John McCain: country first, real change

Senator John McCain is the only candidate who can work with the congress to turnaround this countries financial problems and set us on the right path. Obama, with his socialist ideas, "like he wants to spread the wealth around" is nuts. The people who have achieved wealth thru hard work will not stand for this. It is not fair for the TV and Newspaper reporters to always put a spin on everything John McCain says and does. To them Obama can do no wrong. I thought they were suppose to be impartial. If you turn on your TV and watch CNN, CBS, ABC you will see who these groups are going to be voting for. Senator Olympia Snowe is correct, John McCain has been a tireless worker in the congress for a lot of years. Ask yourself, What do we know about Obama? Not much. I don't want to wake up on the morning after the election to find out what Obama truly stands for. It will be too late then. Vote John McCain.

McCain and Palin are Hate mongers at it's worst. America does not need or want more LIES, FEAR and HATE. We have had 8 years of Fear, Hate and Lies. It is time this country grew up and moved away from NEO-CON philosophy. It is truly time for a change.

Senator Snowne,

While your endorsement is understandable as you are a Republican and NOT running for reelection - perhaps that may be why you have not taken a stand on the despicable, hate -filled campaign your colleague has been running. The latest .... ROBOCALLS! I implore you to speak out - on the NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT - To hold the McCain campaign on their despicable behavior and lack of integrity with these Robocalls - Robocalls full of hate and racism ... a lowball tactic that sickens me beyond words. These are a threat to this country. I agree with John Lewis and his recent statements of this campaign inciting violence and HATE! McCain has turned to the same political consulting firm (to the tune of 8 million dollars) that was responsible for spreading vicious smears about him during the 2000 campaign - something he despised, until he decided to stoop to an all time low. He has obviously not taken the high-road in this campaign as he pledged to do. Instead, he insists, along with his "sidekick", under the auspices of the likes of Carl Rove, on promoting a non-stop, despicable, character assassination on Obama. One must ask if this is to overshadow the FACT that Palin's husband Todd is a member of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party (AIP). AIP and their founder, Joe Vogler allied themselves with the Islamic dictatorship in Iran in 1993. His sentiments in short; "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. And I won't be buried under their damn flag. I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." Sarah Palin gave the keynote speech at the AIP's convention in 2006. She has been front and center in promoting hate speech at her rallies. Is this a glimmer of what is to come if this ticket gains access to the highest office in the land? “Troopergate shows the Palins to be small-bore people unable to distinguish selfish personal interests from official responsibilities. Imagine the power of the U.S. government at their disposal” (Washington Post). With McCain's well respected service to this country it is puzzling why he would tarnish his reputation and legacy by allowing this format – hate-speech and ignorance - to dominate his campaign

First District: The same thing could be said of Obama's campaign and of YOU for that matter. Go back and read what you wrote and how you concluded. Apparently you hold the Republicans to a higher standard. That's quite alright because we hold ourselves to a higher standard as well.

We had all better hope and pray for an effective Congress in providing the Constitutionally devised system of Balance of Power if either Obama or McCain is elected.

Please Ms Snowe

Your endorsment rings totally false .You have no argument except for the obvious . Mccains candidacy is but another in the decade long list of bad decisions by the conservatives.Mr Mccain is a good man , athough understandably removed from mainstream America and its problems. His life has been one of military privelage and deserved honor.He has served us , and himself , quite well , but in his desparation has predictably fallen under the influence of the Rasputin of American politics , Carl Rove . As for Ms Palin, she is no more qualified for her political moment than a high school cheering squad captain on the eve of the big game . Ms Snowe , you yourself would have been an excellent and legitimate running mate choice and wouild have actually done what the Palin Affair was supposed to do , reestablish the republican Party as one of modernism, eqality and progress, in a modern age of global cooperation.. Instead it has reemerged as the party of fear ,greed, division and playground level personal attacks . It must be dificult for you to endorse this spectacle , but along with your many qualifications , we find that party loyalty is the first to come to mind . In a situation like this , better to be silent .The choice of the gaudier face and the louder mouth for their vice president reveals what we Maine Democrats already know , the republicans , Mccain included ,are hopelessly , brutally locked in the past . . Conservatives , put on your lifejackets , your ship is going down . Lucky for you and all of us , the democrats have a good boat that actually floats .Ms. Snowe , the next time you see Johm Mccain you should I give him a good swift kick in the a.... for insulting all women as well as distinguished , intelligent, seasoned leaders like yourself .Oh well, hes an old maverick, or maybe, just an old dog.

