John McCain Diaries
A useful compilation of articles 

about Republican Presidential Nominee Senator John McCain

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• John McCain - Lost in Space -- Brave New Films -- Here is a link to a great video that shows the Real John McCain in his own words. This is the story that the national news media never seems to get out.

• MCCAIN: BUSH'S PIGGYBACK-- MSNBC -- One day after McCain proposed lifting the federal ban on off-shore oil-drilling, President Bush will call on Congress to lift the ban as well, the New York Times writes. "Even before the disclosure of Mr. Bush’s decision, the drilling issue caused a heated back-and-forth on the campaign trail on Tuesday, as Mr. McCain sought to straddle the divide between environmentalists and the energy industry, while facing accusations from his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama, that he had flip-flopped and capitulated to the oil industry.

• Could McCain Have Come Up with a More Ill-Suited Economic Advisor Than Phil Gramm? -- AlterNet -- Financial wizard Warren Buffett has labeled the risky new investment instruments Gramm unleashed "financial weapons of mass destruction." They have fed the subprime mortgage crisis like an accelerant. While his distracted peers probably finalized their Christmas gift lists, Gramm created what Wall Street analysts now refer to as the "shadow banking system," an industry that operates outside any government oversight, but, as witnessed by the Bear Stearns debacle, requiring rescue by taxpayers to avert a national economic catastrophe.

• John McCain Makes Stuff Up -- AlterNet --  For years now, the U.S. political press corps has traveled with John McCain on his “Straight Talk Express,” buying into his image as a paragon of truth-telling. But the real truth is that McCain routinely makes stuff up, as he did on June 11 in lying about Barack Obama’s “bitter” comment. During a political talk in Philadelphia, McCain claimed that Obama had described “bitter” small-town voters as clinging to religion or “the Constitution” – when the second item in Obama’s comment actually was “guns.” But the Arizona senator didn’t stop with a simple word substitution. He added that he will tell these voters that “they have trust and support the Constitution of the United States because they have optimism and hope. … That’s what America’s all about.” In other words, McCain didn’t just make a slip of the tongue. He willfully accused Obama of disparaging the U.S. Constitution, a very serious point that, if true, might cause millions of Americans to reject Obama’s candidacy.

• Obama and McCain on Immigration: Life vs. Death -- AlterNet --  A recent story by Maribel Hastings of La Opinión newspaper provides the most comprehensive analysis yet of the similarities and differences between John McCain and Barack Obama around immigration policy. According to Hastings, “Both candidates support construction of a wall at the southern U.S. border. But the most important differences are less obvious and have more to do with what kind of reform the candidates advocate for and try to get approved, according to Cecilia Muñoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR).” 

  Among those revealing details, says Hastings, are small but important differences that may make a major difference in what will surely be an intense fight for the Latino vote. Hastings continues, “McCain, for example, is opposed to the DREAM Act, which would benefit undocumented students and Obama supports it;” adding that “McCain opposes the idea of giving driver’s licenses to the undocumented, while Obama favors the proposal.”

• AFSMCE, MoveOn ad targets McCain on Iraq war -- AP -- A major labor union and the liberal organization MoveOn.org are joining forces to air a provocative new ad portraying John McCain's Iraq policy as a prolonged presence that would involve a new generation of Americans. Paid for by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and by MoveOn.org, the commercial represents an expansion by Democratic-leaning groups of a campaign against McCain. It also targets one of McCain's major assets - his public credibility on national security issues. The ad will begin airing nationally Wednesday on CNN and MSNBC, and in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin markets. It will run for a week at a cost of $543,000. In the ad, an actress with an infant child speaks as if she were addressing McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee.

• Obama: McCain would leave US in Bush 'hole' -- AFP --  "Instead of reaching for new horizons, (President) George Bush has put us in a hole, and John McCain's policies will keep us there," the Obama campaign said ahead of a speech by the Illinois senator in Flint, Michigan. "Barack Obama doesn't think that America should shrink from the challenge of globalization, and we shouldn't fall back on Senator McCain's faith in the tried and failed approaches of George Bush," it said in a memo.

