10 Things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't)

[Hawaii Hiker]

Just got this newsletter from Moveon.org - it is f-ing outstanding!....


10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."2
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.3

4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."4

5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.5

6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.6

7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."7

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.8

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."9

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.10
John McCain is not who the Washington press corps make him out to be. Please help get the word out—forward this email to your personal network. And if you want us to keep you posted on MoveOn's work to get the truth out about John McCain, sign up here:

http://pol.moveon.org/mccaintruth/?id=12407-5870235-BgZqAg&t=232

Thank you for all you do.

–Eli, Justin, Noah, Laura, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Saturday, April 5th, 2008

Sources:
1. "The Complicated History of John McCain and MLK Day," ABC News, April 3, 2008
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/the-complicated.html

"McCain Facts," ColorOfChange.org, April 4, 2008
http://colorofchange.org/mccain_facts/

2. "McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq," Bloomberg News, March 12, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aF28rSCtk0ZM&refer=us

"Buchanan: John McCain 'Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi,'" ThinkProgress, February 6, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/06/buchanan-gandhi-mccain/

3. "McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill," ThinkProgress, February 20, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/20/mccain-torture-veto/

4. "McCain says Roe v. Wade should be overturned," MSNBC, February 18, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17222147/

5. "2007 Children's Defense Fund Action Council® Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard," February 2008
http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_learn_scorecard2007

"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion," CNN, October 3, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/

6. "Beer Executive Could Be Next First Lady," Associated Press, April 3, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-S1sWHm0tchtdMP5LcLywg5ZtMgD8VQ86M80

"McCain Says Bank Bailout Should End `Systemic Risk,'" Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHMiDVYaXZFM&refer=home

7. "Will McCain's Temper Be a Liability?," Associated Press, February 16, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4301022

"Famed McCain temper is tamed," Boston Globe, January 27, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_mccain_temper_is_tamed/

8. "Black Claims McCain's Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: 'I Don't Know What The Criticism Is,'" ThinkProgress, April 2, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/mccain-black-lobbyist/

"McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man," ABC News, January 29, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251

9. "McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam," Mother Jones Magazine, March 12, 2008
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html

"Will McCain Specifically 'Repudiate' Hagee's Anti-Gay Comments?," ThinkProgress, March 12, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/12/mccain-hagee-anti-gay/

"McCain 'Very Honored' By Support Of Pastor Preaching 'End-Time Confrontation With Iran,'" ThinkProgress, February 28, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/28/hagee-mccain-endorsement/
10. "John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record," Sierra Club, February 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/environment/77913/

[patrice]

1. Thanks. We should keep this K & R'd every time it gets posted. nt

[uponit7771]

2. GREAT LIST!! When 1 takes a closer look at McSame then I can't blame Hillary for wanting to take...

...this thing to the limit.

He also has flipped on almost every position in recent history, the guy can be exposed as an opportunist with out of touch positions so easily and I pray Obama or Hillary will take of the gloves and do just that.

[JayFredMuggs]

7. Agreed...............very

Very good point. This is so amazingly simple for Clinton or Obama supporters. Why are they not seeing this?

Obama supporters, by and large, know that Hillary, if the final candidate will be the person they have to vote for. I hope most Hillary supporters feel the same.

[oldtime dfl_er]

3. Excellent post!

I was never more disgusted than yesterday seeing McCain on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel, pointing toward where MLK's assassin had been. It was exploitation of the worst, most vulgar and hypocritical kind.

[Olney Blue]

4. K/R It's not too early to get ready for the fight.

[unblock]

5. where do you get off not bashing one of the democratic candidates??

as i've been saying ... MCCAIN IS WORSE!!!

[Shae]

6. Someone should post a link to your post

every time some whinyass says, "If my candidate doesn't win, I'm voting for McCain."

[depakid]

8. Dems have ALWAYS had the ammunition

trouble is, more often than not they "take the high road" and decline to use it.

Playing nice is more important than doing what it takes to win-

Selling us all out softly.

[msongs]

9. how many US planes did he destroy? and he got shot down, failing in his mission nt

[RazBerryBeret]

10. 3. n/t

[DaveJ]

11. #6 interested me the most...

If you've been ripped off in the housing crisis "get a 2nd job." Okay, forget most Americans have their nose to the grindstone for every waking moment, praying for some refuge over the weekend. I guess McCain would advocate dismissing all weekends, or any moments of "R&R."

Then when I read the reference to #6, I found out McCain's fortune comes the his wife's stake in beer distribution!

This guy is rich from his wife's beer distribution.

Yet, he's telling everyone to get a 2nd job.

Even Repukes must be thinking... what about those who don't even have their 1st job?

He's a SCAM ARTIST!

[patrice]

12. His 2nd wife, right? What happened to the 1st Mrs. McCain? nt

[PM7nj]

13. She was disfigured in a car accident... so McCain cheated on her w/ Cindy.

[patrice]

14. More of those Republican Family Values we're all supposed to be living up to.

It would be interesting to do a comparative study of strategic second marriages amongst our "Leaders" :puke:

[Willo]

15. He missed an important vote on clean energy.

Sierra Club - February 8, 2008

McCain lands at Dulles two nights ago. He has time to get to the Senate to vote on cloture on the expanded economic-stimulus package, which includes clean-energy incentives. But he doesn't show up, musing on the plane as it landed that ''I haven't had a chance to talk about it at all, have not had the opportunity to, even … 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.'' (For the record, fellow candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did find time to make up their minds).

McCain doesn't vote. The expanded stimulus package gets 59 votes, one short of what is needed for it to proceed to the Senate Floor. The next day a stripped-down version of the stimulus bill, minus clean energy, is brought to a vote. McCain votes for it; the bill passes.

The Sierra Club sends out an alert: "Where was John McCain on clean energy?" and asks people to call the Senator's office.

Immediately, people begin calling and emailing me, saying, "The Senator's office says he voted for clean energy, and that your alert is wrong." We check. He didn't. We call his office. Stunningly, his staff has been coached to mislead callers. "That's not true at all," they say, "he voted for the bill yesterday." Well, he voted, yesterday, but for a different bill. However we phrase the question, we get a lie. "No, if he had voted for the bill, it would not have passed. That was purely procedural." But McCain's staff knows that if cloture had been invoked, passage of the bill would then only require 51 votes, and the bill with clean energy would have passed.

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/carlpope/2008/02/the-not-so-stra.html
___________________

Update: Last night the Senate passed a version of the economic stimulus bill that did not include important clean energy incentives. While Senator McCain voted for the final version, he missed the crucial vote that would have kept the clean energy provisions in the bill.

On Wednesday, one vote prevented the Senate from advancing an economic stimulus package that included important clean energy incentives--a key addition to the package passed by the House last week.

https://secure2.convio.net/sierra/site/Advocacy?alertId=575&pg=makeACall

[NJmaverick]

16. Is there anyway this list can be archived? Good stuff

Plus it's a great reply all if you get any right wing hate mail about either Obama or Hillary.