Truth Matters // Current

Count the Lies: McCainPedia

John McCain may be trying to sell himself as a "maverick" and a "straight talker" who will tell the truth no... more

buttcrack
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John McCain may be trying to sell himself as a "maverick" and a "straight talker" who will tell the truth no matter the consequences, but independent, non-partisan watchdog groups aren't buying it. But, since he wrapped up his party's nomination, John McCain has offered more of the same false attacks and smears. To date, independent, nonpartisan fact checkers have published more than 50 fact checks debunking John McCain's lies and distortions.

To hold John McCain accountable to his own standard, the Democratic National Committee will count and chronicle the lies here on the McCainPedia's "Count the Lies" page.

Washington Post Fact Checker: 4 Pinocchios for McCain Earmark Claim. "John McCain is trying to claim that black is white when he argues that his running mate, Sarah Palin, has not accepted earmarks as Governor of Alaska. While it is true that she has sought fewer earmarks than her predecessor, Governor Frank Murkowski, Alaska still leads the nation in terms of per capita spending on earmarks, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. ...I will give Governor Palin a pass this week, to mark her inaugural media outing. Four Pinocchios for McCain for his clumsy attempt to rewrite history." [Washington Post, 9/13/08: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/09/weekend_edition.html]

FactCheck.org: McCain Energy Claim "Not true. Not even close." Palin says Alaska supplies 20 percent of U.S. energy. Not true. Not even close. "Palin claims Alaska 'produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy.' That's not true.... It's simply untrue that Alaska produces anything close to 20 percent of the U.S. 'energy supply,' a term that is generally defined as energy consumed. That category includes power produced in the U.S. by nuclear, coal, hydroelectric dams and other means -- as well as all the oil imported into the country. ...Sen. John McCain has also has used this inflated, incorrect figure. On Sept. 3, McCain told ABC News' Gibson: 'McCain: Well, I think Americans are going to be very, very, very pleased. This is a very dynamic person. [Palin's] been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply.' McCain repeated the false figure more recently, in a September 11 interview with Portland, Maine, news station WCSH6." [FactCheck.org, 9/12/08: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/energetically_wrong.html

John McCain may be trying to sell himself as a "maverick" and a "straight talker" who will tell the truth no... more

Conniepae
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3 months ago

Reading the "press" in this surreal climate right now, one is tempted to despair

by: Andrew Sullivan - THE DAILY DISH

Reading the "press" in this surreal climate right now, one is tempted to despair. I'm not giving in to it, because I still believe that the actual truth matters in the world. If propaganda could win in the end against truth, then Bush's approval ratings would be somewhere in the high 80s. They are in the lower 30s. In the end, the American people are not fools. And facts are facts. Right now, we are being subjected to an absolutely disorienting blizzard of lies and absurdities (Palin is a lying absurdity) from the McCain campaign. The idea is to so disorient people, to throw so many new concepts, brands, lies, images, marketing and distortions at them that they will not be able to focus on the issues in this election, and the real choices serious people have to make.

But facts are stubborn things, as someone once said.

In the end, the fact of no WMDs in Iraq is indisputable.

The fact that Bush appointed a know-nothing apparatchik to deal with hurricanes is unavoidable. The fact that Bush made no serious preparations for occupying Iraq is clear as day. The fact that he and his party have added $32 trillion to the debt of the next generation is now part of the global financial system. The fact that the Bush administration effectively withdrew the United States from the Geneva Conventions and have legitimized the torture of prisoners across the world is empirically indisputable. The fact that Bush has failed to stem Iran's growing nuclear capabilities is inescapable. The fact that under George W. Bush, the country suffered its biggest attack in history, and the mass-murder of 3,000 people by religious fanatics, and that he was warned about this and did nothing is simply history. The fact that in his presidency, the West missed a critical window of opportunity to develop new forms of energy and to wean ourselves off foreign oil is staring us in the face. And the fact that after seven years, this president who once declared that he would get him dead or alive still has not apprehended the man who planned the 9/11 attacks is equally beyond dispute. And the fact that under George W. Bush - far from finding and killing these monsters, we gave them a new sanctuary and did virtually nothing to stem or control the possible supply of WMDS to al Qaeda is equally indisputable. It is equally indisputable that only one individual has been successfully prosecuted in the war on terror and he will be out of jail soon enough, because the evidence that could have convicted him could not be introduced into a court of law.

