Tag Archives: US Navy

A funereal stain

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I’ve had numerous opportunities to weigh in with my thoughts about John McCain, here on the blog and on my radio show. Until now I’ve deferred. But no longer. When I heard the above persons — and more — turn the McCain enshrinement into nothing more than a partisan offensive against President Trump, the gloves are now off.

Barack Hussein Obama, George Bush and daughter Megan McCain decided purposely to utilize use the funeral of Senator John McCain as the platform from which to slam the current President of the United States.

Thank you all, thusly, for allowing me to remove my gloves and cease my silence, allowing me to speak and write freely. Because, after all, you and John McCain went there first. Not me. Remember: John McCain had this event planned to the gnat’s eyelash months ago. There wasn’t an extemporaneous element in the entire shebang.

First this: let there be no mistake. John McCain served the US Navy with honor and sacrifice. He was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese in 1967 after having his A-4E Skyhawk shot down over Hanoi. He was kept prisoner from 1967 to 1973 at the infamous Hanoi Hilton where he was tortured, beaten, and eventually made an anti-US “confession.” Still, he refused to meet with any number of anti-war groups where he could have curried favor with his captors.

Five and a half years later following release, and for the rest of his life, McCain’s wartime injuries left him permanently incapable of raising his arms above his head.

There is no denying: McCain held his mud and was, beyond any doubt, one tough motherfucker in captivity. I would be shockingly in remiss if I failed to mention his numerous military decorations and awards which would include the Silver Star, two Legion of Merits, the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Star Medals, two Purple Hearts, two Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals, and the Prisoner of War Medal.

Then came politics. And the McCain funeral on Saturday.

The John McCain funeral became #Resistance itself. How does that happen? How? Easy.

When the person who planned the funeral meticulously for months — John McCain himself — insisted that it do so. Whom to include. Whom to exclude.

So now I am free. Free to point out the obvious and the manner and fashion in which I shall be judged at my funeral. Not what I did in my 20s. But what I’ve done most recently. And perhaps properly so because, I freely admit, I am no one’s patsy and, through life, I’ve been rather harsh and judgmental. Just as Life has been harsh and judgmental towards me. Translated: “what have you done for me recently?”

“Recently,” John McCain has shat the GOP bedsheets for about the past two decades and made it not about anyone else but him. And just as his military history was the truth, here come some more unfortunate truths about John McCain.

McCain’s funeral planning was punctilious, detailed and purposeful. From MSNBC:

President Trump was specifically not invited. Purposely. So when you heard from the Fake News sources that “President Trump failed to attend,” etc, that was the result of McCain’s wishes, not Trump’s. So Trump went golfing. Just like Obama did during Scalia’s funeral. And Obama was invited to Scalia’s funeral.

From the BusinessInsider.com:

John McCain wanted Obama and Bush to speak at his funeral, but Trump’s not invited

by Ellen Cranley

Americans from Arizona to Washington, DC, will have the chance to pay their respects to Sen. John McCain at multiple memorials honoring the six-term senator and war hero who died from brain cancer on Saturday at the age of 81.

But President Donald Trump will most likely not be among the attendees.

The New York Times reported in May that Trump would not be invited to McCain’s funeral. Two White House officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the president was asked not to attend.

It didn’t stop at Trump. Sarah Palin and some of McCain’s campaign advisors were also asked not to attend. From my good friend Susan Katz Keating’s article at People magazine:

John McCain’s 2008 Running Mate Sarah Palin Is Not Invited to His Funeral: ‘It’s Sad’

by Susan Keating, 8-29-18

President Donald Trump and former John McCain presidential running mate Sarah Palin are not invited to memorial services for the iconic Arizona senator, multiple sources tell PEOPLE.

“Two names you won’t see on the guest list: Trump and Palin,” says a Capitol Hill source with knowledge of funeral plans for McCain, who died of brain cancer Saturday at age 81.

“Invitations were not extended” to the two political figures, confirms Carla Eudy, a fundraiser who has worked with and been friends with the McCain family for decades.

A source with knowledge of the funeral arrangements adds that several longtime McCain staffers were also removed from the invite list in recent days by Eudy.