• McCain's Playbook: Hate, Fear and Caveman Politics -- AlterNet -- Haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam, the media-manufactured 'maverick' has remade himself into a prototypical, dumbed-down Republican Party stooge....McCain has by now completely remade himself into a prototypical, dumbed-down Republican Party stooge -- one who plans to rely on the same GOP strategy that has been winning elections ever since Pat Buchanan and Dick Nixon cooked up a plan for cleaving the South back in 1968.

• The strange legacy of President Bush -- Seattle PI Opinion --  In opinion poll after opinion poll across the world, the results are the same: America's standing has never been lower. Bush's policies are seen as totally discredited. And the fascinating thing is that this universal opprobrium is almost exactly replicated by the polls within America, where Bush comes out as having some of the lowest ratings since records began, and where Iraq is regarded as a terrible mistake. ... what [America's] allies and competitors should dearly wish for, is to have a president that can restore some faith in itself. An America whose people start to feel better about themselves is better for us all....There is only one candidate who can do that and it isn't John McCain.

• McCain's Health Care Plan for Americans: Don’t Get Sick -- AlterNet --  McCain, a cancer survivor, would be unlikely to get coverage under his own plan if he did not have government- provided insurance. While Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has revealed little about his health care plan, the broad outlines of his proposal represent a "radical" departure from the current employer-based system, providing less coverage and imposing higher costs. McCain envisions a system under which most Americans shop for health insurance on their own in a highly deregulated market, which would charge higher deductibles and co-payments and provide less coverage. Ultimately, McCain's vision places the 158 million Americans who receive their health care through their jobs in danger of losing coverage.

• McCain Myth Buster: John McCain and Middle Class Tax Relief -- Democratic National Committee --  John McCain says he wants to cut taxes for middle class families. But the reality is Senator McCain would do even less for the middle class than President Bush, which is definitely not the change Americans are looking for. McCain is masking a tax cut for the wealthy as a middle class tax break, saying that 100 million people have "something to do with capital gains." The truth is fewer than seven percent of families earning less than $100,000 received capital gains income in 2005. [CNN Live Feed, Town Hall (Charlotte, NC), 5/5/08; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1/30/2006] .... McCain's distortion on capital gains comes as no surprise considering that Senator McCain himself has admitted he doesn't understand the economy. But given the tough times American families are facing everyday, how can we afford four more years of a president who doesn't understand the number one issue affecting America and has no plan to fix it?

• McCain Adviser: No Labor Standards in Trade Deals -- AFL-CIO Blog --  In an interview with the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, McCain’s top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, acknowledges McCain doesn’t want to include labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. McCain would reject the use of labor and environmental issues to block trade, says Holtz-Eakin.

• Make No Mistake, McCain Is a Neocon -- AlterNet --  Since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain has sought to hide the forest of his neoconservative alignment with George W. Bush amid the trees of details, such as stressing differences over military tactics used in Iraq. But the larger reality should be clear: McCain is a hard-line neoconservative who buys into Bush's "preemptive war" theories abroad and his concept of an all-powerful "unitary executive" at home.

• McCain Adviser: No Labor Standards in Trade Deals -- AFL-CIO Blog --  In an interview with the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, McCain’s top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, acknowledges McCain doesn’t want to include labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. McCain would reject the use of labor and environmental issues to block trade, says Holtz-Eakin.

• Is state so blue, McCain will write us off? -- Seattle Times -- When McCain held a fundraiser in Bellevue — including a $31,000 per person "Victory Dinner" — none of the money raised that evening went to the Washington State Republican Party. Instead, it was divided among the McCain campaign, the national GOP and the state parties in places that both sides view as key battlegrounds: Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico and Wisconsin. State GOP Chairman Luke Esser said he thinks McCain could compete in Washington. But, he added, state Republicans first must prove "that we have our act together."

• What's new: Problems ahead for McCain?-- USA Today --  Politico looks at McCain's stinging attacks on Barack Obama -- and concludes it is a dangerous strategy -- in a piece called The unhappy warrior. The New York Times headlines its story McCain Extends His Outreach, but Evangelicals Are Still Wary.

  The Los Angeles Times examines that and other problems in John McCain's Ohio Disconnect. And Tom Edsall dissects McCain campaign assertions about the state of play at The Huffington Post in GOP Insiders Worry About McCain's Chances.

