** Cain is gone,sex scandal breaking.Big surprise this isn't.

pico · 02-20-08, 10:05 PM

wow, i always thought the lobbyists are men in suits...i guess it is an equal opportunity employer. nowdays, i'd be shocked if a sentor has not screwed a underaged boy/girl or exchange sex for favor. if there is such senator, he is probably not getting anything done in washington for his state.

Poker_Beast · 02-20-08, 10:14 PM

Yeah, poker and gambling are problems. Just like a politician. Hope he goes down.

Wheell · 02-21-08, 01:31 AM

This is relatively old news that McCain had released through channels. It was eventually going to come out so best to get it out now when it can't do any permanent damage. If this came out in October it would be much worse. The same would have been true had it come out last December. Well played by the McCain team.

ritehook · 02-21-08, 03:24 AM

Basically, for a reversal of UIGEA, or at least a let-up in this ridiculous witchhunt against the financial processors of offshore gaming, Obama would be the best bet.

McCain has also recently been "sleeping" with the moralistic bible- banging Right, needing their support. He too, like Obama, will need to find new sources for revenue (like for his envisioned century-long occupation of Iraq) but the Dems are more likely to look favorably to legalizing sports betting. Or at least poker, and with that opening there may be a chance for sports.

bettilimbroke999 · 02-21-08, 04:21 AM

A question about legalizing online gambling

If it were legalized would it hurt society (i.e. minors becoming hooked on gambling, gambling addicts blowing their life savings in online casinos/sportsbooks)? We have clearly made doing drugs illegal when doing drugs itself only hurts the person, so is making online gambling illegal a similar way of protecting ppl from hurting themselves financially (not all people but admittedly some ppl suffer from severe gambling problems, likened to the way some ppl do drugs recreationally and others are junkies) or is it simply the individual citizens responsibility to protect himself through self-control?

guitarjosh · 02-21-08, 04:55 AM

Is there any real proof of this or do they just assume it because McCain and this lady spent time together?

Willie Bee · 02-21-08, 07:09 AM

I think Brent is just making all of this up, guitarjosh, because deep down inside he wants to be part of the Hillary comeback and is a closet liberal.

RageWizard · 02-21-08, 07:20 AM

If true I have more respect for the man. It is about time the politicians start sticking it to the lobbiest whenever possible.

isetcap · 02-21-08, 08:21 AM

Originally posted by Willie Bee

I think Brent is just making all of this up, guitarjosh, because deep down inside he wants to be part of the Hillary comeback and is a closet liberal.

The ones that most want a Hillary comeback are closet republicans.

The Seer · 02-21-08, 10:22 AM

It won't hurt him. Bill Clinton was elected and then reelected.

Robyn · 02-21-08, 10:39 AM

But Bill Clinton was a democrat...and black.

The HG · 02-21-08, 10:54 AM

Originally posted by guitarjosh

Is there any real proof of this or do they just assume it because McCain and this lady spent time together?

No it was common knowledge in the politics world. The McCain people have been anticipating it and trying to manage it for a long time, and in fact I heard that Republican primary candidates were trying to get the Times to publish the story a long time ago.

JoshW · 02-21-08, 11:29 AM

I am no huge fan of McCain, but the story seemed a little weak to me.

Willie Bee · 02-21-08, 11:37 AM

Originally posted by Robyn

But Bill Clinton was a democrat...and black.

According to just about every donkey backer I've spoken with, dipping your pen in the company ink, as it were, is no big deal and none of us should be concerned with such matters. We'll see if the DEM party will play it that way or not, though I'm sure many will offer up the excuse, "Well the elephants did it to us, so we're doing it back to them."

louisvillekid · 02-21-08, 02:38 PM

i don't care what hes did or didn't do really. i've always cared about whether the person in office is getting the job done on all phases. i've never understood the whole "persona", that you have to be a committed family man, and have kids and go to church, just to be able to do your job.
whenever this kind of stuff comes up, i'm always reminded of an old article i read in Playboy years ago. they did a survey and found that there is more prostitutes/call girls per capita in D.C. than in L.A. or NYC.

TexansFan · 02-21-08, 02:45 PM

McCain is gone? Really? Will Obama also be gone after smoking crack and blowing some dude?

