US Presidential Contenders

[Buster's Uncle]

McCain blasts Republicans for ‘loose talk’ on torture
Yahoo! Politics
Meredith Shiner  Political correspondent  February 09, 2016



On the day of the New Hampshire primary, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sharply criticizes current Republican presidential candidates for their positions favoring waterboarding. (Photo: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)



Former GOP presidential nominee and prisoner of war John McCain wants Republicans seeking the White House to stop speaking so casually in favor of waterboarding, a form of torture which was used to interrogate prisoners in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and was found to be in violation of international human rights standards.

The issues of torture and waterboarding have been a surprise focus heading into Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary. On Monday night, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald [Sleezebag] “had a lot of fun” repeating a vulgar word used by a supporter to describe opponent Ted Cruz because the Texas senator  hedged on a waterboarding question in Saturday night’s debate. Cruz said of waterboarding that he would not “bring it back in any sort of widespread use.” While Cruz left the door open to the maligned practice in some cases, [Sleezebag] has supported its return unequivocally.

And McCain is clearly not happy with where the Republican primary race has landed on an issue he cares about deeply and personally. McCain, a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, was a prisoner for more than five years. He has since been dedicated to ensuring the United States does not resume torturing captives.

“I know in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, many Americans feel again the grave urgency that we felt 15 years ago. But I dispute wholeheartedly that it was right for our nation to use these interrogation methods then or that is right for our nation to use them now. Waterboarding or any other form of torture is not in the best interest of justice, nor our security, nor the ideals we have sacrificed so much blood and treasure to defend,” McCain said on the Senate floor Tuesday, acknowledging the importance of New Hampshire’s primary, which he won in both 2000 and 2008.

“This question isn’t about our enemies. It’s about us. It’s about who we were, who we are and who we aspire to be. It’s about how we represent ourselves to the world. We’ve made our way in this often dangerous and cruel world not by just strictly pursuing our geopolitical interests but by exemplifying our political values in influencing other nations to embrace them,” McCain continued. “When we fight to defend our security, we fight also for an idea that all men are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights. That’s all men and women. How much safer the world would be if all nations believed the same? How much more dangerous it can become, when we forget it ourselves, even momentarily, as we learned at Abu Ghraib?”

Abu Ghraib was the prison in Iraq where the United States Army and Central Intelligence Agency were found to have committed human rights violations by interrogating prisoners with methods that met the international definitions of torture, including waterboarding.

Even the Republican establishment’s current favorite candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, has spoken in uncritical terms about future use of what the George W. Bush administration referred to euphemistically as “enhanced interrogation methods.”

In a May speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Rubio addressed the utility of Guantánamo Bay, another U.S. base where torture was determined to have occurred in the 2000s, claiming it was “the only place” where the United States effectively gathered intelligence.

As Yahoo News reported then, Rubio said, “I believe that innocent people, peace-loving people deserve to have their rights respected. And I think terrorists who plot to kill Americans and actively are engaged in plots to attack America deserve to be in prison and taken off the battlefield. And that’s the role that Guantánamo plays. It was also the only place where we were able to gather intelligence. Today we’re not gathering nearly enough intelligence.”

Of course, the U.S. military and intelligence communities have been able to gather information from sources around the world. And Rubio’s beliefs stand in contrast to McCain’s, who used his floor speech Tuesday to implore fellow Republicans to reconsider their positions.

“These forms of torture not only fail their purpose to secure actionable intelligence to prevent further attacks on the United States and our allies but compromised our values, stained our national honor and did little practical good,” McCain said. “I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. … Now candidates are saying they will disregard the law. I thought that was our complaint with the present president of the United States.”

McCain was alluding to President Obama’s executive orders on domestic issues that have been decried by Republicans in Washington and on the trail. As a candidate, Obama had promised to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay on “day one” of his administration but has yet to do so.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/mccain-blasts-republicans-for-loose-talk-on-185546253.html


This is not one of the many issues on which I believe reasonable people can disagree.  Torture is not the American Way - people who think otherwise may claim to love America, but undermine its basic values in favor of acting no better than the bad guys.

