McCain and Ralph Reed.....evil twins

McCain's Conflict of interest in a possible cold war?

(Editor's commentary)It has been no secret that John McCain's "Straight Talk Express"
has had quite a few lobbyists onboard was a real contradiction of the term epitomized with the bus's name.NOW we have McCain going after Russia taking sides in the dispute even though he has stated that he wants to keep politics out of the matter. Yeah right John. More Straight talk or is it another Lobbyist influenced tirade. Randy Scheunemann, a staff member of his campaign has been revealed to be a
former lobbyist for the Georgia until March of this year.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-05-20-mccainadviser_n.htm

Check out how he states that this "There's no room for partisanship now." Given that
you ARE running for President and your foreign issues advisor who just HAPPENED to have lobbied you as a representative for Georgia. How the HECK are you supposed to be UNBIASED with a battle between two governements if you have an advisor who up until recently was paid by them? Oh and by the way....just HOW many wars do you intend to drag us into?

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republican White House contender John McCain said Tuesday he would support Georgia's bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if he is elected president in November

I would move forward at the right time with the application for membership in NATO by Georgia," McCain told Fox News television.

"As you know, through the NATO membership, that if a member nation is attacked, it is viewed as an attack on all," said the Arizona senator, alluding to Russia's military aggression on Georgia.

"We don't have, I think, right now, the ability to intervene in any way except in a humanitarian, economic way, and do what we can to help the Georgians," he added.

McCain, 71, also reiterated his call for Russia to be kicked out of the Group of Eight most industrialized nations.

"Russia no longer shares any of the values and principles of the G-8, so they should be excluded," he said.

Georgia's bid to join NATO has divided the alliance. During an April summit in Bucharest, NATO leaders deferred putting Georgia and Ukraine on a formal path to membership but agreed that the two former Soviet republics "will become members" at some point.

The formula was intended as a compromise between opposing positions taken by France, Germany and several other members, and the United States, which had pushed hard on behalf of Georgia and Ukraine's NATO aspirations.

It extended no security commitments, but it may have emboldened Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in his dealings with the Russians, as they stepped up pressure on Tblisi.

And it infuriated the Russians who had been given assurances that the summit would not approve a further NATO expansion into the two former Soviet republics.

To distance himself from President George W. Bush on the Georgia-Russia conflict, McCain said the US leader "probably had a higher opinion of (Russian Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin than I do."

Bush once said he that upon looking into Putin's eyes he saw "his soul" while McCain said he saw "three letters: K-- G-- B."

"Yes, I saw that," McCain said Tuesday.

Asked about his Democratic rival Barack Obama's view of the ongoing conflict in the Caucasus, McCain said he respected the Illinois senator's views, adding that he believed it "important that we act in a bipartisan fashion now.

"There's no room for partisanship now."

Obama, on vacation in Hawaii, on Tuesday read a statement blaming Russia for increasing tensions in the Caucasus.

"No matter how this conflict started, Russia has escalated it well beyond the dispute over South Ossetia and invaded another country," said Obama, 47.

"There is no possible justification for these attacks," he added.

The Angry John McCain Song

In the heart of the farmland.....McCain insults FARMERS?

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer Wed Aug 6, 4:38 AM ET

DES MOINES, Iowa - Republican presidential candidate John McCain opposes the $300 billion farm bill and subsidies for ethanol, positions that both supporters and opponents say might cost him votes he needs in the upper Midwest this November.

His Democratic rival, Barack Obama, is making a more traditional regional pitch: He favors the farm bill approved by Congress this year and subsidies for the Midwest-based ethanol industry. McCain instead has promised to open new markets abroad for farmers to export their commodities.In his position papers, McCain opposes farm subsidies only for those with incomes of more than $250,000 and a net worth above $2 million. But he's gone further on the stump.

I don't support agricultural subsidies no matter where they are," McCain said at a recent appearance in Wisconsin. "The farm bill, $300 billion, is something America simply can't afford."McCain later described the measure, which is very popular throughout the Midwest, as "a $300 billion, bloated, pork-barrel-laden bill" because of subsidies for industries like ethanol.

It's not a stand that pleases Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.
"I would not advise him to take that position," Grassley said. "For sure, he can't lose Missouri and that's in the upper Midwest. Could he lose Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin and still be elected president? Yes, but I wouldn't advise him to have that strategy."

