Bad Deeds for 5-7-2008

 

Mastermind of Nixon’s Watergate Break-in Calls McCain an ‘Old Friend’ – G. Gordon Liddy spent more than 4 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him. Liddy didn’t just have a role: he was the chief operative for Nixon’s White House “plumbers” unit, who, along with E. Howard Hunt, masterminded the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate hotel in 1972.

While right-wing blogs continue to fume over Obama’s connection to the former anti-war radical, little has been written about Liddy and McCain, who appear to be much better friends. Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain’s political campaigns since 1998 — sending 25 times as much money to the Arizona senator than Ayers did to Obama. Liddy also greeted McCain as “an old friend” when hosting the candidate on his talk radio show, Chapman writes, and McCain gushed at the “pleasure” he took in appearing and praised Liddy’s “adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.”

 

Various Reports Indicate That a US Attack on Iran is Growing More Likely – In a little-noted interview with Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter said, “We take a look at the military buildup, we take a look at the rhetoric, we take a look at the diplomatic posturing, and I would say that it’s a virtual guarantee that there will be a limited aerial strike against Iran in the not-so-near future—or not-so-distant future, that focuses on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command.”

Ritter, who led the UN mission to inspect Iraqi weapons from 1991 to 1998, also questions Administration claims that Syria was developing a nuclear weapon in concert with North Korea. “We have to be concerned about the evidence,” Ritter said. “We have interior photographs and exterior shots and nothing that links the two. And this notion that the reactor was on the verge of becoming operational, again, is absurd,” he adds. “You know, there would have to be literally thousands of pounds of pure graphite that would have to be introduced to this facility, and there’s no evidence in the destruction. You know, there were a number of reporters who went to the site after it was blown up. If it had been bombed and there was graphite introduced, you would have a signature all over the area of destroyed graphite blocks. There would be graphite lying around, etc. This was not the case.” US intelligence officials said they “found no radiation signatures after the bombing, so there was no uranium or plutonium present. “I don’t know what was going on at this site,” Ritter said. “If the images are accurate, it appears that Syria was producing a very, very small research reactor. But it is not a reactor usable in a nuclear weapons program. Syria was not violating the law. “The interview was highlighted by a diarist on Daily Kos.

Ritter’s remark about Iran comes on the heels of a report Sunday in the UK Sunday Times’ which alleges that the Pentagon is drawing up plans for a “surgical strike” against an alleged insurgent training camp in Iran, and a CBS report that suggests US forces are prepared to launch small-scale attacks.

Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker and RAW STORY’s Larisa Alexandrovna revealed internal Pentagon planning in a buildup to a potential Iran conflict.

CBS News reported last week about a potential strike on Iran. “Targets would include everything from the plants where weapons are made to the headquarters of the organization known as the Quds Force which directs operations in Iraq,” they wrote.

Last Month the Department of Homeland Security Waived 30 Environmental Laws to Build 470 Miles of the Border Fence

 

John McCain is Confused (About a Lot of Things)
McCain forgot the League of Nations was disbanded in 1946 when he recently said, “We need a League of Nations, we need a group of nations who work together and pose meaningful sanctions and modify Iranian behavior.”

McCain just said the United States should set up a missile defense system in Czechoslovakia, a country that no longer exists.

McCain appeared confused about where he was for a moment Tuesday, saying, “I appreciate the hospitality of the students and faculty of West Virginia,” then correcting himself to say Wake Forest as the audience laughed.
McCain castigates Obama on judges

 

John McCain Wants More Bad Bush Judges – McCain has voted to confirm every one of Bush’s controversial appellate court nominees, no matter how extreme and ideological. Back in 1987, when President Reagan nominated Robert Bork, McCain supported him too.

McCain regurgitated Bush’s favorite talking point: “One of our greatest problems in America today is justices that legislate from the bench, activist judges.” “I’m proud that we have Justice Alito and Roberts on the United States Supreme Court.”

But Roberts and Alito, and their fellow right-wing justices Scalia and Thomas, are “legislating from the bench.” In just the last two years they have joined together to:

· make it much harder for victims of pay discrimination to get justice
· deny free speech protections to government employee whistleblowers
· make it harder for taxpayers to challenge federal spending that violates the constitutional separation of church and state

· uphold a ban on a particular abortion procedure even though the law has no exception to protect a woman’s health
· undermine school officials’ efforts to promote racial diversity in their schools
· undermine the Endangered Species Act
and so much more. The bottom line is that America just can’t afford another right-wing Bush justice on the Supreme Court

 

John McCain is Misrepresenting Democrats’ Healthcare Policy – Senator John McCain has been repeatedly suggesting that his Democratic rivals are proposing a single-payer, or even a nationalized health care system along the lines of those in countries like Canada and Britain.

The suggestion is incorrect. While both Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York are calling for universal health care and an expanded role for government, they stop well short of calling for a single-payer plan.

Mr. McCain has made the assertion several times in recent days, even as he and the Republicans have made repeated calls for accuracy on the campaign trail…. Yet on repeated occasions, Mr. McCain, of Arizona, has inaccurately described the Democrats’ health care proposals, using language that evokes the specter of socialized medicine.

On a campaign stop on Thursday, for example, McCain said Clinton and Obama “want a massive government takeover of the health care system in America.” A few months ago, McCain said the Dems offer a “single-payer big government solution.” A few months before that, he insisted that the Dems are offering a “government-run, single-payer system like they have in Canada and like they have in England.”

 

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton Wants More War – Yesterday morning, on Fox News, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said, “… the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do.” Bolton has asserted that preventive war against Iraq “did work” and “achieved our strategic objective.” Moreover, he has openly stated that the U.S. should have no interest in the well-being of Iraqis. Bolton’s unquenchable appetite for a military conflict with Iran is easy to understand, given that he cares so little about the disastrous consequences that follow from war. Macho Macho Man – I want to be a Macho Man
… As long as someone else is doing the dying.

Regards,

Jim