[vonbach]

"Songbird" McCain should be hung for treason. The man is a traitor.

[Buster's Uncle]

Siiigh.

[vonbach]

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/07/21/john-sidney-mccain-iii-patriot-or-trader/

John McCain’s most horrendous loss occurred in 1967 on the USS Forrestal. Well, not horrendous for him. The starter motor switch on the A4E Skyhawk allowed fuel to pool in the engine. When the aircraft was “wet-started,” an impressive flame would shoot from the tail. It was one of the ways young hot-shots got their jollies.

Investigators and survivors took the position that John McCain deliberately wet-started to harass the F4 pilot directly behind him. The cook off launched an M34 Zuni rocket that tore through the Skyhawk’s fuel tank, released a thousand pound bomb, and ignited a fire that killed the pilot plus 167 men. Before the tally of dead and dying was complete, the son and grandson of admirals had been transferred to the USS Oriskany.

As a rising naval officer, John McCain was surrounded by rumors of numerous adulterous affairs, such as used to be called “conduct unbecoming an officer.” Author and biographer Robert Timberg has detailed several of McCain’s sexual relationships with subordinates when serving as a Squadron Leader and an Executive Officer. I think we all know such behavior is a clear violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, in other words, a crime.

When John McCain’s application to the National War College was rejected, according to noted author and researcher Joel Skousen, he whined to daddy who pulled strings with the Secretary of the Navy.

John McCain’s 5½-year stay at the Hanoi Hilton (officially Hoa Loa Prison) has ever since been the subject of great controversy. He maintains that he was tortured and otherwise badly mistreated. One of many who disagree is Dennis Johnson, imprisoned at Hanoi and never given treatment for his broken leg.

He reports that every time he saw McCain, who was generally kept segregated, the man was clean-shaven, dressed in fresh clothes, and appeared comfortable among North Vietnamese Army officers. He adds that he frequently heard McCain’s collaborative statements broadcast over the prison’s loud speakers.

On October 26, 1967, John McCain’s A-4 Skyhawk was shot down over Hanoi. The fractures of 1 leg and both arms were reportedly due to his failure to tuck them in during ejection. According to U.S. News & World Report (May 14, 1973),

John McCain didn’t wait long before offering military information in return for medical care. While an extraordinary patient at Gi Lam Hospital, he was visited by a number of dignitaries, including, to quote John McCain himself, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the national hero of Dienbienphu.

Jack McLamb is a highly respected name in law enforcement circles. After 9 years of clandestine operations in Cambodia and unmentionable areas, he returned home to Phoenix where he became one of the most decorated police officers on record. Twice McLamb was named Officer of the Year. He went on to become an FBI hostage negotiator. This man has stated that every one of the many former POWs he has talked with consider McCain a traitor.

States McLamb, “He was never tortured…The Vietnamese Communists called him the Songbird, that’s his code name, Songbird McCain, because he just came into the camp singing and telling them everything they wanted to know.” McLamb further quotes former POWs as saying John McCain starred in 32 propaganda videos in which he denounced his country and comrades.

The Glavnoje Razvedyvatel’noje Upravlenije is the Soviet’s military intelligence division. Numerous sources confirm that during the Nam Era, the English-speaking Vietnamese who conducted interrogations of American prisoners were always overseen by Russian GRU officers. The ranking GRU officer at the Hanoi Hilton had a multilingual teenage son who was tasked with translating all interrogation reports into Russian. He would become known only as T.

According to T who interpreted all interrogations and notes pertaining to John McCain during the latter’s stay from December, 1969, to March, 1973, when a well-fed looking McCain’s was released, privileges were extended. These included time at a furnished apartment in Hanoi – furnished with 2 prostitutes. John McCain would attribute such absences to solitary confinement.

