Tag: John McCain

McCain 2008 Opposition Research on Romney’s Economic Record in Massachusetts: Raised $700 Billion in Taxes, Spending Went up 24%, Left $1 Billion Deficit

Jon Ponder

The hits just keep on coming. After a week of pummeling by the Obama campaign over the Romney campaign’s conflicting record about Mitt’s exit from Bain Capital — did his control over the company end when he “retroactively retired” in 1999, before it outsourced thousands of American jobs overseas, as he claims now, or in 2002, as he claimed in sworn testimony later — now Buzzfeed has obtained the document used to vet Romney as a prospective vice presidential nominee by the McCain campaign 2008.

The entire document is here [Scribd] but here’s the McCain oppo research summary of Gov. Romney’s economic record. It’s no wonder they did not choose him — and it’s too bad Fox viewers will never see this. Their heads would explode!

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Top Republicans on Libya: ‘Failure of the U.S. to Employ the Full Weight of Our Air Power’ Is Regrettable

Jon Ponder

For this week’s example of the political degeneracy of the Republican Party in the Obama era, we nominate this damning-with-faint-praise statement of congratulations to the United States military in the wake of Libyan rebels seizing the capitol city of Tripoli, released under the names of two soulless ideologues in the Senate, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina:

“We regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower,” the senators wrote in a joint statement. (Emphasis added.)

As MSNBC substitute host Melissa Harris Perry said on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” last night, it is odd to hear the word “failure” in a statement of congratulations to the United States military from Republican senators.

Of course, what is really going here is politics. McCain, the failed Republican presidential nominee, and Graham, his Mini-Me, put out the statement in an effort to tamp down Americans’ natural impulse to “rally ’round the flag” and support the president in the wake of U.S. military successes.

But in their desperation to prevent the president’s approval rating on foreign affairs from bumping up a point or two, they also backhanded the U.S. military by describing it’s efforts as a “failure.”

Lucky for McCain and Graham they are Republican neocon war hawks, which means the corporate media will give them a pass on besmirching the military. If Democratic senators had released a statement using the word “failure” to describe a military action, there would be a raging debate on “Morning Joe” and “Fox and Friends” about whether they were giving aid and comfort to America’s terrorist enemies.

McCain Still Angry and Delusional

Trish

The principle of not raising taxes is something that we campaigned on last November and the results of the election was the American people don’t want their taxes raised and they wanted us to cut spending. They don’t want compromise.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who didn’t say which American people or which individual races he was talking about, but reminded many of us why we’re so glad he and Sarah Palin lost in 2008.

Verbatim

Trish

The commandant of the United States Marine Corps says when your life hangs on the line, you don’t want anything distracting… I don’t want to permit that opportunity to happen and I’ll tell you why. You go up to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Marines are up there with no legs, none. You’ve got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs.”

— Sen. John McCain, explaining his opposition to allowing gays to serve openly in the military by referencing Marines with no legs (none). How this figures in, or why allowing openly heterosexual men and women to serve is not also affected by Marines with no legs, was not clarified.

Verbatim

Trish

If John McCain gets any more hostile toward his Senate colleagues, they might consider having him go through the metal detector before he enters the Capitol.

— The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, summing up Sen. John McCain’s bizarre behavior during the debate over rescinding the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Milbank added that, “McCain’s statement on the floor was roughly one part argument, four parts tantrum.”

John McCain on Repealing DADT: Gay People Aren’t Fit to “Live, Eat, Sleep, or Fight’ Alongside Straight Service Members

Trish

If you’re wondering what very poorly disguised homophobia sounds like, check out John McCain. And a little newsflash for the senator: no amount of “studying” and holding hearings will turn back time. The world has changed, Pops, and your opinion of gay people, which apparently includes the idea that they are inherently less able than straight people to control their sexual urges (maybe like the situation you’re more familiar with, being married to one woman but screwing another?) and force themselves on straight people who are not interested in them, is sheer biogotry. And one last thing: I wouldn’t want to live, eat, sleep, or fight alongside you either.

CA Sen: Fiorina Must Apologize for John McCain’s Vindictive, Personal Attack Against Sen. Boxer’s Patriotism, Support for Troops

Pensito Editors

Transcript:

Barbara Boxer is the most bitterly partisan, the most anti-defense Senator in the United States Senate today. I know that because I have had the unpleasant experience of having to serve with her. So when you hear her say that she supports the men and women in the military, my friends, she does not. Because she has never supported the mission; she has never supported victory…

McCain’s statement continued:

…whether it be in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the world. Barbara Boxer wants to wave the white flag of surrender and endanger this nation’s national security. It’s time she went back to San Francisco with [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi.

After this disgraceful performance, McCain doubled-down his personal attacks Boxer in an appearance ABC News’ “Nightline”:

In an interview with ABC, McCain justified his attack on Boxer. “[Working with Boxer] has been an unpleasant experience because Barbara Boxer personalizes the political discourse that we have and that’s why she’s had so very little effect of any kind in the political process,” he said. “There is no Republican that will work with her.” And McCain added this about the Obama administration, “This is the most partisan administration that I have ever seen … and I came to the congress in 1983.” He also said: “I consider myself a person who stands up for what they believe in. When I was against President Bush on a number of issues I was called a maverick. When I was against President Obama, then I’m called a partisan. What I was trying to say — I’m the same person.”