tagged w/ John McCain
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Random news from around the globe. This week, Ray Bradbury drives the young girls wild, John McCain thinks Snooki is 'too good looking' to go to jail, a talking and farting parakeet, and a man sprays semen on a woman in the grocery store. Oh, and plenty of robots and items about Japan too.Random news from around the globe. This week, Ray Bradbury drives the young girls... more
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You know you might be a tea partier if you go ballistic at being called a tea bagger while holding a sign that says, Tea bag Obama before he tea bags you.You know you might be a tea partier if you go ballistic at being called a tea bagger... more
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by Catherine Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Though Arizona’s SB 1070 went into effect without its most controversial provisions, the legislation’s stated intent—attrition through enforcement—is nevertheless gaining traction among anti-immigrant legislators across the nation. In the wake of the law’s enactment, other states are coming out in support of Arizona, some developing policy modeled after SB 1070. Others even hope to alter the U.S. constitution to deny “birthright citizenship” to children of undocumented immigrants.
Arizona stands firm against injunction
After federal judge Susan Bolton blocked numerous elements of SB 1070, Arizona governor Jan Brewer wasted no time and swiftly filed an appeal against the injunction.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, for his part, has assured the public that he intends to continue enforcing state and federal immigration laws through “crime sweeps” and immigration status checks. After Arizona’s 287(g) agreement expired last year, effectively stripping local law enforcement of the right to detain individuals on suspicion of their immigration status, Arpaio similarly refused to comply, brazenly maintaining his immigration enforcement campaign.
Jamilah King of ColorLines reports that on the day that SB 1070 went into effect, Arpaio and hundreds of deputies arrested 50 protesters before completing their 17th immigration raid. Those arrested included clergy, journalists, and attorneys. Local civil rights leader Salvador Reza – a particularly outspoken critic of Arpaio’s contentious enforcement tactics, was also taken into custody, as was former state Sen. Alfredo Gutierrez.
No citizenship to “anchor babies”
Meanwhile, Arizona legislators are taking anti-immigrant sentiment to a new level and coming out in favor of potentially repealing the 14th amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
At the Washington Independent, Elise Foley reports that Arizona senators Jon Kyl and John McCain are the latest to join the radical faction of Republican Party politicians calling for congressional hearings to reconsider the amendment. McCain’s new position is particularly curious given his historical support of comprehensive immigration reform, and past advocacy of deportees’ American children.
McCain’s about-face may be prompted by the impending election and, in particular, the considerable popularity of his Republican opponent J. D. Hayworth, who is running on a firm anti-immigrant platform.
Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive argues that the Republican focus on birthright citizenship is a malicious attempt to visit the sins of the father onto the children. Rothschild also calls attention to the fact that a whopping 94 Republicans in the House support the extremist effort.
SB 1070 paves the way
Arizona has long been a testing ground for anti-immigrant measures in the U.S. and SB 1070 is no exception. Now that the new law has gained traction, other states are following suit.
At Talking Points Memo, Christina Bellantoni reports that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) issued an opinion stating that Virginia law enforcement, including state park personnel, have the same authority to investigate immigration status as Arizona police officers.
Written as an advisory letter to state Delegate Bob Marshall, the opinion has garnered intense opposition – in part because Virginia considers official opinions of the attorney general to be laws. Cuccinelli reinforced his opinion by filing an amicus brief to stand in solidarity with Arizona in its fight against the federal government.
He’s not alone, either. Going back to the Washington Independent Foley reports that three other attorney generals and nine states have filed amicus briefs in support of Arizona’s new immigration law.
Who profits when immigrants go to jail?
While SB 1070 is argued in the courts and debated in the media, Yana Kuchinoff at Truthout reminds us that 300,000 immigrants are languishing in detention centers under notoriously poor conditions. More than 100 deaths have been reported in immigration detention since 2003, sparking investigations by Human Rights Watch, Detention Watch, and even the Department of Homeland Security.
Moreover, private companies contracted to handle the rising number of detentions are making a fortune on the nation’s broken immigration system. Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private immigration detainer in the country, has made record profits since 2003 by billing the federal government an estimated $11 million per month and cutting costs at the expense of detainees’ health and well-being. Telecommunications companies like EverCom are also profiting from detention, charging immigrants in detention as much as $17.34 for a 15-minute phone call.
