Tag: John McCain

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The Gas Tax Hustle

If you’re listening to the political hype about the “Gas Tax Holiday” you know about this program that’s proposed initially by McCain (video) and backed by McCain and Hillary (opposed by Obama), which offers a break (3 months) from paying the taxes on gasoline through the summer – designed on the surface to ease the spending for Americans on gasoline for summer travel etc.

If you care enough to dig through this bullshit, they you’ll learn enough that this plan is fundamentally flawed for Americans and could actually be detrimental to the US economy as a result (says notable scholars and economists).

The highlights:

  • The plan would ultimately benefit the Oil Companies not the American people. There are no restrictions in the plan to prevent oil companies to further raise the price of gas to accomodate a cut in price. Ultimately we could pay the same and when the tax gets implemented again – BAM! a drastic increase.
  • The national average price of gas when this was first announced was $3.38, the current average as of today is $3.67 Cutting the cost by 18 cents (the current tax levied) amounts to less than a 5% reduction. This reduction could mean an average savings of between $20 and $28 per person depending on the source.

    Wow that’s totally enough to have a holiday in Flushing for a day!!! What a scam.

    The cheapest gas in the world – ranked is:
    1. Venezuela at 12 cents
    2. Iran at 40 cents
    3. Saudia Arabia 45 cents
    44. United States $3.45

    The most expensive in the world – ranked is:
    1. Eritrea $9.58
    2. Norway $8.73
    3. United Kingdom $8.38
    4. Netherlands $8.37
    5. Monaco $8.31
    108. United States $3.45

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HRC’s shortsided strategy- Me or No Democrate for President?

Hillary has quoted for now for at least the third time in a week how McCain is a great friend, would make a great candidate for president and he has the experience. *SMOOCHES!* How do you beat a presidential candidate when you feed their fire and continue to say he’s qualified to be president?

“I think you’ll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say,” she said. “He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience.”

If she were to win the nod, doesn’t she think this will come back to bite her? McCain: “Hey look… even Hillary would vote for me so why shouldn’t you?”

Alas, she is very close friends with McCain, even convincing him to participate in getting shitfaced on Vodka in Estonia. And McCain put it well “What happens in Estonia stays in Estonia,” (now that’s a reference to experience don’t you think?):

And then there’s this thing about her not wanting people to know what she’s deducted in taxs over the years… no disclosure?. Hillary is saying she won’t release her returns until after she’s been made the nominee. This is contrary to historical practice. What is she hiding now? Maybe she’s trying to hid the 10,000% cattle-futures profits made in 1979 and 1978 which were hidden from us as well when Bill Clinton divulged his returns before his nod. Talk about having experience… in scandal!!!!

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McCain flip-flops on Torture and approves Waterboarding

You would think for a person that spent 5 1/2 years as a POW (three of which he spent in solitary confinement), being tortured with nonstop brutal beatings, refusal of medial attention and other technique; he would come to the conclusion that torture is probably a bad thing. If McCain was as strong a POW as he claims that all this torture did not break him, and he did not revile any secret information about his father or the war efforts, then you can conclude that torture doesn’t work from personal experience right?

Here’s his stance on this issue in June 2007 where he says “There’s no excuse for it”, “It’s not in keeping for what America is supposed to be”:


Today, the Senate brought the Intelligence Authorization Bill to the floor, which contained a provision from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) establishing one interrogation standard across the government. The bill requires the intelligence community to abide by the same standards as articulated in the Army Field Manual and bans waterboarding.

However today, McCain maintains that the Army Field manual needs to allow more latitude for torture techniques to acquire secrets from detainees. [NY Times article on Senate pass of Ban]

Maverick Fails The Test: McCain Votes Against Waterboarding Ban [Thinkprogress.org]

For someone who has been so strong against torture and then to flip on this for a political reason (to stand with his party on pro-torture) shows a sharp disregard for human rights as well as a big gash in his integrity to stand by what he personally believes in.

Politics before country, ethics, morals and what is right, is that right McCain? The double-talk express is picking up steam folks! Of course the torture worked against him in Vietnam, so maybe this is really why he’s changing his tune.

UPDATE (3.10.2008) – Ok so this weekend’s 60 Minutes has McCain on for an interview and within this he explicitly states that waterboarding is torture. Is this a case where his public policy is different than his political practice or just a casualty of the political process where politicians vote for bills with pieces that hold policy against their beliefs but sacrifice those for totality of the bill… either way both are wrong. Here’s his whole interview: