the presidency. How low must we sink to find our next president?

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

It is a situation which seems to tell us that it would be best to take a pass on John McCain, and his run for the presidency. How low must we sink to find our next president?

host I am shocked, shocked, you would not endorse a republican candidate.

You know JFK's own father was a bootlegger, thats one less removed than the father of the wife of McCain.

So would you have supported JFK?

You own a business. Would you hire John McCain as your office manager, or his wife? Both knowingly worked for (in McCain's case, his last employer in the private sector.....), and accepted extremely valuable assets and large amounts of cash from one of the most prominent mob connected men in Arizona, McCain's father-in-law, James W. Hensley.

Cindy McCain is chairperson of Hensley's business empire, obtained totally via his mob connections and activities.

Was Joe Kennedy ever convicted of a federal felony, or are there records that he was employed by the wealthiest and most corrupt mob boss in his state, from his teenaged years, in the late 1930s, until 1954, as Hensley was by Kemper Marley?

Did Joe Kennedy's brother, or any other member of his family, spend three stretches in federal prison, as a result of felony convictions? Hensley's brother and business partner, Eugene did.

McCain wasn't smart enough to avoid having his patron be, just four years after the "Arizona Project" journalist expose on the man, Hensley, and his own patron, Marley, be a mob connected businessman exposed in newspapers all over the country, in 23 installments, and then, in a book by the same name.

McCain wasn't smart enough to avoid having his wife end up running her mobbed up father's business, after his death.

McCain can keep the money that he married into, but that doesn't mean that the money is clean, or that he is clever or clean enough to serve as our president.

JFK was born into a family. He showed no interest in making money, or in running the family business. McCain went to work for a prominent mob soldier, he had to know....after he married the guy's 27 year old daughter, leaving his crippled wife and four kids to do it. Then he consented to allowing the mob soldier to bankroll his political campaigns.....

We're better than having someone like McCain be our president, because we know his judgment and his background. This is just the beginning. If McCain sitll gets the nomination, I won't be the problem.

I am briefing you about what McCain is facing. It is a proven background, and it disqalifies him. The democrats will insist that the press examine and cover all of it.

The McCains' boldness and hypocrisy apparently know no bounds:

Quote:

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/s...8/daily27.html
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 - 2:08 PM MST
McCains bash remarks by ObamasThe Business Journal of Phoenix - by Mike Sunnucks Phoenix Business Journal

Arizona Sen. and Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been talking up a business-oriented message of low taxes, limited spending and a skepticism toward government-run health care as he looks toward a possible general election duel with Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

Cindy Hensley McCain, wife of the GOP senator and a Phoenix business executive in the meantime, also took her most high-profile step in the 2008 presidential race Tuesday night.

Cindy McCain is chairwoman of Phoenix-based Hensley & Co., the third-largest Anheuser-Busch wholesaler in the U.S. and one of the largest privately held businesses in Arizona. She took aim at comments made by Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic front-runner and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

"And let me tell you something: for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback," said Michelle Obama on the campaign trail earlier this week. She is an Ivy League-educated attorney.

Cindy McCain responded to that statement Tuesday night after her husband won the Wisconsin Republican primary.

"I'm proud of my country. I don't know about you, if you heard those words earlier -- I'm very proud of my country," Cindy McCain said.

Cindy McCain has been a constant companion on the campaign trail during Sen. McCain's presidential effort, but her comeback to Michelle Obama's statement was her most vocal comments to date.

Sen. McCain on Tuesday stressed his skepticism toward government focused solutions to health insurance. Sen. Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton both back government-mandate universal health insurance.

He also said federal taxes should "simpler, flatter, more pro-growth and pro-jobs" in Tuesday comments after his Wisconsin primary win. Sen. McCain has backed some business and Bush administration backed tax cuts in recent years, but opposed others. The Arizona senator has been making a "no-new taxes" pledge on the campaign trail in recent days and wants to cut corporate income tax rates to spur the economy.

Sen. Obama and Clinton want to rollback some of those tax reductions to help pay for increased social spending.

Sen. McCain also took aim at Sen. Obama and his often general remarks about "hope" and "change."

"I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change that promise no more than a holiday from history and return to the false promises and failed policies of a tired philosophy that trusts in government more than people," Sen. McCain said.

One can only wonder if McCain will self-destruct with his legendary temper between now and November:

Quote:

Temper, temper. Republican John McCain is known for his. He's been dubbed "Senator Hothead" by more than one publication, but he's also had some success extracting his hatchet from several foreheads.

Even his Republican Senate colleagues are not spared his sharp tongue.

"F--- you," he shouted at Texas Sen. John Cornyn last year.

"Only an a------ would put together a budget like this," he told the former Budget Committee chairman, Sen. Pete Domenici, in 1999.

"I'm calling you a f------ jerk!" he once retorted to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.

With Cornyn, he smoothed things over quickly. The two argued during a meeting on immigration legislation; Cornyn complained that McCain seemed to parachute in during the final stages of negotiations. "F--- you. I know more about this than anyone else in the room," McCain reportedly shouted.

Cornyn chuckled at the memory of what he called McCain's "aggressive expressions of differences." The Texan has endorsed McCain.

"He almost immediately apologized to me," Cornyn said last week. "I accepted his apology, and as far as I'm concerned, we've moved on down the road."

The political landscape in Arizona, McCain's home state, is littered with those who have incurred his wrath. Former Gov. Jane Hull pretended to hold a telephone receiver away from her ear to demonstrate a typical outburst from McCain in a 1999 interview with The New York Times.

McCain has even blown up at volunteers and, on occasion, the average Joe.

He often pokes fun at his reputation: "Thanks for the question, you little jerk," he said last year to a New Hampshire high school student wondering if McCain, at 71, was too old to be president.

Other times, his ire is all too real. This has prompted questions about whether his temperament is suited to the office of commander-in-chief or whether it might handicap him in a presidential campaign against either Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton, who are not known for such outbursts.

"I decided I didn't want this guy anywhere near a trigger," Domenici told Newsweek in 2000....

http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D8URGKUO1.html

To answer the poll question, I think McCain is probably the only Republican that has a plausible shot to win in Nov, so I think his nomination is a positive for the GOP. But I still don't think he is going to win. There are lots of reasons. At the top of the list is the sheer talent of the likely Democratic nominee, Obama.

Good to see nothing much as changed around here :)

McCain vs Obama will be a tough call.

Too bad Billary doesn't appear to have a chance at the nomination now. Even my wife said she would vote for McCain over him and that's saying something.

Personally, I don't think Obama has the balls to fight terrorism anywhere. I doubt he would have done anything beyond hand wringing when the Towers went down and Afghanistan wouldn't hand over bin Landin.

While McCain isn't my ideal candidate, I don't think he is a pussy.

Lots of concern about the backgrounds and activities of John McCain's father- in-law and his brother, back then. Even though now, McCain's sole nongovernment employment, political career, and personal fortune all came from James Hensley, and McCain willingly accepted all of them, there is almost no concern about how this related to McCain's judgment or his ehtical standards.

Why do you suppose McCain's father-in-law James Hensley, was the focus of attention of two governors and so many other state watchdogs? Why do you think the Hensley brothers chose to move from the wholesale liquor distribution business to the horse racing track business, and with a partner who they tried to conceal from the racing commission?

Quote:

Link to photo of newspaper page: http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/hensgov.png

August 5, 1955

Politicians Tee Off Over Bitter Ruidoso Race Track Situation

By the Associated Press

...The Rev. Bluford Finch, who has filed suit against the state seeking to end Sunday racing, called on, Gov. John Simms to "cancel all racing daes for the protection of the public."

Simms 'Apalled'

Simms has earlier declared two brothers connected with the Ruidoso track have court records and that he is "appalled" that former Gov. Edwin L. Mechem and the racing commission relicensed them in 1953.

Mechem, a Republican, at first delcined to comment and then said he would not engage in a debate with the Democratic Simms administration. "I am not going to answer questions asked by Simms through the newspapers," Mechem added. "If the administration wants an answer let them ask me personally."

Simms' reference was to Eugene Hensley, majority stockholder in the track amd his brother James, who once owned stock in the association but is no longer connected with it.

Court records at Phoenix, Ariz, show that Eugene V. Hensley and James W. Hensley were sentenced there May 3, 1948, Eugene to one year and James to six months, for making false entries to the government on distilled liquor sales, both paid $2000 fines.

James Hensley's sentence was suspended, Fugene served a term.

No New Mexixo law would prohibit a person with a prison record from operating a race track....

Link to photo of newspaper page: http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/hensgov2.png
Page Six Albuquerque Journal Our Slant by Ed Minteen Associate Editor August 13, 1955

....Recently Gov. Simms blasted his predecessor, Gov. Meecham, for not doing something while in office about the Ruidoso racetrack situation. The governor termed Mechem's lack of action as "appalling."

Mechem has refused to engage in a pro and con brawl on the matter with Simms. He has said that if Simms wants to confer with him and ask any questions he'll be glad to answer them.

It has developed, however, that Gov.Simm's tirade on Mechem about the Ruidoso track operation, at least, borders on an alibi and "get-out-from-under" maneuver.

The facts that we present here come not to us from Mr. Mechem who refuses to talk. But they come from an authentic and unimpeachable source.

Just before Mechem left office he had a conference with the Governor-elect Simms. Mr. mechem went into the Ruidoso situation at some length and considerable detail with Mr. Simms. Maybe that time Mr. Simms was so excited over his pending ascendancy into the governor's chair that his memory of the conference failed him.

