FS: John Mccain home for $4.25 million

PHOENIX Arizona Senator John McCain is putting his central Phoenix estate up for sale.

The Republican's 11-thousand-square-foot home near
Glendale and Central avenues is being listed for 4-point-25
(m) million dollars.

McCain's wife Cindy, who is the daughter of
liquor-distribution magnate Jim Hensley, grew up in the mansion. The home
has since been expanded and renovated.

The gated estate sits on two acres. It has a large guesthouse, nine bedrooms, eight bathrooms and plenty of security cameras.

Realtor Bobby Lieb of Realty Executives has been hired to sell the home. He says the land alone is worth two (m) million dollars.

A spokeswoman in McCain's Washington D-C office says the senator and his wife want to downsize now that only the youngest of their four children is living at home.

Their casual, Southwestern-style house was featured
in the July issue of Architectural Digest.

see more at............
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4047625&nav=HMO6

Rush rejects Senator Mccain

Rush Limbaugh Recommends Virginia Senator George Allen As 2008 Republican Nominee

Local: Wed, Oct 19 2005 7:46 am
Subject: Rush Limbaugh Recommends Virginia Senator George Allen As 2008 Republican Nominee
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Last night on the Fox TV Sean Hannity show conservative talk-radio host
Rush Limbaugh advised that the Republicans reject moderates like John
McCain and Rudy Giuliano and nominate a right-wing candidate like
current Virginia Republican senator George Allan for president in 2008.


Limbaugh said that there in now a state of war between the Left and
Right in the U.S. and there is no possibility of compromise. The base of
the Democratic Left is radical, hate- America and its middle-class
capitalist republic.


Limbaugh stated that the Republicans best chance for political victory
is reaming well to the right like Ronald Regan and not try to appease
the Left in any way. This has been the mistake of George Bush, primarily
in his second term, of believing that there can be some kind of
compromise, that he could win some "liberals" over by granting
concessions. Bush tried that with disastrous results e.g. in allowing
Ted Kennedy to write his education policy, "Leave No Child Behind".


Limbaugh mentioned that talk radio which he more or less initiated back
in 1988 has been a decisive force in the rejuvenation of
U.S.conservatism, whose revolution actually began back in the 1960s
with William F. Buckley, National Review and Barry Goldwater. Now the
charge is being led by talk radio and Fox News for the battle of the
hearts and minds of the American people.




http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.usa.republican/browse_thread/thread/c47357b06e978575/7bc724ae79e1a320?q=senator+john+mccain&rnum=2#7bc724ae79e1a320

Senator Conrad Hits DeLay in Indian Affairs Hearings

Senator Conrad Hits DeLay in Indian Affairs Hearings
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Obwon Oct 18, 3:17 pm show options

Newsgroups: nyc.politics, alt.politics.democrats, nj.politics, ca.politics, alt.politics.clinton
From: Obwon - Find messages by this author
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 19:17:39 GMT
Local: Tues, Oct 18 2005 3:17 pm
Subject: Senator Conrad Hits DeLay in Indian Affairs Hearings
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Executive Intelligence Review


This article appears in the October 8, 2004 issue of
Executive Intelligence Review.
Senator Conrad Hits DeLay in Indian
Affairs Hearings on Abramoff Looting
by Anton Chaitkin


The Senate Indian Affairs Committee stunned a public
hearing by revealing that recent newspaper coverage had
inaccurately understated what the committee identified
as over $66 million in payments and millions more in
political donations, extracted from six Indian tribes
by casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his secret junior
partner Michael Scanlon. The partners shared millions
of this loot with former Christian Coalition executive
director Ralph Reed, Abramoff's protégé and currently
Southeast USA director of the Bush-Cheney election
campaign, who has used the Christian Coalition to carry
out the Abramoff/Scanlon schemes.


Tension in the Sept. 29 hearings was high, as the
stakes are high.


The role of Abramoff, Scanlon, and Reed, in creating
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's Congress-dominating
machine, overshadowed the hearings. North Dakota
Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad repeatedly brought out the
fact that the looters had made their access to DeLay
their selling point for getting lobbying contracts with
the casino-owning tribes.


Arizona Republican John McCain, who himself has been
attacked for pushing these hearings, intervened, in an
effort to take the spotlight off DeLay and the
Republicans. McCain Grover Norquist, whose Americans
for Tax Reform got $25,000 from the Abramoff Indian
loot, has accused McCain of pushing the hearings to get
back at Bush partisans for opposing McCain for the 2000
Republican Presidential nomination, and McCain may have
been covering himself within the Republican Party as
the election approaches.


In the Senators' opening remarks, the perpetrators'
leaked e-mails were read and displayed for the hearing,
as were Abramoff's references to the tribal leaders
whom he was ripping off, as "monkeys" and other racist
epithets.