   Two conservative columnists also are fretting today about McCain's prospects. Read Bill Kristol's view here, Robert Novak's here.

  In battleground news, The Washington Post reports on the start of what looks like an unprecedented general-election effort by Democrats in Virginia.

• Make No Mistake, McCain Is a Neocon -- AlterNet --  Since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain has sought to hide the forest of his neoconservative alignment with George W. Bush amid the trees of details, such as stressing differences over military tactics used in Iraq. But the larger reality should be clear: McCain is a hard-line neoconservative who buys into Bush's "preemptive war" theories abroad and his concept of an all-powerful "unitary executive" at home.
• Holt Baker: McCain ‘In Lockstep’ with Bush -- AFL-CIO Blog -- Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, went to New Orleans last night to launch his general election campaign. He used the national spotlight to try and distance himself from George W. Bush, the most unpopular president on record, whose policies McCain consistently has supported. In 2007, McCain voted 95 percent of the time with Bush and 100 percent of the time in 2008, according to the AFL-CIO Congressional Voting Record. AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker says that while McCain’s words might separate him from Bush, his record doesn’t show any independence.

• Tanker And McCain -- Washington Post Blog -- Citizens Against Government Waste has been accused in the past of accepting money from organizations that benefit from its advocacy. Their tanker campaign does not mention McCain. One has to wonder whether they're serving here as a proxy?

• Battleground Washington? -- Seattle Times -- It is a bit of a stretch to say Washington is a battleground, especially in a potential blue-tide year. But let's play along. That way, the candidates have to come here, spend money, court us, discuss our issues. Sen. John McCain ought to stop by and tell us exactly what role he played in the big Boeing tanker deal — you know, the one that ended up going to Europe's Airbus. Did his push for competition hurt Washington's economy? What was his motive? Did he wrangle for a competitive bid expecting Boeing would win in the end?

  Obama Attacks McCain on Health Care -- NY Times -- Obama said special interests in Washington, represented by the influence of lobbyists, had blocked progress on issues like health care for too long. "We won't take another dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs," the Illinois senator said in Bristol on a campaign swing in Virginia, a traditionally Republican state that has drifted Democratic in recent years.

• Nonprofit's role in defending McCain raises questions -- Washington Post -- For weeks, Republican presidential candidate John McCain had been hammered for supporting the Air Force decision in February to award a $40 billion contract for refueling tankers to Northrop Grumman and its European partner, Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence & Space. Democrats, labor unions and others blamed the senator for a deal that snubbed Boeing and that they said could move tens of thousands of jobs abroad. McCain's advisers wanted to strike back against key Democratic critics. But they did not mount an expensive ad campaign to defend the candidate's position. They called a tax-exempt nonprofit closely aligned with the Arizona senator, seeking information and help.
• Denver-Area Union Vets Concerned About McCain’s Record -- AFL-CIO Blog -- Some 38 percent of AFL-CIO members are veterans, so veterans’ benefits like health care and education are important issues for union members. (If you’re a veteran or from a military family, take our survey and let us know.) The federal government employees’ union, AFGE, has launched a campaign to convince McCain to change course and support fully funded public services for veterans, as well as a new G.I. Bill to expand college access for returning veterans. Mike Coulter, a Vietnam-era veteran and union member, served the people of the United States as an air traffic controller and federal employee for 25 years.

  FACTBOX-McCain and Obama on health care and retirement -- Reuters --  Health care has ranked among the top issues with U.S. voters in this presidential election cycle, and the Social Security retirement program is a perennial issue for the country's influential elderly population. Both Democratic front-runner Barack Obama and the presumptive Republican candidate John McCain have offered health care and retirement proposals. Here you will find a summary of their positions.

  Federal Employees Concerned About McCain’s Record on Veterans -- AFL-CIO Blog -- Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a groundbreaking update to the G.I. Bill, which would cover the cost of college education for all returning veterans.

  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) didn’t show up to vote, but, this weekend, he left no doubt as to how he felt about the bill. McCain chose to put an attack on the new G.I. Bill at the center of his Memorial Day speech, claiming it would hurt retention.