And more “disinvites” from Politico.com:

Top 2008 campaign aides shut out of McCain funeral

by Eliana Johnson

Campaign manager Steve Schmidt, senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, and longtime strategist John Weaver were snubbed, as was former running mate Sarah Palin.

John McCain’s funeral will spotlight some of the late senator’s political rivals — but some of his closest campaign aides are being excluded from the proceedings.

Three of the most prominent members of his 2008 presidential campaign — campaign manager Steve Schmidt, senior adviser Nicolle Wallace and longtime strategist John Weaver — were not invited to any of McCain’s services, according to three people familiar with the guest list.

But let’s go back a bit. Because John McCain is clearly inviolate. Just ask the American Media Maggots.

From TruePundit.com:

NO MERCY: John McCain’s First Wife Speaks Out; McCain Dumped Her After Crippling Car Wreck, Angering Ronald & Nancy Reagan

Let’s harken back to 2008 to cover some important background intelligence about Sen. John McCain who has been lashing out at President Trump and others from his apparent deathbed.

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

What happened? Kicked to the curb. Carol married one of McCain’s midshipman classmates in 1958, then divorced as a single mother and married John McCain in 1965. But when McCain returned from Vietnam, Carol was either in a wheelchair or in crutches due to her accident. McCain’s marriage, however, began to falter due to his partying away from home and extramarital affairs. He was young and fine. She was not so much.

In 1979, McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley. He filed for divorce in 1980. The uncontested divorce became official in April of 1980. Carol never remarried.

But wait, there’s more.

All wasn’t butter and honey during McCain’s POW era. There were “issues” with McCain’s POW-MIA stance.

Again: why was McCain an obstructionist with regards to the POW – MIA issue?

So how do I remember John McCain? I remember him primarily in two ways, first from my own blog on June of this year:

Who urged the IRS under Lerner to pummel Conservative groups? That’s right: John McCain’s office.

Yes, certainly, I knew John McCain was pretty much an unmitigated asshole who customarily made any issue about him and should have simply been honest and changed his (R) to a (D) and been done with it. It’s no secret that McCain threatened to step across the aisle to the Demorat side.

Hell, John McCain has essentially been a functional Demorat for years.

So this should truly come as not much of a surprise, from the WashingtonTimes.com:

McCain’s office urged IRS to use audits as weapons to destroy political advocacy groups

by Larry O’Connor

A new report from Judicial Watch reveals a concerted effort from Sen. John McCain’s office to urge the IRS under Lois Lerner to strike out against political advocacy groups, including tea party organizations.

Thanks to the results of an extensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that has been delayed for many years, Judicial Watch has obtained several key emails from 2013 that chronicle McCain’s and Democrat Sen. Carl Levin’s efforts to reign in the advocacy groups that sprouted immediately following the Citizens United decision from the Supreme Court.

Wondrous. John McCain keeping his end of the bargain to ensure his application to the Demorat Party isn’t round filed.

The documents uncovered by Judicial Watch include notes from a high-level meeting on April 30, 2013 between powerful members of McCain’s and Levin’s staffs and Lerner, then-director of tax exempt organizations at the IRS under Barack Obama. The notes reveal the suggestions from McCain’s former staff director and chief counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner who urges Lerner to use IRS audits on the advocacy groups to financially ruin them.

From JudicialWatch.com:

Lerner and other IRS officials met with select top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a “marathon” meeting to discuss concerns raised by both Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that the IRS was not reining in political advocacy groups in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.  Senator McCain had been the chief sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Act and called the Citizens United decision, which overturned portions of the Act, one of the “worst decisions I have ever seen.”

Except, well, it was the law.

In the full notes of an April 30 meeting, McCain’s high-ranking staffer Kerner recommends harassing non-profit groups until they are unable to continue operating. Kerner tells Lerner, Steve Miller, then chief of staff to IRS commissioner, Nikole Flax, and other IRS officials, “Maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous.” In response, Lerner responded that “it is her job to oversee it all:”

Judicial Watch continued:

“The Obama IRS scandal is bipartisan – McCain and Democrats who wanted to regulate political speech lost at the Supreme Court, so they sought to use the IRS to harass innocent Americans,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Obama IRS scandal is not over – as Judicial Watch continues to uncover smoking gun documents that raise questions about how the Obama administration weaponized the IRS, the FEC, FBI, and DOJ to target the First Amendment rights of Americans.”

