All politics is local. And, John McCain just did some bad some local politics in Missouri. Remember how Cindy McCain got all those millions and millions because of her Anheuser-Busch distributorship? Yeah, and she's making a lot more from the sale of the company to a Belgian firm.
Cindy McCain is filthy rich, and the scrutiny of her finances, and how her husband's campaign uses them, is causing her John McCain heartburn. Not that there's anything wrong with being worth over $100 million. But it does make you a bit of an elite. More from Politico. (And as a gay man, let me say, she really needs a new photographer, because the one in the link above clearly isn't giving her much love.)
As noted, John and Cindy McCain weren't paying the taxes on one of their many homes. Jed took a tour -- via Google Earth -- of the McCain residences across the country:
No wonder they have so much time staying on top of paying their taxes. That's a lot of properties to keep track of.
Well, that's only one of their eight or nine homes. (Mrs. McCain isn't quite sure how many homes they have, Newsweek says they have "at least seven" - at least? No one knows for sure.). Gosh, I hope this isn't the home that John McCain built his own private lake on, so he could go fishing - be a shame to lose that one. More from Huff Post:
The McCains have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front condo in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and are currently in default, The Huffington Post has learned.
More from Newsweek, which broke the story. Apparently the McCains paid their taxes once Newsweek confronted them. Brings new meaning to McCain's commitment to a tax holiday.
Newsweek is set to publish a highly embarrassing report on Sen. John McCain, revealing that the McCains have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front condo in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and are currently in default, The Huffington Post has learned.
Under California law, once a residential property is in default for five years, it can be sold at a tax sale to recover the unpaid taxes for the taxpayers.
The McCains own at least seven homes through a variety of trusts and corporations controlled by Cindy McCain.
Now, listen. These things happen when you have a lot of houses. How are John and Cindy supposed to keep track of all of this? They're really just regular people with too many houses. They're in default like many other Americans. Except, most Americans in default will lose their homes forever. This is just a glitch for the multi-millionaire McCains.
McCain's friends in the traditional media will surely give him yet another pass on this. And, why not? McCain obviously has some great houses to which he can invite his media pals. But, just for a second, imagine the furor if Barack Obama didn't pay his property taxes.
Jed presents a "Don't Throw Stones Production" featuring John and Cindy McCain.
It's oddly fascinating and disturbing how practically no one in traditional media would ever think to hold John and Cindy accountable for this hypocrisy. And, seriously, why does Cindy McCain want to make herself an issue? As John wrote last week:
I mean, with all due respect, what moral authority does Cindy McCain have to start throwing stones at Mrs. Obama? Only one candidate's wife is a drug addict who actually stole drugs from poor children in order to feed her addiction. And that candidate is not Barack Obama. It's John McCain. People who live in glass pill boxes shouldn't cast stones.
And, here's the link to Snopes.com for the full, unbiased version of Cindy's escapades.
It's sleazy as hell for one candidate to attack the other's wife. But it's even weirder for him to use his own scandal-ridden wife to do it. I mean, with all due respect, what moral authority does Cindy McCain have to start throwing stones at Mrs. Obama? Only one candidate's wife is a drug addict who actually stole drugs from poor children in order to feed her addiction. And that candidate is not Barack Obama. It's John McCain. People who live in glass pill boxes shouldn't cast stones.
Oh, and not kidding about Cindy McCain being a drug addict and stealing drugs from children. The non-partisan Web site, Snopes.com, had this to say about Mrs. McCain's illicit drug addiction:
In 1989, following two back surgeries, Cindy McCain became addicted to the painkillers Vicodin and Percocet. To keep up with her daily need of 10 to 15 pills, she used other people's names for prescriptions and stole drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a mobile surgical unit she'd begun in 1988 to provide emergency medical services around the world. A 1993 DEA audit of the amount of painkillers her charity had obtained quickly uncovered her thefts. She avoided prosecution for those crimes through an agreement with the Justice Department in which she submitted to drug testing, paid a fine, performed community service in a soup kitchen, and joined Narcotics Anonymous. She also closed her medical charity
We reported earlier on the latest Cindy McCain recipe scandal. It seems she did it again. Yes, Mrs. McCain has again published one of "her" recipes that she actually lifted from somewhere else. Well, an intrepid AMERICAblog reader has investigated this issue further, and discovered that in fact the two recipes at the center of the latest controversy are quite different. See for yourselves: See, in the all-important butterscotch chip category, the recipes are markedly different. Hershey's recipe calls for 1 3/4 cup butterscotch chips, while Cindy McCain's only calls for 1 2/3. This is important, let me do the slow-mo replay for you.
Hershey's... 1 3/4c McCain... 1 2/3c
I hope this puts to rest the notion that Mrs. McCain is some kind of thief. And even if she were, come on guys, it's not like she stole drugs or something.
In 1989, following two back surgeries, Cindy McCain became addicted to the painkillers Vicodin and Percocet. To keep up with her daily need of 10 to 15 pills, she used other people's names for prescriptions and stole drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a mobile surgical unit she'd begun in 1988 to provide emergency medical services around the world. A 1993 DEA audit of the amount of painkillers her charity had obtained quickly uncovered her thefts. She avoided prosecution for those crimes through an agreement with the Justice Department in which she submitted to drug testing, paid a fine, performed community service in a soup kitchen, and joined Narcotics Anonymous. She also closed her medical charity.