Senator Conrad began in the preliminary statements to
highlight the schemes in DeLay's Texas, by Abramoff,
Scanlon, and Reed. McCain asked Conrad to move along,
not to dwell on this side of things.


Committee Chairman Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell
(R-Colo.)—himself a chief of the Northern Cheyenne
tribe—announced that Mike Scanlon is dodging subpoenas
and resisting the committee's request to appear before
them. Senator Campbell emphasized that either Scanlon
would come voluntarily or would be escorted in by
Federal marshals.


Jack Abramoff appeared and invoked his Constitutional
right not to testify.


Senator Campbell, in his unanswered questions to
Abramoff, said that Jewish people had long been the
victims of such bigotry as Abramoff showed in his
contemptuous e-mails about his clients, so Campbell was
surprised to hear this coming from Abramoff. Abramoff
presents himself as an Orthodox Jew, and is Tom DeLay's
intermediary with the Israeli political forces around
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud party.


Senator Conrad hit Abramoff with questions centering on
his schemes with Ralph Reed and the Christian
Coalition. Senator McCain twice asked Conrad to stop
asking these questions, since Abramoff was not
answering, suggesting that it was "badgering" the
witness.

The blogosphere burns the witch (?) Julie Myers

The blogosphere burns the witch (?) Julie Myers
By: smagar · Section: Diaries


Remember the stories about how sharks, once they taste blood, go into a feeding frenzy and devour anything in their path?
This latest hit piece by Michelle Malkin leads me to wonder if Michelle has tasted blood, and likes it a bit too much.

More to the point, I wonder if the conservative blogosphere is too eagerly joining into feeding frenzies, such as the outrage over Julie Myers and Michael Brown. Or, to use another analogy, too willing to tie people to stakes and burn them as witches.

We may be too willingly eschewing minor but useful details in the process. Such as, oh, determining if they actually are witches BEFORE we burn them!

Or, in the case of Ms. Myers, showing an interest in exhibiting fair play and a sense of "due process" in what we say on these blogs.

I suspect I'll be in the minority here, but I feel that Ms. Malkin, the chattering crew at National Review Online, and other strident voices in the conservative blogosphere heard of Ms. Myers, decided that she be a witch, and tied her to the stake and burned her with no interest in a trial. Or, letting her defend herself and her reputation.

Is THAT the Modus Operandi we want the conservative blogosphere to adopt? Is THAT the reputation we want the conservative blogosphere to earn for itself, as it grows into a more potent force in American political discouse?

For myself, I hope not.

As for Michael Brown, the deposed FEMA head, follow this link for what I wrote a while back on how I feel Mike Brown was treated. IMO, too many people (e.g., Michelle Malkin and the NRO crew) were willing to burn Brown at the stake and scapegoat him for the NO shortcomings, before we had a chance to learn what really happened. That's all I'll say in this diary about Brown.

As for Julie Myers, here's what the Washington Post had to say about her on Tuesday, September 20th:


The Bush administration is seeking to appoint a lawyer with little immigration or customs experience to head the troubled law enforcement agency that handles those issues, prompting sharp criticism from some employee groups, immigration advocates and homeland security experts.

The push to appoint Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, comes in the midst of intense debate over the qualifications of department political appointees involved in the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina.


And, that same day, at 0645 Eastern Standard Time, Michelle Malkin was off to the races. Here are a few of her assessments of Ms. Myers as a potential civil servant:



NO MORE CRONYISM: BUSH DHS NOMINEE DOESN'T DESERVE THE JOB
Another disastrous crony appointment in the making

This is Julie Myers, President Bush's nominee to head the the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security.

Her nomination is a joke. A bad joke:

Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman, cited Myers's work with customs agents on money-laundering and drug-smuggling cases. "She's well-known and respected throughout the law enforcement community," Healy said. "She has a proven track record as an effective manager."

Oh, give me a ^*&%$# break and a half! This nomination is a monumental political and policy blunder in the wake of the Michael Brown/FEMA fiasco.

see more at ........
http://smagar.redstate.org/story/2005/9/24/112515/657

John McCain to delay decision on '08 run until '06

John McCain to delay decision on '08 run until '06


NEW YORK Senator John McCain is considering a
2008 run for president, but he says he's unlikely
to run for the Number Two spot.

He tells the New York Daily News yesterday that he
is seriously considering a 2008 bid. However,
McCain says he'll wait until after the 2006 election
to decide about his political future.

McCain, who ran for president in 2000,
was re-elected to a six-year Senate term in 2004.


see more at kvoa.com
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=3958305&nav=HMO6

Senator Jon Kyl formally announces his bid for re-election

Senator Jon Kyl formally announces his bid for re-election

Tuesday, October 11, 2005
In Tucson at 8:00 a.m.

