Blogging Blue

For all the controversy Sen. John McCain and his supporters have tried to drum up about Sen. Barack Obama’s supposed socialist ideas when it comes to taxes, Sen. McCain himself has his own dirty little secret: he’s supported tax plans that tax the wealthy so the middle class can have tax relief (aka “spreading the wealth”):

My favorite quote? Sen. McCain saying, “When you are….when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.” Couple that with Sen. McCain’s previously stated support for middle class tax relief at the expense of the wealthy, and you’ve got all the makings of a closet socialist.

Here’s the spin Gov. Sarah Palin is putting on the recently released results of the Troopergate report (emphasis mine):

Palin: Let me talk a little bit about the Tasergate issue if you guys would let me and, Meg, you want me to just jump right on in there?

Stapleton: Sure governor, go ahead.

Palin: OK cool.

Well, I’m very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that… .He did what any – I think — any rational person would do so again, nothing to apologize there with Todd’s actions and again very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing.

I’ve had a chance to read the Branchflower Report, and Gov. Palin’s assertion she was cleared of any legal wrongdoing is a blatant and obvious lie, given this little blurb on page 8 of the report:

For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

Now where I’m from, violating a state statute is called a crime. Maybe Gov. Palin thinks some laws just aren’t important enough to follow, but if that’s the case, it’s all the more reason why she’s simply not fit to serve as vice president. A good number of Americans have had more than enough of a White House administration that follows only those laws it believes are worth following.

What’s more, the fact that Gov. Palin and the McCain campaign would resort to outright lies to try and spin this shows they know Gov. Palin is caught. If she were any kind of leader, she’d admit what she did was wrong, apologize, and try to move on, but apparently she’d rather try to lie her way out of trouble.

For shame…

Earlier today, Jay Weber, local right-wing squawker, posted a list over at Right View Wisconsin of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s associations and gaffes that Weber feels have been overlooked by the mainstream media. Curiously enough, Weber didn’t a post a similar list for Republican presidential nominee John McCain, so I’ve done Jay Weber’s work for him.

Jay, if you happen to read this, feel free to post it over at RVW. I’ve even used your same style, so your readers won’t even know you didn’t write it!

While prepping for work this morning, I started to make a list of the types of things that would have knocked any other candidate for office out of the running. I included associations of Senator John McCain’s, as well as gaffes and mistakes he’s made.

I had to stop after 25 minutes because I just had to move on to actually going to work, but I could have continued on much longer. Folks, it’s amazing how many passes Sen. McCain has received. I know it’s an overused charge by talk show hosts, but any other candidate really would have been disqualified immediately, or mocked until their candidacy was a joke, if they had even a single one of these associations or mistakes.

I didn’t want this post to be gargantuan, so I give just the essentials. But these are all easily researched.

Associations:

Anthony T. Bouscaren. Sen. McCain served on the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom (USCWF) with Bouscaren, who’s a known white supremacist. What other politician wouldn’t even have to answer questions about his association with a known white supremacist?

Related to the USCWF: The USCWF was founded in Phoenix, Arizona in November 1981 as an offshoot of the World Anti-Communist League. The group was, from the onset, saddled with the disreputable reputation of its parent group. The WACL had ties to ultra-right figures and Latin American death squads. Roger Pearson, the chairman of the WACL, was expelled from the group in 1980 under allegations that he was a member of a neo-Nazi organization.

Rev. John Hagee. During the Republican presidential primaries, Sen. McCain said he was “proud” to receive the endorsement of Rev. Hagee, who’s noted for his strong anti-Catholicism.

Pastor Rod Parsely: Noted for his belief that Islam should be destroyed, Sen. McCain called Parsley a “spiritual guide” before ultimately rejecting Parsley’s endorsement.

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In 1998, convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy’s home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Liddy, who served time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, also referred to McCain as an “old friend” when McCain appeared on Liddy’s radio show in 2007. Interestingly enough, Liddy has a rather “curious” fascination with Adolph Hitler:

When he listened to Hitler on the radio, it “made me feel a strength inside I had never known before,” he explains. “Hitler’s sheer animal confidence and power of will [entranced me]. He sent an electric current through my body.”

Sen. McCain’s running mate (and her hubby) have ties to the Alaska Independence Party, which has a stated goal of seceding from the United States.