Good to see the "independent"-minded Olympia Snowe supporting the guy who is willing to sacrifice everything, including his dignity and honor, in his futile attempt to win the presidency. Well done! I have no doubt that Olympia will "Snowe" the voters again in four years when she tries one more time to position herself as a centrist.

Obama is full of conceit and has no business being in the senate and certainly not the white house. Is big deal is "Change'" but change to what? He proposes higher taxes on companies but this will drive more of them overseas. He has no real experience. I used to be a registered democrat but changed when they lost their way on many important issues.

Please take the time to read the article below. It really gives some insight into the mind of this very dangerous and fanatically ambitious man.

Why Has John McCain Blocked Info on MIAs?

Editor's Note: Research support provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute; a longer version of this article is available at nationinstitute.org. Alternative views on this subject are found in two articles by H. Bruce Franklin in The Nation archive: "Who's Behind the M.I.A. Scam and Why," from the December 7, 1992 edition and "M.I.A.sma,", from the May 10, 1993 edition. Archive articles are free to subscribers.

John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero people would logically imagine to be a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as McCain has made his military service and POW history the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War have also turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a Special Forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington and even sworn testimony by two defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number--probably hundreds--of the US prisoners held in Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.

The Pentagon had been withholding significant information from POW families for years. What's more, the Pentagon's POW/MIA operation had been publicly shamed by internal whistleblowers and POW families for holding back documents as part of a policy of "debunking" POW intelligence even when the information was obviously credible. The pressure from the families and Vietnam veterans finally produced the creation, in late 1991, of a Senate "Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs." The chair was John Kerry, but McCain, as a POW, was its most pivotal member. In the end, the committee became part of the debunking machine.

Included in the evidence that McCain and his government allies suppressed or tried to discredit is a transcript of a senior North Vietnamese general's briefing of the Hanoi Politburo, discovered in Soviet archives by an American scholar in the 1990s. The briefing took place only four months before the 1973 peace accords. The general, Tran Van Quang, told the Politburo members that Hanoi was holding 1,205 American prisoners but would keep many of them at war's end as leverage to ensure getting reparations from Washington.

Throughout the Paris negotiations, the North Vietnamese tied the prisoner issue tightly to the issue of reparations. Finally, in a February 1, 1973, formal letter to Hanoi's premier, Pham Van Dong, Nixon pledged $3.25 billion in "postwar reconstruction" aid. The North Vietnamese, though, remained skeptical about the reparations promise being honored (it never was). Hanoi thus held back prisoners--just as it had done when the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and withdrew their forces from Vietnam. France later paid ransoms for prisoners and brought them home.

Two defense secretaries who served during the Vietnam War testified to the Senate POW committee in September 1992 that prisoners were not returned. James Schlesinger and Melvin Laird, secretaries of defense under Nixon, said in a public session and under oath that they based their conclusions on strong intelligence data--letters, eyewitness reports, even direct radio contacts. Under questioning, Schlesinger chose his words carefully, understanding clearly the volatility of the issue: "I think that as of now that I can come to no other conclusion...some were left behind."

