(Sigh) It really depresses me every time I read some ill-informed screed saying "Here's why I'm not voting for Obama," which then contains nothing but vague generalizations and practically insulting leaps in logic. Now is not the time to be foundlessly contrarian, okay? You don't have to support Obama, but please have an informed opinion. One of the more popular lines of thought is that Obama has too many racist/slumlordy/evil connections, and that disqualifies him for the presidency.
So let's see . . .
Obama's shady connections:
Tony Rezko
Rev Wright
Bill Ayers
ACORN
All of the above are either completely disproven, totally misleading, or, with the case of ACORN, not even a "bad" connection to have. Am I missing any?
What follows is the content from a post I stole from the Tampa Bay Online Forums, authored by the user "thevoiceoftruth." To that list, I've added a couple of other connections that I'll place at the top.
McCain-Palin's shady connections:
George W. Bush
Yup. There's that one right off the bat. Let's not forget the wonderful, wonderful gifts he's given us over the past 8 years, the greatest hits of which include: the 9/11 response (and, some would argue, the attacks themselves, since y'know, it was kinda predicted numerous times), unconstitutional wiretapping, unconstitutional torture, loss of due process, loss of habeus corpus, loss of stare decisis, the Katrina response, the collapse of much of the country's infrastructure, the biggest financial meltdown in generations, an enormous deficit, inaction on climate change, the politicalization of the Justice Department, The Iraq War, the cratering of the United State's global reputation . . . God, I'm getting dizzy, I better stop with this one. But we all know that, since 2000, Johnny Mac <3s George Bush.
These voter suppressors
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/752
Saddam frickin' Hussein
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/14/mccain-transition-chief-a_n_134595.html
And now, the following was copied from http://www.tboforums.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/6418/
G. Gordon Liddy
Liddy planned and committed the Watergate break-ins, proposed firebombing the Brookings Institution and the kidnapping anti-war activists, and planned the never-carried-out murder of a newspaper columnist, Jack Anderson.
He did five and a half years in prison for the aforementioned burglary and illegal surveillance, where he was unrepentant and called himself a “prisoner of war.” In 1994, he advocated the killing of federal ATF agents if they came to take your guns, suggesting that you aim for the head because they’ll have bulletproof vests. When called out on it, he said he was sorry and encouraged supporters to aim for the groin instead. He also mentioned that when he went shooting, he labeled his targets “Bill” and “Hillary.”
Liddy’s donated $5,000 to McCain’s political campaigns, and McCain had this to say about him: “I’m proud of you, I’m proud of your family. It’s always a pleasure for me to come on your program and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.”
Col. Oliver North
After several Americans were kidnapped by Islamic Jihad, members of the Reagan administration hatched a scheme to release them. The original plan was to ship weapons (through Israel as a proxy) to well-placed moderate Iranians. In return, the Iranians would pressure Islamic Jihad to release the hostages.
Col. North came along and suggested to drop Israel as an intermediary and sell the weapons directly to Iran at an inflated price. The money from the sale would be covertly funneled to the Contras, a Nicaraguan anti-communist guerilla group.
When the plan was publicly leaked, North shredded documents pertaining to the plan. He was convicted of three felonies, but the convictions were later overturned on appeal due to legal technicalities (hey—similar to Ayers).
In 1994, North was nominated by the Virginia Republican Party to run for Senate. Then-Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole denounced him and refused to endorse. John McCain endorsed him, albeit not particularly enthusiastically:
"I know nothing illegal or unconstitutional that took place in the Virginia Republican Party’s process of selecting their nominee. I’ll support their nominee and it’s—clearly, it’s Col. North at this time. And by the way, I’m the person that called for the resignation of the governor of this state, who was of my party. But I don’t see anything wrong with the process. I think from a clear political standpoint, our chances of winning that seat are dramatically diminished. There’s no doubt about that. But I respect the views and decision of the Virginia Republican Party."
On February 12, 2008, North wrote an endorsement of John McCain in the Washington Times. The McCain camp’s response? They released a press release to trumpet the endorsement.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/feb/12/decision-time/
Richard Quinn
Richard Quinn is the editor-in-chief of Southern Partisan Quarterly Review, a magazine that’s considered to be the leading journal of the “neo-confederacy movement.” Though much of its articles are relatively tame scholarly blurbs about southern traditions and history.