Sen. Mccain’s got close ties to Freddie Mac through campaign manager Rick Davis, who until August was being paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac until last month through the firm owned by Davis. It’s being said Davis & Manafort, the firm owned by Rick Davis, had been kept on the payroll of Freddie Mac because of Rick Davis’s close ties to Sen. McCain, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

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Gaffes: Some call Sen. Joe Biden a walking gaffe machine. Sen. McCain’s actually much worse.

In 2000, Sen. McCain is quoted as saying, “if all you run is negative attack ads, you don’t have much of a vision for the future…or, you’re not ready to articulate it.”

At a recent rally in Pennsylvania, Sen. McCain inadvertently addressed the crowd as “My fellow prisoners.”

At a campaign event in Pittsburgh back in July, Sen. McCain said when he was first interrogated after being taken prisoner in Vietnam, he named the starters on the defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers as his squadron-mates, despite writing in his book Faith of My Fathers that when pressed for more useful information, he gave the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line, and said they were members of his squadron.

Sen. McCain has cited on numerous occasions… including a TV commercial (that is no longer online)… one particularly egregious example of “wasteful government spending” involving the study of grizzly bear DNA: “Three million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Unbelievable. I don’t know if it was a paternity issue or criminal,” he joked, “but it was a waste of money.” The only problem? Sen. McCain voted for the study he was so fond of attacking as wasteful.

Back in 2005, McCain is quoted as saying, “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.”

At a campaign event in New Hampshire, Sen. McCain joked about attacking Iran, singing, “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.”

During a town hall in Scranton, PA in September, Sen. McCain declared that “there’s only one ethnic joke that can be told in American politics and that’s Irish jokes.” McCain then preceded to tell a joke about drunk Irish twins. Politico’s Ben Smith reported that Seamus Boyle, the president of the Ancient Order of Hibernian’s (an Irish-Catholic organization), said the joke “was really an insult to a whole nationality to be stereotyped as drunks.”

On September 24th, Senator McCain announced that he would be flying back to Washington “immediately” to concentrate on the current financial crisis on Wall Street. Though scheduled to appear on CBS’s “The Late Show with David Letterman” later that day, the McCain campaign called host David Letterman to cancel at the last minute, informing him that the Senator was “getting on a plane immediately to race back to Washington.” Stuck without a guest, the visibly annoyed Letterman chided McCain throughout his monologue, saying that McCain could simply of sent Governor Palin in his place, and questioned the “real” reason for Senator McCain’s sudden attention to his duties in Washington.

Flash forward 15 minutes later when someone informs Letterman that… not only was McCain NOT currently rushing back to Washington, but was in fact 5 blocks away (from 52nd street to 57th street) preparing for an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric.

In an interview in 1998, Sen. McCain asked, “Look, is this guy, Laden, really the bad guy that’s depicted?”

On September 18. 2008 Sen. McCain said that if he were president, he would fire SEC Chairman Chris Cox for his “betrayal of trust” leading up to this week’s financial market crisis. The only problem? The president can’t fire the SEC Chairman.

During a rally in Jacksonville, FL on September 15th, Sen. McCain adamantly reasserted that, despite the failure of yet another major financial institution, Lehman Brothers, precipitating a 500+ point plunge in the DOW, that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

And this is where I had to stop…

Take a few minutes and surf over to Rolling Stone to read Make-Believe Maverick, a piece that utterly explodes the myth of John McCain as a maverick.

H/T to John over at Sprawled Out.

Sen. John McCain’s the candidate of “leadership and experience,” right? If that’s the case, what does Sen. McCain’s comments about Osama Bin Laden say about his leadership?

MJ: You not only have had combat experience in Vietnam, but you were also a prisoner of war. When you look at terrorism right now, with people like Osama bin Laden, do you have any reservations about watching strikes like that?

John McCain: You could say, Look, is this guy, Laden, really the bad guy that’s depicted? Most of us have never heard of him before. And where there is a parallel with Vietnam is: What’s plan B? What do we do next? We sent our troops into Vietnam to protect the bases. Lyndon Johnson said, Only to protect the bases. Next thing you know…. Well, we’ve declared to the terrorists that we’re going to strike them wherever they live. That’s fine. But what’s next? That’s where there might be some comparison.

It’s worth noting this interview was right after the Clinton Administration attacked Al Qaeda in Somalia and Afghanistan. It’s also worth noting that Sen. McCain’s comments came in mid-September 1998, fully a month after President Clinton ordered U.S. military strikes at terrorist-related facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan because of the imminent threat they presented to our national security.

