McCain still doesn't get it; everything they both (McCain and Obama) plan or do is "political" by its very nature. McCain is again sleeping at the switch.
McCain says Obama Europe trip amounts to politics
By Steve Holland 26 minutes ago
GRAND HAVEN, Michigan (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Thursday he believes Democrat Barack Obama's upcoming trip to Europe is tantamount to holding political rallies abroad.
McCain, speaking to reporters, also ridiculed Obama's vow to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in 16 months as risking losing the hard-fought gains won by U.S. soldiers under a troop build-up ordered 18 months ago.
Obama is soon to leave on a trip that will take him to Europe and the Middle East. At some stage the trip is also expected to take him to Iraq and Afghanistan, the two thorniest foreign policy challenges that will face the next president.
McCain sought to clarify remarks he made on his campaign bus in Kansas City, Missouri, in which he said he disagreed with his communications director, Jill Hazelbaker, who told the Fox News Channel that Obama's trip is "the first of its kind campaign rally overseas."
Kicky's link attempts to divert the discussion to McCain without providing any proof that McCain was lying.
Cyclops link produces one person's opinion who conveniently ignored all the most damning statements in the mini-documentary while claiming it 'doesn't draw any blood' with no attempt to show how it didn't. He argues like a lot of liberals.
Shrug. I'm not out to prove anything other than the McCain campaign is finally, at long last, fighting back with something substantive.
From Obsidian Wings:
McCain On Veterans' Benefits
by hilzoy
As a lot of people have noted, John McCain is opposed to Sen. Jim Webb's bill expanding veterans' educational benefits. Brian Beutler writes about John McCain's record on veterans' health care:
"Times have changed since McCain needed veterans services so urgently. And for many of those thirty-five years, McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, the candidate who talks the best talk on veterans issues, has demonstrated a tendency to work against veterans' interests, voting time after time against funding and in favor of privatizing services--in other words, of rolling back the VA's improvements by supporting some of the same policies that wrecked Walter Reed.
During a March 2005 Senate budget debate, McCain voted to kill an amendment that would have "increase[d] veterans medical care by $2.8 billion in 2006." That amendment lacked an assured funding stream, but lest one mistake this incident for a maverick's stance against budget-busting, there's more. Just a year later McCain voted against an amendment that would have "increase[d] Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes." Two days after it failed, he voted to kill "an assured stream of funding for veterans' health care that [would] take into account the annual changes in the veterans' population and inflation to be paid for by restoring the pre-2001 top rate for income over $1 million, closing corporate tax loopholes and delaying tax cuts for the wealthy." That amendment died quietly, forty-six to fifty-four.
In September 2006 McCain voted to table an amendment to a Defense appropriations bill that would have prevented the department from contracting out support services at Walter Reed. The amendment was indeed tabled--by a vote of fifty to forty-eight, the sort of margin a true veterans' senator might have been able to flip if he really cared about veterans' healthcare.
"John McCain voted against veterans in 2004, '05, '06 and '07," says Jeffrey David Cox, who spent twenty-two years as a VA nurse before moving to the American Federation of Government Employees, where he serves as secretary-treasurer (AFGE represents employees of several federal agencies, including the VA). Cox is right. Under Bush, McCain has voted for measures that target so-called Priority-7 and Priority-8 veterans (those whose injuries are not service-related and whose incomes are above a low minimum threshold) for annual fees, higher co-pays and even suspended enrollment. Priority-7 veterans without dependents earn more than $24,644 annually. Priority-8 veterans without dependents earn an annual minimum of $27,790."
I am wary of using this as a political issue if the facts aren't there. On the other hand, if the facts are there, then it ought to be a political issue. So, even though I trust Brian Beutler, I decided to check.
I put the wonky results, with links to all the roll call votes, below the fold. Short version: during the last four years (all I checked), McCain has supported basic appropriations for vets. However, when there are two competing proposals, he generally chooses the cheaper one, and often, when only one proposal to increase benefits is available, he opposes it.
cicerone imposter wrote:
McCain says Obama Europe trip amounts to politics
Did you see the big 3 press chosen to ride along?
Definitely a Fair & Balanced group hand picked by the Obama camp.
From Newsweek:
CAMPAIGN 2008
The Budget According to McCain: Part I
Think it's all about cutting earmarks? Think again.
By Joe Miller | factcheck.org
May 13, 2008 | Updated: 12:06 p.m. ET May 13, 2008
Summary
McCain's big promise is that he can balance the budget while extending Bush's tax cuts and adding a few of his own. He likes to leave the impression that this can be done painlessly, for example, by eliminating "wasteful" spending in the form of "earmarks" that lawmakers like to tuck into spending bills to finance home-state projects. We found that not only is this theory full of holes, it's not even McCain's actual plan. In this story we examine the spending-cut side of McCain's budget program. In Part II, we'll look at what McCain has said about taxes.
McCain's pronouncements on cutting spending, and even on the growth in the size of the federal government, are dubious at best:
McCain seems to say that he can save $100 billion by cutting out earmarks. But budget experts say that cutting earmarks would actually save very little. And questioned more closely, McCain's campaign now says that his planned savings have nothing to do with eliminating earmarks.
Click Here!
With earmarks out as a potential source of savings, McCain hasn't said what he'd cut out of the discretionary budget to get to $100 billion. He's even indicated that defense spending might increase. In inflation-adjusted dollars, federal spending is projected to come to $2.45 trillion in fiscal 2009, including $1.4 trillion for Social Security, Medicare, military spending and veterans programs. The last time the budget was "trillions" smaller was 1951.
