Somebody Should Ask John McCain Why

AP/Mary Altaffer

he won't release his medical records, despite repeated requests, says Raw Story.

Senator McCain, you're in your 70s. Your grandfather died young (61 years), your father died at the age of 70, relatively young also. You've had repeated bouts of a particularly lethal form of cancer:

In 1993, McCain had a cancerous mole removed from his shoulder that proved to be melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, according to medical records he released in December 1999 when he was diagnosed with a recurrence [emphasis ours, Ed.] of the disease.

Melanoma is the most lethal form of skin cancer, blamed for 7,700 deaths annually in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. The organization also notes that 47,700 Americans will be diagnosed with the disease this year.

The Wall Street Journal says McCain's had four melanomas removed.

And you were tortured as a POW. You have to release your records. It's not an option for you. People, if the man does not release his medical records and his tax records, how can you vote for him? We're no spring chickens here at La Casa de Los Gatos, and we know the impact aging has had on our health.

And what about mental functioning? Eight years of a dumbkopf in the highest position in the land &mdash a man who can't string eight words into a correct sentence &mdash is plenty enough. Every time we walk into a room and find ourselves thinking, "Now, what did I come here for?" we wonder if that's what is making McCain repeatedly confuse Sunni with Shi'a, and putting al Qaeda in training in Iran, and telling undoubtedly horrified Israelis that Purim is the Jewish version of fucking Halloween, wouldja believe? And we're decades younger than that old fart.

You can't be serious, Senator. You owe it to voters to let them know if you're suffering from something that will make you hit the wrong button at the wrong time. If you can't keep yourself from hitting Rick Renzi, how can we trust you alone with Hu Jintao or Vladimir Putin? Assuming, of course, that you can remember who they are.

In other, more heartening, news, ABC's Martha Raddatz apparently found only one McCain supporter among the troops in Iraq, although she implied that there may be more. (Sure. They're probably Stateside already.) And this was after Snarly McCrashcart showed up to give his rah-rah talk on how they goddamned well volunteered for the fucking war and they could just fucking fuck themselves and stay there till Der Leader was good and ready for what remained of them to come home. Yeah, fuck you too, Dick. Send your worthless taxpayer-titsucking daughters to the frontline, why don't you? Surely they don't have "other priorities," do they? Video clip of Dick at Raw Story, in case you need to go on a diet.

Incidentally, it appears as if the vultures of the press, always ready to attack Hillary Clinton for any reason they can think of (boobs! She has boobs! Cackle! She cackles! crying! She CRIED! &mdash whatever, you worthless turds) haven't said word one about McCain's dragging his feet on releasing either his medical records or his tax records. Senator Clinton has released her tax records; Senator Obama released his a long time ago. Senator McCain, how about you step up to the plate and release yours?

While you're about it, please get your eyes checked. We're aghast at a Reuters headline telling us you "... see Iraq success." What the hell is this success, and where are you seeing it? All we see is about one million dead Iraqis, 2-3 million Iraqi refugees, Iraqi women forced into prostitution to feed their families and murdered for failing to adhere to sufficiently oppressive dress codes, millions of wounded and maimed Iraqi men, women, and children, over four thousand dead Americans, thirty or forty thousand wounded American troops, and goodness knows how many psychologically destroyed human beings. If this is your definition of success, perhaps we shouldn't allow you within a mile of the nuclear button. We're thinkin' you'd feel positively successalicious if you could press it and blow all of us up.

For those of you who think "success" means your friends, relatives, and fellow-citizens return pronto with all limbs intact, here's a petition you can sign to end the war in Iraq.

For those of you who'd like to impeach the sanctimonious, smarmy shits who are responsible for all that death and suffering, check out this PDF, sign it, encourage your neighbours and friends and relatives to sign it, and send it to the appropriate Congresscritter.

Somebody should ask McCain and that "ass-kissing chickenshit" (Admiral Fallon's words) General Betrayus whether success includes thousands of the people you trained taking their training and their weapons over to the other side.

Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat.

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2008 Elections: McInsane and Iraq

Muhannad Fala'ah /Getty Images

John McCain announced today that Iraq is approaching normalcy. What era is he living in? What drugs is he on?

McCain gave a relatively optimistic appraisal of the situation in Iraq, saying that the recent reductions in violence have returned the country to something "approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi."

Before the invasion in 2003, the average Iraqi suffered from the sanctions that were imposed on Iraq, but as a rule, they could go through an entire day, a week, a month &mdash sometimes even a year &mdash without having to pick up pieces of dead relatives, neighbours, or friends.



And, in fact, The Australian reports that rocket attacks today on the Green Zone in Baghdad and a U.S. military base in Baghdad killed 3 U.S. soldiers and injured 31. Correct us if we're wrong, but we were under the impression that it is not considered "normal" to have rocket and mortar attacks on the Green Zone.

Does the mainstream media even pick up on this shit? Here's this doddering old fool who can't tell a Sunni from a Shi'a after five fucking years of war. He's a fucking Senator, fer crisake, not some shit-shoveler in the George W. Bush Memorial Sewage Plant of San Francisco (no offense to shit-shovelers anywhere, but it's not in your job description to know the warring parties in wars your government starts).