It’s also worth noting Sen. McCain’s comments questioning whether Osama Bin Laden was really the bad guy that he was depicted to be came only a few months after Bin Laden threatened the U.S. on television, saying:

“We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They are all targets.”

Yeah, I guess I can see why Sen. McCain didn’t think Osama Bin Laden was the bad guy people were making him out to be.

H/T to Jim Dallas.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the current state of our nation’s economy, and while I’d love to talk about some good news, there just isn’t much to report.

The Labor Department released September’s unemployment numbers, and the numbers weren’t good. While the unemployment rate held steady at 6.1 percent, employers cut 159,000 jobs in September, more than double the number of jobs that were cut in August. For those of you keeping track at home, September’s job losses takes us over 750,000 jobs lost for the year, and with October, November, and December left to go, there’s a great chance we’ll break a million jobs lost for the year.

But hey, I suppose as long as our mall parking lots are still full, the economy must be in good shape, right?

This time, Republican Sen. John McCain has flip-flopped on deregulation of the banking and lending industries. While out on the campaign trail last week, Sen. McCain responded to the turmoil on Wall Street by saying, “We need strong and effective regulation.” Sounds like a pretty straightforward statement, but McCain’s rhetoric last week simply doesn’t mesh with his twenty-plus year record as a staunch supporter of deregulation, saying more than once he’s “fundamentally a deregulator.”

In 1999, McCain voted for a Senate version of a law that loosened barriers between banks and investment firms that dated to the Great Depression. Supporters said the law was needed so US financial institutions could compete globally; the law enabled the rapid growth of some of the Wall Street giants now either bankrupt, bought out, or in trouble. And let’s not forget McCain’s involvement in the “Keating Five” scandal in the late 1980’s, when he was faulted for poor judgment by advocating on behalf of a major campaign contributor (Charles Keating of “Keating 5″ fame) with savings and loan regulators. In changing his rhetoric to now support the regulation of Wall Street, Sen. McCain has shown he’s a political opportunist and he’s cemented his reputation as a hypocrite of the higher order.

What’s worse, Sen. McCain’s hypocrisy seems to know no limits, as he’s started attacking Sen. Barack Obama’s tenuous ties to former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, while conveniently neglecting to mention McCain’s own ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, thanks to Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager and a former lobbyist for both companies:

Last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month.

H/T to John over at Sprawled Out.

Yeah right.

Take a listen to this video and tell me if you think she sounds like anything close to an expert on oil:

Now shouldn’t someone who’s going to be a heartbeat away from the presidency and who’s been touted as a so-called “leading expert on energy issues” be a little more articulate on energy issues than Sarah Palin?

Only this time it’s not Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac; it’s AIG, one of the world’s largest insurance companies. Total cost to American taxpayers? Up to 85 billion dollars.

And let’s not forget this latest government-funded bailout comes fresh on the heels of a horrific start to the week that saw the Dow lose nearly 1,000 points on Monday and Tuesday, as well as the largest bankruptcy in the history of the world.

Who do I blame for the current state of our economy? Well, President Bush would be the easy answer, but a healthy dose of blame should fall squarely on Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who’s been a staunch proponent of government deregulation of banking and commerce throughout his career in the Senate. What’s worse, McCain’s now flip-flopped on this issue, adding to his litany of flip-flops, but this latest change in position reeks of political opportunism at its worst:

John McCain ought to be ashamed of himself for the kind of opportunism and pandering we’ve seen from him this week, especially on an issue as important as the economy. It’s become painfully obvious he’ll do or say anything - and I mean anything - to get himself elected.

Personally, that doesn’t look like someone I’d trust but apparently Republican presidential nominee John McCain disagrees, as he trusted a story first reported by Carl Cameron of Faux News, who alleged that Democrats threw away thousands of American flags after the Democratic National Convention. Sen. McCain’s campaign was quick to jump on the story and attack the lack of patriotism shown by Democrats, all the while ignoring their own little inconvenient truth: Carl Cameron is a proven liar.

Back in October 2004 Cameron was caught publishing a series of fabricated quotes attributed to John Kerry on the front page of the Fox News website, and Fox News was later forced to retract the fabricated story and issue an apology. In light of Cameron’s history, it’s not inconceivable he used a little “creative license” with this story.

And to think, John McCain once took pride in being a straight talker.

H/T to Jay over at folkbum.