Pima Air and Space Museum
6000 East Valencia

MCCAIN STATEMENT ON DETAINEE AMENDMENTS

MCCAIN STATEMENT ON DETAINEE AMENDMENTS
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, Oct 05, 2005

Washington D.C. ¬– Senator McCain delivered the following statement today from the Senate floor on the Amendment on (1) the Army Field Manual and (2) Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment, amendment #1977:

Mr. President, I call up amendment #1977, which is filed at the desk.

The Department of Defense Appropriations bill is one of the most important funding measures considered by Congress. Equally important is the Department of Defense Authorization bill, and it is very unfortunate that we are forced to consider this funding measure without having completed our important work on the authorization bill. Despite the efforts of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee, who have worked to bring up and dispense with the authorization bill in a reasonable manner, they have been unable to reach an agreement with the leadership. As a result, the authorizers have filed the authorization bill and a procedural vote will occur on it this evening.

The Senate has an obligation to address the authorizing legislation, just as it has an obligation to deal with the issue that apparently led to the bill being pulled from the floor – America’s treatment of its detainees. Several weeks ago I received a letter from Captain Ian Fishback, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, and a veteran of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over 17 months he struggled to get answers from his chain of command to a basic question: what standards apply to the treatment of enemy detainees? But he found no answers. In his remarkable letter, he pleads with Congress, asking us to take action, to establish standards, to clear up the confusion – not for the good of the terrorists, but for the good of our soldiers and our country. The Captain closes his letter by saying, “I strongly urge you to do justice to your men and women in uniform. Give them clear standards of conduct that reflect the ideals they risk their lives for.” I believe that the Congress has a responsibility to answer this call – a call that has come not just from this one brave soldier but from so many of our men and women in uniform.

We owe it to them, Mr. President. We sent them to fight for us in Afghanistan and Iraq. We placed extraordinary pressure on them to extract intelligence from detainees. But then we threw out the rules that our soldiers had trained on, and replaced them with a confusing and constantly changing array of standards. We demanded intelligence without ever clearly telling our troops what was permitted and what was forbidden. And then when things went wrong, we blamed them and we punished them. We have to do better than that.

I can understand why some administration lawyers might want ambiguity, so that every hypothetical option is theoretically open, even those the President has said he does not want to exercise. But war does not occur in theory, and our troops are not served by ambiguity. They are crying out for clarity. The Congress cannot shrink from this duty, we cannot hide our heads, pulling bills from the floor and avoiding votes. We owe it to our soldiers, during this time of war, to take a stand.

And so while I would prefer to offer this amendment to the DOD Authorization bill, I am left with no choice but to offer it to this appropriations measure. I would note that I am offering this amendment in accordance with the options afforded under Rule 16 of the Standing Rules of the Senate. The amendment I will now offer combines the two amendments that I previously filed to the authorizing measure.

This amendment would (1) establish the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of Department of Defense detainees and (2) prohibit cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in the detention of the U.S. government.

Mr. President, to fight terrorism we need intelligence. That much is obvious. What should also be obvious is that the intelligence we collect must be reliable and acquired humanely, under clear standards understood by all our fighting men and women. To do differently would not only offend our values as Americans, but undermine our war effort, because abuse of prisoners harms – not helps – us in the war on terror. First, subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop. Second, mistreatment of our prisoners endangers U.S. troops who might be captured by the enemy – if not in this war, then in the next. And third, prisoner abuses exact on us a terrible toll in the war of ideas, because inevitably these abuses become public. When they do, the cruel actions of a few darken the reputation of our country in the eyes of millions. American values should win against all others in any war of ideas, and we can’t let prisoner abuse tarnish our image.

And yet reports of detainee abuse continue to emerge, in large part, I believe, because of confusion in the field as to what is permitted and what is not. The amendment I am proposing will go a long way toward clearing up this confusion.

Army Field Manual

The first part of this amendment would establish the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of Department of Defense detainees. The Army Field Manual and its various editions have served America well, through wars against both regular and irregular foes. It embodies the values Americans have embraced for generations, while preserving the ability of our interrogators to extract critical intelligence from ruthless foes. Never has this been more important than today, in the midst of the war on terror.

The Army Field Manual authorizes interrogation techniques that have proven effective in extracting life-saving information from the most hardened enemy prisoners. It is consistent with our laws and, most importantly, our values. Let us not forget that al-Qaeda sought not just to destroy American lives on September 11, but American values – our way of life and all we cherish. We fight not just to preserve our lives and liberties but also American values, and we will never allow the terrorists to take those away. In this war that we must win - that we will win - we must never simply fight evil with evil.

This amendment would establish the Army Field Manual as the standard for interrogation of all detainees held in DOD custody. The Manual has been developed by the Executive Branch for its own uses, and a new edition, written to take into account the needs of the war on terror and with a new classified annex, is due to be issued soon. My amendment would not set the Field Manual in stone – it could be changed at any time.