It has been widely reported that following his father’s appointment as CINCPAC Commander-in-Chief of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater of operations, John McCain was offered an immediate parole. John McCain insists that he refused such a preference. Others insist that his father refused to allow such a preference. In any event, such an offer would have required the appr

[Buster's Uncle]

It is a sad downside to modern communications that it's now so easy for people to live in their own fringe reality bubble.

[vonbach]

Its called the truth, you can watch the video of him starting the fire on youtube if you like.

[Buster's Uncle]

There is only one way forward for Clinton now
Yahoo! Politics
Matt Bai  National Political Columnist  February 11, 2016



Hillary Clinton speaks on Tuesday night after the New Hampshire primary. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)



In the days before Bernie Sanders positively obliterated Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, raising the very real specter that she could lose the nomination, I found myself thinking a lot about an exchange she had with voters during a CNN town hall in Derry.

A tired-looking man rose and told Clinton he had terminal colon cancer, and he wanted to know what she would do to help advance the conversation about end-of-life decisions. Clinton seemed visibly moved.

“I don’t have an easy or glib answer for you,” Clinton said candidly, adding that she needed to immerse herself in the ethical and scientific writings.

Not five minutes later, another voter asked Clinton how she would stand up to Republican attacks. She scoffed knowingly and let loose a recitation of how victimized she had been over the years, and how horrible it was to be the target of smear campaigns, and how she was still standing anyway. “It’s unlike anything you’ve ever gone through,” Clinton said.

I thought to myself: Tell that to the guy with colon cancer.

A better politician would have said yes, of course she’d have to deal with some attacks, but that’s life in the arena and she feels lucky to serve. A great politician, like her husband in his prime, would have actually meant it.

But Hillary, truth be told, just isn’t a very gifted politician. And while Sanders focuses relentlessly on the big themes that preoccupy voters, Clinton’s campaign feels like it’s all about her — her résumé, her mettle, her 25 years of suffering through the indignities of public service. “I’m with her” is the slogan for a campaign that seems to signify nothing beyond the joyless accretion of personal loyalties.

Clinton really should beat Sanders in the weeks ahead, but she has only one clear winning strategy here, near as I can tell. She has to stop allowing the campaign to become a referendum on her — and turn it, instead, into a referendum on the guy she wants to replace.

That won’t be Clinton’s instinct, of course. The first thing she’s going to do now, apparently, is the thing the Clintons have generally done when backed against a wall: blame the staff.

Even before New Hampshire buried Clinton in bad news, handing her a 22-point defeat in which she even lost women by double digits, stories were circulating about a shakeup at the Brooklyn headquarters (where, you would think, Clinton’s high command now feels like the Lost Battalion caught behind enemy lines, surrounded by turtleneck-wearing hipsters with “Bernie” signs in their windows).

All of which reminds me of what a scandal-damaged Gary Hart said in 1988 when his chief operative in Iowa, a young law student named Martin O’Malley, informed him that he had registered at zero percent in the caucuses and apologized for letting him down.

“Martin,” Hart said dryly, “this was not an organizational problem.”

Clinton doesn’t have an organizational problem. Oh, sure, there are probably too many informal advisers, too much conflicting advice, no shortage of arrogance and infighting. But that’s nothing new in the Clinton orbit. Only the cast of characters ever changes, and even then not much.

No, Clinton’s problem is the moment and her inability to meet it. What happened in New Hampshire Tuesday wasn’t just some ideological rebellion in both parties, a predictable insider-outsider conflict with less predictable results.

This was the shock wave of 2008 finally rising to the surface of our fractured politics. What Sanders and Donald [Sleezebag] embody, each in his own strident way, is the disgust that’s been building for the eight years since Lehman Brothers collapsed and took the markets with it — eight years in which the wealthy and their wholly owned political parties recovered fabulously while everyone else stagnated.

President Obama once told a roomful of bankers, in frustration, that he was the only thing standing between them and the pitchforks. Turns out he was right, and now that he’s stepping aside, the pitchforks are overturning our politics.

Here’s where Clinton finds herself in a real box. Having represented New York and its chief industry, finance, she’s nowhere near a credible populist; the more she tries to sound like Sanders and tout her history as a progressive rebel who once worked for the Children’s Defense Fund, the more she comes off as desperate and expedient.

