7 February 2008
News and Comments of the Day - 2/7/08
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: General .
A lot of you share articles and we appreciate your contributions. We will begin providing a convenient place for those articles, also comments that you are not sure where else to put.
25 Comments so far...
Matt Says:
7 February 2008 at 10:32 am.
I have been hearing this from a lot of ex-POWs so I wanted to share this article:
Top Cop Says McCain Was Never Tortured
Former Vietnam vet with top secret clearance - Republican frontrunner is “a lying skunk”
A former Vietnam veteran with top secret clearance says he has personally spoken to numerous POW’s who dispute John McCain’s claim that he refused to provide information after he was captured and tortured in Hanoi, saying that in fact McCain’s code-name was “Songbird” because of his willingness to tell all to avoid torture.
Jack McLamb served nine years in secret operations in Cambodia and other nations before going on to become one of the most highly decorated police officer’s in Phoenix history, winning police officer of the year twice before taking a role as a hostage negotiator for the FBI.
“I know a lot of Vietnam veterans and a few POW’s and all the POW’s that I’ve talked to over the years say that John McCain is a lying skunk,”
“He never was tortured - they were there in the camp with him and then when he came in….he immediately started spilling his guts about everything because he didn’t want to get tortured,” said McLamb, contradicting the official story that McCain only offered his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth.
“The Vietnamese Communists called him the Songbird, that’s his code name, Songbird McCain, because he just came into the camp singing and telling them everything they wanted to know,” said McLamb.
McLamb said the POW’s told him that McCain had sustained two broken arms and a leg injury from not pulling his arms in when he bailed out of his A-4 Skyhawk that was shot down over the Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi.
The POW’s said that McCain made 32 propaganda videos for the communist North Vietnamese in which he denounced America for what they were doing in Vietnam.
“They have these sealed now, our government has these sealed, we can’t get to it, they have it classified,” said McLamb, adding that in truth “the POW’s hate John McCain.”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2008/020708_never_tortured.htm
Cameron Says:
7 February 2008 at 10:41 am.
Where are all his words about caring about disabled veterans now? And why isn’t this huge news? Sometimes I have to take deep breaths.
McCain Misses Vote on Economic Stimulus
Email this Story
Feb 6, 9:03 PM (ET)
By LAURIE KELLMAN
(AP) Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., followed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.,…
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain skipped a difficult Senate vote Wednesday on whether to make 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans eligible for rebate checks as part of a proposed economic stimulus package.
The Arizona senator’s decision to miss the vote appeared to come at the last minute, after his plane had landed at Dulles International Airport outside Washington just before the proceedings opened on the Senate floor.
Asked Wednesday morning to comment on the pending vote, McCain talked about the need to pass a stimulus measure quickly. Later, on his plane, he said he was not sure he would make the vote.
“I haven’t had a chance to talk about it at all, have not had the opportunity to, even,” McCain said. “We’ve just been too busy, focused on other stuff. I don’t know if I’m doing that. We’ve got a couple of meetings scheduled.”
Whichever way McCain may have voted, it would have been a difficult choice given his status as the Republican presidential front-runner.
Senate Democrats cleverly bundled the rebates for seniors and veterans, key voting blocs, with expanded unemployment benefits and home heating subsidies for the jobless and poor.
President Bush and Republican leaders, as well as conservatives McCain was scheduled to woo on Thursday, vehemently oppose the expanded benefits and subsidies.
That put McCain in a bad political spot.
Voting “no” with Republican leaders would have offended millions of Social Security recipients and the disabled veterans not scheduled to receive rebates. Voting “yes,” on the other hand, risked alienating Bush, GOP leaders and conservatives already suspicious of McCain’s political leanings. McCain was speaking Thursday before a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a group that booed him last year in absentia.
For McCain, not voting meant not going on the record either way. He has missed all eight Senate roll call votes this year.
…”By failing to stand up as the deciding vote, John McCain let our families down,” said Clinton aide Phil Singer. “Tonight’s events prove once again that we need a president who will be ready from Day One to act in the interests of middle-class families and turn our ailing economy around.”
Cameron Says:
7 February 2008 at 10:45 am.
I would comment on this article but it seems like we’ve said it all already:
MCCAIN TO CONSERVATIVE CRITICS: ‘JUST CALM DOWN’
By CARL CAMPANILE
February 7, 2008 — Republican presidential front-runner John McCain yesterday urged his right-wing critics to “calm down” as he tried to persuade wary conservative activists to back his candidacy.
“I do hope that at some point we would just calm down a little bit and see if there are areas that we can agree on for the good of the party and for the good of the country,” said McCain, referring to radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, following his coast-to-coast Super Tuesday victories.