• The Real McCain That the Corporate Media Won't Show You -- AlterNet -- There's no question John McCain is getting a free ride from the mainstream press. But with the power of YouTube and the blogosphere, we can provide an accurate portrayal of the so-called Maverick. We can put the brakes on his free ride! There is a great video on this site...check it out.
• Obama links McCain to unpopular Bush policies -- AP -- He said during a stop in Oregon that the Republican candidate would threaten government retirement benefits because he supports Bush's policy of privatizing the program. Obama said McCain would push to raise the retirement age for collecting government retirement benefits or trim annual cost-of-living increases. Obama has rejected both ideas as solutions to the funding crisis projected for Social Security in favor of making higher-income workers pay more into the system.
• McCain Finds a Thorny Path in Ethics Effort -- NY Times -- Mr. McCain’s political identity has long been defined by his calls for reducing the influence of special interests in Washington. But as he heads toward the general election as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, he has increasingly confronted criticism that his campaign staff is stocked with people who have made their living as lobbyists or in similar jobs, leaving his credentials as a reformer open to attack
• McCain temper boiled over in '92 tirade, called wife a 'cunt' -- Raw Story --  The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter, which will arrive in bookstores next month, reports an angry exchange between McCain and his wife that happened in full view of aides and reporters during a 1992 campaign stop. The man who was known as "McNasty" in high school has erupted in foul-languaged tirades at political foes and congressional colleagues more-or-less throughout his career, and his quickness to anger has been an issue on the presidential campaign trail as evidence of his fury has surfaced.
• McCain Campaign Threatens Oregon Union Members with Arrest -- AFL-CIO Blog -- John McCain paid a visit to Portland, Ore., this week. As usual, AFL-CIO union members came out to try to speak to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee about important issues—and, as usual, they were turned away. In fact, McCain campaign aides were so unhappy to be confronted that they threatened these union members with arrest if they approached the room in which McCain was holding an event.
• Democrats accuse McCain of hypocrisy on Hamas -- AP -- Democrats accused Sen. John McCain Friday of hypocrisy on the question of whether the United States should negotiate with terrorists and dictators, saying the certain Republican nominee had previously been willing to negotiate with the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
• Dire Consequences with a McCain Supreme Court? -- AlterNet -- If John McCain wins the presidency – and gets to appoint one or more U.S. Supreme Court justices – America’s 220-year experiment as a democratic Republic living under the principle that “no man is above the law” may come to an end.

• John McCain has selective memory about global warming efforts -- LA Times -- When a reporter in North Bend, Wash., asked McCain why the average voter concerned with climate change should support him over Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama, his reply was tart. "I have been involved in this issue for many, many years," the Arizona senator said. "They have never, to my knowledge, been involved in legislation, nor hearings, nor engagement in this issue," he said, adding that he'd "traveled around the world and seen the impacts of climate change."......What he didn't mention was that on two of those trips, Clinton was there alongside him. She joined him on a 2004 congressional delegation to Svalbard, a group of Norwegian islands in the Arctic, and on a 2005 trek to Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory, where they viewed shrinking glaciers. McCain mentioned both trips in his speech but not the New York senator.............And McCain enjoyed the support of his Democratic rivals in the Senate chambers too. Clinton and Obama cosponsored global warming legislation.

• Arianna Huffington Storms NYC With New Book, Skewering McCain as a 'Pandering Pawn of the Right' -- Alternet -- Just as Huffington was arriving in New York, she revealed -- on her blog, of course -- that John McCain bashed George Bush something nasty at a dinner party in L.A. in 2000. And that night McCain went so far as to insist that he didn't vote for the Bush Leaguer in that election. The New York Times and other media ran with the story, and it was a marvel to watch as Huffington, always multitasking, handled the press on McCain while effortlessly hammering away on the themes of her book.

• McCain Refuses to Meet with Oregon’s Working Men & Women Monday Evening -- Oregon State Fed Press Release -- Oregon’s working men and women waited…and waited…and waited just steps away from Presidential hopeful Senator John McCain’s $33,100 per couple fundraiser Monday evening to tell their stories of health care crisis and struggle to the presumptive Republican nominee. But McCain never showed. In fact, when Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain offered to approach his campaign team with one last polite, in-person request to see him Chamberlain was threatened with arrest. 

