These are all the Blogs posted today: Wednesday, 23, 2008.
John McCain and that 'Judgment' thing.
85 recommendation(s).
+Recommend this blog John McCain and the ‘Judgment’ thing.
The current White House press secretary, Dana Perino, a few months back, demonstrated her tragically limited range of knowledge when she claimed she knew “the Cuban Missile Crisis had something to do with Cuba and missiles.” Sad. Sad, because those twelve days in October 1962 composed the most anxiety-filled moments for all human life on our planet since humankind took its first steps out of the Olduvai Gorge in Africa those several thousand years ago. That crisis was one where the “sound judgment” of President Kennedy spelled the difference between the very survival of human life and its sudden demise. General Curtis LeMay, the Air Force Chief of Staff during the crisis, argued heatedly with Kennedy that he should be permitted to bomb the missile sites; sites that the United States errantly believed were not at the time yet fully armed. It wasn’t until the fall of the Soviet Union that we, in the mid-90s, were granted access to the documents that clearly showed the sites LeMay wanted to hit were in fact quite armed, and that, although he might knock out some, enough would remain to trigger a world-ending nuclear volley between the US and the USSR. (Google “doomsday clock” during the period to see it had reached midnight.) Judgment matters! Both good judgment . . . and most particularly poor judgment. It’s time we examine the evidence for which kind John McCain manifests most frequently. It’s a difficult, near impossible, thing to separate one’s level of judgment from the issue of demeanor; cool and calm under pressure, or excitable. I can testify that my three years in the Army Infantry (June, 1964 — June, 1967) lead me to assert I would never, ever want to go on a patrol with anyone who was not cool and collected under almost every conceivable circumstance. Whether it be to panic or a too quick temper, such a person can get the entire squad killed, and deep-6 the mission. The most consequent psychological fact each of us knows intuitively is that, in any crisis, we just cannot think and react and respond as we should, perhaps as we must, when we’re emotionally distraught. Provocation is irrelevant, cool is all that is. As Nebraska’s US Senator Chuck Hagel observed, “Everyone’s got a John McCain story.” That was a gentleman’s summary depicting how, in a chamber intentioned for more courtly demeanors, it is legend how McCain is known to frequently let loose with a torrent of expletives-suffuse temper tantrums. Those to the point that Mississippi’s very conservative Republican senator, Thad Cochrane, opined how “a McCain presidency sends a cold chill down my spine.” Except for South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and a handful of others, based almost exclusively on his considerably less than even temperament, Senator McCain has few backers in the senate, Republican or Democratic. No human can be expert in all fields. Advisors are essential. Therefore, one indication of an individual’s “judgment” are the choices a person makes as to who will serve as his or her advisors. Within the past three months, John McCain has gone through more “advisors” than does a president normally experience in a 4-year term. The most recent departure was ex-Senator Phil Graham, who it should be recalled, was personally responsible for having the “Enron loophole” that eliminated from federal oversight how energy futures were traded. (Graham’s wife, Wendy, served on the Enron Board of Directors.) Another of McCain’s top advisors is Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard until she was fired in 2005. The corporate stock of what had been literally a high-tech money making machine ever since it was founded by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in 1939 for $538.00 collapsed during her tumultuous tenure. One of the embroiling issues was the matter of the FBI’s and the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce investigation of the highly illegal corporate selling of “itemized incoming and outgoing” Internet call logs to anyone who paid a “modest fee.” As to the selection of a foreign policy advisor, and what it reveals about where McCain is and where he’s coming from, and likely headed to, the choice of Henry Kissinger screams “bad choice,” “bad choice,” “worse judgment!” It was not Kissinger all by himself who kept us in Vietnam through the entirety of the Nixon-Ford presidencies, while 40,000 Americans perished, and strongly urged the Bush administration into Iraq. Not all by himself, but choosing the former Secretary of State as a top-level advisor is telling . . . way, way too telling; in fact it’s shouting. At the Council of Foreign Relations in 2004, it was John McCain’s expressed judgment that he didn’t “see how we could stay [in Iraq], when our whole emphasis has been on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people,” if that sovereign government asked us to leave. And yet, today, when that even more secure and more sovereign government is expressing its desire for a US departure timeline/date that is more in accord with Senator Barack Obama’s, it’s now McCain’s judgment that the decision does not — as he once claimed it did — rest with what the government of Iraq wants, but with the US generals, and General David Petraeus in particular. Sure, as could others, I could add several more examples, where McCain’s best demonstrated “judgment” is dubious best, and just downright rotten at worst, but enough on the “judgment thing” for now. Facts aplenty and sufficient are on the table . . . and in the history books. In a future post I’ll address the topic of “experience,” how McCain supporters tout his over Senator Obama’s. As example, how “experience” ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, I’ll raise the names of Rumsfeld and Cheney: icons of “experience.” Then I’ll bring Abraham Lincoln into the discussion, as an example where having no “experience” isn’t necessarily the negative McCain’s acolytes pound their fists on the table insisting that it is. This won’t be to aver that the Illinois senator can be, or ought to be, compared with our 16th president, also from Illinois, by the way . . . only that one needs to be especially cautious, trying to bring in “experience” as much of a gauge of executive timbre. However it deserves no consideration as a prerequisite for the presidency, I’ll also bring to the table for consideration the proposition that John McCain, as a “hero” is actually defined, is in fact not much of a “military” one (eg Senators Chuck Hagel, or Jim Webb, or Jack Reed, or the Senate’s only Medal of Honor recipient, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii), and that he hasn’t really much that distinguishes the experience he does have as exemplary “military experience” (again, along the lines of the aforementioned senators). — Ed Tubbs Thousand Oaks, CA PS — Of course I welcome responses, those that disagree as well as those that agree. But I’ve got to insist that only those retaining the courage of their convictions to include their real name and the city where they reside, exactly as they would for any letter to the editor, will be read or responded to. Now is the time for all of us to live up to the words and sentiments in our National Anthem.Read more | 0 comments
I respond to "Obama more left than a Socialist"
64 recommendation(s).