RageWizard · 02-21-08, 02:48 PM

Originally posted by TexansFan

McCain is gone? Really? Will Obama also be gone after smoking crack and blowing some dude?

If Obama really did all that, Hillary would have brought it out by now.

TexansFan · 02-21-08, 02:52 PM

Originally posted by RageWizard

If Obama really did all that, Hillary would have brought it out by now.

Hillary is a carpet muncher herself. Why do you think Bill cheats on her?

My point was that the statement in the thread title was a little ridiculous.

RageWizard · 02-21-08, 02:55 PM

Originally posted by TexansFan

Hillary is a carpet muncher herself. Why do you think Bill cheats on her?

My point was that the statement in the thread title was a little ridiculous.

I think if Hillary were munching all that carpet Bill would be around more.

Maybe Hillary doesn't like all of the fat carpet that Bill hangs out with. I mean he was the president for christ sakes, he should have gotten something better, or someone should have hired better quality for him to choose from.

TexansFan · 02-21-08, 02:57 PM

Bill stated that when you are looking at the top of her head looks don't really matter.

Scorpion · 02-21-08, 02:58 PM

Didnt McCain cheat on his first wife?
I read he did! When he was married to his first wife he was having an affair with his current wife!

Will try to find the article!

TexansFan · 02-21-08, 03:02 PM

Cheating on your wife isn't illegal. Obama has admitted to using drugs. Hillary has had someone whacked. Pick your poison.

Scorpion · 02-21-08, 03:03 PM

Betrayal, deceit, corruption and John McCain
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch

November 14, 2007

Last week, Sen. John McCain launched on fellow Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani criticizing the former New York City mayor because Bernie Kerik, police commissioner under Giuliani, was indicted and accused of fraudulent dealings.

"A president's judgment matters and Rudy Giuliani has repeatedly placed personal loyalty over regard for the facts," declared McCain, suggesting that Giuliani's support of Kerik showed a serious lapse in judgment.

Kerik, 52, according to a 16-count federal indictment, received cash and gifts for lobbying regulators on behalf of a New Jersey construction and waste-management firm. Prosecutors allege that Kerik cheated on taxes and lied to investigators--including those recommending him for a cabinet-level post on behalf of President George W. Bush.

McCain has forgotten his own history of involvement with betrayal, deceit and corruption

When McCain returned to the United States in 1973 after more than five years as a prisoner of war, he found his wife was a different person. Carol McCain, once a model, had been badly injured in a car wreck in 1969. The accident "left her 4 inches shorter and on crutches, and she gained a good deal of weight." Despite her injures, she had refused to allow her POW husband to be notified about her condition, fearing that such news would not be good for him while he was being held prisoner.

But, just a couple years later, McCain, while pondering a future in politics, met Cindy Hensley, an attractive 25-year-old woman from a very wealthy politically-connected Arizona family. While still married to Carol, McCain began an adulterous relationship with Cindy. He married Cindy in May 1980 -- just a month after dumping his crippled wife and securing a divorce.

McCain followed his young, millionairess wife back to Arizona. Not long after settling in, the former POW newlywed was introduced to Darrow "Duke" Tully, publisher of the conservative and powerful Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette.

Tully, who quickly became a close friend of McCain, wasted no time in using the power of his newspapers to jump start McCain's political career. His newspapers endorsed McCain's first run for Congress and touted him as successor for retiring Sen. Barry Goldwater.

Described as "equal parts cowboy, commando, swashbuckler and elegant tycoon" by the Chicago Tribune, Tully was "a George Patton who drove a Corvette, a Randolph Hearst who flew an F-16, a John Wayne in aviator glasses and Air Force dress blues."

Tully appeared to have a lot in common with his close friend, former Navy combat pilot and war hero McCain. Tully boasted of his 100 missions over Vietnam, retiring from the Air Force as a lieutenant-colonel. Tully's military service, according to Tully, included air combat in Korea, where he once was forced to crash land his P-51 Mustang fighter and spent time in a hospital as a result--so he said. His smashed front teeth were replaced with stainless steel, he also said.

Tully, just like his friend McCain, claimed he had received the Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry.

Tully painstaking groomed McCain for public office. He introduced him to the influential and gave him guest column space in The Arizona Republic. He manipulated endless favorable references from the paper's other columnists. McCain, in turn, honored Tully by asking him to be godfather of one of his children

However, the day after Christmas 1985, it was revealed in the Chicago Tribune, that McCain's close friend Duke Tully had "an imagination as big as his ego."