Anyway, at this conference Mechem warned Simms that a bad situation could develop at Ruidoso and advised him to watch it closely. mecehm had send investigators to Phoenix to go into the ownership angle and he also sent investigators to Ruidoso. One person trying to horn in on the ownership was barred as a result of the Mechem investigation.

The current operators, the Hensleys now under fire, were under constant surveillance during Mechem's administration. No action was taken against the Hensleys because the investigation showed that as tracks go, all laws apparently were being observed. But Mechem prodded tghe Racing Commission to be one the alert because he "was worried about it".

That was the state of affairs when Mechem in his pre-inaugural conference with Simms placed the whole picture before the incoming governor. The facts are that Mechem was going out of his way to be helpful to the new governor. Simms came into office and for six months not a peep out of him about the Ruidoso track. Then suddenly the track operation and ownership came to the public attention.

Now all our governor does is to shout about how appalling was Mechem's handling of the situation. But during the more than six months after Mechem has warned him to "watch the situation" apparently he had done no watching.

Mr. Simms in trying to pass the buck and squeezing out of the jams of his own making is generally quite proficient in hitting below the belt.

I'm tired of having rich, white men in power. Simple as that.

HOLY SHIT IT'S LEBELL!!! Welcome back. :thumbsup:

I don't think Obama will FIGHT terrorism, but rather actually stand a chance of STOPPING terrorism. Terrorism is simply desperate guerrilla tactics against a foe with superior military force. If they don't want to fight us anymore, we won't be in any danger. The idea that they're attacking us because they hate freedom or w/e is goofy. They're attacking us for very real reasons. Our military is in their land. Our corporations are buying up their most precious commodity for relatively cheap. Our leaders come on TV and call them evil and liars and say we're going to attack more and more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

I think this is a good point. A lot of our problems in the world are self-created, and stem directly from times when We (America) didn't measure up to our own ideals. Our activities during the cold war, where we buddied up with murderous dictators and thugs because they would help us fight The Great Evil Commies. Our past, current, and future support of similar thugs who promise to ensure our access to cheap oil and other resources. We look the other way in regards to China's human rights abuses, yet claim similar abuses are reason enough to continue to shun Cuba.

It's all about compromising our core beliefs for what seems like a temporary gain. How many children are growing up *right now* hating the US because we took their daddies away, locked them up in Abu Ghraib or gitmo for 5 years and counting, with no trial or due process, and then tortured them?

If we start to play nice right now, we of course won't change the minds of all the people who want to kill us. There will always be crazy Muslims (and Christians!) who want to replace democratically elected governments with 'religious law'. But the way things are right now, we've bolstered there ranks because those same crazies can point to the truly reprehensible things we've done and say "See?! I told you! American thugs!"

But we *must* start now. The best way to undercut the terrorists in the world is to remove their support network - by *not* doing things that give people a legitimate reason to hate us.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Hi Will :)

I think the problem is that there is a certain sub-group of extremists that will ALWAYS want to fight us so long as we have ANY presence in the Middle east. That sub-group freely admits that it is about re-establishing the caliphate.

And as for "relatively cheap", I don't think I agree. They don't seem to be hurting for cash:

http://www.google.com/search?q=dubai...ient=firefox-a

I don't really see a problem with getting out for good, or at least until we're invited. No one asked us to invade Iraq, after all. Not even the resistance.

The cheap thing was referring to how much of the money was getting to the people in Iraq. The UAE has been dealing in oil for over a generation, and they had the foresight to deal with many different customers so that if a certain customer got greedy other customers would have a vested interest in stopping them. In addition to that, the UAE has maintained a very strong tie to the UK, which still holds sway over the lumbering bafoon (the US).

The problem with "getting out" is that not only the US, but most of the world's economy still relies on oil. It is simply pragmatism.

I won't even go into what would probably happen if we abandoned/turned loose Israel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

The day America leaves the Middle East is the day China/Russia/India enter it, with prejudice. Until they harness the magical energy of sugarplum fairy farts anyway.

Lots of Chinese in China these days.

Lebell, welcome back. You were gone a long time and you already posted that nothing has changed around here. Once, we were dealing with Karl Rove's role in the "outing" of Valerie Plame's employment details at the CIA.

Now, there are new "stories". As I always try to do, and you have not agreed, in the past, and may not agree with this statement now, is to post my take about what is going on, and where it should lead to.

I think the information presented in this thread is important, because the attention of it from the media is not commensurate with the details.

For both McCain and Obama, these two sets of circumtances are related to their judgment and their ethics. The "problem" is that focus is overwhelmingly on Obamas shortcomings in this area, whereas McCain's are, IMO, more disturbing.

There are 82,700 search results for the search terms [ McCain Hensley ]
Hensley is McCain's late father-in-law's and McCain's wife's last name.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...ey&btnG=Search

There are 645,000 search results for the search terms [ Obama Rezko ]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

IMO, this wide disparity needs to be narrowed to confirm that the public is being informed by the media about both these sets of circumstances:

I agree that Obama's house purchase arrangement smells, it bears much more scrutiny, but it isn't the financial basis for the entire launching of his political career, and it hasn't netted him $50 to $100 million, as overwhelming evidence documents that McCain's ethical lapses have.

Why is it that Sam Giancana's description of his son-in-laws "lot", described on PDF page 128, here:
http://foia.fbi.gov/giancana/giancana1.pdf

....do not apply similarly to James W. Hensley's son-in-law, John McCain?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giancana to a news reporter

..."An ex-convict can't get a job now, he explained. He has to get a gun and go out and hold up people to get something to eat. There's going to be a lot of crime if this keeps up. It will be worse than Capone.

<h3>'Look at that kid,' he added, pointing to his son-in-law. who was helping Antoinette cut a four foot high wedding cake.

'Now everybody is going to hook him up with me'. No one will hire him. I'll have to give him a .45 and put him to work for me.'.....</h3>

Why is the mainstream media not at least asking John McCain why he cast his lot, immediately after resigning from the Navy, with the business and financial support of a former "mob soldier" in an environment where the "king pin" of the same "mob", Kemper Marely, was widely regarded, and widely publicized at that time, as the man who ordered the "mob hit" on Phoenix investigative reporter, Don Bolles?

Did John McCain really take a VP job as PR "liason" from a man as wealthy and connected as James W. Hensley was, without looking into, then or later, Hensley's background and the circumstances that resulted in his being in the beer distribution business, owning the very difficult to obtain, extremely profitable, exlclusive franchise to wholesale America's best selling beer?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

The problem with "getting out" is that not only the US, but most of the world's economy still relies on oil. It is simply pragmatism.

North America proven oil reserves, in billions, according to:
BP Statistical Review: 60
Oil & Gas Journal: 213.319
World Oil: 46

South America proven oil reserves, in billions, according to:
BP Statistical Review: 103
Oil & Gas Journal: 102
World Oil: 76

Middle East proven oil reserves, in billions, according to:
BP Statistical Review: 742
Oil & Gas Journal: 739
World Oil: 711

Africa proven oil reserves, in billions, according to:
BP Statistical Review: 114
Oil & Gas Journal: 114
World Oil: 109

The US uses about 6.6 billion barrels a year. This means that we could live off just North America for 10 years at least, possibly as much as 35 years. How long could it possibly take for a Democratic president to get alternatives going?

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/reserves.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

I won't even go into what would probably happen if we abandoned/turned loose Israel.

They'd have to learn to play nice with the Palestinians and Lebanese for one. And the UN would probably be there to stop the Israelis because they' lost our UN support.

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

I'm sure China will have fun with the still strong remnants of the Mujahadin. We don't have to be that stupid anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

I'm sure China will have fun with the still strong remnants of the Mujahadin. We don't have to be that stupid anymore.

I wouldn't want to be standing in the way of 1.5 billion hungry chinamen would you? They'll swarm in with about .00000000025% of their population equipped with hardhats, laptops and laser rifles and turn those grunting, bearded cavemen into wontons for their soup.

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

China's no more capable against IEDs and rebels hiding among the civilians than we are. They're the same as us: a standing military that's expert at waging conventional warfare. Them vs. us? That'd be a battle royale. Them vs. Iraqi "insurgents"? They'd be in the same shit we're in, only they'd be about 3 inches shorter. Heh.

Let me put it this way: if Tibetans weren't primarily Buddhists, China would be in the shit there, too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

China's no more capable against IEDs and rebels hiding among the civilians than we are. They're the same as us: a standing military that's expert at waging conventional warfare....Them vs. Iraqi "insurgents"? They'd be in the same shit we're in, only they'd be about 3 inches shorter. Heh.

You're forgetting one important thing: the Chinese don't much care about human rights. They would bypass such trivialities as ieds or suicide bombers, and they would have no need to report things like "war crimes", "atrocities", torture or other malfeasance....why? Because they can't be bothered with human rights when they've got 1.5 billion mouths to feed...they don't have the luxury of being scrupulous. They will wash over the country like a swarm of ants...if 100 die in an ied explosion, there's 10,000 right behind them in full battle frenzy.

First, they will secure every oil spigot in the country. Second, their engineers would instruct their air force in the quickest, most efficient way to bomb a mountain into a molehill. Third, they'll dig a trench 10 feet wide and 2 miles long and bury every sumbitch in the country with a beard and an ak47 in it. Fourth, they will extend the Great Wall south, arm it with laser turrets every 500 yards, surround the entire country and cut it off from land invasion within a week. Fifth, they will shoot down every American military/reconnaissance satellite in space. Sixth, they will take the oil to feed, house and entertain their 1.5 billion, announce an embargo unless the rest of the world pays 1500% tariffs on oil imports, and game over.