  Think You Can Tell Bush from McCain? -- Brave New Films has posted a YouTube video. Click here to see if you can tell the difference....

• Questions For McCain -- George Will Syndicated Column -- Peripatetic John McCain, the human pinball, continues to carom around the country as his rivals gnaw on each other. Although action, not reflection, is his forte, perhaps he should go to earth somewhere, while the Democrats continue the destruction, and answer some questions, such as: • You say you are not "ready to go to war with Iran," but you also say the "one thing worse" than "exercising the military option" is "a nuclear-armed Iran." Because strenuous diplomacy has not dented Iran's nuclear ambitions, is not a vote for you a vote for war with Iran?
• McCain's partial support of green laws -- Washington Post -- An examination of McCain's voting record shows an inconsistent approach to the environment: He champions some green causes while casting sometimes contradictory votes on others.....he has cast votes against tightening fuel-efficiency standards and resisted requiring public utilities to offer a specific amount of electricity from renewable sources......he has also pushed to set aside Endangered Species Act protections.
• Michigan AFL-CIO says it will blast McCain on trade, economy -- MLive -- A Michigan labor organization plans to use a two-day visit by Republican presidential candidate John McCain to tell voters his policies would hurt workers. "John McCain ... will not likely have a government and an administration that does enough or cares enough about creating good-paying manufacturing jobs here in America," Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. Gaffney said the union will remind its members that McCain supports right-to-work laws and international trade agreements, wants to tax worker health care benefits and already has told Michigan workers that their lost jobs are unlikely to come back.
• What McCain expects from federal judges-- LA Times -- McCain pledged to nominate jurists who believe "there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power" and who are "faithful in all things to the Constitution of the United States." Some Democratic leaders immediately denounced McCain's speech. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, accused McCain of pandering to the far right. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement that McCain voted for every one of President Bush's activist judges and said McCain "promises hundreds more just like them."
• Huffington on McCain: A Trojan Horse -- Huffington Post -- In Right is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution and Made Us All Less Safe, Huffington, editor of the popular Huffington Post blog, points out that after twice voting against making permanent Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, McCain now supports this boondoogle for the rich. Further, he moved from being a campaign finance reformer to a candidate whose campaign is run by lobbyists and who has flip-flopped from opposing torture to voting to allow water boarding. And as we’ve pointed out, McCain, like Bush, supports tax hikes on our health insurance, supports pay discrimination, backs bad trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and pushes economic policies to help millionaires, not working families.
• What John McCain Told Me, and What it Says About How Far He's Fallen -- Huffington Post -- Through a spokesperson with the colorful name Tucker Bounds, McCain has denied telling me he didn't vote for Bush in 2000. "It's not true," Bounds told the Washington Post, "and I ask you to consider the source." My sentiments exactly -- because John McCain has a long history of issuing heartfelt denials of things that were actually true.He denied ever talking with John Kerry about his leaving the GOP to be Kerry's '04 running mate -- then later admitted he had, insisting: "Everybody knows that I had a conversation." He denied admitting that he didn't know much about economics, even though he'd said exactly that to the Wall Street Journal. And the Boston Globe. And the Baltimore Sun. He denied ever having asked for a budget earmark for Arizona, even though he had. On the record. He denied that he'd ever had a meeting with comely lobbyist Vicki Iseman and her client Lowell Paxon, even though he had. And had admitted it in a legal deposition.
• Huffington on McCain: A Trojan Horse -- Huffington Post -- In Right is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution and Made Us All Less Safe, Huffington, editor of the popular Huffington Post blog, points out that after twice voting against making permanent Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, McCain now supports this boondoogle for the rich. Further, he moved from being a campaign finance reformer to a candidate whose campaign is run by lobbyists and who has flip-flopped from opposing torture to voting to allow water boarding. And as we’ve pointed out, McCain, like Bush, supports tax hikes on our health insurance, supports pay discrimination, backs bad trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and pushes economic policies to help millionaires, not working families.
• McCain's Preacher Pal Calls Catholic Church the 'Great Whore' -- Where's the Outrage? -- AlterNet -- If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive. What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.
• McCain Gets 80% Discount; Free Inmate Labor for Fundraiser -- AlterNet -- Homewood AL Mayor Barry McCulley (R-obviously) has stepped in it with this one. He's supposed to bring requests for discounts to the City Council, but for some reason he decided to rent the McCain people a room at Rosewood Hall for $250, substantially less than the going rate of $1,200 for a weeknight event. He also provided free inmate labor to set up the tables and chairs, waiving the usual $100 set-up fee.