Matt Says:
7 February 2008 at 10:49 am.
Maybe you don’t want to comment but I will. By calm down he means stop criticizing me and begin supporting me. By saying he wants to see if there are areas that we can agree on for the good of our party and for the good of the country, he means you have to agree with me or you will destroy the country. SO SHUT UP AND SUPPORT ME YOU STUPID SHEEP!
Jesse Says:
7 February 2008 at 10:51 am.
Pat Buchanan said John McCain will make Cheney look like Ghandi. What I want to know is why is the press supporting him when they are against the war and he is a war monger? Don’t they remember his bomb, bomb, bomb Iran song?
Mac Says:
7 February 2008 at 10:55 am.
Read Roy’s article again. It is at the top called The Secret Behind the Political Spectrum. That answers your question, Jesse.
Jan W. Says:
7 February 2008 at 11:13 am.
Matt
Have you ever seen the old movie about the brain washing program? I think it was called the Manchurian Candidate. This gives me chills.
Mac Says:
7 February 2008 at 11:17 am.
Yeah Matt, I join in too with a comment about McCain pretending to want to find areas to agree on. Here is the title from an MSM article: “McCain reaches out to conservatives but only so far”
And I heard him say in a speech that he knows how to bring the party together. Bull.
Cavetrollhead Says:
7 February 2008 at 11:21 am.
I just heard that Romney is dropping out of the race.
Cavetrollhead Says:
7 February 2008 at 11:22 am.
BTW that was Bill O’reilly who said Romney is getting out.
Cavetrollhead Says:
7 February 2008 at 11:29 am.
I think Rusty Humphries alluded to this rumor about McCain and POWs on his show but said he couldn’t come out with it yet because he wanted to make sure it was true.
Frankly, I think that if McCain can lie through his teeth all campaign long, he could have been a liar all along.
(I hope O’reilly is wrong about Romney getting out of the race)
Jesse Says:
7 February 2008 at 12:19 pm.
If McCain, Hillary or Obama become president, by the time we someone else in for 2012, it may already be too late to stop the North American Union. I can’t even imagine how many illegals there will be but by then they won’t be illegals any more.
Matt Says:
7 February 2008 at 12:24 pm.
Jesse you are rubbing salt in the wound. I can’t even think about that today.
Matt Says:
7 February 2008 at 1:45 pm.
I don’t believe he will stay in long:
Huckabee vows to press on
By Sam Youngman
Posted: 02/07/08 02:11 PM [ET]
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s campaign said Thursday the former governor will continue his campaign for the Republican nomination even now that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has left the race.
http://virtualhs.ccsd.net/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_650_1
E.E. Says:
7 February 2008 at 2:05 pm.
All three candidates will push the Securities and Prosperities Act. You are right Jesse. Sicksicksick
Cavetrollhead Says:
7 February 2008 at 2:34 pm.
Is there any mathematical possibility that Huckabee will win the race? Is he just trying to get to a brokered convention?
Cavetrollhead Says:
7 February 2008 at 2:58 pm.
We won’t give up. We have to get the republican party back. Or else how and where will we find our political power. (Maybe a third party but that seems a tough go and may just discourage us)
Right now I feel it is a shame that our two main camps -Ron Paul supporters and Romney supporters disagree so strongly on the war issues. I know we disagree elsewhere but this may be a very hard gap to bridge. I wish that Mitt Romney had been a little more respectful and supportive of Ron Paul. Marginalizing him because of the war divide may have been a mistake.
But how do WE bridge this divide? This is an important issue of the “three legged stool.” (Maybe the three legged stool analogy needs to be replaced anyway though.)
Having asked the question, I will recap what I have already said. We can argue that starting the Iraq war was wrong, but I don’t think getting out of Iraq without providing for the security of the people there is ethical, or ultimately in our best interests.
One other key to our success will be to disagree civilly. United we stand. Contention is of the Devil and could destroy our cooperation.
Cavetrollhead Says:
7 February 2008 at 2:58 pm.
I am sorry I left out the Thompson supporter in previous post. :~
Carrie Says:
7 February 2008 at 3:21 pm.
Cavetrollhead I noticed that Mitt didn’t treat Ron Paul very well. Almost everything was great about Mitt but this place got me thinking about treating people with respect and bridging gaps like you said. It will be hard for both camps to join on important things. I don’t know if we can do it but we have to try.
Cavetrollhead Says:
7 February 2008 at 3:25 pm.
…I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and the convictions of my own mind.