No human rights in China: It's their secret weapon to world domination.

Ya' know, will.... the folks you are debating here, and this is really a topic for another thread, have the same notions invested in their belief systems as McCain with his "stay 50 more years in Iraq", rhetoric.... aren't looking at the way economics play into the "if not the US military in Iraq, then who will it be?"
argument.

LSTC oil is now selling for $100+ per bbl. The residents of the US and it's government cannot afford, for any further lengthy period, to consume the amount of this oil that we do, and incur the economic costs of fielding the ground, air, and naval forces currently deployed between southern Iraq and the Afghan border with the formely Soviet "Stans".

The consequences of shouldering both costs is starting to show....the US dollar is taking it on the chin. Gold is $1000 oz, Silver is $20, the Euro is $1.52, and the Chi-Com Yuan is 7.09 to the dollar.

We cannot afford to "guard the oil", and pay retail for it, too. An ounce of gold buys a greater quantity of oil than it did in 2002, and a US dollar buys a little more than 1/4 of the oil it bought in 2002.

Our society and government is standing in the middle of a tree branch and sawing away at the branch, between it's position and the trunk.

No other industrialized nation has sawn through as much of the branch that it is standing on. I've posted for a long time on these threads that it is too late for the US to do anything but see it's currency's purchasing power collapse....it is doing a slow but increasing bleed, now....or use it's military to attempt to muscle the rest of the world into capitulation.

The current economic downturn is progressing, it is global in nature, and it will force an increasing lessening of global demand for petroleum that may even cut the price of it in half, for a time, because the downturn is going to be deeper and longer lasting than most currently want to admit.

IMO, nothing else but the economics matter. Economics will drive the coming US military aggression. The US society and government have shown no inclination to stop using 25 percent of daily world petroleum output. Many here will argue that the decline of the dollar is a "good thing", temporary in nature, cyclical. The trouble is that there is nothing to enhance the dollar but the point of a gun or the triggering mechanism of a nuclear weapon, and that will not change.

The economic damage to the US caused by the "War on Islamofascism", on "terror" or on whatever you want to call this, is the unaccepted story. We're spending trillions to confront a threat that causes physical damage in the tens of billions, or none at all. We're inflicting all of the economic damage ourselves, just look around you, in traffic, at all of the other one occupant per vehicle, examples of the problem. Look at the increase in military/intelligence/home security spending since 2000.

Since none of the candidates shows any inclination to cut military spending or to cut energy use from the current 22 million bbl per day of petroleum equivalents, it won't matter to the dollar, who wins the next election.

If the US enjoyed the economic fundamentals of say...Canada...energy independent, strong currency, positive trade balance, federal budget surplus... some of the discussion from the "War on terror" supporters might be relevant. The US is not in Canada's position in any of those categories. It must either order it's military to pay for it's expenses via taking control of foreign assets by force, and neutralizing the opposing force attempting to retain the foreign assets, or our military will deteriorate and withdraw from the field. Ironically, the steeper the world economic decline, the slower the dollar will decline, but nothing but an all or nothing attempt to neutralize Russian and Chinese armed force will prevent the catastrophic collapse of the "American way of life'. Just watch the dollar, and US troop and naval movements.

To put the thread back on track. Imagine if you will, if I was "invited" to this "shindig"? Can you see me not asking John McCain where the money came from, circa 1983, to enable him to buy his ranch, what his first impression of his father-in-law was, did he check on the man's background before accepting a job offer from his as VP of PR of his company? What did he think about late 70's press reports of his father-in-law's federal felony convictions, long relationship and employment with Kemper Marley, ownership in a New Mexico racetrack with accusations that he hid his partnership in the deal with a barred, mob connected gambler, how McCain thought the public would react to this background and the vast wealth the relationship brought to McCain....did McCain think that the money was "clean" now, and when did McCain consider his father-in-law's money and business assets to be transformed from proceeds of mob related activity to legitimate funds and assets, etc.....

No, the working press gnawed on ribs and kissed McCain's ethicsless or uncurious, hypcritical ass.... instead of speaking truth to power:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030202373.html
McCain Stands On the Other End Of a Press Grilling

By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 3, 2008; A09

PAGE SPRINGS, Ariz., March 2 -- If he loses the presidency, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will have a career as a barbecue chef to fall back on.

At his weekend cabin just outside Sedona on Sunday afternoon, McCain took a break from campaigning and grilled ribs and chicken for three dozen reporters, some staff members and a few Republican friends from the Senate.

Dressed in jeans, an L.L. Bean baseball cap, sunglasses and a sweat shirt featuring a picture of his family, McCain held court the way he does almost daily aboard his "Straight Talk Express" bus.

While the afternoon barbecue for the media was technically on the record, tape recorders were prohibited, as was taking pictures for publication, and McCain aides repeatedly urged reporters to put away the notebooks.

The idea, McCain said, was to allow reporters to get to know him and his staff under less stressful circumstances. (The fact that the media spent the weekend at a resort called Enchantment probably contributed to that feeling.) In addition to the press, Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), McCain's best friend in the Senate, was there, as was former senator Phil Gramm (Tex.), Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Charlie Black, McCain's top political adviser.

McCain offered a tour of the property, which if he is elected will no doubt become the latest incarnation of the "Western White House," the equivalent of Ronald Reagan's Santa Barbara ranch, President Bush's place in Crawford or the first President Bush's Maine retreat. Bill Clinton didn't have a property like that, but managed to vacation frequently at the Vineyard with friends.

McCain's aides said the three-hour gathering was intended as a "social event," not a glorified news conference. And by and large, reporters agreed to those rules, asking him substantive questions only a few times......

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

You're obviously passionate, but geez, get out and smell the roses, man.

I mean, I swear this is the same thread I left you on how many YEARS ago??

I moved on, had a kid, changed jobs twice and well, got a life outside TFP. But you man, it seems like you're stuck here.

As it says in the good book, you will always have poor among you, meaning in this case, you will always have stories like this to occupy your time. But if I had to make a judgement call, you're dangerously close to obsession on this shit.

Anyway, no hard feelings or animosity towards you.

Maybe I'll pop in more often, maybe not. It takes alot of time to post around here and frankly, I have a life filled with flesh and blood people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

I moved on, had a kid, changed jobs twice and well, got a life outside TFP.

Congrats. Still a bit worried about some people on TFP procreating, but I suppose we better have enough to create TFP: the Next Generation. Lebellittle? Lebellette?

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Congrats. Still a bit worried about some people on TFP procreating, but I suppose we better have enough to create TFP: the Next Generation. Lebellittle? Lebellette?

Lebell-lite :)

Anyway, to continue our conversation, did you see in your reading how much of the US reserves were easily recoverable? Knowing something of the subject matter, I know that is an important factor.

For example, if the cost of recovering half of that parses out to 6 dollars a gallon of gas and you can still get sweet crude out of Saudi or Venezuela for 5 dollars a gallon, then simple economics will tell you what happens next.

Like it or not, the economy, not warm fuzzy wishes will drive what happens. And we have built our political machine to follow the economy.

What happens to a politician that makes a courageous decision that also results in you paying more at the pump, more at the supermarket, more at the <insert store here> while you lose your job as well? That politician loses his job at the next election to the guy who promises he will improve the daily living conditions of Joe Average.

Anyway, I don't see much hope until oil prices get really outrageous and/or there is a technological miracle break-through, such as cold fusion.

Cold fusion is boring. Zero-point is where the action's at.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Cold fusion is boring. Zero-point is where the action's at.

Assuming it doesn't kill us through a run-away reaction :)

Rest easy.....John McCain as "law abiding" president was just a brief lapse on his part....what a difference, six months make....he's fixin' to be a full bore, criminal, "bill of rights" bustin' winger president, meet the new Bush, same as the old Bush:

Candidate McCain, Last December:

Quote:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/...teQA/McCainQA/

John McCain Q&A
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | December 20, 2007

1. Does the president have inherent powers under the Constitution to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes?

There are some areas where the statutes don’t apply, such as in the surveillance of overseas communications. Where they do apply, however, I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is.

Okay, so is that a no, in other words, federal statute trumps inherent power in that case, warrantless surveillance?

I don't think the president has the right to disobey any law.
2. In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? And specifically, I'm thinking about non-imminent threat situations.

Well he doesn't. But if there is an imminent threat, the president has to act in America's security interest.

But in terms of a strategic bombing, where nothing is going to happen tomorrow or next week, then he's got to go to Congress?

He should, absent an imminent threat. But in the event of an imminent threat, the President has a constitutional obligation to protect the American people.

3. Does the Constitution empower the president to disregard a congressional statute limiting the deployment of troops -- either by capping the number of troops that may be deployed to a particular country or by setting minimum home-stays between deployments? Is that beyond Congress' authority?

It's beyond Congress's authority to micromanage wars. Congress has the power of the purse and the power to declare wars; the President is responsible for leading the armed forces as Commander in Chief.

4. Under what circumstances, if any, would you sign a bill into law but also issue a signing statement reserving a constitutional right to bypass the law?

As President, I won’t have signing statements. I will either sign or veto any legislation that comes across my desk..

5. Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?

The Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that, under the Congressional authorization of the use of force, the U.S. can hold even American citizens under the law of war if they are enemy combatants. But the Court also said that U.S. citizens must have due process to challenge their detention. And I think that is very important when it comes to American citizens.

6. Does executive privilege cover testimony or documents about decision-making within the executive branch not involving confidential advice communicated directly to the president himself?