H2O_MAN wrote:H2O_MAN wrote:cicerone imposter wrote:
McCain says Obama Europe trip amounts to politics
Did you see the big 3 press chosen to ride along?
Definitely a Fair & Balanced group hand picked by the Obama camp.
I guess not
Is FOX News one of the three?
cicerone imposter wrote:From Newsweek:
CAMPAIGN 2008
The Budget According to McCain: Part I
Think it's all about cutting earmarks? Think again.
By Joe Miller | factcheck.org
May 13, 2008 | Updated: 12:06 p.m. ET May 13, 2008
Summary
McCain's big promise is that he can balance the budget while extending Bush's tax cuts and adding a few of his own. He likes to leave the impression that this can be done painlessly, for example, by eliminating "wasteful" spending in the form of "earmarks" that lawmakers like to tuck into spending bills to finance home-state projects. We found that not only is this theory full of holes, it's not even McCain's actual plan. In this story we examine the spending-cut side of McCain's budget program. In Part II, we'll look at what McCain has said about taxes.
McCain's pronouncements on cutting spending, and even on the growth in the size of the federal government, are dubious at best:
McCain seems to say that he can save $100 billion by cutting out earmarks. But budget experts say that cutting earmarks would actually save very little. And questioned more closely, McCain's campaign now says that his planned savings have nothing to do with eliminating earmarks.
Click Here!
With earmarks out as a potential source of savings, McCain hasn't said what he'd cut out of the discretionary budget to get to $100 billion. He's even indicated that defense spending might increase. In inflation-adjusted dollars, federal spending is projected to come to $2.45 trillion in fiscal 2009, including $1.4 trillion for Social Security, Medicare, military spending and veterans programs. The last time the budget was "trillions" smaller was 1951.
Pst.... This is the Obama thread...
pssst, Tell that to all the neocons.
cicerone imposter wrote:H2O_MAN wrote:H2O_MAN wrote:cicerone imposter wrote:
McCain says Obama Europe trip amounts to politics
Did you see the big 3 press chosen to ride along?
Definitely a Fair & Balanced group hand picked by the Obama camp.
I guess not
Is FOX News one of the three?
Check it out and tell us what you know to be true.
Does anyone know what foreign languages Obama speaks?
From what I have heard, he doesnt speak any.
revel wrote:McGentrix wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:If the guy next to you has shitty teachers, he's not likely to succeed either. I'm suggesting that quality of teachers is a large factor in the success of students, if not the biggest.
Cycloptichorn
I'd say that quality of parents is a larger factor. Obama disagress and that's one of the reason"s I won't vote for him. You agree with him and thatis why he will get your vote.
Democracy in action.
If a parent has poor reading, math and other basic educational skills, how are they going to help the student who has a poor quality teacher learn the skills they will need to know to succeed in life? They can't teach what they do not know themselves.
I hope this does not lead to the whole giving a few students money to go to a better school while the rest still suffer with the poorer schools debate.
By forcing the child to do extra homework or whatever it takes to excel.
Does the term personal responsibility mean anything to you?
Personal responsibility is not something liberals can comprehend. You're wasting keystrokes.
woiyo wrote:
Does the term personal responsibility mean anything to you?
That's the only way to take charge of your life and become sucessful.
woiyo wrote:revel wrote:McGentrix wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:If the guy next to you has shitty teachers, he's not likely to succeed either. I'm suggesting that quality of teachers is a large factor in the success of students, if not the biggest.
Cycloptichorn
I'd say that quality of parents is a larger factor. Obama disagress and that's one of the reason"s I won't vote for him. You agree with him and thatis why he will get your vote.
Democracy in action.
If a parent has poor reading, math and other basic educational skills, how are they going to help the student who has a poor quality teacher learn the skills they will need to know to succeed in life? They can't teach what they do not know themselves.
I hope this does not lead to the whole giving a few students money to go to a better school while the rest still suffer with the poorer schools debate.
By forcing the child to do extra homework or whatever it takes to excel.
Does the term personal responsibility mean anything to you?
Parents with poor basic educational skills
don't force the kids to do extra homework or studying. Education and the drive to succeed in education is a learned, generational skill; it doesn't pop up out of nowhere.
If you have crappy teachers, and parents who are uneducated themselves, the child in question is
not going to succeed. Period. Great, or at least good, teachers are an essential part of success.
Cycloptichorn
The mission of the DOE is to dumb down the masses.
We now have dumbed-down teachers teaching the dumbmasses in government schools.
This situation is only made worse by parents that are products of government schools.
mysteryman wrote:Does anyone know what foreign languages Obama speaks?
From what I have heard, he doesnt speak any.
He is reported to speak some Bahasa, the 'national language of Indonesia' where he attended school for four years, and he is said to speak 'a little bit of Spanish'. It must be a very little bit as I don't believe he has attempted to use any Spanish phrases when speaking to Hispanic groups as other candidates who know some Spanish usually do.
Bush would put him to shame in Spanish. Obama should be embarrassed. It is embarrassing, totally, that people come here and he cannot speak to them in their native tongue. Thats what he said isn't it?
H2O_MAN wrote:The mission of the DOE is to dumb down the masses.
We now have dumbed-down teachers teaching the dumbmasses in government schools.
This situation is only made worse by parents that are products of government schools.
I would vote for change in regard to a failed system. Don't vote Obama. He advocates more of the same old failed policies of the past.
Get rid of DOE and save some tax dollars.