The truth? McCain was every bit the political backstabber and underminer — and more so — than Trump will ever be, because McCain has had so much more training, education and experience in the field.

You recall that in July of 2017, in direct contravention of his campaign, he voted NO on the ObamaKare repeal:

We conveniently forget that. We also somehow conveniently forget this, from TruePundit.com:

McCain illegally fed Classified FBI intelligence to Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to Set Up Trump Tower Meeting; FBI Brass Helped Plot Scheme

Sen. John McCain brokered a clandestine and illegal deal, feeding Classified FBI intelligence to Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to discredit Donald Trump prior to the 2016 election, according to federal law enforcement insiders.

McCain, a sitting GOP Senator, was provided names of “problematic Russians” the FBI had recently investigated or were in the process of investigating. Top FBI executives worked with McCain to provide the names of the Russians, FBI insiders confirmed. Then McCain, handed the list off to Fusion GPS who was working with Christopher Steele.

One of the names on the list was embattled Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya who was considered an international security risk and prior to the June 2016 sit down at Trump Tower was not even allowed entry into the United States or the UK, federal sources said.

Veselnitskaya also set up the infamous meeting at Trump Tower weeks after her name was handed off to McCain. The same meeting was used as an excuse to wiretap Trump associates.

A new and quite disturbing wrinkle in the FBI, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, and John McCain saga.

FBI insiders said the new McCain and Fusion GPS revelations clearly detail a conspiracy within the FBI to railroad Donald Trump’s presidential aspirations.

And it is all quite illegal.

FBI agents are calling for Congress to investigate McCain’s involvement with the FBI prior to the 2016 election. Specifically, FBI insiders point to meetings McCain attended in March and April 2016 when it is believed the FBI supplied names of Russians to McCain who then handed the classified Intel off to Fusion GPS.

I wrote about that on my own blog in January of 2018 when I published:

BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith: “I’m proud we published the Trump-Russia dossier”

Exactly one year ago BuzzFeed published what’s now known simply as “the dossier”: a set of reports put together by a former British intelligence officer named Christopher Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign. The 35-page dossier suggested that the Russian government had both compromised and colluded with President-elect Donald Trump.

Our choice to publish the dossier was greeted by outrage from two sources. Journalistic traditionalists didn’t like the idea of sharing an unfiltered, unverified document with the public, whatever the caveats and context. NBC’s Chuck Todd told me on air, “You just published fake news.” Mr. Trump agreed. He described CNN’s reporting on the dossier as “fake news” and called BuzzFeed a “failing pile of garbage.”

Then said:

And from Breitbart.com:

Fusion GPS Admits They Used John McCain to Pass Anti-Trump Dossier to Obama-Era Intel Agencies

by Aaron Klein

EILAT, Israel — The founders of the controversial opposition research firm Fusion GPS admitted that they helped the researcher hired to compile the infamous, largely discredited 35-page dossier on President Donald Trump to share the document with Sen. John McCain.

The goal of providing the dossier to McCain, the Fusion GPS founders explained, was to pass the information contained in the questionable document to the U.S. intelligence community under the Obama administration.

The disclosure raises questions about whether McCain knew that the information he delivered to the intelligence community was actually an opposition document reportedly funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

McCain’s office did not reply yesterday to a Breitbart News request for comment on the matter.

Last December, it was revealed that it was McCain who notoriously passed the controversial dossier documents produced by the Washington opposition research firm Fusion GPS to then FBI Director James Comey, whose agency reportedly utilized the dossier as a basis for its probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Writing in a New York Times oped last Tuesday, Fusion GPS founders Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritch relate that they helped McCain share their anti-Trump dossier with the intelligence community via an “emissary.”

But what’s happening now?