Yes, the law recognizes a “deliberative process” type of executive privilege that is broader than direct communications to the President. So while we should not do anything to inhibit the communications between a president and his advisers, as President I will do my utmost to accommodate Congressional requests for information.

7. If Congress defines a specific interrogation technique as prohibited under all circumstances, does the president's authority as commander in chief ever permit him to instruct his subordinates to employ that technique despite the statute?

No. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress that power. Unless the president chooses to willfully violate the law and suffer the consequences, he must obey the law.

8. Under what circumstances, if any, is the president, when operating overseas as commander-in-chief, free to disregard international human rights treaties that the US Senate has ratified?

I know of no circumstance. Again, it goes back to what the law says – if there is a treaty that the Congress has ratified, we have chosen to make it the law of the land, and it must be obeyed under the terms that it was ratified.

9. Do you agree or disagree with the statement made by former Attorney General Gonzales in January 2007 that nothing in the Constitution confers an affirmative right to habeas corpus, separate from any statutory habeas rights Congress might grant or take away?

On that one, the Supreme Court just heard oral arguments in the Boumedienne case and it is expected to rule early next year on that question. So I will be interested in seeing how the Court rules.

10. Is there any executive power the Bush administration has claimed or exercised that you think is unconstitutional? Anything you think is simply a bad idea?

McCain declined to answer this question.

11. Who are your campaign's advisers for legal issues?

McCain declined to answer this question.

12. Do you think it is important for all would-be presidents to answer questions like these before voters decide which one to entrust with the powers of the presidency? What would you say about any rival candidate who refuses to answer such questions?

I agree. These are part of the judgment that the American people need.

Even just a week ago, McCain was represented as a candidate who still wanted to follow the law, to hold those who appeared to have broken the law, accountable:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...052802967.html
For McCain, A Switch On Telecom Immunity?
Recent Statements Signal Deeper Privacy Concerns

By Jonathan Weisman and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 29, 2008; A06

A top lawyer for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign said telecommunications companies should be forced to explain their role in the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program as a condition for legal immunity for past wiretapping, a statement that stands in marked contrast to positions taken by President Bush, McCain and other Republicans in Congress.

"There would need to be hearings, real hearings, to find out what actually happened, what harms actually occurred, rather than some sort of sweeping of things under the rug," Chuck Fish, a former vice president and chief patent counsel at Time Warner, said last week at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in New Haven, Conn., according to an audiotape available on the conference Web site. "That would be absolutely verboten in a McCain administration."

The comments -- first noted last week on the blog of the technology magazine Wired -- contradict McCain's voting record, and they are almost certain to disrupt negotiations between Democratic leaders in Congress and Bush administration officials, who are seeking blanket immunity for the telecoms' cooperation with the surveillance program.

At issue is the administration's program to intercept phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists without a warrant from the secret federal court that has overseen domestic spying since the 1970s. The biggest telecom carriers in the nation participated in the program before it came to light and have since been deluged by nearly 40 lawsuits from customers claiming their privacy rights were violated.

Bush and congressional Republicans are trying to resurrect warrantless surveillance legislation, which lapsed in March, albeit under somewhat stricter supervision. But the administration argues that phone companies will participate only if they receive blanket immunity not only for future surveillance but for cooperation that started after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Supporters of immunity say the companies acted in good faith that their assistance was lawful.

In February, when the issue reached the Senate, McCain voted repeatedly against failed Democratic efforts to strip out the legislation's retroactive immunity provisions or limit the surveillance program's reach. He then voted for the bill's passage.

Fish's comments and the campaign's responses indicate that McCain appears to be taking a new stance that undermines the GOP's negotiating position, as well as the party's efforts to label Democrats as weak on terrorism.

Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior policy adviser, said Fish was sent to the conference to represent McCain's position, which he did. "Senator McCain supported and voted for immunity for the past actions of the telecommunications companies, but going forward, he does not want them put into this position again," he said.

"Most important in all of this, there must be clear guidelines for their participation and sufficient vetting," a point Fish was trying to make, Holtz-Eakin said.

But Democrats and privacy advocates see a stark change of position. McCain was one of 41 senators to vote against an amendment to make the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act the exclusive means for electronic surveillance in this country, an amendment offered to provide the clarity McCain says he wants, Democratic aides say. The amendment failed to get the 60 votes needed for passage.

"If that's his view today, he had a chance to back it up in recent votes on the Senate floor, and he did not," said David Carle, spokesman for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.).

"Everything that Senator McCain's aide has said is fully consistent with what we've said," said Caroline Fredrickson, Washington office director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The Republican position on the Hill has been the absolute opposite."

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), said he hopes McCain will pressure Bush "to back down from his untenable position so we can negotiate a bill as quickly as possible."

In his comments, Fish said that "there would probably be three things that would matter in a McCain administration."

"The first thing is, it would need to be explicit that we're not talking about something like granting indulgences," which he dismissed as "forgiveness without repentance."

Congress would need to hold hearings, Fish said, adding that "Congress would need to provide clear rules so that we would be certain that private records would be protected in the future."

The McCain campaign last week issued a statement, largely to the telecommunications firms themselves, seeking to clarify Fish's remarks. But the clarification merely added new complications for Republican negotiators because it still implied misdeeds by the telecoms.

"The granting of retroactive immunity supports the continuing efforts of participating companies yet should be done with explicit statements that this is not a blessing for future activities," the statement says.

By the other day, the old, "I will obey the law as president", was gone:

Quote:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...RkZGM=%3E#more

June 2, 2008 1:35 PM

Lead, Senator
The McCain campaign reassures on surveillance reform, but …

By Andrew C. McCarthy

There is much about which to be encouraged in the posted response by McCain spokesman Doug Holtz-Eakin to questions about surveillance reform that I raised last week. I’m grateful that he took the time to pen such a thoughtful answer.

By his account, it certainly appears that the McCain campaign was done an injustice by the Washington Post’s suggestion that the senator was flip-flopping on legal immunity for the telecoms. (The campaign did not help itself by entrusting a surrogate who did not grasp the senator’s position.) The House Democrats’ refusal to agree to immunity — i.e., their elevation of the financial interests of their trial-lawyer patrons over the public interest of Americans in aggressive intelligence collection against those at war with us — is the pivotal dispute delaying reauthorization of foreign-surveillance authority that passed the Senate with overwhelmingly bipartisan support (but is opposed by Senators Obama and Clinton).

The McCain campaign is unequivocally telling “Corner” readers that the senator supports the Senate bill, that he believes the telecoms acted appropriately in acquiescing in government requests for cooperation after the 9/11 attacks, and that no further hearings are necessary to get to the bottom of what happened given the searching congressional investigations that have already occurred.

The most interesting and, I’d submit, the most significant part of the McCain campaign’s response involves presidential power under Article II of the Constitution.

I pointedly asked whether Sen. McCain has changed his position about the lawfulness of President Bush’s warrantless surveillance initiative, ordered in the emergency wartime conditions that followed atrocities in which nearly 3000 Americans were killed and the seat of our military was targeted (as, probably, was the White House or the Capitol). McCain’s original comments when the New York Times exposed the top-secret program indicated a belief that the program was illegal because it did not comply with the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires a federal judge, rather than the commander-in-chief, to authorize monitoring.

The campaign declined to answer my question directly. Nevertheless, its response implicitly shows Sen. McCain’s thinking has changed as time has gone on and he has educated himself on this issue. The campaign now says (all italics below are mine):

[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Further, the McCain spokesman elaborates:

We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.

This is exactly right. It doesn’t mean Sen. McCain has lost his regard for FISA or thinks it’s any less important that we enact legislation that improves it. (And I say that as someone who thinks FISA is a bad law and that the Senate bill, though necessary, is itself a deeply flawed piece of legislation.) It means, as the McCain campaign is saying, that we don’t know what the future will bring. The Framers understood that too — which is why, notwithstanding their deep suspicions of executive power, they created a powerful presidency that could react with dispatch when hostile foreign forces threatened the United States.

I’ve only got one other question for the McCain campaign — more of a plea than a query: Why isn’t Sen. McCain leading on this crucial national-security issue?

This is a home-run waiting to happen. The Democrats, deeply in the thrall of the trial lawyers and Leftists who would prefer to see America vulnerable, are opposing commonsense legislation. Even the awful post-Watergate Congress, in its hostility to executive power, understood that foreign intelligence collection should not be managed by federal judges. Yet, the House Democrats’ position holds that if terrorists in Baghdad kidnap a U.S. Marine, we need to get a federal judge’s permission to authorize eavesdropping as those terrorists contact their confederates in Sadr City … or Tehran.

That’s lunacy. But it’s the Obama position. And it is classically symbolic of how the Democrats’ likely standard-bearer views our national security. McCain should be hammering him on this daily.

Meanwhile, as the stalemate goes on in Congress — and it has now been over three months since the Pelosi Democrats let our foreign surveillance authority lapse — we are hamstrung in our ability to collect intelligence against newly emerging terror cells, under circumstances where (as a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate explained) new cells are emerging all the time.

The Democrat leadership is content to leave us vulnerable. Sensible Democrats know this is a potential disaster — which is why so many of them voted for the Senate bill, and why so many of them are squirming in the House. Nightly, they are no doubt thanking the Almighty (or Mother Earth, or whatever it is that the Left thanks) that the Republican candidate is not riveting the public’s attention to their craven refusal to allow a vote on the Senate bill that everyone knows would pass by a comfortable margin.

President Bush has done what he can do, and has admirably held the line against further compromise on our security. But the brute politics are that he cannot lead on surveillance reform anymore.