Yet, the magazine regularly vilifies Abraham Lincoln and other Union leaders, while venerating the Confederate soldiers who fought to secede. They state that the Civil War wasn’t so much about slavery as it was the preservation of the Southern way of life that they still advocate preserving.
When the article does write about slavery, it says things such as this, which came from a book review: “Mainstream black leaders perpetuate the myth that vicious white slave traders dragged Africans from their idyllic homeland to serve as chattel for arrogant white Americans. Readers of this magazine know otherwise” and “The greatest contribution of this work is that it exonerates slave owners by stating that they did not have a practice of breaking up slave families. If anything, they encouraged strong slave families to further the slaves’ peace and happiness in order to promote efficient work.”
He lashed out against a holiday about Martin Luther King, Jr. saying that it “should have been rejected because its purpose is vitriolic and profane.” He has called Nelson Mandela a terrorist, endorsed David Duke ("What better way to reject politics as usual than to elect a maverick like David Duke?") and sold T-shirts praising Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
In 2000, he was one of John McCain’s senior political consultants in South Carolina, described by the McCain campaign as a “highly respected South Carolina campaign consultant.” McCain, in this election cycle, paid $52,000 to his consulting company and $90,000 to a company run by Quinn’s son.
Charles Keating
In the first five years of McCain’s political career, Keating gave $112,000 to McCain’s campaigns. McCain’s wife and father-in-law invested $359,100 in a shopping center run by Keating, and the McCain family went on several trips at his expense. But in the late 80s, his savings-and-loan business went insolvent. To keep his company afloat, he began making risky, potentially illegal investments—something regulators were looking into.
To stop the investigation, Keating called up five Senators who he had given lots of money to: Four Democrats, and John McCain. McCain was angered at the Keating’s request, but went to meet with regulators anyway… although allegedly to make sure that his constituent was being treated fairly. Upon finding out that Keating was being criminally investigated, McCain cut off all ties.
In the end, Keating’s business failed and 21,000 people lost their life savings—and had to be bailed out by the government. He was later convicted on 73 counts of wire fraud and served 4 years in prison before his sentence was overturned and he was re-tried; he pleaded guilty to 4 charges of fraud and was sentenced to time served.
McCain was investigated and cleared of impropriety, though he was criticized for “poor judgment.” He later called it the biggest mistake of his life. Was he guilty of anything? Perhaps not, but it’s a hell of a lot messier than Obama’s relationship with Tony Rezko.
http://www.keatingeconomics.com/ - [This is the website that Obama set up to better educate people on the Keating 5 --Nat]
The McCain campaign’s response? Via Americablog:
"The Keating Five Investigation was “a political smear job on John [McCain].” WTF? He called Howell Heflin, who led the hearings, a “stooge” of the Democratic machine out to get poor, innocent John McCain."
Wow, really? That’s not what McCain said in his book, Worth Fighting For:
"I made the worst mistake of my life by attending two meetings, the first with the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the government agency charged with regulating the practices of the nation’s savings and loans, and a week later with four bank examiners based in San Francisco who were at that time investigating the investment and lending practices of Lincoln Savings and Loan of Irvine, California, owned by my good friend and generous supporter Charles Keating."
And it’s not what he was saying last year:
"I was judged eventually, after three years, of using, quote, poor judgment, and I agree with that assessment."
http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/mccain/articles/2007/03/01/20070301mccainbio-chapter7.html
But now that McCain is being called out for his role in the Keating 5 scandal, he has decided to cut and run from taking responsibility for his own actions.
Rev. John Hagee
Rev. Hagee is the pastor of a non-denominational charismatic church, as well as the the CEO of a nonprofit organization that broadcasts his sermons on TV and radio.
Hagee holds some nutty beliefs in addition to his run-of-the-mill “charismatic” beliefs: he feels that Harry Potter is modern-day witchcraft, he condemns stay-at-home dads and thinks global warming is a conspiracy. He believed that Hurricane Katrina was divine punishment for New Orleans’ sins, and thinks Armageddon is imminent (and can be coaxed along with a preemptive strike on Iran, which he supports).
Even more controversially, Hagee called the Catholic Church “A Godless theology of hate that no one dared try to stop for a thousand years produced a harvest of hate,” blamed the Holocaust partly on Catholicism, and has insinuated that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelation. After being widely denounced by many, including the perpetually-offended Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, he claimed to change his mind about the Church.