–David Ricardo
Cavetrollhead Says:
7 February 2008 at 3:37 pm.
Carrie,
Maybe we can start by breaking down our old dogmatic paradigms and analyze each component.
Republicans have tended to walk the party line. This is partly because when the party has been attacked, we have defended it reflexively even when the point of attack is not a dearly held belief. This is because we are afraid that our dearly held values are being attacked by association. Likewise, as supporters of our respective presidential platforms, we should be willing to break the platforms down to the truths and errors contained within each. Likewise we shouldn’t let attachment to the Candidate trump our investigation for truth.
I think this is probably obvious stuff but maybe it helps you or someone else.
E.E. Says:
7 February 2008 at 3:47 pm.
I’ve been thinking about that very thing, CTH. Joy keeps writing about how she doesn’t agree with every single thing the party platform does and that it can be hard because other republicans make her feel like she is betraying them if she is out of line with anything. Have we become so rigid as a party that we can’t except differences of opinion? Liberals say we are close-minded. I don’t agree that you can be close-minded about values but there are other things that aren’t values. If someone believes in global warming should we tell them they can’t be a Republican? There are scientists who say it is a natural phenomena that is happening all over the solar system and say that man is causing very little of it. I don’t know if they are right, I don’t know who is right but that is not a value.
I thought a lot about free trade also and I may like free trade, but what if someone doesn’t? Do we kick them out? Joy could have a point that it isn’t being handled right since there are special deals given to other countries and never ours. That isn’t free trade really. I could go on but I just want to say that I think what CTH wrote is very important. We need to make our party more welcoming. This is something we can work on over the next four years. It is definitely something we can work on here. A liberal has commented today. Can we accept them?
Cameron Says:
7 February 2008 at 4:16 pm.
This is the second time I have stolen a comment from Helen over on ER2008. I couldn’t resist. I noticed a discussion about this above and thought it was pertinent. I agree with her. I believe that anti-Mormons stole this election from Mitt. There are some things about his church that bother me but other things I like but that isn’t important. What mattered was he would have protected the rights of the very anti-Mormons who hate him. Now they will get someone who does not do that. God help us. Anyway, here are Helen’s comments:
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS VERY LOW TOLERANCE TO RACE, GENDER AND RELIGION, AND IS EXTREMELY EXCLUSIVE, WHICH HAS BEEN AND WILL BE THE MAJOR FACTOR THAT WOULD HURT THE PARTY BADLY. I RECALL THAT AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS ELECTION, MCCAIN AND HUCHABEE SPENT A GOOD CHUCK OF TIME, RESOURCES AND THEIR ENERGY TO ATTACK GOVERNOR ROMNEY’S RELIGION, AND TRIED TO DISQUALIFY HIS ELECABILITY ONLY BASE ON HIS PERSONAL FAITH. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY DOESN’T HAVE THEIR CORE VALUE ANY MORE, BUT FILL UP WITH THOSE RACISTS LIKE NEWT GINGRICH, RELIGION BIGOT LIKE HUCHABEE, AND CORRUPTIONS LIKE MCCAIN AND HIS BUDDIES.
3) JOHN MCCAIN WILL CHANGE HIS POSITION ON THE IRAQ WAR IN THE GENERAL ELECTION AND BECOME A FLIP-FLOP AGAIN. THERE ARE MORE THAN 70% OF THE GENERAL POPULATIONS IN THIS COUNTRY WHO WANT THE WAR IN IRAQ TO BE ENDED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. IN ORDER TO BE APPEALING TO THOSE PEOPLE IN GENERAL ELECTION, JOHN MCCAIN HAS TO CHANGE HIS POSITION AND MAKE PROMISE THAT HE WILL END THE WAR IN IRAQ, OTHERWISE, HE WOULD BE ABLE TO DEFEAT THE DEMOCRATS IN GENERAL ELECTION, AND GOVERNOR ROMNEY WILL NOT HAVE TO PLACE HIMSELF IN SUCH POSITION AS HE WILL NOT CONTINUE HIS CAMPAIGN.
Cavetrollhead Says:
7 February 2008 at 5:47 pm.
Cameron,
I have hesitated saying what you have just said. But I have to agree now. Anti-Mormonism has sunk Romney’s campaign. I don’t think it was coincidence that Huckabee’s support skyrocketed when it did. There were many votes for Huckabee that were just anti-Mormon votes. As someone noted earlier, Iowa preachers were preaching form the pulpit that their congregations were to vote against Romney because he was a Mormon.
It encourages me that you, as a non-Mormon can see that too. Mormons can’t as credibly say it.
E.E. Says:
7 February 2008 at 5:51 pm.
Amen
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