Only Senator McCain can do that.
Please.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...Q0MWRiMjM0Y2I=

Monday, June 02, 2008

McCain & FISA: Significant Developments and Opportunities [Andy McCarthy]

I'm grateful to McCain spokesman Doug Holtz-Eakin for his thoughtful answer to the questions on surveillance reform I posted last week.

I've responded in an article on the homepage today. In my humble opinion, the McCain camp's response is extremely significant in that it not only full-throatedly supports the surveillance reform being blocked by House Democrats; it marks a welcome evolution on the Senator's thinking about executive power — bringing him more into line with prior administrations and influential federal court decisions which concede presidential power under Article II of the Constitution to order warrantless surveillance when the United States is threatened.

As I argue (again) today, Sen. McCain's likely opponent and House Democrats — who are elevating the interests of trial lawyers over public safety — are extremely vulnerable on this issue. He should be going after them on it, relentlessly. It's not only good politics — it's the path to needed reform.

06/02 04:03 PM

Last month's ad campaign, financed by online contributions raised by bloggers, targeted worst offending six of 21 blue dog democratic congressmen who have voted with the white house on telecomm immunity, this is the full page newspaper ad that appeared in Rep. Chris Carney's district:
http://bp3.blogger.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/.../newspaper.jpg

Quote:

http://stopthepainwhenithink.blogspo...e-factory.html
Telecom immunity and the sausage factory...

This is disgusting. America in the land of hypocrisy and bullshit...

Is it all about the money? Is that all that the much heralded 'American democrasy' has been reduced to? Money and bullshit?

God had better bless America and with not so many idiots and assholes either, and quick!

How telecoms are attempting to buy amnesty from Congress

One of the benefits from the protracted battle over telecom amnesty is that it is a perfect microcosm for how our government institutions work. And a casual review of the available evidence regarding how telecom amnesty is being pursued demonstrates what absurd, irrelevant distractions are the pro-amnesty justifications offered by the pundit class and the Bush administration.

Just in the first three months of 2008, recent lobbyist disclosure statements reveal that AT&T spent $5.2 million in lobbyist fees (putting it well ahead of its 2007 pace, when it spent almost $20 million). In the first quarter of 2008, Verizon spent $4.8 million on lobbyist fees, while Comcast spent $2.6 million. So in the first three months of this year, those three telecoms -- which would be among the biggest beneficiaries of telecom amnesty (right after the White House) -- spent a combined total of almost $13 million on lobbyists. They're on pace to spend more than $50 million on lobbying this year -- just those three companies.

Let's pause for a brief minute to reflect on how ludicrous and deceptive -- laughably so -- are some of the main FISA/telecom claims that are being advanced. We continuously hear, for instance, that these poor, beleaguered telecoms need protection from the big, money-hungry plaintiffs' lawyers driving these "costly" surveillance lawsuits. One of the two organizations leading the litigation against the telecoms (along with the ACLU) is the non-profit group Electronic Frontiers Foundation. Here is what EFF's Kurt Opsahl wrote this week:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05...t-quarter-2008
To put this into perspective, AT&T's spending for three months on lobbying alone is significantly more than the entire EFF budget for a whole year, from attorneys to sys admins, pencils to bandwidth.

And then there's the claim -- advanced by the likes of The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt, among others -- that it's a grave injustice to force these telecoms to incur attorneys fees in order to defend themselves against allegations that they broke the law because the litigation is so "costly." Yet here these telecoms are spending $1 million per month or more in order to send former government officials to pressure member of Congress to write the laws the way they want them to be written.
Then there are the specific lobbying arrangements these telecoms have on FISA. AT&T, for instance, paid $120,000 in the first three months of 2008 to the lobbying firm of BSKH & Associates -- the firm of which Charlie Black, top campaign adviser to John McCain, is a founding partner. According to BSKH's lobbyist disclosure form, Charlie Black himself, at the same time he was advising McCain, was one of the individuals paid by AT&T to lobby Congress on FISA. From that disclosure form:

Last year, AT&T paid $400,000 to Black's firm. Black was taking money from AT&T to lobby on FISA and simultaneously advising McCain. McCain, needless to say, voted in favor of granting amnesty to AT&T and the other telecoms at exactly the time that his close adviser, Black, was taking money from AT&T to influence Congress on its behalf. And, of course, AT&T and Verizon are among McCain's top donors.

While we're subjected to all sorts of prattle from our pundit class and political leaders about how telecom amnesty is so urgent if we want to be Safe from the Terrorists, this is the sleaze that fuels how the process works. And the sleaze is spread around in a nice bipartisan way.

In addition to Charlie Black's firm, AT&T -- from January to March -- paid $150,000 to the new lobbying firm (.pdf) formed by former Democratic Sen. John Breaux and GOP Sen. Trent Lott, to lobby on only two issues: FISA and net neutrality. Those fees were for only three individuals -- Breaux, Lott and Lott's former Chief of Staff, Bret Boyles. Newsweek reported last September that the telecoms had hired numerous top officials from both the Bush 41 and Clinton administration to lobby for amnesty. And, as previously reported, contributions from telecom executives to Jay Rockefeller skyrocketed right before he became the key Senator leading the charge for telecom amnesty......

I invite anyone who would defend McCain's flip flop and the republican talking points in the two National Review quote boxes above.....about the telecomm immunity issue having to do with democrat support for "rich trial lawyers", to do so.....post what you've got.....

Friends....since my last post on this thread, nearly 3 days ago, there have been 124 posts combined, on the topics of "Who will be Obama's VP?", and "Is Killing in War, Murder?"..... but no responses to my last post, here.....

Consider that the matter of the VP selection has been considered so trivial in the past, that Bush's father "served us up", the inconsequential lightweight, Dan Quayle as his VP pick, and....unless the president dies in office, the VP pick is largely irrelevant. Consider that man will debate whether killing in war, or in most wartimes, is or isn't murder....for the rest of time.

Consider that the concerns highlighted in my last post are very real....have real consequences in our lives, in our country's future path......the difference between whether one of the two major party presidential candidates is committed to obeying and upholding the law....the provisions of the US Constitution....the one he will take an oath, as a condition of assuming office, "to protect and preserve"....... or not.

Yet not one response from any of you....to my last post. Judge for yourselves what motivates me to participate here, but consider that I represent that I try to prioritize where I put my time and effort by what I expect will be the political issues with "legs"....ones with serious, far reaching, implications....War crimes, the Plame Outing, NIST's failure to produce it's promised WTC 7 collapse report, the long delay in the Senate Intel committee's pre-war intelligence report release, the Abramoff scandal. the Duke Cunningham/Wilkes/Foggo scandal, McCain's decision to quit the Navy and take a job with his mobbed up father-in-law..... the media's complicity in pushing the conservative agenda, the Council for National Policy and other evangelical christian influence of conservative politics, the effect of conservative foundations on the construction of an alternate universe of "knowledge" known as the ubiquitous, "think tank", from Cato to AEI.....

,,,,,anyway, most of what I post about is in the details, it isn't the stuff of light banter, and thus is discouraging for readers to focus on and get up to speed on.....but, not one post...??? vs. 124 posts on those other two threads?

I put the time into doing my last post here because I thought it was about a new and important story....a major reversal by McCain about what kind of president he is telling us he will try to be....about his values related to his upholding his oath of office, the law, the line between his authority, and ours !

I'm posting tonight to tell you that I feel vindicated, in spite of my post being ignored, in spite of my reaction to what you have chosen to "post away", about.....because, my last post here "scooped" by two whole days, the NY Times story displayed on it's June 6th front page....reporting by it's new hire, a reporter who won a Pulitzer for breaking this other big story....

Quote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18138967/
updated 5:24 p.m. ET, Mon., April. 16, 2007

....Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe won for national reporting for his revelations that President Bush often used “signing statements” to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws.

“This is a great honor, and I view it as a great moment not just for myself but for the Globe as an institution,” Savage told The Associated Press. “The Globe for a while was throwing it out on the front page when a lot of people were ignoring it, and that took a lot of courage.”....

So, temporarily....I don't sink or swim based on your reactions, but please consider that I am known for posting "out in front" of past big stories. Even if you read a post like my last one, and don't think you have much to add, an "atta boy", host....post from you, once in a while, will go a long way.... I doubt that I'll scoop the Times, by two days, again this month......

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/us...gewanted=print
June 6, 2008
Adviser Says McCain Backs Bush Wiretaps
By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — A top adviser to Senator John McCain says Mr. McCain believes that President Bush’s program of wiretapping without warrants was lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush administration legal team.

In a letter posted online by National Review this week, the adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Mr. McCain believed that the Constitution gave Mr. Bush the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail without warrants, despite a 1978 federal statute that required court oversight of surveillance.

Mr. McCain believes that “neither the administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the A.C.L.U. and trial lawyers, understand were constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin wrote.

And if Mr. McCain is elected president, Mr. Holtz-Eakin added, he would do everything he could to prevent terrorist attacks, “including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.”

Although a spokesman for Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, denied that the senator’s views on surveillance and executive power had shifted, legal specialists said the letter contrasted with statements Mr. McCain previously made about the limits of presidential power.

In an interview about his views on the limits of executive power with The Boston Globe six months ago, Mr. McCain strongly suggested that if he became the next commander in chief, he would consider himself obligated to obey a statute restricting what he did in national security matters.

Mr. McCain was asked whether he believed that the president had constitutional power to conduct surveillance on American soil for national security purposes without a warrant, regardless of federal statutes.

