One Week After McCain Claims Vets ‘Know I’ll Take Care Of Them,’ IAVA Gives Him A ‘D’
One Week After McCain Claims Vets ‘Know I’ll Take Care Of Them,’ IAVA Gives Him A ‘D’
During the first presidential debate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) repeatedly emphasized his love of veterans — and their fondness for him in return. “I’ll take care of them. And they know I’ll take care of them,” he said. McCain frequently exaggerates his level of support for and from veterans groups, claiming to have “received the highest award from literally every veteran’s organization in America” and to have “a perfect voting record” on veterans’ issues. Watch a compilation:
Today, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America released its congressional scorecard for the 110th Congress, and awarded McCain a grade of “D” for his votes against veterans’ priorities. The grade makes McCain one of only four Senators to fall on IAVA’s “D List” — and marks a repeat performance for him, after receiving a “D” for his 109th congressional voting record as well.
IAVA hammered McCain for refusing to co-sponsor Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) 21st Century G.I. Bill. In fact, the IAVA highlighted the weaker alternative proposed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — and endorsed by McCain — as “an effort to derail the popular and bipartisan” GI Bill proposed by Webb. “Thankfully,” the IAVA writes, “the Senate voted forcefully, 55-42, to kill” the Graham-McCain proposal.
IAVA’s score adds to other groups who have criticized McCain’s abysmal record on veterans’ issues. McCain has received a 20 percent vote rating from the Disabled Veterans of America, while the Vietnam Veterans of America noted McCain had “voted against us” in 15 “key votes.”
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Palin staff keep journalists locked inside press area to prevent them from writing ‘negative things.’
Palin staff keep journalists locked inside press area to prevent them from writing ‘negative things.’
During Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) speech in Florida this morning, campaign staffers kept the press locked out of the park and away from supporters attending the speech:
Constantly under the watchful eyes of security, the media wasn’t permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park to talk to Sarah Palin supporters. When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head toward the bleachers where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out of nowhere and confront him or her and say, “Can I help you?” and turn the person around.
When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn’t allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written. The campaign wanted to avoid that possibility Monday.
Palin has still yet to give a single press conference since being tapped as Sen. John McCain’s running mate on August 29.
McCain offers no response to supporter who yells out that Obama is a ‘terrorist.’
McCain offers no response to supporter who yells out that Obama is a ‘terrorist.’
This afternoon, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) gave a “sharply worded” speech full of “verbal assaults” directed at Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). At one point, McCain asked, “Who is the real Barack Obama?” A member of the crowd yelled out, “a terrorist!” McCain paused while the audience laughed at the comment, and then continued with his attack — without condemning or admonishing the audience member. Watch it:
Last year, McCain had a similar reaction when one of his supporter asked, regarding Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), “How do we beat the b*tch?” McCain laughed and replied, “That’s an excellent question.” (HT: AmericaBlog)
McCain campaign finally agrees to send spokeswoman to Rachel Maddow Show.
McCain campaign finally agrees to send spokeswoman to Rachel Maddow Show.
After repeatedly rejecting MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow’s invitations to appear on her show, the campaign for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) finally sent aide Nancy Pfotenhauer to appear as a guest on Friday night. Maddow opened by saying she “could not be happier” to welcome Pfotenhauer:
Since this show started, we have been talking a lot about what’s been going wrong with he McCain campaign and what they or he the candidate could do about it. But we have yet to have the benefit of hearing directly from anyone from the McCain campaign to share with us their view of the state of the race. That all changed tonight, and I could not be happier about it.
Maddow asked Pfotenhauer about Friday’s Washington Post article detailing McCain’s Senate chief of staff’s close and lucrative ties to Freddie Mac — coupled with McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis, who earned millions lobbying for Fannie and Freddie. Pfotenhauer brushed off the question, claiming “everybody has plenty of associations to point to.” Watch it:
In 2006, Stevens brushed off corruption charges: ‘They’re not going to shoot us, it’s not Iraq.’
In 2006, Stevens brushed off corruption charges: ‘They’re not going to shoot us, it’s not Iraq.’
During the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) today, prosecutors played tape of secretly recorded conversations between Stevens and former VECO chief Bill Allen, who has already been convicted of bribery. In the 2006 conversation, Stevens told Allen he couldn’t “think of a thing of anything we’ve done that wrong”:
The worst that could happen, Stevens told Allen, was that they would have to pay thousands of dollars in legal bills to get themselves out of hot water.
“They’re not going to shoot us, it’s not Iraq,” Stevens said, although he also expressed some concern about having to serve time in jail. “I hope to Christ it never gets to that, but I don’t think it will,” Stevens said.
Palin calls Afghanistan ‘our neighboring country.’
Palin calls Afghanistan ‘our neighboring country.’
Speaking at a San Francisco fundraiser on Sunday, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) “fumbled” while praising U.S. soldiers in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, referring to Afghanistan as a “neighboring country”:
“They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan,” she told several hundred supporters at a fundraising event in San Francisco.
Afghanistan borders neither the United States nor Iraq. Asian geography appears equally difficult for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who has discussed an imaginary Iraq-Pakistan border.
Does the McCain campaign think Rich Lowry is sexist?
Does the McCain campaign think Rich Lowry is sexist?