Grassley, a conservative Republican, and his Senate colleague from Iowa, liberal Democrat Tom Harkin, have achieved enduring success in this state largely by mastering the politics of farm issues. Harkin chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, which wrote the new farm legislation.
"I don't see any scenario in which McCain can get to the White House without carrying some upper Midwestern states," said Harkin, an Obama backer. "I've never really understood in all my years why Sen. McCain has gone out of his way to speak against and vote against policies that are important to the upper Midwest."

There's a history of close elections in the region. President Bush carried Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota in 2004, earning 35 electoral votes. But his Democratic opponent, John Kerry, prevailed in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, giving him 41 electoral votes.Veteran GOP strategist Gentry Collins said McCain can defend his record on farm issues, including opposing "corporate welfare" for big operations, but he said there's more at work.

"The upper Midwest is crucial in this election, and Midwestern voters value authenticity. They value experience," Collins said. "I don't think agricultural issues are the only issues Midwestern voters care about. There are some bigger-picture issues, broader issues where he's strong."
But on another important issue to Midwesterners, McCain opposed a tax break for developing wind power. Obama supported the tax break.
"We're employing close to 2,000 people right now in Iowa in the wind energy industry," Harkin said.

McCain has been most outspoken on ethanol subsidies, and that has Republicans worried in Iowa, the nation's biggest producer of the fuel. Other top ethanol producers include Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and Missouri."It does challenge him in states like Iowa, the No. 1 ethanol state," said Bill Northey, Iowa's Republican agriculture secretary. "It does make it tougher to make the case."

Drake University political science professor Dennis Goldford said McCain's problem on farm issues reflects a deeper issue he faces as he's courted conservative GOP activists, many of whom are deeply suspicious of him."He's essentially reverting to standard Republican supply-side economics," said Goldford. "That's where he's got a problem. He's got to find his own voice and so far he hasn't had a voice."

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, a Democrat who has campaigned for Obama, said he's puzzled by McCain's position. He points to other Republicans who have a different view. "President Bush and I just had a good conversation about how critically important ethanol is, and how Iowa is positioned so well to lead the nation," said Culver. "I have no idea why John McCain doesn't support it. It hurts him in Indiana, and Missouri and Ohio, and it's not the message right now that any of us want to hear."

Obama has a modest lead in national polls, but electoral votes will decide the election. Obama is poised to do well on both coasts, while McCain is favored in the South and some parts of the West. That leaves the upper Midwest as a swing battleground. "The Midwest is crucial in this campaign," said Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat and an early backer of Obama. "Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and perhaps Indiana are very important states. McCain is behind, and he's in danger of falling further behind."

John McCain and his Phoney Patriot party....

I have noted how it has become the unwritten rule that anytime that John McCain shows up anywhere that everybody is required to "thank him for his service" or "call him a hero”. This is a person whose political party put together ads that featured photos of Max Clelland morphed into photos of Osama Bin Laden. Max ALSO served in Vietnam, he left behind three limbs!

Ann Coulter even had the nerve to suggest that Clelland was "stupid enough to drop the grenade that blew him apart"! During the Iran-Contra hearings Senator Daniel Inoye commented when Oliver North claimed that he was "following orders" when he went against Congress to support the illegal clandestine sale of weapons to Iran, that "they didn't buy that excuse in Nuremburg from the Nazis and he didn't either". They called HIM a traitor? Senator Inoye, a Japanese-American from Hawaii who lost the use of one arm in service for this country?

McCain claims that Obama has never done anything other than make a couple of speeches and that HE is an elitist? COME ON! Perhaps somebody should clue him in that this didn't work for Clinton either! If ANYBODY is an Elitist it is HIM! McCain lived in officer's housing for his childhood as the son of a Commander. I have lived near a base. Commanders live high off the hog. He graduated near the bottom of his class. Obama was the so of a teenage mother whose father left him as a two year old. He EARNED his way into Columbia and Harvard with his good grades. He was the first Black Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He was a man who grew up with a of minuses that McCain never knew as a spoiled pampered officer's kid who married into wealth. HE is the elitist. He votes against the service men and women and he votes against the average American too. Let's call it the way it is. He belongs to the GOP. It's a Grand Old Party and YOU ain't invited.

No wonder Gramm hears whinning....he hangs out with McCain!