He replied: “There are some areas where the statutes don’t apply, such as in the surveillance of overseas communications. Where they do apply, however, I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is.”

Following up, the interviewer asked whether Mr. McCain was saying a statute trumped a president’s powers as commander in chief when it came to a surveillance law. “I don’t think the president has the right to disobey any law,” Mr. McCain replied.

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said that while the language used by Mr. McCain in his answers six months ago was imprecise, the recent statement by Mr. Holtz-Eakin “seems to contradict precisely what he said earlier.”

Mr. McCain’s position, as outlined by Mr. Holtz-Eakin, was criticized by the campaign of his presumptive Democratic opponent in the presidential election, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Greg Craig, an Obama campaign adviser, said Wednesday that anyone reading Mr. McCain’s answers to The Globe and the more recent statement would be “totally confused” about “what Senator McCain thinks about what the Constitution means and what President Bush did.”

“American voters deserve to know which side of this flip-flop he’s on today, and what he would do as president,” Mr. Craig said in a phone interview.

Tucker Bounds, a McCain campaign spokesman, said Mr. McCain’s position on surveillance laws and executive power “has not changed.”

“John McCain has been an unequivocal advocate of pursuing the radicals and extremists who seek to attack Americans,” Mr. Bounds wrote in an e-mail message, adding that Mr. McCain’s “votes and positions have been completely consistent and any suggestion otherwise is a distortion of his clear record.”

Asked whether the views Mr. Holtz-Eakin imputed to Mr. McCain were inaccurate, Mr. Bounds did not repudiate the statement. But late Thursday Mr. Bounds called and said, “to the extent that the comments of members of our staff are misinterpreted, they shouldn’t be read into as anything otherwise.”

Neither Mr. McCain nor Mr. Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office who primarily advises the campaign on economic issues, was available for comment, Mr. Bounds said.

Mr. McCain has long distanced himself from the Bush administration on legal issues involving detention and interrogation in the fight against terrorism, an approach that has sometimes aroused suspicion among conservative supporters of the Bush administration.

But more recently, as Mr. McCain has worked to consolidate his party’s base, he has taken several positions that have won him praise from his former critics while drawing fire from Democrats.

In February, for example, Mr. McCain voted against limiting the Central Intelligence Agency to the techniques approved in the Army Field Manual on Interrogation, which complies with the Geneva Conventions. Mr. McCain said the C.I.A. needed the flexibility to use other techniques so long as it did not abuse detainees.

He also voted for legislation that would free telecommunications companies from lawsuits alleging that they illegally allowed the N.S.A. to eavesdrop on their customers’ phone calls and e-mail without a warrant. The legislation would also essentially legalize a form of surveillance without warrants going forward.

But Mr. McCain had previously stopped short of endorsing the view that Mr. Bush’s program of surveillance without warrants was lawful all along because a president’s wartime powers can trump statutory limits.

Andrew C. McCarthy, a National Review columnist who has defended the administration’s legal theories, wrote that Mr. Holtz-Eakin’s statement “implicitly shows Senator McCain’s thinking has changed as time has gone on and he has educated himself on this issue.”

And Glenn Greenwald, a Salon columnist and critic of the Bush administration’s legal claims, wrote that the statement was a “complete reversal” by Mr. McCain, accusing the candidate of seeking “to shore up the support of right-wing extremists.”

The reaction to Mr. Holtz-Eakin’s statement is the latest link in a chain of disputes over Mr. McCain’s positions on surveillance over the past two weeks.

On May 23, the McCain campaign sent a volunteer lawyer, Chuck Fish, to be the candidate’s surrogate at a conference on computer policy. Mr. Fish spoke at a panel discussion on whether phone and Internet companies should be granted immunity from lawsuits for having helped Mr. Bush’s surveillance program.

Mr. Fish suggested that Mr. McCain wanted to impose conditions — like Congressional hearings — that would ensure that such “forgiveness” would not signal that the telecoms should feel free to disregard communications privacy laws in the future if a president tells them to.

After Wired magazine wrote about Mr. Fish’s remarks on its blog, raising the question of whether Mr. McCain’s position had become more skeptical about immunity, the McCain campaign put out a statement saying that Mr. Fish was mistaken. Mr. McCain supported ending the lawsuits without conditions and his position had not changed, the campaign said.

On May 29, The Washington Post quoted Mr. Holtz-Eakin as saying that Mr. McCain did not want the telecoms “put into this position again” and that “there must be clear guidelines for their participation and sufficient vetting” in any future situation.

Mr. Holtz-Eakin’s comments in turn drew fire from Mr. McCarthy. In a blog posting on the National Review Web site, he demanded to know whether Mr. McCain believes the Constitution authorizes a president to lawfully go “arguably beyond what is prescribed in a statute” during a national security crisis.

Mr. Holtz-Eakin laid out Mr. McCain’s position on the president’s claimed constitutional powers to bypass surveillance laws in a letter to Mr. McCarthy, who this week called the statement “extremely significant” and said it “marks a welcome evolution on the senator’s thinking about executive power.”

I was considering voting for McCain, but his recent support of Bush's wiretapping has put an end to that idea. Not that his pandering to the far right didn't give me pause.

McCain is no different than Bush. A win for McCain would mean another 4 years of shit. I've read some pretty bad shit about him. Even though he is in favor of the war, he has a terrible policy regarding veterans and POW's. Which is SO confusing because he is one himself.

I'm against him, but it's because I disagree with him on both domestic and foreign policy.

to the main thread question...I shure hope not, however, the voting process as been so f'd over the past 8 years honestly I think it's a joke. some kind of teasing sham of a process. just a process to make all the sheeple think they made a choice.
any kind of debate between these guys easily reveals Mcain as much less intelegent than Obama and an old raging warmonger to boot.. I don't see anything positive about him.

if Obama winns I agree it'll be a hidious mess figuring out Iraq let alone getting out. I don't see that part of the world ever being anything but a raging hell hole. I can't see how anyone could get us out in 4 years. Iraq will still be a horror of chaos easy.

what I can hope for is Obama trashing the republican party with war crime trials and god knows what all else. if that stuff starts kicking in and takes hold hopefully it'll go for 2 terms...more than shure theres enough dirt on the gop to last.

On the Today Show this morning, McCain made this statement:

Quote:

Q: A lot of people now say the surge is working.

McCAIN: Anyone who knows the facts on the ground say that.

Q: If it’s working, senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?

McCAIN: No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea. Americans are in Japan. American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine.

Q: Will your support be there for however many U.S. troops are required?

McCAIN: Yes, and the fact is we are winning in Iraq.

Not too important when the troops can come home or how many might be required to stay there indefinitely?

Most Americans disagree....Nearly 2 out of 3 want the troops to come home within the next year to 18 months....or sooner.

I wonder how long before McCain issues a clarification or claims his response was taken out of context?

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

I wonder how long before McCain issues a clarification or claims his response was taken out of context?

Almost no time at all.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpoi...s_took_not.php

Quote:

The Obama campaign is embarking on a false attack on John McCain to hide their own candidate's willingness to disregard facts on the ground in pursuit of withdrawal no matter what the costs. John McCain was asked if he had a 'better estimate' for a timeline for withdrawal. As John McCain has always said, that is not as important as conditions on the ground and the recommendations of commanders in the field. Any reasonable person who reads the full transcript would see this and reject the Obama campaign's attempt to manipulate, twist and distort the truth.

LOL. I guess what they're implying is that no one should judge McCain by his own words until his advisers have released a follow-up statement clarifying what they meant for McCain to say, because he's surely proven that he can't think for himself anymore.

I almost feel badly for McCain advisors.

McCain: *grumble* "Meh, the troops'll stay there until the day I die.." *grumble

Advisor: What he meant to say was that we all hope that our troops are safe and... um... I quit.

Anyone but Barak Hussein Obama.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

Anyone but Barak Hussein Obama.

Wow. I wouldn't have thought YOU would be somebody to cut of your nose to spite your face like that. I know some Hillary crazies will flip over for McCain, but YOU?

I'm for McCain because host is against him.

Just kidding.

I'm against McCain because I have a hard time reconciling the idea that a guy who has railed against authority all of his adult life will be the actual embodiment of power in the world. There's also the fact that I agree with host that his wife's family has many, many skeletons that potentially reach into organized crime. If that proves true (and I'm not yet convinced, host), it's not exactly a smoking gun, since I'm a believer in the sins of the father don't always reflect on the son (or son-in-law in this case), but it certainly needs to be scrutinized.

All that and the fact that I've been an Obama guy since the late 90's.

aside: i've heard on the ideology-machine and read here and there references to these clinton supporters who "will vote for mccain" because of procedural issues with the primaries, but i've not seen anything, anywhere from any of these people. i wonder if they exist.

[whisper]

psst ... have you heard that Barak Obama is a smoker? ... :paranoid:

[/whisper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

[whisper]

psst ... have you heard that Barak Obama is a smoker? ... :paranoid:

[/whisper]

Said the guy with the pipe featured on his avatar.

He smokes Marlboro Reds. Big whoop. If that's the biggest vice you can think of for Obama, you haven't been paying attention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

Said the guy with the pipe featured on his avatar.

He smokes Marlboro Reds. Big whoop. If that's the biggest vice you can think of for Obama, you haven't been paying attention.

Oh he's not just a pipe smoker, he's a pipe smoker with 3D glasses.