The irony of our dysfunctional immigration system, Kuchinoff concludes, is that the people who end up spending the most time in detention, are those with the strongest claims for staying in the U.S.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Catherine Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Though Arizona’s SB 1070 went... more
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Unfortunately, this is a civil action(http://voices.washingtonpost.com/market-cop/2010/07/politically-connected_wyly_bro.html?hpid=topnews) and the most we can hope for are some SEC fines (which are ludicrously low). Too bad this isn't a criminal case, but at least it's some karmic return for the "Wyly Coyotes," who funded the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry. (They also funded George W. Bush's attacks on John McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries.)
Oh, and by the way: The Manhattan district attorney's office referred this case to the SEC in 2005. Wonder what took them so long?
Samuel Wyly and Charles Wyly -- billionaire brothers in Texas who have spent millions funding political campaigns -- committed violations of federal securities laws and fraud by using offshore accounts to secretly trade the shares of public companies whose boards they sat on, reaping more than $550 million in profit, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint filed Thursday.
The politically-active Wylys, who have been generous donors to Republican causes over the years, have faced questions in recent years -- including a Senate probe -- about whether they ran an extensive network of tax shelters.
"The cloak of secrecy has been lifted from the complex web of foreign structures used by the Wylys to evade the securities laws," said SEC deputy director of enforcement Lorin L. Reisner. "They used these structures to conceal hundreds of millions of dollars of gains in violation of the disclosure requirements for corporate insiders."
The SEC alleges that the brothers created an elaborate network of accounts and companies in the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands that they used to trade more than $750 million in stock in four public companies they served as board members. The SEC charges that they also committed an insider trading violation concerning one of the companies, earning almost $32 million.
The Wyly's attorney and stockbroker were also charged.
They also own Michaels, the national arts and crafts chain. So we can blame them for scrapbooking, too!Unfortunately, this is a civil... more
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Jon Stewart opened the show last night riffing on everyone's favorite immigration law, and mocking John McCain and Fox News in the process.
With McCain supporting Arizona's crack down and insisting that many immigrants "need to be sent back," Stewart suggested an accurate campaign slogan for the Senator: "Just Tell Me What To Say And I'll Say It."
Stewart then moved on and focused on Fox News, slamming them for their recent "bold" coverage, which included getting opinion and analysis from Lou Dobbs. Or as Stewart called him, "Lou 'I Can't Stand Illegal Immigrants And I've Spent The Last Fifteen Years Of My Life Haranguing Them' Dobbs."Jon Stewart opened the show last night riffing on everyone's favorite immigration... more
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Attacks on Jones Act, Gulf Clean Up, Attack Unions and Our Allies
by Mike Hall, Jul 1, 2010
Right-wing radio gabbers, anti-worker Republican politicians and conservative think tanks are at it again. This time they charge that the Jones Act, a U.S. maritime law, is the culprit standing in the way of Gulf clean-up efforts. The Jones Act says that ships operating between U.S. domestic ports—for example from New York to Miami—be crewed, built, owned and flagged American. Most if not all other major maritime nations have laws that basically require the same thing.
Those behind the campaign attacking the Jones Act have two aims: To discredit the federal response to the disaster and to attack unions. They falsely state that the Jones Act is keeping ships that fly foreign flags from the Gulf operations and that the Obama administration has turned away offers of aid from many nations because the maritime unions want to skim up all the disaster-related profits.
Not true. In fact, the Obama administration has not turned down any offers of assistance because of the Jones Act. According to FactCheck.Org:
The Jones Act has yet to be an issue in the response efforts. The Deepwater Horizon response team reported in a June 15 press release that there are 15 foreign flagged ships currently participating in the oil spill cleanup. None of them needed a waiver because the Jones Act does not apply.