Tully had never even been the military.

At the same time McCain's political ambitions were being assisted by Tully, he had cultivated political relationships with developer and future Arizona governor Fife Symington III and lawyer, politician and banker Charles Keating Jr.

When Goldwater did not to run for re-election to the Senate in 1986, McCain's powerful new friends quickly catapulted him into Goldwater's Arizona senate seat.

In the senate, McCain managed to stay low key until suddenly he found himself on television trying to explain himself as one of the "Keating 5," five senators who became enmeshed in the scandal involving the collapsed Lincoln Savings and Loan and the financial machinations of Charles Keating.

Keating was convicted of federal fraud and racketeering charges and in 1997, McCain's friend Symington was forced out of office after being convicted on seven counts of fraud.

For years McCain has successfully cultivated a false facade as the "straight-talking" politician unsullied by big-money influence of special-interest groups. He has shrewdly manipulated most of the national press corps into ignoring (or forgiving) facts that expose him as a disreputable character and enemy of the truth..

Reports from a variety of U.S. publications exposed McCain's true scandalous character

The Arizona Republic - October 17, 1989" . . . both in telephone conversations with reporters and on a live radio talk show, the Republican senator was far from calm. He was agitated. Angry. And the way he dealt with unpleasant questions was to bully the questioners . . . 'You're a liar,' McCain snapped Sept. 29 when an Arizona Republic reporter asked him about business ties between his wife, Cindy McCain, and Keating . . . 'That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot,' McCain sneered later in the same conversation. 'You do understand English, don't you?' ". . . Not content with just bullying reporters, McCain tried belittling them: 'It's up to you to find that out, kids.' . . . McCain wasn't talking to liars. He wasn't talking to juveniles. The senator was talking to two reporters."

The Arizona Republic - October 17, 1989 -- "McCain, in a radio talk-show appearance last week condemned disclosures of his family's ties to Keating as 'irresponsible journalism.'"

The Phoenix Gazette, November 13, 1989 -- "Reporters also 'discovered' that the senator's wife and father-in-law invested $359,100.00 in one of Mr. Keating's projects in 1986 . . ."

The Arizona Republic, April 29, 1990 -- "McCain's involvement with Keating . . . when reporters called him with questions last year about previously unknown ties to Keating, an investment by wife Cindy McCain in a Keating shopping center and trips to Keating's Bahamas home, McCain went into a rage."

New Republic, Dec. 31, 1990--"The only Republican of the bunch [the five Senators], John McCain of Arizona wins credit for finally drawing the line. After the second of the two April meetings [with Federal regulators] he told Mr. [Sen. Dennis] DeConcini [D-Ariz.] and Mr. Keating that he wouldn't lean on the regulators any more. Mr. Keating called him a wimp. But before the rupture, Mr. McCain and his family were regular guests of Mr. Keating's on trips to the Bahamas. Mr. McCain reimbursed the owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan for only a small fraction of the cost of these holidays. Yet, he never reported the vacations on Senate disclosure forms, or his income taxes. He said he thought his wife had paid Mr. Keating back. This is hard to believe."

Economist, Mar. 9, 1991--"Mr. McCain, despite his claims of innocense, was the only one of the five who benefitted personally--family holidays in the Bahamas on Mr. Keating's tab."

New Republic, Sept. 9, 1991--Calling McCain part of the "Senatorial Lincoln Brigade," the New Republic reported that Keating, while bankrupting his savings and loan, had channeled $1.4 million to the campaigns or causes of the five senators, who in turn pressured the savings and loan regulators to back off our friend."

Regardie's magazine, April-May 1992 issue. "Ultimately, the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan will cost the U.S. taxpayers $2 billion. It lost $1 million dollars a day from the time Keating bought it in 1984 until its collapse in 1989, and yet he continued to pay off McCain as 'one of his assets.'"

Cindy McCain escaped prosecution for stealing/using drugs

The Arizona Republic, August 24, 1994 -- "Cindy McCain, the wife of U.S. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, admitted in a series of media interviews Monday that she became addicted to the painkillers Percocet and Vicodin. She said that she used the drugs from 1989 to 1992 and acknowledged that she had stolen some pills from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a charitable organization of which she is president . . . at one point, McCain, 40, was ingesting 15 to 20 pills a day . . . the normal dosage for seriously ill patients is 6 to 10 a day for a short period."