But if instead Clinton tries to own her real convictions and make the case for a more pragmatic approach, she’s seen as an ideological apostate, unwilling to take on the system. And so her choice is to be either a less genuine candidate than Sanders or a less progressive one — or some days both.

A supremely talented candidate might navigate a way out of this box, but as I said, that’s not Clinton’s superpower. Her team’s strategy for beating back Sanders seems to rely, instead, on demographics. The coming states will feature more black and Latino voters, and Clinton is assuming they won’t be as impressed as voters in New Hampshire were by the rumpled white guy from Vermont.

That’s a pretty shaky assumption, if you ask me.

Remember, Bill Clinton, who once commanded the loyalty of African-American voters like no Democrat since Robert Kennedy, hasn’t appeared on a ballot for 20 years. A lot of younger black and Latino voters don’t even remember the Clinton years, and they’re just as tired of the status quo as their white counterparts.

It won’t be so easy for Hillary to convince minority and younger white voters, who soundly rejected her in New Hampshire this week, that somehow she represents real change and progressive ideals.

But they believe that still about Barack Obama, and this is where Sanders has left her an opening.

Because for the past few weeks, if you’ve been paying attention, Sanders has subtly extended his indictment of his party’s timid status quo right to the door of the White House. I don’t know what Obama said to Sanders when the two of them sat down to talk in January, but whatever it was, it left Sanders in an uncharitable mood.

Since then, he has said (in a string of angry tweets, no less) that real progressives can’t be for trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has said real progressives can’t take money from Wall Street. Having apparently appointed himself Political Philosophy Czar, Sanders has said you can’t call yourself both a moderate and a progressive at the same time.

Sanders has brushed aside the health care law that is Obama’s signature achievement (and his most politically costly), calling for a single-payer system and castigating pharmaceutical companies as if “Obamacare” had never existed.

In other words, while he praises Obama in debates, Sanders is saying, unmistakably, that Obama hasn’t been a progressive president and doesn’t embody systemic change. And that’s the cause — rather than her own long résumé — that Clinton, having played a pivotal role in the administration, should champion if she wants to get between Sanders and the voters she needs.

If I were Clinton right now, I’d be asking some pretty simple questions every chance I got in South Carolina and Nevada and Michigan.

Who gets to claim the mantle of change — the nation’s first black president, who overturned the old order on health care and Wall Street regulation and Cuba and Iran, or a senator who’s voted with the gun industry? How seriously can you take a candidate who doesn’t think Obama represents a real departure from the status quo?

A vote for Clinton, at this point, has to be a vote of validation for Obama’s legacy, too.

It’s not a perfect strategy. You might point out that Obama himself once derided Clinton, eons ago, as shifty and calculating. You might point out, as I have, that elections are supposed to be about the future and not the past.

But here’s the reality: To this point, Clinton has run a campaign that’s all about her bona fides, and nobody’s swooning. If she’s still defending her Wall Street speeches and whining about the vast right-wing conspiracy a few weeks from now, the nomination could very well slip away from her, again.

Clinton’s best move now is to lash herself tightly to the man who once beat her and hope it’s enough to ride out the wave.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/there-is-only-one-way-1362390891388982.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Christie, Fiorina drop GOP presidential bids
Yahoo! Politics
Dylan Stableford  Senior editor  February 10, 2016



Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina have suspended their campaigns for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. (Photo: Robert F. Bukaty, Matt Rourke/AP)



One day after dismal finishes in the New Hampshire primary, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina have suspended their campaigns for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Fiorina announced her decision via Facebook. Christie told staffers of his move during a late-afternoon meeting, a spokeswoman said.

It was a disappointing end for the New Jersey governor, who was once expected to be among the favorites to win the GOP nomination.

Christie spent more time campaigning in New Hampshire than any other candidate, participating in more than 70 town hall events in the Granite State. But he was unable to translate those gatherings into votes — receiving just 7.4 percent support among New Hampshire GOP voters.