In the end, whatever the power of the religious fundamentalist movement that is now the GOP in simply denying reality, reality wins. And the fact that John McCain is now a serial and shameless liar will also sink in. The question before us is not whether this will be one day understood to be true. The question is whether it will be flushed out in time.

We cannot control these despicable liars in the McCain campaign. We can only tell the truth as fearlessly and as relentlessly and as continuously as we can until November 4. We must do our duty. And if the American people want to re-elect the machine that has helped destroy this country's national security, global reputation and economic health, then that is their choice. But I am not so depressed to think that they will.

We must give them the truth. And that will feel like hell. And we must tell it like Truman told it: cheerfully, passionately and relentlessly.

by: Andrew Sullivan - THE DAILY DISH Reading the "press" in this surreal climate right now, one is tempted to... more

Conniepae
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3 months ago

Wall Street has become fundamentally corrupt

By STEVEN PEARLSTEIN The Washington Post We’re entering that exciting phase of any financial crisis when the lawsuits... more

Conniepae
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3 months ago

Army Times -- McCain on FCS: Flip-flop or fib?

by: By Bradley Peniston - Staff writer

Has Sen. John McCain renounced his longtime antagonism toward the Army’s Future Combat Systems?

On Sept. 8, the Republican presidential candidate told a rally crowd in Lee’s Summit, Mo., about an Obama video message to a liberal advocacy group.

“He promised them he would, quote, ‘slow our development of Future Combat Systems,’” McCain said, according to wire reports. “This is not a time to slow our development of Future Combat Systems.”

Flashback to July, however, when his campaign furnished McCain’s economic plan to The Washington Post, declaring that “there are lots of procurements — Airborne Laser, [C-17] Globemaster, Future Combat System [sic] — that should be ended and the entire Pentagon budget should be scrubbed.”

In fact, McCain has long criticized the over-budget, behind-schedule FCS program. In 2005, he blasted the Army for allowing the program to balloon to $161 billion, and forced the service to rewrite the main FCS contract.

So where does McCain really stand? Some bloggers and analysts have suggested that he used the term “future combat systems” generically. Obama’s campaign maintains their candidate was speaking specifically about FCS, in which case McCain may be twisting his rival’s words.

Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute called it deceitful.

“McCain’s interpretation of Obama’s position is typical of the way in which the Republicans have twisted Democratic views in order to undercut their opponents and at the same time obscure the past positions of the Republicans,” Thompson said. “Future Combat Systems is the centerpiece of Army modernization. However, McCain has been more critical of it than anyone else in the chamber. Obama has been much more detailed and thoughtful in his comments about future military investment than McCain’s very superficial statements.”

Officials with the McCain campaign did not return phone calls and emails requesting clarification.

by: By Bradley Peniston - Staff writer Has Sen. John McCain renounced his longtime antagonism toward the Army’s Future... more

Conniepae
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3 months ago

Greenspan: This is the worst economy I've ever seen

America Can't Afford McCain's Tax Plan "I'm not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money"... more

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35 responses

3 months ago

Thank God for Barbara Walters?

I never thought I'd say this--but thank God for Barbara Walters. I have been waiting patiently for the election's narrative to shift from pigs wearing lipstick to the issues, but I never thought that the usually grating hosts of The View would help supply it. On a day when Obama launched fresh, stronger ads taking on McCain, Sarah Palin's husband was subpoenaed because of "Trooper-gate" and Palin finally admitted that she had indeed once supported the "Bridge to Nowhere"--The View made the front page of the New York Times website. Why? Because unlike so many other mainstream journalists right now, Barbara Walters actually did her job yesterday.

