Veterans and McCain

War heroes are great, but war heroes change. War heroes become politicians.

My brain is exploding these days. I see Sen. John McCain cling to his military service. Yes, it was torturous, to say the least, and dude, I salute you for it; but it sickens me at the same people. Folks hail his traumatic events, but they vilify Sen. John Kerry's equally heroic events. And it makes me sick because John McCain has been forgetting soldiers since 2005.

Do not be fooled: John McCain is a Republican, no matter how he can reach across the aisle. It's the kind of Republicans any sane person would not want to be aligned with. These guys are masterful bi-triangulators of the spoken word, overlapping each other, shouting loudly, getting up and taking their toys home and swallowing the truth whole up until the truth is not only obscured, but plummeted senseless. In other words, they lie, and they lie right to your face.

Back in 2005, during Congress's incredible piece of insurance man love, known as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, the following amendment, introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Il) was defeated:

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress - 1st Session

as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005

Vote Summary

Question: On the Amendment (Durbin Amdt. No. 16, As Modified. )
Vote Number: 13 Vote Date: March 1, 2005, 06:07 PM
Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Amendment Rejected
Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 16 to S. 256
Statement of Purpose: To protect servicemembers and veterans from means testing in bankruptcy, to disallow certain claims by lenders charging usurious interest rates to servicemembers, and to allow servicemembers to exempt property based on the law of the State of their premilitary residence.
Vote Counts: YEAs 38
NAYs 58
Not Voting 4

The amendment went down in flames. McCain and Hagel were in the Nay column; Kerry and Obama and Clinton, yea.

So the next time someone tells you that McCain loves the troops, tell them that you don't believe them. If he loved them so much, how come he did not break with his Party and vote for the best interests of the Armed Services?

The "reintroduction of John McCain," is already out there. Sure, there may be some good things here and there, but really, he's the same old same old.

It's the same mouth service. Voting for McCain is voting for Bush III.

DO. NOT. FORGET. IT.

A Swifty is Factchecked

Sometimes Factcheck.org (please, not .com) can seem to lean so far right that they literally tip the planet and leave it spinning. While they may or may not be partisan against the left, they have been checking the right a lot more lately. I'll take what I can get.

Back during the election of 2004, John Kerry was "swiftboated" by an organization that claimed that aspects of his military service was bogus. Kerry was an officer on a fast patrol craft or "swift boat" back in Vietnam, and most of his dissenters were fellow swift boat personnel or Navy superiors. The outfit, "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," claimed a lot of things about Kerry (go do your own research as to the veracity of their claims) during the election and ran a series of commercials espousing their views on Kerry's service as well as wrote a book called Unfit for Command, a ditty of character assassination on Kerry. Oh, but one thing I should note...none of the main Swift Boat accusers served on Kerry's boat during the war, and the actual members of Kerry's boat during Vietnam campaigned for him during his bid to be president. Go figure that one out.

Whatever your feelings about Kerry as president (and believe me, I had some doubts, but a cheesestick would be better than our current prez), I find it incomprehensible that his fellow crew members, folks that actually served with him, would support him while those who did not directly serve with him would be so successful in their campaign against him. Oh well.

One of the crazy things about this organization is how they complained during the election that multi-billionaire George Soros was funding the liberal left's anti-Bush fever during the election. Now, to stir up the liberal-hatin' right again, the Swift Boat crowd is claiming that Soros has funded attack ads against embattled Texan Representative (and all around stand up dude /snort), Tom Delay. Well, according to Fact Check, Soros hasn't funded any anti-Delay ads, though he did fund back in 2004, a couple of organizations who recently ran anti-Delay ads and aren't under obligation by law to reveal who funded their current commercials. Oh my God, ain't that a crime?

Well, if it is, somebody better go and arrest a Swift Boat funder by the name of Bob Perry, cause guess what? Mr Perry was one of three major donors of the Swift Boat commercials that ran against Kerry and it was Perry who actually funded the current commercial that claims that Soros was behind earlier anti-Delay ads. Hmmm... I smell a pattern here. And it sure does stink.

Fact Check had a bit of trouble tracking down Perry's money. But I'm sure you'll hear about this group in the future. Here's what Fact Check says about the money trail:

Tracking down the source of this ad was something of a chore. The sponsor is the Free Enterprise Committee, a new group formed about the time the anti-DeLay ad hit the air in Texas. It is a so-called "527" political committee based in Washington, DC. It first registered with the Internal Revenue Service on Jan. 31 of this year. Its current registration form lists it as "connected" to the Free Enterprise Fund, an anti-tax group headed by New York merchant banker Mallory Factor. Its policy council is co-chaired by supply-side guru Arthur Laffer, former Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, and MSNBC's pro-business crusader Lawrence Kudlow. The new committee has yet to file any disclosure of its income or expenses, and a spokesman for the Free Enterprise Fund declined to say who had paid for the DeLay ad.

However, as the Houston Chronicle was first to report over the weekend, we were able to confirm that the ad is being financed by a $200,000 donation from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry. As we reported in 2004, Perry was the main source of initial funding for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth at the time they launched their attack on the Vietnam War record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.