Political Thoughts….

Reasons Senator John McCain Needs to be Un-Elected

60 Reasons NOT to vote for John McCain  submitted by @SamAdamsLPL

—— Issues:

  1. McCain-Feingold — A completely outrageous and totally unacceptable violation of the right to Free Speech.
  2. McCain-Kennedy — A huge amnesty program that rewards people who violated the laws properly passed by Americans. (amnesty)
  3. McCain-Lieberman — Part of the radical environmentalist agenda, this onerous and intrusive attack on private property rights taxes energy usage, based on the false and speculative idea of man made global warming.   (reference, reference)
  4. McCain-Kennedy-Edwards — allegedly for patients’ bill of rights, but is actually a massive increase in trial lawyer profits.  Will cause a loss of jobs, result in higher medical bills, and may cost lives in addition to loss of liberty.  (reference)
  5. McCain and Pharma:  Supports a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety.  Called the pharmaceutical industry as “the big bad guys.” (reference)
  6. Opposed tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, based on a class warfare argument
  7. Weak on the WOT, since he is against mild torture, ie waterboarding, even though it broke KSM, which yielded loads of good information about 9/11 and many other plots and saved lives.
  8. Gang of 14: McCain actually opposed changing the senate rules to prevent filibustering judicial nominations, which no one had previously done in US history, but that the democrats had now started doing to prevent nominees from receiving an up or down vote by the full senate.  The democrats were unconstitutional and undemocratic.
  9. Opposed drilling in ANWR, opposing energy independence
  10. Opposed repealing death tax. McCain was one of only two Republicans to twice vote against permanent repeal of the death tax in 2002
  11. wanted to raise social security taxes
  12. Worked with Kerry to ensure that MIA issue was not pursued (reference, reference)
  13. McCain is basically a Democrat on every issue except foreign policy and the war.  R.I.N.O. (Republican In Name Only)
  14. Wrong on Embryonic stem cell research
  15. Promoted legislation that would regulate blogs and would have made google impossible.
  16. Said Alito is too conservative
  17. Hatred of private enterprise. Hostile to free markets. (reference)  Never had a real job.
  18. Weak on right to Life (Pro-Abortion Repubs endorse McCain, McCain softens life stance)
  19. Wrong on the treatment of POW Jihad extremists. Wants US criminal trials for terrorists, rather than military tribunals.
  20. McCain favors business lobbyists’ desires for foreign workers vs. protecting American workers’ wages and jobs. McCain has taken the pro-amnesty position in nearly two dozen votes. McCain’s hopes of giving millions amnesty will saddle American taxpayers with huge costs of $20,000 per illegal per year. Booed in MI.  McCain Voted For Illegal Immigrants To Collect Social Security (reference)

    “I think we can set up a program where amnesty is extended to a certain number of people, Amnesty has to be an important part…” – John McCain, 2003

  21. McCain opposed the Marriage Amendment
  22. McCain sponsored and voted for an enormous 282% tax increase on cigarettes in 1998
  23. McCain’s Costly Tax on Energy. The EPA Estimates Sen. McCain’s Plan Would Hike Gas Taxes By 68 Cents Per Gallon. Now, that’s just what we need. The EPA Estimates Sen. McCain’s Plan Would Reduce United States GDP By As Much As $5.2 Trillion.
  24. McCain Voted Against $19 Billion for Military Hospitals; McCain Voted Against Amendment to Provide $2.8 Billion For Veterans’ Medical Care; McCain Voted Against 2005 Amendment to Provide Guaranteed Funding Stream for Veterans’ Health Care; McCain Voted Against Establishing $1 Billion Trust Fund to Provide Improvements to Military and Veterans’ Health Facilities; McCain Voted Against Adding $1.5 billion to Veterans’ Medical Services in FY 2007 by Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes; McCain Voted Against Mandatory Funding of $6.9 Billion in FY 2007 and $104 Billion Over Five Years for Veterans’ Health Care
  25. McCain’s Incorrect Military Analysis: “It was only two weeks ago that the media armchair commanders and the likes of Sen. John McCain were saying George W. Bush had followed LBJ’s dark path into the swamps and that — as with Vietnam — huge numbers of conventional ground troops would be needed to nail the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Thanks to the Big Ranger in the sky, they were all dead-wrong.”  -David Hackworth
  26. Despite allegedly being tortured by the VC, McCain was the driving force behind normalizing relations with Vietnam, an evil communist country that violated the Paris agreement and killed and imprisoned many people,  Think about that puzzling and disturbing fact.