The Christie campaign may ultimately be remembered for playing the foil to Marco Rubio’s would-be rise during the final Republican debate before the primary, attacking the Florida senator for sticking to talking points during a heated exchange just three days before New Hampshire cast its votes.

“You want someone who is prepared, experienced, mature and tested to get on the stage against Hillary Clinton,” Christie said on CNN hours before Tuesday’s primary results were announced. Rubio’s “just not ready,” Christie added. “He doesn’t have the depth or the substance. And he doesn’t have it because he hasn’t experienced anything.”

Christie added: “Maybe he should run for governor of Florida and do something like that, and actually get some real experience.”

With Christie gone, just two governors — Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — are still in the running for the GOP nomination.

Fiorina, who finished behind Christie in New Hampshire, vowed to remain active in politics. She too struggled for traction in early voting despite making a splash in early debates.

“While I suspend my candidacy today, I will continue to travel this country and fight for those Americans who refuse to settle for the way things are and a status quo that no longer works for them,” Fiorina wrote in a statement posted to her Facebook page. “I will continue to serve in order to restore citizen government to this great nation so that together we may fulfill our potential.”

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/christie-fiorina-drop-gop-presidential-bids-220444220.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Marco Rubio: Republican Presidential Candidate Says He Chipped His Tooth Eating a Frozen Twix Bar

“I just bit into a Twix bar and I go, ‘Man this Twix bar’s got something really hard in it. And I go, ‘Oh my gosh, I cracked my tooth," Rubio told reporters on Thursday.

No need to actually check the story after that, I think.

[Unorthodox]

Caramel or peanut butter twix? 

[Buster's Uncle]

I do not know...

[vonbach]

http://www.westernjournalism.com/federal-judge-just-made-major-ruling-that-may-devastate-hillarys-election-chances/

Federal Judge Just Made MAJOR Ruling That May Devastate Hillary’s Election Chances
Under the ruling, the State Department must...
Gerry Urbanek February 11, 2016 at 5:30pm
In a ruling that could prove devastating to the Hillary Clinton campaign, a federal judge has ruled that the State Department must immediately begin publishing Clinton’s private emails.

The ruling, which came down Thursday from U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras, is in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed last year by Vice reporter Jason Leopold.

After missing the initial deadline for release back in January, the State Department again attempted to stall release until after the Democratic primary contests. Arguing that this delay would prevent voters from making an informed decision about Clinton in the upcoming caucuses, Leopold’s team convinced Judge Contreras that an immediate release was necessary.

The sad thing is her getting arrested migh be the only thing that stops her from being the nominee.
Apparently she already has the delegates locked up.

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/02/10/thanks-to-superdelegates-hillary-clinton-still-wins-after-getting-crushed-in-new-hampshire.html

Thanks To Superdelegates, Hillary Clinton Still Wins After Getting Crushed In New Hampshire
By Jason Easley on Wed, Feb 10th, 2016
Bernie Sanders may have crushed Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire popular vote, but thanks to superdelegates, Clinton will leave New Hampshire with the same number of delegates as Sanders.

[Buster's Uncle]

No evidence McCain was a traitor
Politifact
By Shawn Zeller on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 12:00 a.m.



In an echo of the attacks from the 2000 South Carolina primary that dealt a critical blow to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, a new flyer says the Arizona senator is a traitor.
It says that when he was a POW, McCain was a "Hanoi Hilton songbird" who collaborated with the enemy.

But it provides scant evidence to back up this claim and it is strongly contradicted by many other accounts reviewed by PolitiFact: interviews with other POWs, an author who has written a McCain biography and the senator's own accounts.

Robert Timberg, author of  John McCain: An American Odyssey  , who has interviewed many POWs who served with McCain, said there's no evidence that he ever collaborated with the North Vietnamese. "I've never known of any occasion in which Sen. McCain provided the North Vietnamese with anything of value," Timberg said.