From MintPressNews.com:

Former Clinton Foundation Donors Flocking To The McCain Institute

by Whitney Webb

In years past, the Clinton Foundation enjoyed significant donations from individuals and countries that sought to purchase influence in Washington. But now, the McCain Institute is their new darling, having received large sums from the likes of George Soros and Saudi Arabia.

How odd.

WASHINGTON, D.C.– With the Clinton Foundation standing at the heart of the many scandals that dogged Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign, it was no small wonder that donations to her family’s controversial charity began to dry up soon after her loss last November. Just weeks after the election, donations to the foundation from foreign governments plummeted, some as much as 87 percent, while donations from the corporate sector dropped by 37 percent.

While this was clearly devastating news for the Clintons – essentially signaling a drastic decline in their political clout – it has now become clear that the foundation of another former U.S. presidential candidate has gained the favor of many of the Clinton Foundation’s former donors. Republican Senator John McCain (R-AZ), current chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, has seen donations to the McCain Institute surge, particularly donations from ostensibly “liberal” donors such as George Soros and other long-time Clinton backers.

The McCain Institute is meant to serve as the senator’s “legacy” upon his eventual retirement and claims to be “dedicated to advancing human rights, dignity, democracy, and freedom.” Like the Clinton Foundation, the McCain Institute is a tax-exempt, non-profit foundation with approximately $8.1 million in assets.

Of which you’ve heard nothing from the LDAMM, the Leftists, Demorats and American Media Maggots. Even TheAtlantic.com wrote:

When John McCain Was a Democrat (Almost)

by Joshua Green

Over the weekend, John McCain led the fight against repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (unsuccessfully) and the Dream Act (successfully), the latter of which McCain himself originally sponsored. Afterward, Joe Klein unloaded both barrels on him–“a troglodyte,” “puerile and feckless”–bitterly wondering what became of the man he once admired.

It’s a good question. McCain has gotten a lot of richly deserved criticism for abandoning a whole host of what had seemed to be staunchly held positions for reasons of political expediency–to fend off a primary challenge from the right. But to my mind, even this criticism doesn’t capture the full distance of the ideological journey McCain has traveled over the last six or seven years. I’m particularly sensitive to this journey because I wrote a big piece about McCainright around the time he was at his leftward-most extreme, in mid 2002–a time when Democrats were still suffering through the hangover of Al Gore’s loss and McCain seemed a mighty and principled war hero, the “maverick” who had just confronted his party’s right wing and almost prevailed.

Then:

As a war hero who’s hawkish on foreign policy, he more than matches Bush on the military front. As a reform-minded foe of corporate welfare, Big Tobacco, and the Republican right, he is peerless. McCain is Bush’s most vociferous critic, voted against the president’s tax cut, forced his hand on campaign finance reform, and federalized airport security in the face of White House opposition. He has co-sponsored numerous bills with Democrats–many of them in the presidential-aspirant class–requiring background checks at gun shows (Lieberman), a patients’ bill of rights (Edwards), better fuel-efficiency standards in cars and SUVs (Kerry), and expanded national service programs (Bayh). He is even drafting a bill with Lieberman to reduce greenhouse gasses and mitigate global warming.

John: just be honest. Clear.

At least we straightened out the Bush Legacy. They too, like McCain, should have been honest and clear and placed a (D) after their name instead of an (R). Every Bush is dead to me. Hell. I live in California. Where every bush, literally, is dead to me due to drought and forest mismanagement.

So: civility, bi-partisanship and compromise. That’s what we got out of the McCain funeral, was it not?

Eh, sorry, no.

Precisely the opposite. The DC elites and the Leftists, Demorats and American Media Maggots all drooled over the McCain funeral because McCain pissed all over the Conservative Cake many times. McCain was no Conservative. McCain was all about McCain. McCain was no saint. McCain was no god. He was just another armored DC politician who ultimately voted his own benefit. No more, no less than so many others. That he got cancer was due to life span. I’ve had cancer three times. I’m still here. Does that make me a saint? When I kak will I be knighted and revered? Hell no.

“It was less a eulogy than it was a call to arms.”