—— Character:

  1. McCain doesn’t handle criticism at all. In fact, he’s a lot like Clinton in that he takes criticism of his record as a personal attack on him.
  2. McCain-Feingold is an amazing law; basically, McCain was so ticked at being the victim of negative ads that he worked to change the constitutional protection of free speech because he lost votes in a campaign. Incredible.
  3. Lied about many of his positions (reference)
  4. Did dirty trick lying about Romney position right before FL primary
  5. Was unfaithful to his wife, then dumped her, and married a woman from a rich family about a month after divorcing his wife
  6. Strongly associated with the corruption in the Keating 5 scandal
  7. Considered becoming Kerry’s VP candidate, someone who accused our soldiers of commiting war crimes and atrocities
  8. Considered changing to the democrat party, and was negotiating for commitee positions, etc. That he considered it proves that he is not a conservative. Changed his mind after Jeffords switched, proving that political gain is more important than ideas
  9. Always been nominally episcoplian, yet claimed he was baptist recently in SC
  10. Deeply insulted christians, specifically Pat Robertson
  11. Temper – his outbursts are simply out of control, unprofessional, low class.  “irrational, explosive” temper. (reference).  Uses the F word a whole lot, showing a lack of class and dignity.
  12. Strange and bitter feud with POW/MIA activists.     Denunciation of the group of credible and apparently honorable Swift Boat Veterans.
  13. Hackworth says he was a survivor, not a hero.   Was he really even tortured?
  14. McCain has paid “more than $30,000 in 2007 to a South Carolina senator and the sons of two other prominent elected officials, all of whom have endorsed” him. (reference)
  15. Prone to greatly exxagerate for political gain (reference)
  16. Kessler: “His Senate colleagues almost universally despise him — will not — did not even support him for president — there were only four senators who supported him.”
  17. Multiple sources have also said that McCain has a practice of leaking stories on those he doesn’t get along with
  18. He thinks Hillary Clinton would be a good President!  This will be a Clinton campaign commercial.

—— Political

  1. Lots of skeletons in his closet, which democrats and MSM will use to destroy him, thus taking away the main argument to nominate him, ie he will beat hillary
  2. No candidate supported only by republican establishment, and not the conservative base, has been elected. This is Bob Dole #2.
  3. Removes the Governor-Senator advantage.  This is really huge!
  4. Any claim that he is conservative is falsified by widespread support for McCain from very liberal hollywood folks.
  5. Media want Repubs to nominate the candidate that they can most easily defeat, and that’s McCain.
  6. A McCain nominee will take away the main weapon against the left: ideas.  They don’t want a campaign of ideas, since they cannot defend leftist ideas against conservative arguments.
  7. WOT: I have long felt, based on many impressions going back to 92, that Hillary is not soft on foreign policy. Democrats, like everyone, are not monolithic. There are many democrats that are soft on national defense, but I’ve never thought Hillary was one of them. I think she is pandering to her base right now, and that she will abandon these position if she were to get into office. Her clapping at the State of the Union confirm that she will not abandon the WOT.
  8. McCain is very friendly with Hillary.  Therefore, he will not attack Hillary in the general election.  (Ed Morrisey)
  9. Financial Disadvantage:   Obama will have $224 million in receipts while McCain will only have $49 million. This differential could easily expand, not contract, as Hillary’s donors will rally to Obama and the conservatives will not rush to fund a McCain campaign built on a series of assaults on their first principles.  And that doesn’t include the 527s and their vast contributions to the Obama candidacy.  There aren’t any 527s for McCain. (reference)
  10. Age & Stature:  When Dole ran against Clinton, the MSM set up a debate with high stools, forcing the candidates to stand up.  The end result was that Clinton was obviously younger and more vigorous.  Dole seemed very old.  McCain will be similarly presented against a younger Clinton, and if it’s Obama, forget it.  McCain has even less of a chance.  They will also use McCains short stature to make him look bad.  If you want to make believe that they won’t use these kind of tricks, then you haven’t been paying attention.  Consider that only Romney’s more youthful energy, good looks, and height will eliminate this sort of attack
  11. A McCain presidency is the only scenario where leftist liberal ideas actually advance  (analysis)
  12. Th Surge is not enough to run a national campaign on.  The whole issue of Iraq will be a memory by November, and the fact is that Romney supported the surge, like almost all republicans.