The flyer was sent to about 80 media organizations in South Carolina and is posted on the group's  Web site.  The flyer probably would have been ignored, but the McCain campaign issued a statement calling it "a vicious attack."

The flyer has a caricature of a surly-looking McCain in a prison cell under the words, "Hanoi Hilton Songbird." The second page is headlined "FACT SHEET: Military Record of John Sidney McCain III" and it begins with some accurate biographical information.

The flyer contains 1 pages of criticisms of McCain, but only a few support the accusation that he was helping the enemy:

• That he told his captors "Okay, I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital."

• That the Hanoi news media reported he had given information about his flight, rescue ships and the order of U.S. attacks.

• That he broke the military code because he answered questions from a Spanish psychiatrist who had apparently been cooperating with the North Vietnamese.

There is some truth to these claims, but collectively they do not prove McCain was involved in "collaborations with the enemy," as the flyer alleges.

In his memoir  Faith of My Fathers,  McCain says that he initially offered the information because he was badly injured and afraid of dying. But, he wrote, "I didn't intend to keep my word."

When he was later interrogated, McCain gave his ship's name and squadron number and confirmed the target of his failed mission, he wrote. He also gave the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line and said they were members of his squadron.

Asked to identify future targets, he mentioned North Vietnamese cities that U.S. planes had already bombed.

George "Bud" Day and Orson Swindle, fellow POWs, told PolitiFact that POWs sometimes were forced to talk when they were tortured, but they tried to tell lies to mislead their captors.

"We were all tortured and we wrote confessions under the pressure of torture," said Swindle, who was a cellmate with McCain and is active in his campaign. "John McCain never collaborated with the enemy. He, like every one of us, submitted to severe torture. John McCain did nothing dishonorable. He was heroic."

At one point, McCain broke down and signed a confession. But Timberg, the biographer, said McCain deliberately used misspellings, grammatical errors and Communist jargon to show he was writing under duress: "I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died, and the Vietnamese people saved my life . . . "

Day, a Medal of Honor winner who also is supporting McCain's campaign, said the flyer is "the most outrageous f------ lie I've ever heard."

The man behind the flyer is Gerard "Jerry" W. Kiley, 61, of Garnerville, N.Y., who says he served in Vietnam for about a year. He describes his group as a one-man operation unaffiliated with any political party or campaign. He says he opposes McCain because of the senator's efforts to normalize relations with the Vietnamese communist government and because, in his view, McCain has helped the U.S. government keep information about POWs classified.

"John McCain has made sure the information concerning the lives of Americans we clearly abandoned after the war remain in government files 40 years later," he says.

He teamed with political activist Ted Sampley of North Carolina to distribute the fliers to South Carolina media outlets this month. Sampley did not respond to requests for comment.

Sampley also is a longtime McCain opponent. In 2000, he gained attention when he called McCain a "Manchurian candidate" on his Web site and said that he was an agent of the Vietnamese. In 1993, Sampley was convicted of misdemeanor assault and sentenced to 180 days' probation for attacking a McCain aide, according to a 2004 article in the  New York Times. 

McCain is not the first politician to draw the men's ire. In 2004, they formed Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry.

Kiley has twice interrupted events featuring Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, forcing an American flag in his hand on one occasion and throwing red wine at him on another, according to a Secret Service agent who later arrested Kiley. He admits he threw the wine, but he was later acquitted in federal court of threatening Khai.

Kiley says he bases his most damning charges against McCain — that McCain gave information about the schedule of U.S. attacks in Vietnam in 1967, the year his plane was shot down and McCain was captured — on the word of Earl Hopper, a retired Army colonel.

In an interview, Hopper's wife, Patty, said that Hopper wasn't able to address the charges over the phone because of poor hearing. She said that Hopper has long been involved in the POW movement and that Earl Hopper's son, Earl Jr., is missing in action in Vietnam.

She cited as evidence for Hopper's charges a 1973 article by McCain that ran in  U.S. News and World Report  and what she said were "declassified U.S. military documents" she claimed to possess describing McCain's collaboration. Patty Hopper said she was away from her Arizona home and could not fax those documents.