The advantage of setting a standard for interrogation based on the Field Manual is to cut down on the significant level of confusion that still exists with respect to which interrogation techniques are allowed. The Armed Services Committee has held hearings with a slew of high-level Defense Department officials, from regional commanders, to judge advocate generals, to the Department’s deputy general counsel. A chief topic of discussion in these hearings was what specific interrogation techniques are permitted in what environments, with which DOD detainees, by whom, and when. And the answers have included a whole lot of confusion. If the Pentagon’s top minds can’t sort these matters out after exhaustive debate and preparation, how in the world do we expect our enlisted men and women to do so?

Confusion about the rules results in abuses in the field. We need a clear, simple, and consistent standard, and we have it in the Army Field Manual on Interrogation. That’s not just my opinion, but that of many more distinguished military minds than mine. I would refer you to a letter expressing strong support for this amendment, signed by 28 former high-ranking military officers, including General Joseph Hoar, who commanded Centcom; General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; RADM John Hutson and RADM Don Guter, who each served as the Navy’s top JAG; and LTGEN Claudia Kennedy, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Army Intelligence. These and other distinguished officers believe that the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere took place in part because our soldiers received ambiguous instructions, which in some cases authorized treatment that went beyond what the Field Manual allows, and that, had the Manual been followed across the board, we could have avoided the prisoner abuse scandal. Mr. President, wouldn’t any of us do whatever we could to have prevented that? By passing this amendment, our service members can follow the Manual consistently from now on. Our troops deserve no less.

Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment

The second part of this amendment really shouldn’t be objectionable to anyone since I’m actually not proposing anything new. The prohibition against cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment has been a longstanding principle in both law and policy in the United States. Before I get into why this amendment is necessary, let me first review the history.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, states simply that “No one shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the U.S. is a signatory, states the same. The binding Convention Against Torture, negotiated by the Reagan administration and ratified by the Senate, prohibits cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. On last year’s DOD Authorization bill, the Senate passed a bipartisan amendment reaffirming that no detainee in U.S. custody can be subject to torture or cruel treatment, as the U.S. has long defined those terms. All of this seems to be common sense, in accordance with longstanding American values.

But since last year’s DOD bill, a strange legal determination was made that the prohibition in the Convention Against Torture against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment does not legally apply to foreigners held outside the U.S. They can, apparently, be treated inhumanely. This is the administration’s position, even though Judge Abe Soafer, who negotiated the Convention Against Torture for President Reagan, said in a recent letter that the Reagan administration never intended the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment to apply only on U.S. soil.

What all this means is that America is the only country in the world that asserts a legal right to engage in cruel and inhuman treatment. But the crazy thing is that it is not even necessary, because the Administration has said that it will not engage in cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as a matter of policy. What this also means is that confusion about the rules becomes rampant again. We have so many differing legal standards and loopholes that our lawyers and generals are confused – just imagine our troops serving in prisons and the field.

So the amendment I am offering simply codifies what is current policy and reaffirms what was assumed to be existing law for years. In light of the administration’s stated commitment, it should require no change in our current interrogation and detention practices. What it would do is restore clarity on a simple and fundamental question: Does America treat people inhumanely? My answer is no, and from all I’ve seen, America’s answer has always been no.

Mr. President, let me just close by noting that I hold no brief for the prisoners. I do hold a brief for the reputation of the United States of America. We are Americans, and we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they may be. To do otherwise undermines our security, but it also undermines our greatness as a nation. We are not simply any other country. We stand for something more in the world – a moral mission, one of freedom and democracy and human rights at home and abroad. We are better than these terrorists, and we will we win. The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don’t deserve our sympathy. But this isn’t about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger looks to Mccain

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger looks to Mccain

is turning to one of the best known political reformers
Arizona Senator John McCain
for help promoting his "year of reform"
ballot initiatives.


http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=3952932&nav=HMO6

A Time For McCain?

A Time For McCain?

Only 29 percent of Americans say they trust government,
down from 40 percent in 2000.
McCainism -- whether practiced by the senator or by
some other charismatic campaigner
will eventually have its moment.





http://www.washingtonpost.com

Peace mom meets Senator McCain

Peace mom meets Senator McCain
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has met with a prominent lawmaker who supports the Iraq war. Sheehan thanked Senator John McCain for meeting with her Tuesday, but she came away disappointed.

The Arizona Republican also seemed disappointed in the Washington meeting. He says it had been misrepresented to him as including some of his constituents. Only one person in Sheehan's small delegation has ties to the state, and that person no longer lives there.



see more at.....
http://www.kcentv.com/news/c-article.php?cid=3&nid=3969