+Recommend this blog As tags can be confected to mean anything, they mean nothing. Without knowing the intent of this post, I'm guessing it's on behalf of John McCain. While some might assert that opinions that are without genuine attribution are just that, opinions, perhaps by one or others with an agenda, let's look at his SENATE.GOV voting record concerning both active military and veterans. September, 2007, McCain voted against the Webb amendment that would have provided all troops in Iraq have at least as much time home and in training as in theater. (S.Amdt 2909, 2910, 2910; 9/19/2007, 5:30 pm) http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00341 March, 2004, McCain voted against establishing a VA reserve fund to treat veterans. (S.Amdt 2745 to S.Con.Res 95; 3/10/2004, 9:34 pm) http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=2&vote=00040 Those are not 'just opinions,' they're from the Congressional Record, and as Yogi would say, "You can look it up!" No one in the active military or a veteran in possession of the first molecule of an informed intellect would vote for a candidate who has stabbed his brothers and sisters in the chest, as has this virulent snake. By the record, John McCain is more of a total dunderhead than even George Bush. He doesn't know Shia from Sunni from al Qaida. Two days ago he claimed that Iraq shared a border with Pakistan. And worse, John McCain is a liar. (See my documented post re what he has said then writtne concerning his life and divorce from Carol, his philandering with Cindy, and what the Arizona court records show. By ANY measure, John McCain is unfit to lead a troop of Cub Scouts. Read more | 2 comments
"Obama 'more left' than a socialist"- BUT SANDERS IS PRO-VET
54 recommendation(s).
+Recommend this blog Obama 'more left' than a socialist: McCain (AFP)
Fri Jul 18, 6:13 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republican White House hopeful John McCain said Friday that his Democratic rival Barack Obama is further to the left than the only Socialist US senator. Asked by a reporter for the Kansas City Star newspaper if McCain, 71, believed Obama was an "extremist," McCain replied:"That's his voting record. All I said was his voting record... is more to the left than the announced Socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont," McCain said according to a video of the interview posted online. "Do you think he's a socialist, Barack Obama?" the interviewer asked."I don't know," McCain answered. Sanders was elected to the Senate in November 2006 after serving 16 years in the House of Representatives.Sanders votes as an independent and calls himself a democratic socialist -- a title which has made him something of a phenomenon in US politics, where the word tends to carry a negative connotation more often linked to North Korea than to Scandinavian socialism. However you want to place him on the bogus political spectrum, Senator Bernie Sanders can stand on a solid record of support for veterans, as the links below demonstrate. You can compare and contrast these highlights with Ed Tubbs' recent posting, "I respond to 'Obama more left than a socialist,'" to judge for yourself whether Republicans like McCain or the lone Socialist Sanders support vets with more than empty, so-called patriotic rhetoric. Bernie Sanders website info highlighting his support for veterans: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/index.cfm?code=Veterans&pheader=Veterans Bernie Sanders on the floor - Supporting Veterans -- 09/06/2007 http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=281959 Sanders grills Katz: About 1,000 veterans attempt suicide each month. When Ira Katz, the deputy chief for mental health at the Department of Veterans Affairs, learned the figure earlier this year, his first reaction was to contact the public relations office. "Shh!" he wrote in an e-mail. "Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" That approach, USA Today said in an editorial, “is just one indication that the agency in charge of caring for veterans is more interested in minimizing the extent of mental health problems that today's veterans face than it is in tackling them.” Senator Bernie Sanders, a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, questioned Katz at a hearing on Wednesday. “Is this an epidemic?” the senator asked. To watch Sanders question Dr. Ira Katz at a Veteran Affairs’ Committee hearing, click here: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=298777 Read more | 5 comments
AP VIDEO: MCCAIN FLUBS ON IRAQ TIMELINE
AP: IRAQ PASSES ELECTION LAW, BUT DOUBTS RISE ELECTION WILL BE HELD THIS YEAR
CNN REPORTS: SEXUALLY ASSAULTED FEMALE TROOPS STRUGGLE TO RECOVER
History never repeats its self, but it rhymes Mark Twain
55 recommendation(s).
+Recommend this blog Does there seem to be a rythm to the way forms change at the end of the Vietnam war. In The investigation of the Air Force form 7 Personnel Millitary Records, I found they were discontinued just after the war. I can not find any manual stating what each line means or any of the code. While looking Through the dod and air force publicaion manuals and forms I have found that each unit has it own codification for its own internal purposes. How convenient. As of the last time that I looked company clerks could get kille also. So how about digging deep in your backlog of knowledge and telling me what a service category n is and why i was changed from a x to n in vietnam. Also what reason would they type through lines that were clearly type for a reason at one time. The VA says that it was a clerical error and I never was an X.
Also if you do not like your VA doctor actions report him to the state board. The doctors have to be licsend in you state and can have complaints brought against them. I found out the doctors take a different view about your complaints when you make them stand board review. Also why are they now billing me for services and medicine when i am clearly a disabled Vietnam Vet. They did not do it in the past. I guess they pocket the money kinda like the Atlanta VA administrater who stole 11 million and was only sentenced to 10 years. soggy mac v. Read more | 0 comments
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