The Democrat spin on the McCain quote and this new one on Obama today are really very silly. It's only going to get worse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

http://www.hillaryis44.org/
Reading the comments on this site is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. From what I can tell they are mostly older women who are convinced that Obama and the media have stolen the election from Hillary and will vote for McCain so she can run again in 2012.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Wow. I wouldn't have thought YOU would be somebody to cut of your nose to spite your face like that. I know some Hillary crazies will flip over for McCain, but YOU?

Let's see what he has said about some people close to him because you can judge a man's character by the way he talks and handles his friends......

Rev Wright "I never heard in my 20 years with him, dinners at his house, even, those divisive hateful sermons."

Rezko "I never was involved with the man, didn't know anything about hi, sure he has had fundraisers and has helped me raise lots of money, but I didn't associate with the man."

His grandmother "She was a typical racist white person."

Then there are the tapes that show when he tries to speak off the cuff, without a prepared speech, he is a complete babbling idiot.

There is the fact that noone truly knows ANYTHING about this man.

He says "Change" but wtf changes does he mean?

Trust me I am not wanting another 4 years of Bushlite, but anyone is far far better than Obama.

The question was "Why do you support McCain" that is why.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

Then there are the tapes that show when he tries to speak off the cuff, without a prepared speech, he is a complete babbling idiot.

As someone who's actually spoken to the man on a few occassions, you're wrong. He is very well-spoken and an intelligent individual. You're welcome to your opinion, but I'll point out that it's not based on any personal experience you have with Sen. Obama, simply what you've seen on TV.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

The question was "Why do you support McCain" that is why.

Imagine no Obama
Its easy if you try
No Wright, no race, no change
Just hype, false hope abound

Imagine John McCain
Wars till the end of time
No taxes for the wealthy
The rest just left behind......

hmmmm....what would the prophet John think?

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

I'm for McCain because host is against him.

Just kidding....

GRRRRrrrrrrrrrr.....Just kidding....

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

....I'm against McCain because I have a hard time reconciling the idea that a guy who has railed against authority all of his adult life will be the actual embodiment of power in the world. There's also the fact that I agree with host that his wife's family has many, many skeletons that potentially reach into organized crime. If that proves true (and I'm not yet convinced, host), it's not exactly a smoking gun, since I'm a believer in the sins of the father don't always reflect on the son (or son-in-law in this case), but it certainly needs to be scrutinized.

All that and the fact that I've been an Obama guy since the late 90's.

The_Jazz, I am less concerned about "the skeletons" in the Hensley closet, than I am about McCain's judgment, and his ethics, clouded by ambition and maybe even greed....that is what his decision to make f-inlaw Jim Hensley, his principle political benefactor, and very rich, too, seems to raise concerns about, IMO.

pan, I just wish you would get 1/10th as interested in Obama's policies as you are in your interpretation of his personality or in the so-called scandals that his opponents have attempted to peg on him. It's regrettable that this election has turned into a battle of personality rather than a conversation of ideas.

I gotta say, I was really glad to see Sen. Barbara Boxer on "The Situation Room" the other day emphasizing the fact that John McCain is a pro-life candidate--he has received a rating of 0 from NARAL. His pro-life stance seems to be often overlooked.

Yet another reason I wouldn't even consider voting for the guy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

When you have 2 slimebuckets, a press that pretty much built up the candidates and never gave anyone else a chance, 2 men so despicable that 20 years ago would never have been elected dog warden with the scandals they have been involved in.... then you add a populace so beaten down financially, patriotically, morally, physically and mentally trying hard to grasp onto anyone.. you are asking for serious problems.

In all honesty, I have stated numerous times, both parties would be wise to lose this election, things will get worse before they get better.

When in 2 years the Iraq War is still going..... and Obama is in office saying, "we cannot pull out yet." What do you tell all those who voted for him because he swore he was going to bring the troops home?

Or let's say he pulls out and all of a sudden we have a few terrorist attacks here?

When in 2 years, the economy is still just as bad if not worse..... what do you tell those who voted for Obama who promised he was going to help everyone and things would get better?

What do you tell those who are barely making it when gas prices hit $6 a gallon and inflation out of control?

They'll understand we have them programmed to hate big oil.... but didn't Obama swear things would get better?

Say goodbye to a Dem Congress.

When in 4 yrs..... we are still in the war, the economy is still shit.... say goodbye White House.

It's '76 all over. A very disliked, scandal ridden administration and a horrible recession looming.... here comes a "saviour" who trusted the wrong people, who ended up being far worse for the country and losing the White House for 12 years. In '76 hard times were coming... it was going to happen regardless of who was in office, but Carter was brought in with everyone saying he could make this country great. Didn't happen. This is history repeating itself.

And if I am wrong in 4 ears and our nation is prospering and people are raving about how great Obama is.... then I'll admit I was wrong. But will you admit I was right, if what I predict happens?

No, it'll be someone else's fault.... Bush's fault..... the GOP who didn't give Obama what he wanted...... Big business..... the ultra rich...... everyone but his fault.

Yet, when if it happens with McCain.... it will be all his fault.

I'll take McCain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

When in 2 years the Iraq War is still going..... and Obama is in office saying, "we cannot pull out yet." What do you tell all those who voted for him because he swore he was going to bring the troops home?

Or let's say he pulls out and all of a sudden we have a few terrorist attacks here?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

I'll take McCain.

You're making this decision because you're frustrated and you want to lash out. That's your right, but don't expect anyone else to understand or approve.

If you honestly believe that McCain and Obama are likely to have similar administrations, you've lost your objectivity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

It's important not to confuse the hypothetical with the likely. Just talking about meeting with people instead of bombing them shows the intellectual capability to reason ethically. This is an ability which is not present in Bush or McCain, each of whom see their friends profit from war.

You're making this decision because you're frustrated and you want to lash out. That's your right, but don't expect anyone else to understand or approve.

If you honestly believe that McCain and Obama are likely to have similar administrations, you've lost your objectivity.

You pick and choose Will.... you ignored a lot of other things I wrote.

Do I think McCain will be better? Yes, a Dem Congress can and will hold him at bay.

I'm not frustrated or wanting to lash out..... but if that is what you want to believe and ignore what I wrote that is your right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

You pick and choose Will.... you ignored a lot of other things I wrote.

My response was to all of it. You basically predicted a future that supports your case without giving your reasoning. As Cynthetiq would say, that's intellectually dishonest. Prediction should be about reasonable likelihoods and precedent, not inventing an unsupportable future that fits your argument.

Do you believe that an Obama presidency and McCain presidency will be anything alike?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

Do I think McCain will be better? Yes, a Dem Congress can and will hold him at bay.

You find comfort in a stalled system, where the executive and legislative are adversarial. I disagree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

I'm not frustrated or wanting to lash out..... but if that is what you want to believe and ignore what I wrote that is your right.

You can throw "ignore" around all you want, but it doesn't gather meaning from repetition. I read everything you wrote and responded to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

....You're making this decision because you're frustrated and you want to lash out. That's your right, but don't expect anyone else to understand or approve.

If you honestly believe that McCain and Obama are likely to have similar administrations, you've lost your objectivity.

I think pan is voicing a great concern of mine....whoever is the next president will likely be overtaken by events that the Bush presidency seems to have made inevitable...Iraq war "blowback"...a "bad end" if we withdraw slowly, quickly, or not at all, continued $700 billion annual national debt increases....either via Obama's increased domestic spending on new programs or on attempts to ease the pain of long recession on already strapped, but currently still employed families....later....as unemployment grows.

Of coarse...there will be some attacks in the next few years....on US soil, the law of averages dictates it. The media and republicans, under an Obama presidency scenario, will call whatever it is, "terrorism", stress that all was peaceful, "in the homeland" during the post 9/11 Bush years, and unceasingly drive home the point that "we got hit", because Obama is "soft on terrorism".

These attacks are, under the law of averages, most probable and predictable....why not let McCain be the figurehead when they happen, NEXT?

Like it or not, under pan's way of looking at things, if McCain wins, it's a longterm win for democrats, and if Obama wins, democrats will feel like immediate winners....although the "be careful what you wish for" scenario will probably be the next shoe to drop on the dems.....

The federal government will also attempt to stem the waive of local government bankruptcies....it's coming....growing home foreclosure rates, coupled with declining property values, will diminish property tax collections, just as recession driven demands for increased social services, rise.

Bank failures will destroy the meager reserves in the FDIC deposit insurance fund, and the federal government will borrow to keep paying deposit insurance claims.

Combine all of this chronic borrowing with a trade deficit that isn't going away....it may decline from $800 billion annually now, to $500 billion as we import less oil and discretionary consumer products, due to recession, and you have a recipe for long recession with no interest rate relief. The dollar may not fall further, because, as demand drops, we should experience catastrophic deflation....the Fed's worse fear. All debt will increase in "value", in the sense of the difficulty in making debt payments in a deflationary environment, vs. owing and paying on a fixed amount of money that is decreasing in value in an inflationary environment....

I think pan is saying...and if he is....I agree that the democrats best long term scenario is to gain bigger margins in the senate and the house, but leave the presidency, this time....to John McCain....let him be this era's "Jimmy Carter style", "patsy"...for the blowback caused by the last eight years, just as Carter ended up being the "patsy" for the Johnson/Nixon/Ford/Vietnam "blowback".

The only other probable scenario is two years of complete democratic party control under Obama and the next congress....painted because of the Iraq war and the economy and deficit as a period of dismal democratic management failure....followed by republican mid-term gains in the legislature in 2010, followed by long republican dominance...a repeat of 2002 to 2006, from 2012 onward....

Oh yeah....if you aren't under the influence of the "Obama vibe"...some are calling him a "light worker"....ala Martin Luther King....