He's accusing Iran of training al Qaeda in Iraq fighters. That would be a handy-dandy thing to do, given that Iran is Shi'a and aQI is Sunni and the two sects are as close to mortal enemies as it gets in the Middle East. Someone ought to let the old fool know that aQI is most likely getting its money, guns, and training from Sunni Saudi Arabia, home of the hardline fundie Wahabi school of Islamic thought and good buddies of McCain's old friend George Dubya.

Meanwhile, Jason Linkins writes in the Huffington Post that ambulatory slimebag Patrick McHenry (Repulsive-Nauseating Conman), who recently made a trip to Iraq on the taxpayer dime and called a serviceman a "two-bit security guard" as a way of showing his support for the troops, may have endangered U.S. troops. No doubt as a way of showing his support. Very supportive fellow, McHenry.

Pam's House Blend notes that Rep. McHenry supports sleepovers at his house involving studly young NOT-GAY college students involved in some sort of voting scandal. There's also plenty of sleaze involving gay prostitution, which resulted in some sort of love triangle murder in Florida.

This blog actively supports gay, bisexual, transgender, lesbian, and all-around QUEER folk. But we wonder why so many Republicans appear to be gayer than larks, yet actively working against LGBTQ rights, and so deeply closeted they're pooping hangers. C'mon, boys and girls, step out of your closet and fucking admit to being who and what you are. No crime, no sin, no shame. It's natural to love whoever your heart tells you to love.

It's not natural to cement the goddamn closet door shut and hate on everyone who refuses to climb in there with you. But his gayishly gay gayness scandals aside, Patrick McHenry may have done a Very Bad Thing, recently. According to Brandon Friedman of VoteVets:

"Only two days after McHenry promoted a video of himself in the Green Zone describing in detail the effectiveness of the rocket attacks on Easter Sunday," Friedman notes, "the area was hit with a barrage that killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded 17 others." Friedman goes on to assert, "The bottom line is that whoever launched that strike could take the information McHenry provided and use it to kill Americans in the Green Zone."

Friedman is far from alone in his concern:

On Saturday, I communicated with one military officer currently in the Green Zone who stated that this was "undoubtedly a violation of OPSEC." On Sunday evening, I spoke with a senior intelligence official in Washington who seemed dumbfounded by McHenry's remarks. Asked whether he considered this a breach of operations security, the official shouted over the phone at me, "Of course! He's helping to dial them in." He meant the people firing the rockets.

It looks like the Republican definition of "support the troops" is "Encourage the dumb fucks to sign up and put their bodies on the line if Der Leader starts a war. Cut vet benefits; if soldiers get injured in the line of duty, force them to pay back any signup bonuses; give military contracts to your buddies so they get rich giving the troops inferior gear; buy lots of yellow plastic magnets made in China or Kazakhstan; yell loudly anytime anyone points out that you're not really helping the troops at all." Very supportive.

Oh, yeah, and work hard to get some senile warmonger elected even as your own country is falling apart because all the money is being funneled into some tiny poor country that never did anything to you and your'n.

We gotta make sure that John McCain doesn't come with an arm's-length of the Presidency; and we gotta kick out of office all these liars, thugs, crooks, and thieves who purport to support while actively harming the military.

In other exciting news, USA Toady (no typo) is reporting that the number of military recruits requiring "conduct" waivers has tripled in the past four years. Great. Find a felon, sign them up, give them weapons training, teach them might is right. Expose them to ongoing physical and psychological trauma, then bring them home and let them loose on the population.

Oh, yeah, most of these people are guilty of "misdemeanors." That means that they were merely setting markers on the road to more disturbed conduct. So it's OK. Just like Pfc Greene, who raped and murdered Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, killed her entire family, and set all their bodies on fire to destroy the evidence of his criminal acts.

Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat

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Iraq more pricey than Nam – ask McCain about cost

Only World War II has now cost m ore than Iraq.

The costs of maintaining a US presence in Iraq now runs a tab of about $435 million a day — $3 billion a week, or $12 billion a month. The US has siphoned some $500 billion taxpayer dollars into Iraq, for a war that was supposed to be “sharp” and brief. Interest payments add another $615 billion, and the price tag of repairing a depleted military is projected at $280 billion.

Only World War II, in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars, was more expensive, according to a recent study by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University public finance Professor Laura Bilmes. Both served in the Clinton administration.

Here’s another financial analysis.of the expensive war:

The price tag in Iraq now is more than double the cost of the Korean War and a third more expensive than the Vietnam War, which lasted 12 years. Stiglitz and Bilmes calculate that it will be at least 10 times as costly as the 1991 Gulf War and twice the cost of World War I.

Only World War II was more expensive. That four-year war — in which 16 million U.S. troops were deployed on two fronts, fighting against Germany and Japan — cost about $5 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Of course, LBJ’s “guns and butter,” along with the rise in inflation it provoked, was part of what chased him out of office.