Hagee has stated that “those who live by the Qur’an have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews; it teaches that very clearly… There are 1.3 billion people who follow the Islamic faith, so if you’re saying there’s only 15 percent that want to come to America or invade Israel to crush it, you’re only talking about 200 million people. That’s far more than Hitler and Japan and Italy and all of the Axis powers in World War II had under arms.”
Hagee has also insinuated that the Jews’ rebellion against God is the reason why they’ve suffered throughout history, including during the Holocaust (which he also believes was a divine plan to bring the Jews back to Israel); he also believes that the (Jewish) Rothschild family is part of some sort of global conspiracy.
Not only did John McCain receive Hagee’s endorsement, he sought it out; for two months, after word of these various statements started coming out, he continued to honor the endorsement while disagreeing with the particular beliefs. Finally, the pressure built up to the point that he rejected the endorsement (and taking a shot at Obama while doing so).
Rev. Rod Parsley
Parsley is the pastor of a charismatic Ohio megachurch (and televangelist) who opposes the separation of church and state. He has said that Christians must wage war against the “false religion” of Islam, an “anti-Christ” religion revealed not by God, but rather by demons, and suggesting that the United States was founded in party to destroy Islam. He also used some creepy talk in referring to the IRS and the media:
"The secular media never likes it when I say this, so let me say it twice. Man your battle stations! Ready your weapons! They say this rhetoric is so inciting. I came to incite a riot. ... Man your battle stations. Ready your weapons. Lock and load — for the thirty, forty liberal pastors who filed against our ministry with the Internal Revenue Service. ... Let the struggle begin. Let it begin in your heart today with a shout unto him who has called us to war — not only that, he has empowered you and I to win."
McCain sought and received Parsley’s endorsement as well, calling him a “spiritual guide”, but again took at least two months to reject the endorsement (taking a shot against Obama in the process). Parsley then withdrew his endorsement of McCain.
Alaskan Independence Party
We know that, although Sarah Palin was not a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, Todd Palin was a member for about seven years. However, I’ll set aside discussion of family members right there and focus on the person who’s running for Vice President.
Sarah Palin gave a cheerful videotaped address to the Alaskan Independence Party, telling them to “keep up the good work.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwvPNXYrIyI
Now, the Alaskan Independence Party is technically a “states’ rights” party, but it does want to take back federally-held lands in the state and give Alaskans a vote on whether or not they want to secede from the union.
This is a party founded by a man named Joe Vogler, who said, “I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.” He also said,
"You get to think why the hell do I owe them anything and then you get mad; and you say to hell with them; and you renounce allegiance; and you pledge your efforts, your effects, your honor, your life, to Alaska; that is how I do it; I am an Alaskan; they know it; I’ve told them to go to hell in every way I can in a nice way; I took a case to the Supreme Court believing in the Supreme Court, but I’d rather be tried in a whorehouse with the madam as the Judge; there is more Justice in a whorehouse than in the Supreme Court; and if they don’t like they know where they can go; ..... and if you think I am ever going to forget that, the fires of Hell are glaciers compared to my hate for the American Government, and I won’t be buried under their damn flag; I’ll be buried in Dawson and when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones back to Alaska, back to my country. The fires of Hell are glaciers compared to my hate for the American government.”
Even better:
"In December of 1941 there was a little fracas over in Pearl Harbor and I happened to read of the ultimatum that FDR and Hull has sent to the Japanese Emperor on November 27th 1941 with three demands: get out of Manchuria, pay damages and promise not to do it again. .... This was on November 29th that I read of this in the Houston Chronicle; 7 days later, eight days later I guess, Sunday afternoon on December 7th (he learned of the attack on radio- I leave out some details here). And I said oh oh they got their answer from Hirohito; so we immediately declared war ..... I knew what had happened - President Roosevelt had involved us in a war. He had to do something to make Americans mad. And I speak pretty frankly, I call him the dirty rotten son-of-a-bitch communist traitor, because he had involved us in that war that we had no business in."
Now… just imagine for a second that Jill Biden was the member of the Communist Party for seven years, and Joe made a video addressing their convention in which he told them to “keep up the good work.” Do you not think it would immediately disqualify him from the vice presidency, or at least be discussed in McCain advertisements and right-wing blogs constantly?