Furthermore, over the years, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) received more than 1,600 firsthand reports of sightings of live American prisoners and nearly 14,000 secondhand accounts. Many witnesses interrogated by CIA or Pentagon intelligence agents were deemed "credible" in the agents' reports. Some of the witnesses were given lie-detector tests and passed. Sources provided me with copies of these witness reports. Yet the DIA, after reviewing them all, concluded that they "do not constitute evidence" that men were still alive.

There is also evidence that in the first months of Reagan's presidency, the White House received a ransom proposal for a number of POWs being held by Hanoi. The offer, which was passed to Washington from an official of a third country, was apparently discussed at a meeting in the Roosevelt Room attended by Reagan, Vice President George H.W. Bush, CIA director William Casey and National Security Adviser Richard Allen. Allen confirmed the offer in sworn testimony to the Senate POW committee on June 23, 1992.

Allen was allowed to testify behind closed doors, and no information was released. But a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter, Robert Caldwell, obtained the portion of the testimony relating to the ransom offer and wrote about it. The ransom request was for $4 billion, Allen testified. He said he told Reagan that "it would be worth the president going along and let's have the negotiation." When his testimony appeared in the Union-Tribune, Allen quickly wrote a letter to the panel, this time not under oath, recanting the ransom story, saying his memory had played tricks on him.

But the story didn't end there. A Treasury agent on Secret Service duty in the White House, John Syphrit, came forward to say he had overheard part of the ransom conversation in the Roosevelt Room in 1981. The Senate POW committee voted not to subpoena him to testify.

On November 11, 1992, Dolores Alfond, sister of missing airman Capt. Victor Apodaca and chair of the National Alliance of Families, an organization of relatives of POW/MIAs, testified at one of the Senate committee's public hearings. She asked for information about data the government had gathered from electronic devices used in a classified program known as PAVE SPIKE.

The devices were primarily motion sensors, dropped by air, designed to pick up enemy troop movements. But they also had rescue capabilities. Someone on the ground--a downed airman or a prisoner on a labor gang--could manually enter data into the sensor, which were regularly collected electronically by US planes flying overhead. Alfond stated, without any challenge from the committee, that in 1974, a year after the supposedly complete return of prisoners, the gathered data showed that a person or people had manually entered into the sensors--as US pilots had been trained to do--"no less than 20 authenticator numbers that corresponded exactly to the classified authenticator numbers of 20 US POW/MIAs who were lost in Laos." Alfond added, says the transcript: "This PAVE SPIKE intelligence is seamless, but the committee has not discussed it or released what it knows about PAVE SPIKE."

McCain, whose POW status made him the committee's most powerful member, attended that hearing specifically to confront Alfond because of her criticism of the panel's work. He bellowed and berated her for quite a while. His face turning anger-pink, he accused her of "denigrating" his "patriotism." The bullying had its effect--she began to cry.

After a pause Alfond recovered and tried to respond to his scorching tirade, but McCain simply turned and stormed out of the room. The PAVE SPIKE file has never been declassified. We still don't know anything about those 20 POWs.

The committee's final report, issued in January 1993, began with a forty-three-page executive summary--the only section that drew the mainstream press's attention. It said that only "a small number" of POWs could have been left behind in 1973. But the document's remaining 1,180 pages were quite different. Sprinkled throughout are findings that contradict and disprove the conclusions of the whitewashed summary. This insertion of critical evidence that committee leaders had downplayed and dismissed was the work of a committee staff that had opposed and finally rebelled against the cover-up.

Pages 207-209 of the report, for example, contain major revelations of what were either massive intelligence failures or bad intentions. These pages say that until the committee brought up the subject in 1992, no branch of the intelligence community that dealt with analysis of satellite and lower-altitude photos had ever been informed of the distress signals US forces were trained to use in Vietnam--nor had they ever been tasked to look for such signals from possible prisoners on the ground.

As for the MIA's we will never know what happen to them. The American public was too much against the war and the press pushed that point tying the troops hands in Viet Nam. The press only says what it wants the public to do or believe. I don't like MaCain and Obama is too smooth a talker with no experience. No matter who wins and the press says Obama the US is going to go down hill much faster because of the poor leadership in Washington and the poor leadership that will occur in the next four years. I only hope the US doesn't start to split like Russia did. History has a way of repeating it self.