The assertion that Obama has invoked the Jones Act on behalf of maritime unions is the “the most ridiculous” of the Jones Act lies, says Seafarers (SIU) President Michael Sacco. Not only did it never happen, he says,
it is offensive for anyone to suggest that American maritime labor would hinder cleanup operations in the Gulf, in any way, shape or form….In those cases where no U.S.-flag tonnage is available, our industry has said from the beginning that we will not stand in the way of Jones Act waivers intended to facilitate the cleanup.
Backing up Sacco, McClatchy News Service reported yesterday that the State Department
announced that new offers of aid would be accepted from 12 foreign countries and international organizations, but spokesman P.J. Crowley noted that booms donated by Mexico, Norway and Brazil had been in use since May 11, and that 24 foreign vessels from nine foreign countries already have been helping with the cleanup.
The Associated Press reported June 18 that while U.S. disaster aid is almost always free of charge, other nations expect the United States to pay for help.
Reports claiming that the federal government has refused help are not only incorrect—foreign assistance has been utilized—but are also misleading: purchasing resources and expertise is vastly different from accepting “foreign aid.
“These offers are not typically offers of aid,” said Lt. Erik Halvorson, a Coast Guard spokesman. “Normally, they are offers to sell resources to BP or the U.S. government.
Why are Republican politicians and lawmakers once again let fiction trump fact? Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) says the attacks on the Jones Act smack of
pushing a political agenda than any genuine interest in helping Gulf coast communities with their cleanup.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has introduced a bill to repeal the Jones Act. Edward Wytkind, President of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD) says that repealing the Jones Act
would mean the elimination of hundreds of thousands of good jobs in maritime, longshore, ship building and other vital industries. The McCain bill would threaten national security by depleting the pool of American vessels and skilled mariners who can be deployed during times of war and military conflict.
This legislation would open our waterways to foreign entities that don’t employ U.S. workers, don’t pay taxes to our treasury and do not operate under our safety and security regime.
McCain, like all the other Senate Republicans, is blocking the jobs bill that would create critically-needed employment for America’s jobless workers. Now, on the eve of the the nation’s celebration of America, he wants to actively slash good U.S. jobs as well.Attacks on Jones Act, Gulf Clean Up, Attack Unions and Our Allies
by Mike Hall,... more
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80 Million Gallons of oil gashed into the Gulf of Mexico until today and no end in sight. But Sarah Palin Greed Protection GOP Joe Barton cries: OBAMA''S BP SHAKEDOWN #1 TRAGEDY.
Drill baby Drill - Republicans Sarah Palin, John McCain, John Boehner, Michael Steele and Rudolf Giuliani, incite crowds on behalf of BIG OIL. Drill Baby drill - ITS SAFE.
Featuring a Bill Maher clip about Sarah Palin, from his HBO show. Original music and video, homemade by Jon Ber80 Million Gallons of oil gashed into the Gulf of Mexico until today and no end in... more
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Fresh off a 43-month stint as a guest at Uncle Sam's Cumberland, MD penal colony, Jack 'The Hat' Abramoff has moved into a halfway house and scored a new gig at a Baltimore pizza joint. Lobbyists come. Lobbyists go. But, the crapulent aroma of their pizza lingers on.Fresh off a 43-month stint as a guest at Uncle Sam's Cumberland, MD penal colony,... more
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Hundreds Of POW’s Left To Die In Vietnam, Abandoned By Our Government
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
May 27, 2010
Appearing on the Alex Jones Show today, Paul Craig Roberts talked about the shameful abandonment of POWs by the U.S. government. Roberts mentioned an article by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sydney Schanberg posted on the American Conservative website entitled McCain and the POW Cover-Up.
Click for Full Story....Memorial Day OUTRAGE! US POW’s Left To DIE In Vietnam, Sold Out by McCain & Our Government…VIDEO...http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/memorial-day-outrage-us-pow%E2%80%99s-left-to-die-in-vietnam-sold-out-by-mccain-our-government-video/
“John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home,” writes Schanberg. “Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents.”Hundreds Of POW’s Left To Die In Vietnam, Abandoned By Our Government
Kurt... more
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Friends of John McCain John McCain's latest campaign ad features the senator talking to an Arizona sheriff about illegal immigration. "Complete the dang fence" is the key line, uttered slowly while McCain walks along wearing a baseball cap.