Rev. Thomas Muthee
Rev. Muthee has founded over 400 churches in Africa, but not without controversy. Early in his career, he claims to have had a vision that the source of crime in a particular region of Kenya was due to a witch named “Mama Jane”. He demanded that she convert to Christianity or leave town. After people died in a car accident in front of her clinic, Muthee’s followers decided that she was, indeed, responsible for evil deeds; they gathered to stone her to death, but the police intervened and she fled town. Muthee claimed a victory for spiritual warfare and said that since she left, the crime rate has dropped (not true).
Muthee has made quite a few guest appearances at the Wasilla Assembly of God, Sarah Palin’s old church, where her pastor referred to him as having powers of prophecy. He’s asked God to bring money to Sarah Palin’s campaigns and help her guide the nation in the right direction (and to protect her from witchcraft). Sarah Palin was seen praising him and his speeches while in church.
Ed Kalnins
Kalnins is the pastor of Sarah Palin’s old church, the Wasilla Assembly of God. During the 2004 election season, he praised President Bush’s performance during a debate with Sen. John Kerry, then warned: “I’m not going tell you who to vote for, but if you vote for this particular person, I question your salvation. I’m sorry.” He added: “If every Christian will vote righteously, it would be a landslide every time.”
Months after hinting at possible damnation for Kerry supporters, he bristled at the treatment President Bush was receiving over the federal government’s handling of Hurricane Katrina. “I hate criticisms towards the President,” he said, “because it’s like criticisms towards the pastor—it’s almost like, it’s not going to get you anywhere, you know, except for hell. That’s what it’ll get you.”
Kalnins also claims that Jesus operated from a “war mode,” in that he fought a spiritual war; he believes the War on Terror is is a manifestation of that spiritual war, and that “Jesus called us to die” for causes such as this. He preaches frequently about the impending end times, and has a strange belief that Alaska is a “refuge state” where hundreds of thousands of people will flee in the end days—and urges his followers to be “ready to minister them.”
Phil Gramm
We all know Phil Gramm as McCain’s former economic adviser (and current informal adviser) who said that we had become a “nation of whiners” suffering from a “mental recession.” We know that his 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act has been accused by some (including Ben Stein) as helping start the mortgage meltdown.
Another piece of legislation Gramm was responsible for was the “Enron loophole,” which he wrote with the help of Enron Lobbyists. It’s possible that the Enron meltdown wouldn’t have happened without Gramm’s involvement. Also of note is the fact that his wife was on Enron’s Board of Directors when it collapsed.
After leaving the Senate, Gramm became a lobbyist for UBS, a Swiss bank that lent millions of dollars in subprime mortgages. Gramm walked away with a cool $750,000.
On a more humorous note, in the 1970s he was involved in the pornography business; he put $15,000 into a film called “Truck Stop Women: No Rig Is Too Big for Them to Handle”. The film didn’t work out, and Graham got his money back. He put the $15,000 into another film called “Beauty Queens,” which again fell through and he got his money back. He then put $7,500 into “White House Madness,” a pornographic film set in the Nixon White House. It bombed.
Rick Davis
The head of McCain’s campaign is a lobbyist from a company called Davis Manafort that has collected millions of dollars lobbying Congress.
From 2000 to 2005, he was the head of the Homeownership Alliance, a group dedicated to advocating for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He was paid $30,000 a month in this position. After this, his company was paid $15,000 a month to consult for Freddie Mac, a fee he collected until August 2008.
In 2003, he was hired by DHL and Airborne Express to lobby Congress to approve a merger between the two companies. The merger has been approved, and the two companies are shutting down their hub in Wilmington, Ohio (pop. 11,922) and cutting as many as 8,000 jobs.
In 2006, Davis set up a meeting in Switzerland between McCain and Oleg Deripaska, a Russian businessman. Deripaska has been linked to organized crime, a link strong enough that caused his US visa to be revoked that same year. After the meeting, Deripaska wrote a letter to Davis and Manafort: “Thank you so much for setting up everything in Klosters so spectacularly… It was very interesting to meet Senators Chambliss, Sununu, and McCain in such an intimate setting.”
1 commentReport Note
Joshua Cicci wrote
at 2:25pm
Wow, I agree.
But the point is, I thought I was allowed to have friends with whom I may disagree. When did just plain knowing a person meant you subscribed to their value system? It is really interesting that on the verge of possibly shifting the paradigm, we are still using association as the reason not to. Haven't rich white men been "associated" with enough bad elements in this country? I would argue that maybe just maybe wealthy intolerant white men are the reason we have terrorism.
Oh and "I Grock Spock."