Quote:

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/arc...a_lightworker/

He is a light worker. He is a being of light. He is not conscious of this, but subconsciously he is. His speeches of change and hope are evidence of this....

....it isn't hard to agree that he has shown extremely poor judgment in his relationship with Rezko, most especially the house "deal"....and the way he tried at first to deflect what actually happened, and in his relationship with the former weather underground couple, and...although it is minor, it speaks to and is linked to the other two misjudgments.... the two nutcase pastors he vouched for.

Because Obama has been campaigning for the presidency almost since his speech at the 2004 democratic convention, he is perceived....it is stressed by the opposition....as having much less than four years experience as a US senator. So what have you got? A well meaning, charasmatic young guy whose greatest executive management experience is in managing his senate staff and the staff of a perpetual campaign....and his vice-president search committee just imploded, because of the man Obama picked to coordinate it had a shitty ethical compromise in his past....

So, charitably....Obama is light on executive management experience, light on senate, in person, legislative experience, and he's an iffy judge of character, motive, and ability of others...... great !

Do I have your timeline about right, pan?

Host, whoever pulls the troops out will be a hero to all but a few Fox News hacks. That credit can go towards balancing the necessary strains of fixing the numerous problems left by the Bush Administration. This would also buy us 4 years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

Ummmm.... call it what you will, I see a great many similarities between the '76 election and this one. Which would be precedent. Believing we will get financially stable regardless of the president ignores all signs it won't. I supported my position quite well above, at least for me. Don't like it I don't care. I have yet to hear you reason against it. All you can do is throw phrases, cut and paste what you want and not truly give an opposing view. You just attack mine.

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Do you believe that an Obama presidency and McCain presidency will be anything alike?

Not really. But I'll take Mccain's over Obama's.

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You find comfort in a stalled system, where the executive and legislative are adversarial. I disagree.

I find comfort in that no one party will have a blank check and hopefully instead of gridlock we'll see compromises made for the betterment of the country. I'd rather have a McCain look totally inefficient and unable to compromise than Obama run this country further down because he has a blank check. Also helps in future elections, the McCain scenario.

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You can throw "ignore" around all you want, but it doesn't gather meaning from repetition. I read everything you wrote and responded to it.

Really Will? Where's the comments on my comparing the '76 election to this one? Where's the answer to:

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When in 2 years, the economy is still just as bad if not worse..... what do you tell those who voted for Obama who promised he was going to help everyone and things would get better?

What do you tell those who are barely making it when gas prices hit $6 a gallon and inflation out of control?

They'll understand we have them programmed to hate big oil.... but didn't Obama swear things would get better?

Where's your comments to:

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When in 4 yrs..... we are still in the war, the economy is still shit.... say goodbye White House.

It's '76 all over. A very disliked, scandal ridden administration and a horrible recession looming.... here comes a "saviour" who trusted the wrong people, who ended up being far worse for the country and losing the White House for 12 years. In '76 hard times were coming... it was going to happen regardless of who was in office, but Carter was brought in with everyone saying he could make this country great. Didn't happen. This is history repeating itself.

I don't see those. I see you saying "well your are predicting and guessing and making your choice that way????? WTF? And I am supposed to elect a president how? Especially based on what we know of either man. OOOOO because Obama is the messiah, the saviour I am to just blindly vote for he man.

OOOOO because he is a great man, I am supposed to ignore a 20 yr association with Rev. Wright. (And I can't talk about it because that is racist.)

I'm supposed to ignore that this great man who is going to be the greatest president since Washington.... has had very poor people around him, that he will routinely put under the bus, came out of nowhere and has a press cover up and make excuses for this man, while crucifying McCain for every little thing he says.

But most importantly Will, you totally ignored this:

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And if I am wrong in 4 years and our nation is prospering and people are raving about how great Obama is.... then I'll admit I was wrong. But will you admit I was right, if what I predict happens?

No, it'll be someone else's fault.... Bush's fault..... the GOP who didn't give Obama what he wanted...... Big business..... the ultra rich...... everyone but his fault.

Yet, when if it happens with McCain.... it will be all his fault.

I'll take McCain.

What will you admit to in 4 years if I am right about Obama? If things do get worse...

I vote for the man I think will work best for my country the next 4 years. McCain, for all his faults will be that man.... ANYONE that ran would be better than Obama.

That is my opinion.

threads like this almost make me wish my vote mattered :(

/lives in Phoenix
/a vote for Obama in Arizona would be good for statistical purposes only

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Originally Posted by pan6467

Ummmm.... call it what you will,

I did.

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Originally Posted by pan6467

I see a great many similarities between the '76 election and this one.

So?

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Originally Posted by pan6467

Believing we will get financially stable regardless of the president ignores all signs it won't.

Strawman. I never said we'd become financially stable. We'll likely get started to financial stability under Obama but we may not reach it for decades. We will not get started on the road to financial stability under McCain, who will continue the war regardless.

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Originally Posted by pan6467

Don't like it I don't care.

]
That's a good summarization of your attitude.

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Originally Posted by pan6467

I have yet to hear you reason against it. All you can do is throw phrases, cut and paste what you want and not truly give an opposing view. You just attack mine.

Within 2 years the war will still be going? Under a Democratic president and Democratic Senate? That's ludachris. The only reason that the Dems can't do anything now is the veto power of Bush. Ask DC_Dux. As such, there's strong evidence that a Democratic Executive and Legislative can withdraw the troops quickly.

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Originally Posted by pan6467

Not really. But I'll take Mccain's over Obama's.

The why did you essentially say they would, only with intentions being different? Were you just flaming?

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Originally Posted by pan6467

Presenting compromise as automatically being what's best for everyone is fallacious at the very least. The betterment of the country cannot and will not happen under McCain. The furthering of corporate interests will be the only real benefit, and that's not something that will trickle down.

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Originally Posted by pan6467

Really Will? Where's the comments on my comparing the '76 election to this one?

My response: "You basically predicted a future that supports your case without giving your reasoning."

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Originally Posted by pan6467

You're not making reasonable predictions. You're saying "everything that Obama is promising and everything that his precedent has demonstrated is wrong and he will fail as a president. What then?" without giving one tiny ounce of evidence. Have you bothered to compare Obama to Carter? Have you compared their voting records? Have you compared their careers before serving in public office? Of course not, because that would reveal the gaping hold in your case.

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Originally Posted by pan6467

OOOOO because he is a great man, I am supposed to ignore a 20 yr association with Rev. Wright. (And I can't talk about it because that is racist.)

Again with that? "Hi everybody, I'm pan and I walk the line of being racist so that when people call me on it I can become a maryter! Whoa is me! I am victimized by those I bait into sorta calling me possibly racist!"

The 20 year association with Reverand Wright.... you mean like Rod Parsley, a racist (against Muslims and Arabs) minister who happens to be McCain's spiritual guide? The one who has called on eradicating a "false religion" by "war"? Reverand Wright has not once endorsed violence, despite his somewhat extremist views. Parsley, on the other hand has called on Christians to wage war against Islam.
[QUOTE=pan6467]But most importantly Will, you totally ignored this:[/QUOPTE]
I have the rationality and objectivity to say that I will make the decision after it's happened, taking all facts into account instead of trying to guess 4 years before it happens. If Obama fails, it may be because of a million and one reasons we don't know about now and it would be downright stupid to pretend that we would know what would cause the failure of his presidency. Projecting bias onto me is meaningless, though.

"Someday, if Obama's presidency fails, you're not going to blame him". I'll tell you what, meet me here in 4 years and I'll continue to present reasonable and verifiable information and my opinions based on that information while you're still bemoaning someone almost calling you a racist.

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Originally Posted by pan6467

I vote for the man I think will work best for my country the next 4 years. McCain, for all his faults will be that man.... ANYONE that ran would be better than Obama.

If you think continuing the Iraq war is good for the US, you have no understanding of economics or morality.

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Originally Posted by pan6467

Especially based on what we know of either man. OOOOO because Obama is the messiah, the saviour I am to just blindly vote for he man.

OOOOO because he is a great man, I am supposed to ignore a 20 yr association with Rev. Wright. (And I can't talk about it because that is racist.)

I'm supposed to ignore that this great man who is going to be the greatest president since Washington.... has had very poor people around him, that he will routinely put under the bus, came out of nowhere and has a press cover up and make excuses for this man, while crucifying McCain for every little thing he says.

pan...you can vote for whomever you want for whatever reason you want.

IMO, based on your posts, you are being a bit disingenuous with your double standards.

You raise Obama's 20 year "association" with Wright...you ignore Obama's 20+ year association with his crooked father-law...and his association with the S&L scandal 20 years ago and his current association with Phill Gramm (his chief economic advisor) and the banking lobby that some attribute as being responsible in part for the sub-prime crisis.

You fault Obama for throwing Wright under the bus (I would characterize it differently) ..but ignore McCain's throwing two evangelical extremists under the bus

You raise questions about the "people" around Obama and ignore the "people" (around 100 lobbyists - telecomm, banking, etc) around McCain..some of whom have had to resign for lobbying for Mynmar and other nasty foreign governments.

You call Obama a "fucking idiot" for misstatements on the campaign trail and ignore McCain's equally (or more) idiotic misstatements on the campaign trail.

You claim that Obama gets a "press cover up?...and McCain's media friendly "straight talk express" doesnt.

Just be honest that you dont hold McCain to the same standard as you do Obama...rather than resort to the hyperbole that relies on bullshit that plays on voters' emotions in the manner encouraged by the most right wing blogs.