When John McCain was proffered the opportunity to take the proverbial “high road” as complained-about regards Trump, McCain took the opposite path. As did many of the people in attendance who spoke at the McCain funeral.

John McCain, in his final influential hours, had a chance to make it all not about division. But he failed. And divided. He was no saint. He was no paragon of virtue. He was just a flawed little man who happened to step into DC politics, enjoyed it, enjoyed the power, drew lines, set boundaries, and made it all about him. Just. Like. Every. Other. DC. Politician.

The LDAMM embraced John McCain, quite frankly, because he was a useful tool at various moments. McCain embraced them on many occasions, and he opposed Trump. If there were such a thing as a classic, ingrained-like-a-tick “Republican” in DC, it was John McCain. Trump stepped in to blow that paradigm up. Hence the McCain/Trump controversies. McCain was all Deep State. Trump was an advocate for the disassemblage thereof.

Those who were proscribed from the event had no opportunity. Even those who were predominantly inoffensive.

And, truly, isn’t that McCain’s real legacy?

One bitter dude who didn’t sit in the Oval Office.

BZ

 

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Iran to block the Strait of Hormuz in one month

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Wake up. The LDAMM don’t want you to be aware. This is why. Important news takes a back seat to ATIP: Anti-Trump Identity Politics.

Focusing back, nothing moves particularly rapidly in the Muslim world, hence the headline.

What does inshallah mean? “If Allah wills.”

A convenient excuse for being late or early or whatever. That’s how the ME version of Islam works. It doesn’t operate on Western time frames. Period. That said, from Reuters.com:

U.S.-Iran tensions rise over oil route as EU tries to save nuclear deal

by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. Navy stands ready to ensure free navigation and the flow of commerce, the U.S. military’s Central Command said on Thursday, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned they would block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz if necessary.

A blockade? It would seem potentially so. Continuing with Reuters.com:

With tensions rising over the strategic waterway, the European Union is proposing a plan for salvaging a multinational nuclear deal with Tehran after Washington withdrew, but Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told leaders in Paris and Berlin on Thursday that the package did not go far enough.

Rouhani and some senior military commanders have threatened in recent days to disrupt oil shipments from the Gulf countries if Washington tries to strangle Tehran’s exports.

Praising Rouhani’s “firm stance” against the United States, the head of the Revolutionary Guards said their forces were ready to block the Strait of Hormuz which links the Gulf to the open sea.

Again, it’s Trump vs Obama and Obama’s cementing of deals deleterious to the United States of America because, after all, Obama believed then and believes now that this country must “atone” for its prior myriad of faults.

In May, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal under which sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for curbs to its nuclear program. Washington has since told countries they must stop buying Iranian oil from Nov. 4 or face financial measures.

Mohammad Ali Jafari, who commands the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s most powerful military force, responded on Thursday.

If Iran cannot sell its oil due to U.S. pressure, then no other regional country will be allowed to do so either, Jafari was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency. “We are hopeful that this plan expressed by our president will be implemented if needed,” he said. “We will make the enemy understand that either all can use the Strait of Hormuz or no one.”

Translated: no other Middle Eastern country. Hence, the blockade. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most strategically important choke points on the planet. This little salient bit:

The strait is the most important oil transit channel in the world with about one fifth of global oil consumption passing through each day.

The US would simply find that unacceptable for us and, of course, everyone else dependent upon Middle Eastern oil shipments.

Here was the issue six years ago.

It’s an issue of oil, and it’s an issue involving the freedom of waterways.

I hope Iran doesn’t believe our president isn’t resolute.

BZ

 

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San Francisco’s Fleet Week

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SF Fleet WeekAstounded that SF still allows this to occur, considering its anti-defense and Sanctuary City stance, Fleet Week survives.

Which means that the Blue Angels will still be performing this weekend over San Francisco Bay — at the altitude of a few hundred feet and over the various ships and yachts of those privileged enough to put themselves there.

And that’s where ol” BZ will be, ladies and gentemen.  On a 175-foot yacht in the middle of San Francisco Bay.  And I’ll be there with cameras and video.

I can’t wait.

BZ

 

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