The problem: McCain used to be for immigration reform, and was distinctly opposed to this kind of rhetoric. As a result, both liberals and conservatives are bashing this about-face, which comes less than a month after McCain tried to wriggle out of his former "maverick" title.
'I'm Genuinely Speechless,' writes Allahpundit at conservative Hot Air.
Pandering is one thing, shameless careerist pandering is something else, and then there's John "*******ed Fence" McCain marching along the border in a badass Navy baseball cap looking like he could choke out a coyote with his bare hands.
The New McCain The Moderate Voice's Joe Gandelman, once a "huge McCain supporter," is thoroughly disenchanted. "The bottom line: the old McCain had been considered by many to be a breath of fresh air. Now he's more like the fetid air in a cheap motel room previously rented by a cigar chain-smoker."
'Really Rather Pathetic,' decides Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. "In the face of a stronger-than-expected challenge from the right ... McCain has effectively abandoned any semblance of the politician he claimed to be in the past, even to the extent of denying that he had ever called himself a maverick." He also links to a comment on libertarian site Hit and Run; the commenter points out that the sheriff in the ad is from Pinal County, which isn't actually on the Mexican border.
'Freak' Lonely Conservative lets loose:
Okay, maybe John McCain isn't so much a maverick as he is an eccentric freak. That, or he’s just a grossly opportunistic politician whose shameless pandering is something to behold. Or, as Stacy McCain calls him, he's a "lying two-faced backstabbing crap weasel." I'm kind of going with "all of the above.
"http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?p=1581424Friends of John McCain John McCain's latest campaign ad features the senator... more
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With the new law in Arizona, WHACKO-TV had to accept advertising for the state's tourist board. If you look closely at this ad, not only are they selling the benefits of their state, but also giving you little hints at how the new law will affect you and your loved ones when they travel to the state this summer. If you go there every again?With the new law in Arizona, WHACKO-TV had to accept advertising for the state's... more
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Whose country is this?
WorldNetDaily.com
Patrick J. Buchanan
April 26, 2010
With the support of 70 percent of its citizens, Arizona has ordered sheriffs and police to secure the border and remove illegal aliens, half a million of whom now reside there.
(VIDEO) Whose Country Is This?…Arizona Immigration Law, Obama’s Against The Taxpaying Citizen’s Again…http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/whose-country-is-this-arizona-immigration-law-obamas-ok-with-law-breaking-for-the-right-minority/
Arizona acted because the U.S. government has abdicated its constitutional duty to protect the states from invasion and refuses to enforce America’s immigration laws.Whose country is this?
WorldNetDaily.com
Patrick J. Buchanan
April 26, 2010... more
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Arizona police chiefs call fears of racial profiling under new immigration law unfounded. Casey Wian reports
"We've never had a policy of racial profiling," Martinez said Saturday night at a town hall meeting in Casa Grande. "In fact, quite the contrary, it's been outlawed."
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon appeared at the rally in support of the protest, calling the law unconstitutional and "just plain wrong."
"America is a country that is compassionate and that welcomes everyone," he said. "This is not what this country and this state was founded upon."
Gordon vowed to take the fight through the state's judicial system.
"We'll go to the state courts and we'll go to the federal courts and we'll go all the way to the Supreme Court," he told the cheering crowd. "I promise you."
Gordon told CNN on Saturday that he will bring up an item calling for legal action against the law at Tuesday's City Council session.
Others were also vowing this weekend to legally challenge the law.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, along with leaders from the National Action Network and the Hispanic Federation, announced Sunday that he will legally challenge the law.
The law "is an affront to the civil rights of all Americans and an attempt to legalize racial profiling," Sharpton said in a statement after the bill's signing Friday. "As one who helped to make racial profiling a national issue and who has in the last year visited Arizona several times to rally against these draconian immigration policies, I am calling for a coalition of civil rights organizations to work with those in Arizona to resist and overturn this state law."
The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, a group that represents 30,000 Latino churches worldwide, also said Saturday it plans to file a lawsuit against the bill.