• McCain’s Health Care Plan: Increases Taxes, Decreases Coverage -- AFL-CIO  -- Sen. John McCain gave an address his advisers claimed would “unveil” his health care proposal —but he essentially offered the same tired proposal he’s been touting for months. Most policy analysts agree this plan won’t cut costs, won’t cover more people and won’t fix the real problems in the health care system. McCain wants to address our nation’s health care crisis by merely shifting costs around—and millions of people would pay higher health care costs as a result. McCain would tax health care benefits as income and push more people out of group insurance pools and into the often-predatory private market. In short, McCain would increase our taxes and ensure fewer of us could afford quality health care.
• How to Talk About Health Care -- AlterNet -- John McCain will be spending the week promoting his health care scheme. The crux of the plan is to abolish employer-based health insurance and throw middle class working Americans to the wolves. It is market fundamentalism at its worst. But I'm not here to talk about the policy details. I want to discuss message framing. During an election campaign, when our ultimate audience is persuadable voters, how do we talk about health care?
• McCain’s Health Care Plan: Increases Taxes, Decreases Coverage -- AFL-CIO  -- Sen. John McCain gave an address his advisers claimed would “unveil” his health care proposal —but he essentially offered the same tired proposal he’s been touting for months. Most policy analysts agree this plan won’t cut costs, won’t cover more people and won’t fix the real problems in the health care system. McCain wants to address our nation’s health care crisis by merely shifting costs around—and millions of people would pay higher health care costs as a result. McCain would tax health care benefits as income and push more people out of group insurance pools and into the often-predatory private market. In short, McCain would increase our taxes and ensure fewer of us could afford quality health care.
• How to Talk About Health Care -- AlterNet -- John McCain will be spending the week promoting his health care scheme. The crux of the plan is to abolish employer-based health insurance and throw middle class working Americans to the wolves. It is market fundamentalism at its worst. But I'm not here to talk about the policy details. I want to discuss message framing. During an election campaign, when our ultimate audience is persuadable voters, how do we talk about health care?
• Bush Made Permanent --Paul Krugman Columnist -- As the designated political heir of a deeply unpopular president — according to Gallup, President Bush has the highest disapproval rating recorded in 70 years of polling — John McCain should have little hope of winning in November. In fact, however, current polls show him roughly tied with either Democrat.  In part this may reflect the Democrats’ problems. For the most part, however, it probably reflects the perception, eagerly propagated by Mr. McCain’s many admirers in the news media, that he’s very different from Mr. Bush — a responsible guy, a straight talker....But is this perception at all true? During the 2000 campaign people said much the same thing about Mr. Bush; those of us who looked hard at his policy proposals, especially on taxes, saw the shape of things to come. And a look at what Mr. McCain says about taxes shows the same combination of irresponsibility and double-talk that, back in 2000, foreshadowed the character of the Bush administration.
• John McCain Won't Be Looking for the Union Label --OpEd News -- Don’t expect any labor union to endorse John McCain for president in the general election. The wounds from the Bush–Cheney Administration are just too deep. But, their reasons aren’t because of social justice issues that once pervaded the labor movement, but on bread-and-butter issues that have dominated unions the past five decades. “Our economy is in crisis after years of failed Bush Administration policies that Sen. McCain has adopted as his own,” says Karen Ackerman, AFL-CIO political director. McCain, says Steve Smith, AFL-CIO senior media outreach specialist, “assails working families from worker health care and safety to trade policies.”
  FREE-TRADE THEORY DOESN'T ALLAY ANXIOUS MIDDLE CLASS -- Yahoo News -- McCain is stuck with the GOP's dogmatic insistence on both free markets and a ragged social safety net, a dangerous combination for workers battered by globalization. If protectionism doesn't work, what does? Setting workers adrift without health care or pensions? Dismissing their worries as parochial and unsophisticated? The Arizona senator, like much of the nation's leadership class, is badly out of touch with the struggles of average citizens. He has been married for nearly 28 years to the heir to a beer distributorship; Cindy Hensley McCain is believed to be worth more than $100 million. And as a member of the U.S. Senate, he has excellent health insurance.
• Ignore the Corporate Media Spin, McCain is a Weak Candidate -- NY Times -- But as the doomsday alarm grew shrill, few noticed that on this same day in Pennsylvania, 27 percent of Republican primary voters didn’t just tell pollsters they would defect from their party’s standard-bearer; they went to the polls, gas prices be damned, to vote against Mr. McCain.
• John McCain and the Simple Arithmetic of Republican Economic Failure -- Huffington Post -- John McCain is a "deficit hawk"? These days, that's about as accurate as saying Donald Trump is homeless. Let's cut through the nonsense and talk about real numbers. Numbers tell a story. Especially over time. They compel us to focus on results -- success and failure. Over the short term, maybe a few years, numbers can be manipulated or give false signals. But not over decades, and not over a generation. The numbers over the past 30 years are not refutable. When it comes to creating jobs and managing the nation's finances, Democratic presidents demonstrate success while Republican presidents show failure.
• McCain opposes equal pay bill in Senate -- AP -- Republican Sen. John McCain, campaigning through poverty-stricken cities and towns, said Wednesday he opposes a Senate bill that seeks equal pay for women because it would lead to more lawsuits. Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney said: "At a time when American families are struggling to keep their homes and jobs while paying more for everything from gasoline to groceries, how on Earth would anyone who thinks they can lead our country also think it's acceptable to oppose equal pay for America's mothers, wives and daughters?"