Last month, the McCain campaign accused Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) of being “disrespectful” and sexist for calling Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) “attractive.” Will it similarly slam National Review’s Rich Lowry, who praised Palin’s sex appeal to male viewers?
I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think she just winked at me.” And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.
Last night, Fox’s Brit Hume declared Palin “physically attractive,” adding to the many conservatives who have fawned over her physical appearance. Watch a compilation:
McCain: ‘Let’s Cut Off’ All Ties To Iran, ‘Diplomatic, Trade, You Name It,’ ‘Basically Isolate Them’
McCain: ‘Let’s Cut Off’ All Ties To Iran, ‘Diplomatic, Trade, You Name It,’ ‘Basically Isolate Them’
Yesterday, Sen. John McCain met with the editorial board of the Denver Post. Discussing Iran, McCain took an extreme hard-line approach, saying the U.S. should “cut off” all ties to Iran, including “diplomatic” ties:
Let’s cut off all kinds of credit to ‘em, all kinds — diplomatic, trade, you name it. Basically isolate them. Because they are in violation of solemn agreements that they entered into, concerning nuclear weapons. And so I really believe that we could have an effect on Iranian behavior.
Listen here:
Later in the interview, when asked how he could impose sanctions without Russia and China agreeing, McCain replied, “I’m not exactly sure.” Instead, he restated his “radical” and “dumb” idea to create a “League of Democracies” as a way to push his extreme approach to Iran.
McCain said that the U.S. should “at least try this” extreme isolation of Iran, seemingly unaware that such isolation has been the exact policy of the Bush administration. Only after years of failure — and a strengthened and emboldened Iran — have members of Bush’s team finally recognized the need to engage Iran. In other words, McCain is now more extreme on Iran than the Bush administration:
ADM. MIKE MULLEN, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair: I would like to have a healthy dialogue with Iran…I do think engagement would offer an opportunity, certainly, to understand each other better. [6/21/08]
ROBERT GATES, Defense Secretary: We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage…and then sit down and talk with them…If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can’t go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us. [5/14/08]
NICOLAS BURNS, Undersecretary of State for political affairs: There is a choice: confrontation or diplomacy. We prefer diplomacy and we are trying to open two diplomatic channels — on the nuclear issue and on Iraq. [5/2/07]
The call to move away from the isolationist policy McCain hopes to revive has been endorsed by five secretaries of state, including McCain adviser Henry Kissinger, as well as McCain’s own neocon foreign policy adviser Robert Kagan. McCain’s “let’s completely isolate Iran” approach makes him even more radical than President Bush, who last year said, “We can have meetings. Talking is not the problem. We can talk to Iran.”
Flashback: On Sept. 23, McCain said a bailout bill with earmarks would be ‘unacceptable.’
Flashback: On Sept. 23, McCain said a bailout bill with earmarks would be ‘unacceptable.’
This afternoon on CNN, Wolf Blitzer replayed a portion of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) speech from Sept. 23 announcing the conditions under which he would support a bailout package. McCain said that a bill with “any kind of earmarks” would be “unacceptable” and “simply cannot happen.” Watch it:
Of course, despite the fact that the bill was loaded with special earmarked tax breaks, McCain voted for it — and then suggested that President Bush should veto the bill because of the “insanity and obscenity” of the pork. Conservative commentator Glenn Beck told Blitzer that with McCain’s vote, “he lost the election.”
After Voting For Earmark-Laden Bailout Bill, McCain Seems To Call For Bush To Veto It
After Voting For Earmark-Laden Bailout Bill, McCain Seems To Call For Bush To Veto It
Last night, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) voted in favor of the $700 billion financial bailout bill, saying we “square in the greatest financial crisis of our lifetimes” and that he was “pleased” to be voting for the bill. McCain also told NPR he was “guardedly optimistic” the House would support the new version, which was packed with “sweeteners” aimed to bring House conservatives on board, as TP noted yesterday.
Though those “sweeteners” angered the MSNBC pundits this morning, McCain was hardly bothered, never mentioning them yesterday or during today’s cable news interviews. But when Joe Scarborough asked McCain about the pork projects, McCain flipped back to his standard anti-pork crusade, going so far as to suggest that that President Bush should veto the bill, “no matter what the stakes are:”
SCARBOROUGH: Why did these items have to be in this critical bill?
MCCAIN: Well that’s just the way the system is working in Washington and the reason why it’s got to be fixed, and it’s got to be changed. And no matter what the stakes are, you’ve got to stop this by starting to veto bills that come across the president’s desk. … It’s insanity and it’s obscenity, because it’s a waste of taxpayers’ dollars and it goes on, and until we stop it, until we get frankly a president who will say, I’m gonna veto these bills, I’m gonna make the people famous that put them on there, uh, famous.
Watch it:
Despite McCain’s constant railing against “pork barrel spending,” his actual voting record rarely matches his fiery rhetoric. He has scheduled many campaign events at venues that benefited from earmarked funding. When confronted with the realities of projects earmarks support — such as aid to Israel, military housing, and cancer treatment clinics, he has backtracked from his anti-pork crusade, saying it’s just “the process” he opposes. Even while criticizing the earmarks in an Iraq war funding bill, McCain still voted for it.
If a President McCain would veto the bill because of pork, why was the bill good enough to earn Senator McCain’s vote?