"In addition to this law being illegal, if this law goes into effect, we expect it to have a dramatic affect on the state with U.S. citizens, legal residents and others moving out of the state out of fear of being singled out," William Sanchez, an immigration attorney representing the coalition, said in a statement.Arizona police chiefs call fears of racial profiling under new immigration law... more
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by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger
While federal lawmakers cautiously mull over the possibility of dropping a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year, legislators in Arizona have passed yet another law that criminalizes undocumented immigrants. What’s more, the Arizona House is advancing a bill that would require the Arizona Secretary of State to review President Barack Obama’s birth certificate before his name is allowed on any ballots.
The Arizona crackdown
Arizona lawmakers just passed the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighbourhood Act, which is arguably the toughest immigration law in the country. It forces local police to check the immigration status of people if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they might be undocumented. The bill is an invitation to racially profile residents.
The bill, which now goes the states’ Republican Governor Jan Brewer for final approval, has sparked an organized campaign to defeat the measure over concerns that the bill is inhumane would discriminate against Latinos.
Valeria Fernández with the Inter Press Service reports on the bill, which “includes a number of provisions that go beyond authorizing the arrest of undocumented immigrants on ‘reasonable suspicion.’ It targets day laborers by making it a crime to look for work on the street, and would fine anyone who harbors or transports an undocumented immigrant, including family members.”
Outbreaks of civil disobedience have accompanied the bill. “On Tuesday, nine students were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct after they chained themselves to the entrance doors of the capitol building in an act of civil disobedience against the proposed law.” Fernández reports. “Authorities arrested them as soon as they said they wouldn’t leave until the governor took action on the law.”
John Tomasic with the Colorado Independent also notes that “On Capitol Hill, Prominent Latino Reps. Luis Gutierrez [(D-IL)] and Raul Grijalva [(D-AZ)]denounced Arizona’s controversial immigration bill and urged [Brewer] to veto the legislation. “
Eyes on Washington
While anti-immigrant legislation passes in Arizona, optimism for federal immigration reform this year is growing dimmer. While a proposal has already been introduced in the House of Representatives, the issue of citizenship for an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants could be shelved indefinitely if a bill isn’t introduced in the Senate soon.
The Senate will need time to debate the issue, and if it isn’t introduced in the next few weeks, potential fallout from the upcoming Congressional elections may make passing reform even more difficult.
ALIPAC attacks
As Kai Wright notes over at RaceWire, the congressional debate is not off to a civil start. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the only Republican Senator openly working on a bipartisan immigration reform bill, was verbally attacked by anti-immigrant groups this week.
“The rabidly anti-immigrant group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) has launched a campaign professing to out Graham as gay,” reports Wright. “In a speech to a Tea Party rally — which is making the web rounds via YouTube — the group’s leader, William Gheen, speculated that Graham’s being blackmailed into participating in immigration reform because of his ’secret.’ ‘I need to figure out why you’re trying to sell out your own countrymen and I need to make sure you being gay isn’t it,’ Gheen said.
McCain veers right
Mother Jones reports that ALIPAC is also targeting Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a lawmaker who co-sponsored a immigration reform bill in 2007 with the late Ted Kennedy. The 2007 bill didn’t pass, and since then McCain has backed away from vocally supporting reform now that he’s facing a primary challenge to his Senate seat.
“The motivation for McCain’s rightward shift is obvious,” Suzy Khimm writes. “The Arizona senator authored the Senate’s last comprehensive reform bill, which included a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. His Tea Party-backed primary opponent, J.D. Hayworth, has attacked him relentlessly for doing so. Hayworth has been endorsed by [ALIPAC], a right wing anti-immigrant group that’s trying to stir up Tea Partiers to revive the conservative crusade against ‘amnesty.’”
Just this week, McCain introduced a bill in the Senate that would 3,000 National Guard troops to patrol the border, “an intervention that critics say would be both costly and ineffective,” according to Khimm. McCain also come out in support of Arizona’s news anti-immigration law.
But despite vicious attacks from the right, there is still hope. Immigration reform supporters are planning rallies in dozens of states on May 1 to keep pressure on the Senate to propose a bill. To organizers working on the ground to pass reform, Arizona exemplifies why the broken immigration system needs to be fixed on a national level, and now.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger
While federal lawmakers cautiously mull over... more
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"Late last month, at a dusty fairground outside Tucson, John McCain stood behind the person who is, at least for the next few years, surely his most important legacy to American politics. And speaking to the adoring mob, Sarah Palin stood behind John McCain, repaying his inestimable gift to her in the most compelling possible fashion: by helping him to survive.