So, if Schmuck Talk Express™ is so serious about staying there 100 years, if necessary, when is the MSM press going to ask him what he would do differently than President Bush on paying for the war.

This is yet another one of those areas where Schmuck Talk has gotten a free pass from the media.

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John McCain should know better on the Iraq War and “honor”

McCain’s latest claim as to why we must stay in Iraq is that U.S. honor would suffer if we pull out now.

Really?

When was the last time we heard talk of “peace with honor”?

Wasn’t it from, oh, 1969-1973, as mouthed by Tricky Dick and Henry K?

Didn’t “peace with honor” get us the same peace terms as North Vietnam was seeking in 1968?

In other words, he spent an extra five years in captivity, ignoring his rejecting an out-of-sequence repatriation, for the sake of honor that got us no better peace terms than five years earlier.

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Some free advice to Lindsey Graham, et al - saying it doesn't make it so

Three Blind Lice

There seems to be a tremendous disconnect between the die-hard war supporters and reality.

On the one hand, you have Lindsey Graham drinking deep from the Raspberry Red and stepping up to the mike to declare that things in Iraq are definitely looking up. “The military part of the surge is working beyond my expectations,” Graham said. “We literally have the enemy on the run. The Sunni part of Iraq has really rejected al-Qaida all over the country. We’re getting more information about al-Qaida operations than we’ve ever received.”

It’s hard to tell, the way objectives shift and goalposts get moved, but I seem to recall that the purpose of the escalation was to secure Baghdad, and on that point the numbers do not lie. Violence in Baghdad is not appreciably down. In fact, 2% is a mere blip, and certainly not statistically significant. Between 20 June and 5 July, 472 civilians died in attacks in Baghdad. This represents a whopping 2 percent drop in civilian casualties from the previous 16-day period, according to a tally collected by the Associated Press from daily reports by Iraqi security and hospital officials.”

Just a brief perusal of the major news outlets would indicate that Graham is either delusional at best, or flat-out lying at worst. I’m going with the lying until proof is submitted to the contrary.

From Reuters:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Car bombs and mortar attacks killed 50 people in Iraq, police and local officials said on Saturday, while the U.S. military said six of its soldiers had been killed in the past two days.

One British soldier was also killed in the south.

The fresh violence follows a lull in Iraq, where tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops are on the offensive against insurgents in a bid to halt a slide into sectarian civil war.

And the Washington Post:

BAGHDAD, July 7 -- Suicide bombings across Iraq killed nearly 150 and injured scores, including a massive truck assault in a northern Shiite village that ripped through a crowded market, officials said Saturday.

The violence came as the U.S. military on Saturday reported the deaths of eight American soldiers over the past two days, all killed in combat or by roadside bombs in Baghdad and the western province of Anbar. A British soldier was reported killed in fighting in southern Iraq.

The worst carnage unfolded in the Shiite Turkoman village of Amarly, 50 miles south of Kirkuk, when a suicide bomber rammed a truck laden with explosives into the central market, which is near a police station, officials said. The attack killed at least 115 people and wounded at least 210, according to district and hospital officials, adding that they expected the death toll to rise.

And finally, from the New York Times:

BAGHDAD, July 7 — Suicide bombers killed at least 122 people in two attacks north of Baghdad, officials said Saturday, and the strikes raised questions about whether insurgents who had fled intense military operations in Baghdad and Diyala are turning to more vulnerable targets nearby.

In the worst blast, a truck loaded with explosives demolished dozens of fragile clay-built houses and shops on Saturday in Amerli, a village of poor Shiite Turkmen about 15 miles south of Tuz Khurmato. The Iraqi police said the blast killed 1o5 people and wounded 210 more.

The American military also reported Saturday the deaths of nine soldiers and marines on Thursday and Friday, eight of them during combat or from roadside bomb attacks.

Witnesses in Amerli described a horrific scene of people running while on fire, and others shrieking for rescuers to pull them free from beneath scores of buildings that were turned into rubble by the blast.

Perhaps Lindsey will do us all a favor and next time he visits Iraq and conduct one of his patented pep-rallies outside the Green Zone, in the middle of Baghdad – without two Apache gunships, three Blackhawks, an entire company of U.S. soldiers surrounding him – and enough body armor to pass himself off as a body double for RoboCop.

If he did that, I might, for a couple of minutes, stop bitching about the stupidity of these dog-and-pony-shows when potentates visit the “troops in the field” to “get the real story” – oh please! You can take my first-hand account on this – any “troop in the field” who might be inclined to say something the potentates don’t want to hear, doesn’t get anywhere near the potentates. These trips are a waste of taxpayer money, and for what just one of these junkets costs, at least ten teachers could be trained for placement in inner city schools, and a couple of doctors for inner-city hospitals, too.

And I can tell you something else first-hand…when the word comes down from on high that a dignitary is coming, the cursing is voluble and eye-rolling is blatant...even from the commanders making the announcement, in a lot of cases. I can only imagine the reaction of troops in a war zone.

[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State and Watching Those We Chose]

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