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Wednesday, July 30. 2008
Earth Shaking
Hey! We had an earthquake Tuesday morning. 5.4 on the Richter Scale. It was north of us in Western San Bernardino County, right around Chino Hills. We felt it here in Sunny Sandy Eggo, but I was downtown waiting for the #20 bus to get under way and thought it might have been a truck rolling by, shaking up the street.We get used to them.
Oh jeez … has anyone seen John McCain’s TV ad claiming Barack Obama doesn’t support the troops? The reality being, McCain got a 20% rating from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Obama received an 87% in supporting vet-related legislation. Not to mention, McCain voted against giving the troops more rest time between rotations into the war zones.
The funniest being, in the ad McCain said Obama didn’t have time to visit wounded troops while on his legislative trip to Europe and the war zones, but made time to visit a gym, and to illustrate this assertion, the McCain ad featured footage — shot by Armed Forces Television — of Obama shooting baskets with the troops.Sure, Obama didn’t visit the troops in the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (Germany); he had a campaign staffer with him so the Pentagon wouldn’t allow the visit.
Mistake on Obama’s part really. He should have told the guy, a retired Air Force general, to stay at the hotel. Obama blew that one really. But the decision had nothing to do with the Pentagon’s rule of no press when a politician visits wounded troops.
Obama has visited the wounded warriors at Walter Reed on several occasions, including while a candidate for president.
Do McCain and company believe no one will notice the deceits? Well, so far most of the press is giving McCain a pass, most likely because he is a veteran and he’s so fucking old. Let’s not pick on Grandpa, he’s doing his best!
The Republican Party has a long history of betraying the troops and veterans, with the notable exception of Ronald Reagan. Ever since Saint Ron’s tenure as president, the Republicans have been riding his good will towards those who have served, bashing Democrats as anti-military and anti-veteran, while at the same time cutting our benefits and sending our troops to war unprepared.Based on Reagan’s policies, the Republican Party has received the lion’s share of support from the military personnel and veterans despite leading the charge to cut benefits and personnel expenditures for our troops (like increasing pay checks to meet the demands of inflation and the cost of living) and cutting benefits to our veterans.
I blame the Democratic leadership. Instead of whining that calling other Americans “unpatriotic” is not nice, they should be showing all who care to see and listen just exactly who in Congress supports the troops. Spotlight every Republican vote that cuts veteran benefits.
Of course there are a few Republicans who won’t be spotlighted. Chuck Hagel among them. He doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the walk. And he called McCain’s attack ad inappropriate.
You know, if Chuck Hagel were the Republican nominee, I’d sincerely consider voting for him.
Back to Senator Straight Talk and his ties to lobbyists, despite his tough talk on lessening the cash and control of lobbyists in Washington. Most of McCain’s staff — or at least the top tier of staffers — are either lobbyists or former lobbyists and the man who railed against earmarks and other influence peddling … has a skeleton or two in his closet … like Arizona developer Donald Diamond, a campaign contributor who received help — a lot of it — from McCain to buy land from Fort Ord when it closed about 12 years ago. Land with an ocean view of course.
We’ll be reading and watching to see if that little chestnut makes it into Senator McCain’s vetting by the press when the general election campaign begins to get into full swing.And this just in: John McCain does not speak for the John McCain campaign. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s chief economic adviser now that Phil Gramm has been jettisoned, recently said that the economic policies McCain says when he’s out giving speeches to the electorate don’t “jibe perfectly” with McCain’s “official” economic policies and therefore don’t represent the candidate’s campaign positions. So, when McCain says in a news interview (with George Stephanopoulos) that tax increases are “not off the table,” but insists at a campaign stop that he will not raise taxes, he’s just not jibing. Perfectly. Some would call it flip-flopping.
Getting back to friends on the campaign trail …
And now, after 40 years in the U.S. Senate, Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, is about to vacate his office. Stevens, of the “Bridge to Nowhere” and the “Internets” and the Internets being a collection of PVC tubing connected together. If nothing else, Stevens is entertaining.
Seems, for a good many years as senator, Ted Stevens has been receiving gifts from a company that received hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts. That would be VECO, a company that builds pipelines and other infrastructure for oil companies. It’s founder, Bill Allen, was indicted for and pleaded guilty to providing over $200,000 in payments to another Alaska lawmaker, State Senator Ben Stevens — Ted Stevens’ son. No doubt just a coincidence.And this was going to be another story about the bus and trolley life. That’ll just have to wait.
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