The Phoenix Gazette, August 25, 1994 -- "Cindy McCain was investigated recently by the Drug Enforcement Administration for stealing and using Percocet and Vicodin, both narcotic painkillers from her aid organization . . . the county attorney's report provides a window to drug dealings within Cindy McCain's nonprofit corporation . . . Gosinski also alleged that Cindy McCain abused her husband's office and diplomatic privileges by transporting illegal substances overseas. He also claimed, according to her lawyers, that Cindy McCain tried to prevent him from providing accurate information to the DEA."

Playboy, July 1999. -- "Ms. McCain admitted stealing Percocet and Vicodin from the American Voluntary Medical Team, an organization that aids Third World countries. Percocet and Vicodin are schedule 2 drugs, in the same legal category as opium. Each pill theft carries a penalty of one year in prison and a monetary fine." However, McCain did not face prosecution. She was allowed to enter a pretrial diversion program and escaped with no blemish to her record. Source: James Bovard, Prison Sentences of the Politically Connected.

McCain's Crime family connection

The Arizona Republic Jan. 17, 1995 "About 300 guests turned out Saturday night to celebrate the 90th birthday of Joseph 'Joe Bananas' Bonanno, retired boss of New York's Bonanno crime family. He retired to Tucson in 1968 . . . John McCain, R-Ariz., and Gov. Fife Symington sent their regards by telegram."

Join the U.S. Veteran Dispatch Eagle message board

Scorpion · 02-21-08, 03:22 PM

Cindy McCain has her own baggage

Quote:
Cindy's biggest claim to fame is in 1989 she developed an addiction to perocet and vicodin, two powerful morphine based pain killers. In 1993 she was caught stealing percocet from supply of the American Voluntary Medical Team, a charity she founded to provide health care and medications to war victims in underdeveloped nations

Squared Box · 02-21-08, 03:25 PM

Smear jobs like this only help a candidate. Once again the NY Times ****s up.

TexansFan · 02-21-08, 03:28 PM

Very few people can honestly say they have no skeletons in their closets. Most people have done something in their lives they would really not rather people know about.

Scorpion · 02-21-08, 03:28 PM

He needs all the help he can get, he is too old and impotent!

Robyn · 02-21-08, 03:34 PM

Originally posted by Willie Bee

According to just about every donkey backer I've spoken with, dipping your pen in the company ink, as it were, is no big deal and none of us should be concerned with such matters. We'll see if the DEM party will play it that way or not, though I'm sure many will offer up the excuse, "Well the elephants did it to us, so we're doing it back to them."

Political parties are like gigantic fraternities. I have never been one to buy friendships, so I don't swing either way. But yes, I am sure Alpha Beta Democratica is looking for ways to spin this in their favor.

RageWizard · 02-21-08, 03:38 PM

Originally posted by Robyn

Political parties are like gigantic fraternities. I have never been one to buy friendships, so I don't swing either way. But yes, I am sure Alpha Beta Democratica is looking for ways to spin this in their favor.

Your right there young saged horned one. I for one would expect my elected offical to be a two timing intern swaping, hypocritical asswipe.

HedgeHog · 02-21-08, 03:39 PM

Bill Clinton gets a BJ in the Oral (I mean Oval) office and only "admits" to it after CSI offers to examine the Blue dress. McCain's situation is old news---and irrelevant. Who cares...certainly not the voters?

PS Suddenly I'm in the mood for a cigar.

ILMW · 02-21-08, 03:52 PM

People jump to conclusions and they dont even know if it is true or not, need to chill out.

Robyn · 02-21-08, 03:52 PM

Are you named after Ron Jeremy and his amazing ability to roll into a ball and do dirty things to himself?

Oops...I didn't post quickly enough. That question was for the HedgeHog.

TexansFan · 02-21-08, 04:01 PM

Originally posted by Robyn

Are you named after Ron Jeremy and his amazing ability to roll into a ball and do dirty things to himself?

JJ's jealous.

Robyn · 02-21-08, 04:07 PM

bbq tongs work wonders. Just sayin.