• Truth Vs. 'Trash Journalism': McCain's Weak Rebuttal to Damaging Allegations -- Alternet -- I just don't get where all the "outlandishness" and "hate" comes from on the McCain side. I am only a humble author trying to do my job, sharing facts that are 100% sourced. It's not like I included in my book the account of a former AP reporter who recounted to me seeing John McCain wander off into the Red Light District of Hanoi in 1996 when he was there to normalize relations with the Vietnamese. Or that it was known among reporters that he used to disappear into that part of town alone at night. I never said that in my book. And why would I? That would supposedly be "trash journalism."
• The Man Who Would Be Bush -- Alternet -- Are Americans unusually stupid or is it something our president put in the water? As millions surrender their homes and sacrifice other standards of our nation's economic and political reputation to the caprice of the Bush-Cheney imperium, a majority of voters tell pollsters that they might vote for a candidate who promises more of the same.

  Assuming that likely voters are not now thinking of yet another Republican president simply because John McCain is the only white guy left standing -- an excuse as pathetic in its logic as the decision four years ago to return two Texas oil hustlers to the White House because they were not Massachusetts liberals -- must mean that tens of millions of Americans have taken leave of their senses.

  If not the white-guy syndrome, why would even a shocking minority of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters say they prefer McCain to the other Democrat? How otherwise to explain the nation's widespread bipartisan rejection of the Bush presidency and yet a willingness to let McCain continue in that vein?

• Suspending gas tax won't ease pain at pump -- Union Bulletin Opinion -- Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, called for a summer-long suspension of the federal gasoline tax as well as other tax cuts as a way to curb the pain at the pump.
  
  The proposal is deeply flawed.
  
  Suspending the 18.4 cent a gallon gasoline tax and 24.4 cent a gallon diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day would provide modest relief and only for a very short time. Over the last month gas has shot up 18.4 cents in a matter of days. If the gasoline tax is suspended that void would be filled in a matter of weeks if not days. The oil companies would reap even bigger profits.
  
  But the loss of that tax revenue would be devastating to this nation's infrastructure.

• Under McCain, Every Day Would Be Tax Day -- AFL-CIO Blog -- McCain has proposed a health care plan that would force working families to pay taxes on more than just our wages. His plan would tax our health care benefits.

   

  But while millions of us would find it harder to pay for our health benefits under McCain’s plan, the same would not be true of the top 10 insurance companies: They would rake in nearly $2 billion in tax cuts. Just five oil companies, meanwhile, would see nearly $4 billion in tax cuts.