John McCain appeared on her show Friday morning in an obvious atempt to pander to its audience of mostly middle aged, white women. According to recent polls, the choice of Palin as a running mate has helped McCain make serious inroads with that demographic and he must have assumed an easy, softball interview on The View would only improve continue to improve his fortunes. Especially since the show features once of his most unambiguously eager beaver supporters, right-winger Elisabeth Hasselbeck. But instead the show's only experienced journalist, Barbara Walters, flanked by entertainers Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg took John McCain to task on a host of real issues like Palin's experience (or lack thereof), abortion and earmarks. To say that McCain was floundering would be a tremendous understatement. Take this exchange and analysis from the New York Times for instance:

Ms. Walters also noted that Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin have said that her job will be to reform Washington. But, she pointed out, Mr. McCain has been in Congress for 22 years, the Republicans have been in the White House for eight years, so who, exactly, is Ms. Palin going to reform?

"The Democrats have been in charge of both houses for the last two years," Mr. McCain replied.

Pressed, he added: "The Republicans, the Democrat party, even the independents. She'll reform all of Washington."

How?

"By doing what she did in Alaska."

What, exactly?

Ah, the art of the follow up question! Charlie Gibson, are you taking notes?

Continues..I never thought I'd say this--but thank God for Barbara Walters. I have been waiting patiently for the election's... more

lecoke
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30 responses

3 months ago

VetVoice:: Alaska National Guard General Changes Story; Palin Promotes

More of the same, promotions to support a position. Where have we seen that before? George W. is famous for promoting people who... more

Conniepae
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9 responses

3 months ago

McCain's Convenient Untruth

When it comes to fighting wars, John McCain stands up and calls for sacrifice. "We never hide from history; we make history," he declared in his convention speech. But when it comes to taxes, McCain is unwilling to demand even a teensy bit of sacrifice. In a McCain administration, Americans would not have to surrender a dime more of their money to a cause larger than themselves.

Why this bipolar attitude toward sacrifice? Start with the answer that McCain himself provides. "My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them," he said at the convention, offering one of the speech's few policy contrasts between Obama's platform and his own. In other words, McCain is not calling for tax sacrifice because he believes it would be counterproductive. On taxes, he is saying, you can selfishly avoid sacrifice -- and serve the public good.

This, unfortunately, is a convenient untruth. Tax hikes taken to an extreme can indeed backfire, harming growth and job creation. But it's a stretch to assert that Barack Obama's tax plan would do that. And it's downright scandalous to pretend that the economy can be strengthened in anything other than the short run by unaffordable tax cuts.

Obama is not proposing to raise taxes for most Americans. To the contrary, he would triple the earned-income tax credit for low-wage earners, increasing work incentives at the bottom. He would cut taxes on people in the middle -- indeed, he would do so more aggressively than McCain would. It is only the wealthiest Americans who would face higher tax bills under Obama. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Obama's plan would require the richest 1 percent of Americans to sacrifice a modest 1.5 percent of their after-tax income in 2012. By contrast, no-sacrifice McCain would award America's elite a 9.5 percent increase.

How might this impact jobs and the economy? Under Obama's plan, top earners would pay a marginal federal tax rate of maybe 46.5 percent (that includes the Medicare tax and Obama's proposed hike in Social Security taxes), considerably more than the 37.9 percent they would pay under McCain. There's no doubt that Obama's higher tax rates would mean weaker incentives to work, take risks and innovate; and stronger incentives to waste time and effort on avoiding the tax man.

But those bad effects must be weighed against a good one: Higher tax rates mean a lower budget deficit. According to the Tax Policy Center, over the course of a decade Obama's plan would result in a national debt $1.2 trillion smaller than you would get under McCain's plan. Less government borrowing ultimately means lower interest rates and more private investment. This positive effect may well outweigh the blow to growth and jobs from weaker work incentives.

Tax hikes, in other words, are not automatic job destroyers. Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan, a top expert on this subject, says bluntly, "There is no compelling evidence that a low-tax strategy is better for the economy over the medium or long run." Just look at the Clinton era. In 1993, the top marginal rate (income tax plus Medicare) was raised to 42.5 percent -- the same rate that Obama proposes but minus the candidate's proposed increase in the payroll tax. During the rest of the Clinton period, the economy generated millions of new jobs, and careful academic postmortems find that the 1993 tax hike caused little to no damage to the incentives of top earners.

When it comes to fighting wars, John McCain stands up and calls for sacrifice. "We never hide from history; we make... more