—— Miscellaneous personal attacks

  1. McCain is the son and grandson of Navy admirals, so did he really earn his place? At the Naval Academy, he chafed under the strict rules and earned more than 100 demerits every year. Graduates fifth from the bottom of his Naval Academy class.
  2. Calls his torturers gooks (low class slur), says he won’t forgive his torturers, yet hugged the man behind his torture. Hmm, is it the stockholm syndrome or is he the manchurian candidate?
  3. Married rich in 1980, worked in his new father-in-law’s Budweiser business in public relations for one year before running for congress. Seems like daddy picked him for this purpose. He doesn’t seem to have earned his job, or his political career.
  4. Ann Coulter:

    John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth. Like McCain, pollsters assured us that Dole was the most “electable” Republican. Unlike McCain, Dole didn’t lie all the time while claiming to engage in Straight Talk.

My Thoughts…

Columns By Will Warner

The Lesson of Trump

Unless Trump wins or comes close, the lesson of Trump will not be learned. If he loses badly, people will simply say, “I’m glad to see that America can face down the fascists, racists, sexists, phobes and haters among us, and we better redouble our suppression of those things.”  If he wins, people will actually have to think about what his popularity means and what it was that opened the road to him.
In a piece in New York Magazine Andrew Sullivan excoriates Trump, but seems at least to understand the source of this appeal. It has as much to do with cultural marginalization as economic:
“Much of the newly energized left has come to see the white working class not as allies but primarily as bigots, misogynists, racists, and homophobes, thereby condemning those often at the near-bottom rung of the economy to the bottom rung of the culture as well. A struggling white man in the heartland is now told to ‘check his privilege’ by students at Ivy League colleges…”
Sullivan continues:
“For the white working class, having had their morals roundly mocked, their religion deemed primitive, and their economic prospects decimated, now find their very gender and race, indeed the very way they talk about reality, described as a kind of problem for the nation to overcome. This is just one aspect of what Trump has masterfully signaled as ‘political correctness’ run amok…
He goes on:
“These working-class communities, already alienated, hear — how can they not? — the glib and easy dismissals of ‘white straight men’ as the ultimate source of all our woes. They smell the condescension and the broad generalizations about them — all of which would be repellent if directed at racial minorities.”
Enter Trump, a marvel who seems immune to the witch hunt for haters. This as much as anything explains his appeal.
So, if you want to stop Trump, stop formulating every issue as a contest between the enlightened and the ignorant.
Stop insisting that the reason the Senate will not consider the President’s pick to replace Justice Scalia is that the President is black.
Stop insisting that it is understandable that the transgendered would care greatly about with whom they share a bathroom, but the same concern in anybody else is hate.
Stop insisting that another letter added to LGBTTIQQ2S automatically creates another protected class and that any raised eyebrow is hate.
Stop meeting every concern about Islamic terrorism with lectures on Islamophobia.
Stop telling people to “say something if you see something” and then sic the Justice Department on the people who say something.
Stop labeling as bigots people who have simply internalized their society’s taboos.
Stop calling climate-change skeptics “deniers” in a not-so-veiled allusion to Holocaust denial.
Stop lamenting the backwardness of a society that “pays women 77 cents for every dollar paid to men” when factors that naturally and rightly affect earnings account for virtually all of the difference.
“Political correctness” is the brand of intellectual intimidation that, for decades now, has been employed to punish any questioning of the liberal worldview. Trump is the long-awaited backlash.

Basic Reasoning

Is it too much to ask that legislators possess basic reasoning ability?  This time it is a Missouri law that has me shaking my head.
The Missouri legislature enacted a law requiring health insurance companies to offer plans that excluded coverage for contraception to customers who wish to purchase policies with such an exclusion.
What?
I thought the debate about contraception coverage in insurance plans was about freedom.  How does it make sense to replace one absurd mandate—your plans must cover contraception—with another:  you must offer plans that exclude contraception (in addition, if you like, to plans that cover it)?  How do you make a case for freedom by demanding that others be forced to aid you in achieving your ends? If you are free to eschew plans that include features that repel you, why aren’t those offering plans free to abstain from offering plans with features that repel them?
Just as the first amendment’s protection of free speech does not require anyone to actively participate in disseminating your speech, the first amendment’s protection of religious freedom does not require anyone to actively assist you in exercising your religious freedom.  Both protections restrain the government from interfering and nothing else.
If there is demand for health insurance plans that permit purchasers to opt out of coverage for contraception, the market will provide it.  If the market, though free to, doesn’t provide it, oh well.  Those employers seeking such a plan will have to choose to cover contraception for their employees or choose to not offer health insurance, or to implement self-insurance.
Why is this so hard?  The degree to which even legislators do not understand American political principles is astounding to me.

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