   

  What’s more, McCain’s changes to the tax code could lead employers to drop health care benefits altogether, leaving working families at the mercy of a private health care market plagued by high costs, bias against pre-existing conditions and outright denials.. 

• Murtha says McCain too old to be president -- AP -- Murtha is 75, four years older than McCain. He says they are nearly the same age, and the rigors and stress of running the country is too much for guys their age. ''I've served with seven presidents,'' Murtha told a union audience. ''When they come in, they all make mistakes. They all get older....This one guy running is about as old as me,'' he said, drawing laughter and applause. ''Let me tell you something, it's no old man's job.''
• Democrats Sue FEC over McCain Finances -- NPR -- The Democratic National Committee has sued the Federal Election Commission, saying the commission failed in its obligation to investigate Republican John McCain's campaign finances. It's another consequence of the FEC's being nonfunctional in the midst of the biggest fundraising season in history — unable to act because it lacks the necessary number of commissioners. 
• Biden: McCain would put urgent global issues on back burner -- AP -- Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden says Republican Sen. John McCain would continue President Bush's practice of pursuing the war in Iraq at the expense of other urgent global issues. "When it comes to Iraq, there is no daylight between John McCain and George W. Bush. They are joined at the hip," Biden said in excerpts of remarks prepared for delivery Tuesday at Georgetown University.
• How McCain Promotes “Reform” Through Non-Profit Institute-- Harpers Magazine --  Senator John McCain’s ties to the supposedly independent Reform Institute have recently attracted well-deserved media scrutiny. In 2001, McCain helped found the Institute, a non-profit group whose stated mission is to advance political transparency. But the group’s real goal has often seemed to be the advancement of John McCain.
• Citizen McCain, Cont'd -- Washington Post -- Back in late February, a New York Times story revisited the question of whether McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone (where his father was serving in the Navy), fit the constitution's requirement that the president be a "natural-born citizen" of the United States. 
• McCain: More Conservative Than His Image -- AP --  The independent label sticks to John McCain because he antagonizes fellow Republicans and likes to work with Democrats. But a different label applies to his actual record: conservative. The likely Republican presidential nominee is much more conservative than voters appear to realize. McCain leans to the right on issue after issue, not just on the Iraq war but also on abortion, gay rights, gun control and other issues that matter to his party's social conservatives.
•   Democrats to ask federal judge to order FEC investigation of McCain's campaign financing -- Dallas News -- A lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission, to be filed today, questions the agency's ability to review Mr. McCain's decision to opt out of the system. The Republican presidential candidate, who had been entitled to $5.8 million in federal funds for the primary campaign, decided to give up that money so he could avoid strict spending limits.
• McCain is either nuts or stupid-maybe both! -- opednews.com --  Big bro 43's Mini-me, McCain, has painted himself into a quagmire surrounded by a swamp. His career has been filled with so much hypocrisy that he has been forced to say a lot of nonsense. He can't maintain consistency. That means he is a flip-flopper which the rabid right-wing extremists hate. Let's throw some out. The first set of dueling stances are McCain's crooked role with the Keating Five and McCain's stances as an anti-lobbyist zealot--a campaign finance reformer.....

• McCain temper boiled over in '92 tirade, called wife a 'cunt' -- Raw Story --  The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter, which will arrive in bookstores next month, reports an angry exchange between McCain and his wife that happened in full view of aides and reporters during a 1992 campaign stop. The man who was known as "McNasty" in high school has erupted in foul-languaged tirades at political foes and congressional colleagues more-or-less throughout his career, and his quickness to anger has been an issue on the presidential campaign trail as evidence of his fury has surfaced.

• The Arizona hit man -- Seattle Times Opinion -- As The Washington Post reports, McCain is now "assiduously courting both lobbyists and their wealthy clients, offering them private audiences as part of his fundraising." He has more lobbyists as fundraisers than any other White House contender, and he allows lobbyists to simultaneously work in his campaign and represent business clients. In fact, the Post reported that his chief adviser "said he does a lot of his (lobbying) work by telephone from McCain's Straight Talk Express bus." Such antics have run that "Straight Talk Express" into the ditch of hypocrisy. Just look at McCain's actions on two huge issues: energy and campaign-finance reform.