Facing an impertinent challenge for his Senate seat in the Republican primary this summer, McCain listened to the former Alaska governor heap praise on him. Throughout, he fidgeted with a couple of pieces of paper, sneaking peeks at them every few seconds, and wore a slightly nervous smile, as if not knowing quite what might come out of Palin next. Periodically he applauded, clapping with the bum right hand whose fingers, courtesy of the North Vietnamese, still don't quite come together.
Many, many years ago she'd competed in a beauty pageant, Palin declared, as women howled (and a few men growled) approvingly. McCain would surely win the talent and debate portions of any such contest, she went on, but no way would the Washington elite and "pundints" and "lame-stream media" ever crown him "Miss Congeniality"! "He's never been a company man, he's never been one to just 'go with the flow,'?" she crowed. For there was at least one thing she'd learned in her years of commercial fishing in Alaska: only dead fish do that.
Much as the crowd ate up her every word, Palin had apparently missed the real message this electoral season in Arizona: for his three decades in Congress, McCain hadn't gone with the flow enough, at least not enough to satisfy many Arizona Republicans. Why else would his rival, former congressman J.D. Hayworth, be billing himself as "the consistent conservative"? Many of the GOP's most faithful, the kind who vote in primaries despite 115-degree heat, tired long ago of McCain the Maverick, the man who had crossed the aisle to work with Democrats on issues like immigration reform, global warming, and restricting campaign contributions. "Maverick" is a mantle McCain no longer claims; in fact, he now denies he ever was one. "I never considered myself a maverick," he told me. "I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities." Yet here was Palin, urging her fans four times in 15 minutes to send McCain the Maverick back to Washington.
In contrast to Palin's chirpiness, McCain's subsequent remarks sounded ragged—he got the date of the fall election wrong, for starters—and belligerent, far less pleasing to the crowd, some of whom began drifting off. (Anyone watching via computer could see the size of the online audience dwindle the longer McCain spoke.) But the old warrior, who has not faced a proper homegrown challenge since 1982, had snapped back into fighting form. Even a man who can't applaud quite properly can still form a fist. The unlikely spectacle of a party's most recent standard-bearer—and, despite Palin's popularity among the tea-party types, still its titular leader—facing such a challenge is yet another sign of the polarized state of American politics and the narrowing bandwidth of its parties, one that McCain acceded to, and then intensified, by picking Palin. "The extremes tend to punish any deviation from party orthodoxy," said Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, who blamed such rigidity in part for his own decision to retire.
With mainstream politicians paying an ever-greater price for their moderation—witness the Republican gubernatorial primary in Texas and upcoming senatorial primaries in Florida and Utah—mavericks like McCain are becoming an endangered species. That is, if McCain the Maverick is not already extinct. After retreating on a number of issues—gays in the military, climate change, the creation of a national-debt commission—the erstwhile iconoclast has morphed into what the Senate minority leader, Mitch Mc-Connell, calls "a fabulous team player." It was McCain of all people who pledged that, after the president managed to get health care enacted, Obama would get no cooperation from the Republicans for the rest of the year. (He has since backed off that threat a bit, at least on matters of national security.)
If McCain's onetime mentor, Barry Goldwater, could write The Conscience of a Conservative, McCain could pen The Machinations of a Maverick. His dramatic shifts raise several questions: How much of his maverick persona over the years has been real and how much simply tactical? Is he in the midst of some struggle for his soul, or is this evolution simply the latest example, dating back to his days at the Hanoi Hilton, of McCain doing whatever it takes to survive? Is the anger people sense in him anger at Obama, or the American electorate, or fate, or himself? And if, as seems likely, John McCain goes on to serve another term, which John McCain will it be?"
Read much more in the full article (link below):
http://www.newsweek.com/id/235883"Late last month, at a dusty fairground outside Tucson, John McCain stood behind... more
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