This video is so far from work-safe, it isn't even funny. You've been warned. Though it is interesting that quoting John McCain makes a video not safe for work. And that quoting John McCain even made me think twice about whether to post this at all.
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....
[W]hen 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.
Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering....
McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later....
'My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn’t the reason for my divorce.
‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’
Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons....
When McCain – his hair turned prematurely white and his body reduced to little more than a skeleton – was released in March 1973, he told reporters he was overjoyed to see Carol again.
But friends say privately he was ‘appalled’ by the change in her appearance. At first, though, he was kind, assuring her: ‘I don’t look so good myself. It’s fine.’...
In 1979 – while still married to Carol – he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage.
Carol and her children were devastated. ‘It was a complete surprise,’ says Nancy Reynolds, a former Reagan aide....
Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.
‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.
‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.
‘This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.’...
But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.
‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.
‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’
I'm trying to get my head around this story from Christopher Wills at AP. In it, the reporter gratuitously revisits the Rev. Wright brouhaha, the Ayers goofball, the recent priest snafu and then, as if that weren't enough, he takes a shot at Mrs. Obama.
In a 40 paragraph story, 38 are about Obama's supposed albatross's, 2 are about McCain's. Oh, and in the entire story there is no attempt given to Obama, or a surrogate, to defend himself.
Putting aside the unfairness of running such an untimely hit piece, so now wives are fair game for the AP? Cool, then where is the story about Cindy McCain's drug use? Where is the story about how she actually stole drugs? Where is the story about how John McCain ditched his first wife, an invalid, for this rich trophy bride second wife - since we're talking wives?
Oh, and if wives are fair game, are mistresses too?
There's only one relationship that matters in this election, and it's the one between John McCain and George Bush. And despite AP's desire to sleaze it up for the ratings, nothing will change that simple fact.
Yesterday, McCain made a big deal out of stopping at a gun shop in West Virginia to show that he's just a regular guy -- a man of the people. He even bought some fishing gear. But, his press secretary exposed the reality that McCain is really a very wealthy elitist:
After the stop at the gun shop, Mr. McCain’s traveling press secretary, Brooke Buchanan, said that Mr. McCain would use his new fishing rod on the artificial lake at his 10-acre Arizona spread in Sedona.
Real people who fish don't have private artificial lakes on their 10-acre estates. Real people don't have lakes built for them on their estates. That's left to the elites and the modern day aristocrats. But guess who else has built their own lake to go fishing? John McCain's bff George Bush:
He also provided a thorough tour, with voluminous commentary, of the sprawling but unoccupied new dream house that he and his wife, Laura, have built beside an artificial lake, which was dug, at Mr. Bush's request, so that he could troll for bass just yards from the patio.
Now, I know the traveling press corps wouldn't ever equate McCain with being rich or elitist. That might make him mad and no one who spends time around McCain wants to evoke his out-of-control temper. And, we know the press types like getting invited to the private estate in Sedona for barbecues.
McCain and Cindy are very, very, very rich people. Very rich. When you own nine homes (or is it ten?), you're among the elite, no matter how you cut it. Really makes you wonder what is Cindy McCain hiding in her tax returns.
MoveOn's new ad is about one of John McCain's top advisers, who also has advised Ferdinand Marcos, Mbuto in Zaire, and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. Then again, John McCain's filthy rich wife, whose corporate jet McCain flies on for his campaign, had $2m in investments dealing with the nasty folks in the Sudan. Anyone else seeing a pattern? Watch it, it's good.
(Now in all fairness, John McCain may still think that we're at war with Hitler.)
Seriously, McCain just can't cut the umbilical cord to his bff George Bush. McCain also is intent on running a dirty campaign against Obama. Invoking Hitler? What's next, attacking the guy's wife? (Oh yeah, sorry, McCain's surrogates are beating up on Obama's wife too. I mean, what kind of guy has to beat up someone's wife to win an argument?) So today, McCain got asked if he thought Obama was a Hitler appeaser (Bush called Obama that on the floor of the Israeli Knesset), and McCain refused to say no. It's not that hard a question, for a real man. And the answer should be obvious, to anyone who's sane. But McCain isn't sane. He also isn't very nice. Man, the story I heard about him today, two stories actually. Including one dealing with Republican Senators witnessing McCain grabbing other Senators by the neck. It's no wonder McCain's buddies have to beat up a guy's wife. It's probably the only way he can let off all of that steam from his out of control temper. Hate to be his wife. His second wife, I mean. Not the first one that he abandoned after she was permanently injured in an auto accident - it reportedly left her 4 inches shorter and permanently on crutches. He dumped her for a rich beauty queen 17 years his junior. And you don't want to even know about her, if we're talking about wives. Let's just say that Michelle Obama has never been arrested for any drug crimes.
(PS Speaking of Israel, funny that no one is asking McCain about his pledge a few weeks ago NOT to defend Israel from an Irani nuclear attack once America becomes energy independent. You'd thinks Jewish Americans, hell, all Americans, would find that campaign pledge a wee bit interesting. Talk about appeasement. But hey, at 72 years of age (once he takes office, if he wins), McCain is allowed to be a little nutty every once in a while. He's lived a good life, so why not let him retire in the White House where he won't really have that taxing a job. And the next time he says something stupid, like not being willing to send American troops to defend Israel, his staff can just warm up some milk and put McCain down for his afternoon nap. Al Qaeda will just have to wait.