New McCain Web ad mocks Obama as false Messiah
Judging by the video John McCain's campaign released to the Web on Friday, the thinking inside McCain headquarters is that, despite all the criticism it took for it, its "Celeb" ad -- the one that compared Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton -- just didn't go far enough.
So the campaign stopped holding back for this latest video, which is titled "The One," a reference to a Messianic figure in "The Matrix" and its sequels and a nickname for Obama inside the McCain camp. The thrust of the ad is that Obama sees himself as a Messianic figure. "He has anointed himself ready to carry the burden of 'The One,'" the video's narrator says at one point.

In doing this, it should be noted, the McCain camp took at least two quotes from Obama out of context. It uses one controversial remark made by Obama that popped up earlier this week, "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." A Democratic source later told multiple news outlets that, in context, Obama wasn't speaking about himself but about America generally -- the source quoted Obama as having also said, "It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol.'" It's fairly obvious that Obama was joking in another similar quote used in the video.

Really, though, this truly has to be seen to be believed. After I saw it for the first time, I spent more than a couple of minutes checking around the Web to make absolutely sure it wasn't a hoax, figuring it couldn't really have been released by a presidential campaign. But it's real.

John McCain's Oil Hoax

Joe Conason in the New York Observer

Forced to cancel a planned visit to an oil platform off the Mississippi coast last week because of inclement weather—and the untimely leaking of hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil by a shipwreck in the vicinity—John McCain finally got his photo op at a Bakersfield derrick on July 28. Speaking on site, the Arizona senator delivered extraordinarily good news to the beleaguered gasoline-consuming public as he explained why we must drill offshore.

Based on briefings that Senator McCain says he received from “the oil producers,” he said, “There are some instances [that] within a matter of months they could be getting additional oil. In some cases, it would be a matter of a year. In some cases it could take longer than that, depending on the location and whether you use existing rigs or you have to install new rigs, but there’s abundant resources in the view of the people who are in the business that could be exploited within a period of months.”
The prospect of significant new petroleum resources that could be available so soon would be excellent news—aside from the obvious impact of burning still more oil—if only what the senator said was true.

But what he said actually made no sense whatsoever, as a statement about the future development of domestic oil, the alleged need to increase drilling off our coasts or the resources that such drilling might produce. So let’s unpack that McCain statement (which was overshadowed by the news that his dermatologist had just removed a small lesion from the 71-year-old melanoma survivor’s right cheek).

It may be true that “existing rigs” could produce additional barrels of domestic oil immediately, whether on land or in the ocean, as Senator McCain suggests. If so, he might want to ask his friends in the oil business why those rigs aren’t producing more oil now, at prices above $140 a barrel. An existing rig by definition is a rig that is operating legally on property already leased for exploration—and can produce oil unencumbered by any environmental constraints on drilling. In case the senator doesn’t understand, an existing rig is where someone has already drilled a well.

Where companies would have to install new rigs, the question is whether a lease already exists or whether the government would have to grant a new lease. New drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf would mean new leases that are now illegal. But as the Associated Press reported last month, nearly 75 percent of the existing leases on federal lands held by petroleum companies are currently producing no oil. Those companies currently hold nearly 30 million acres dormant, according to the AP. Nobody in the federal government even knows whether any exploration has taken place over the past decade.

Perhaps Senator McCain should ask his friends in the industry why they aren’t exploring or producing on the leases they already control. A truthful answer would be that those leases count as financial assets whether productive or not—and adding to them enhances an oil firm’s bottom line.

The senator should also ask an oil company executive to step forward and explain how any new offshore oil lease can produce petroleum within the next few months or even a year. If that is possible, then the Department of Energy analysis of future domestic oil production is scandalously wrong.

The department’s Energy Information Agency released a study last year predicting that granting access to new offshore leases would not begin to produce any actual oil until around 2020, and would have no “significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030,” if ever.As the Republican presidential nominee—and a putative environmentalist—he suddenly seems eager to exploit voter discontent over high gasoline prices to promote offshore drilling. He may even think he can ride the energy crisis into the White House.

Voters may or may not believe the Senator’s silly claims about his “briefings” from oilmen, which mainly seem to have involved handing over a fat check. Indeed, so far the only beneficiary of his offshore drilling offensive is the McCain presidential war chest. The Washington Post recently reported that the oil industry “gushed money after [his] reversal on oil drilling” last month. They never gave him that kind of money when he talked straight.