But the 1973 article does not back up the charges made in the flyer. It provides the same basic account as McCain's book, corroborated by Timberg's book, which was based on interviews with many POWs.

Timberg, Day and Swindle noted that McCain, the son of a Navy admiral, was offered an early release from the prison but refused so that he could adhere to the military's code of conduct.

Timberg said he was perplexed by the allegations.

"Why do they hate him? There can be lots of issues you disagree with him about. But why try to destroy him?"

Because of the seriousness of the charge, the utter absence of evidence and the clear intention to harm McCain just days before a critical Republican primary, we find this claim to be Pants on Fire wrong.

About this statement:


Published: Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 12:00 a.m.

Researched by: Shawn Zeller

Edited by: Amy Hollyfield

Subjects: Candidate Biography

Sources:

Interviews: George "Bud" Day, former POW; Orson Swindle, former POW; Robert Timberg, author; Gerard Kiley, Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain; Patty Hopper, wife of retired U.S. Army Colonel Earl Hopper
 Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain 

Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain,  Flyer "FACT SHEET: Military record of John Sidney McCain III" 

New Times of Phoenix,  Is John McCain a war hero? 

Washington Post, "Yanking His McChain; Web Site Posits That Candidate Is a Southeast Asia Pawn," by Michael Powell and Tom Edsall, Feb. 16, 2000

New York Times, "McCain Fights Old Foe Who Now Fights Kerry," by Michael Janofsky," Feb. 14, 2004

Adweek.com, "New Anti-Kerry Ads Air in N.C.," by Gregory Solman, Aug. 31, 2004

United Press International, "Some vets question Kerry's antiwar past," by Richard Tomkins, July 28, 2004

U.S. Veteran Dispatch, "Vietnam Vet Found Not Guilty of Assault on Vietnam Prime Minister," by Ted Sampley, November 2005.

2005 U.S. District Court records of case United States of America vs. Gerard W. Kiley

U.S. News & World Report, "How the POWs fought back," by John McCain, May 14, 1973

Robert Timberg, The Nightingale's Song, touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1995

John McCain with Mark Salter, Faith of My Fathers, Perennial, 1999

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jan/17/vietnam-veterans-against-john-mccain/no-evidence-mccain-was-a-traitor/

[vonbach]

http://polidics.com/ethics/fellow-pows-say-john-mccain-was-a-coward-and-a-traitor-in-viet-nam.html