Please give me a your take on the following articles and/or comments:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvcZiNt6ypI&NR=1

• http://africanpress.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/shocking-development-mrs-obama-decides-enough-is-enough-my-husband-was-born-in-hawaii-and-adopted-by-his-step-father-does-that-make-him-unpatriotic-she-asks-on-a-direct-telephone-to-api/#comment-37753

• http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77247

• http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=78259

• http://zachjonesishome.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/the-good-ship-america-the-media-ocean-and-the-obama-iceberg/

• http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77877

• http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71383

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?title=Barack_Obama

• http://my350z.com/forum/politics-war/392252-obamas-grandmother-says-obama-born-kenya.html#post6426150

• http://africanpress.wordpress.com/20...ephone-to-api/

• http://genealogy.about.com/od/aframertrees/p/barack_obama.htm

These and other similar articles/comments, have given me enough cause, as an American Citizen, to be extremely concerned and angered because, they have made me question whether or not our MSM has been biased (fair and balanced) in their coverage of the Iraq War, our current economic crisis and, more importantly, this and other Presidential elections.

My concerns are three-fold and are based on the following:

1) after taking the time to conduct my own investigation and/or research to confirm the substance of these articles that, on the surface, may be considered, by some, that seem to have their own hidden agendas, to be outrages and un-true, as a means of educating myself prior to casting my vote for our next President, which I have always taken very seriously as an American Citizen. And, I have discovered that the substance of some of these articles, along with some of their public comments, have turned out to be true, which leads me to believe that they were either, not aggressively researched/investigated and/or purposely kept from the American public by our MSM, as a means of slanting the Iraq War, our economic crisis, and this and prior elections;

2) most Americans either don't take the time or don't have the time and/or resources to conduct their own research to educate themselves prior to this and other elections and are, thereby, forced to rely solely on the integrity of our MSM to do it for them, not knowing that what they get from our MSM may be false and/or biased; and,

3) if my concerns have MERIT, it leads me and, more than likely, other Americans, along with individuals from other nations around the world, who are closely watching the Iraq War, our economic crisis and our Historic Presidential election, to QUESTION our, supposedly, unbiased (fair and balanced) democratic election process. A process that our country has historically been preaching and aggressively assisting other nations (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) to adopt, at any cost, and, more importantly, a cause for which millions of our young Americans, as members of our Armed Forces, which I honorably served in for 20 years as a Marine, continue to, proudly and selflessly, help to uphold by honorably serving, fighting and dying for.

BOTTOM LINE: I Hope and Pray that my and other American's concerns are unfounded and have no merit, which I am now doubting, after reading this and other similar articles that seem to have been glossed over and/or slanted by our MSM, as a means of fulfilling their own hidden agendas.

But, if they HAVE MERIT, which, tragically, the American public, more than likely, won't even know until after this election is over and done with, I demand that our MSMs (e.g. CBS, ABC, NBC, etc.) do some serious soul searching and have the integrity and fortitude to step up to the plate, without concerning themselves about their ratings, as a means of keeping their jobs, while many other Americans go homeless, and TAKE SOME CREDIT for helping to fuel the current negative ads, racist attacks, anger and fear that is now visibly consuming some of Americans, through their blatantly biased (unfair and unbalanced) coverage of the Iraq War, our economic crisis and this and other Presidential elections. And, if they don't, which is very likely, all I can say is: "GOD BLESS AMERICA."

I doubt there were MIAs still alive in 1974. Vietnam was mostly about food, at least to the North. POWs were starved to death, as was many ordinary locals there. A VC to weigh more than a 100 lbs was a rarity.

Read the article in Rolling Stone on McCain and you might not have such a high view of him, Olympia.