Fellow POW’s say John McCain Was a Coward and a Traitor in Viet Nam. by MR. CHARRINGTON on JANUARY 20, 2008 I remember some weeks ago John McCain was having a cow that the NY Times was going to print an article and a battle ensued. No mention was ever made as to why McCain was actually begging and threatening the NY Times over this article. No further mention as been made about this article and I wonder if this bitter fight that took place according to the editor of the NY Times wasn’t because of the information contained in the video’s below. John McCain has stood in the way of many a family, loved one and groups from getting our MIA’s and POW’s back. Even though they have more enough proof that there were over a 100 POW’s that were still being held and sent to other country’s. These groups and families point out that John McCain himself is stopping them from getting our fellow countrymen home. Why? Fellow POW’s are sure the reason is he was a coward and a traitor as a POW in Viet Nam and it would ruin his political career if this were ever to find its way to the main stream media. They have put together eye witness accounts that describe McCain’s traitorous actions during his time as a prisoner in Viet Nam by his fellow prisoners. Former Senators, Governors  and political records flat out nail John McCain as a scared little man on the run from a history of lies and deceit. http://gotnews.com/busted-yes-john-mccain-is-a-traitor-heres-the-proof/ GotNews.com is announcing a $5,000 bounty to find the tape of John McCain praising his N. Vietnamese captors. Why do we know that tape exists? We know, in part, thanks to Ron Unz’s article about McCain’s war service. Family friends of Charles C. Johnson’s grandfather, who was himself a Rear Admiral, have also told Johnson that they heard those broadcasts when stationed abroad. The tape is relevant because of conflicting accounts John McCain has given about his service in Vietnam. He has said that his arm was broken by his captors but here he is saying that his arm was damaged when he got shot down. https://hope2012.wordpress.com/2008/07/26/songbird-mccain-the-evidence-in-his-own-words-his-fellow-veterans-and-his-captors/ ‘SONGBIRD’ MCCAIN: THE EVIDENCE – IN HIS OWN WORDS, HIS FELLOW VETERANS, AND HIS CAPTORS July 26, 2008, 6:33 am Filed under: 2008 election, cover-up, history, interesting, McCain, news, politics, prison camps, troops, Uncategorized, war, war atrocities, war profiteering Related: More 2008 Election Posts John McCain: Prisoner of War – A First Person Account – US News & World Report from 1973, published online 1/28/08 My six years of hell: John McCain recalls life a prisoner of war in Vietnam – Daily Mail, UK 2/8/08 Excerpt from “Faith of My Fathers” by McCain “Hero” John McCain as Phony and Collaborator: What Really Happened When He Was a POW? – CounterPunch 6/13/08 EXCERPTS: “on March 25, 1999, two of his fellow POWs, Ted Guy and Gordon “Swede” Larson told the Phoenix New Times that, while they could not guarantee that McCain was not physically harmed, they doubted it. As Larson said, “My only contention with the McCain deal is that while he was at The Plantation, to the best of my knowledge and Ted’s knowledge, he was not physically abused in any way. No one was in that camp. It was the camp that people were released from.”Guy and Larson’s claims are given credence by McCain’s vehement opposition to releasing the government’s debriefings of Vietnam War POWs. McCain gave Michael Isikoff a peek at his debriefs, and Isikoff declared there was “nothing incriminating” in them, apart from the redactions. McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain’s own account, after three or four days, he cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, “I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.”His Vietnamese capturers soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line of American military elites. McCain’s father, John Jr., and grandfather, John Sr., were both full Admirals. A destroyer, the USS John S. McCain, is named after both of them. While his son was held captive in Hanoi, John McCain Jr., from 1968 to 1972, was the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Pacific Command; Admiral McCain was in charge of all US forces in the Pacific including those fighting in Vietnam. ..The Admiral’s bad boy was used to special treatment and his captors knew that. They were working him.For his part, McCain acknowledges that the Vietnamese rushed him to a hospital, but denies he was given any “special medical treatment.” However….two weeks into his stay at the Vietnamese hospital, the Hanoi press began quoting him. It was not “name rank and serial number, or kill me,” as specified by the military code of conduct. McCain divulged specific military information: he gave the name of the aircraft carrier on which he was based, the number of US pilots that had been lost, the number of aircraft in his flight formation, as well as information about the location of rescue ships… On the other hand, according to one source, McCain’s collaboration may have had very real consequences. Retired Army Colonel Earl Hopper, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, contends that the information that McCain divulged classified information North Vietnam used to hone their air defense system…McCain told his North Vietnamese captors, “highly classified information, the most important of which was the package routes, which were routes used to bomb North Vietnam. He gave in detail the altitude they were flying, the direction, if they made a turn… he gave them what primary targets the United States was interested in.” Hopper contends that the information McCain provided allowed the North Vietnamese to adjust their air-defenses. As result, Hopper claims, the US lost sixty percent more aircraft and in 1968, “called off the bombing of North Vietnam, because of the information McCain had given to them.” Its worth noting that its his fellow vets that despise McCain and call him a traitor.

[Unorthodox]

Its worth noting that its his fellow vets that despise McCain and call him a traitor.

There are vets on both sides of the issue, but the ones crying traitor have failed to produce any real tangible evidence.  You bold claims of his accusers, that doesn't make it evidence.  Actually read what BU posted for a change, it specifically addresses Hopper's claims, which you are doubling down on.  They are a mixture of partial truths and conjecture. 


I hate McCain for reasons entirely unrelated to this, but turning a blind eye to counter points doesn't profit anyone.