RIP John McCain

Well, technically, 83% of the time. (h/t @QuinZee33)https://t.co/7F3Gd1sgel

— Joé McKen (@joemcken) August 26, 2018

Actually…my favorite McCain thing was when he shut down the woman at his Town Hall meeting who said Obama was a Muslim, or Arab, or non-American, or whatever rubbish she said. And he shut that down. He didn’t evade it, or give it lip service, or whatever. He shut it down.

Well, to me he was a big part of the CIA-Pentagon-Death-machine. A dark lord in the empire.

I’m glad he’s gone.

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mc cain:http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/08/27/pers-a27.html

“…the Sunday television interview programs on five networks devoted the bulk of their coverage to McCain’s life and career and to fond reminiscences by well-heeled journalists and big-business politicians, Democratic and Republican. “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd noted that McCain was the single most-interviewed person on the program, appearing 73 times in his 36-year political career.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, “Right now I’m just heartbroken. I think America’s in tears about the loss of this great man.” Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted, “John McCain was an American hero, a man of decency and honor and a friend of mine. He will be missed not just in the US Senate but by all Americans who respect integrity and independence.”

In yet another characteristic display of lickspittling subservience to the ruling elite, “socialist” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: “John McCain’s legacy represents an unparalleled example of human decency and American service. As an intern, I learned a lot about the power of humanity in government through his deep friendship with Sen. Kennedy. He meant so much, to so many. My prayers are with his family.”

What does John McCain’s “legacy” consist of? How did he provide “an unparalleled example of human decency and American service”?

McCain spent four years in the House of Representatives and 32 years in the US Senate, but it would be impossible to cite a single piece of legislation with which he was associated that benefited the broad mass of the American people. As far as domestic affairs were concerned, he was best known for voting (in the House) against the bill that established a national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the Senate, he was the lone Republican among the “Keating Five,” senators who lobbied federal regulators on behalf of savings and loan swindler Charles Keating in 1987.

The political embarrassment caused by this episode, in which McCain narrowly avoided sanctions by the Senate Ethics Committee, led to his involvement in a decade-long effort to establish at least token limitations on corporate contributions to political campaigns…. McCain was a reliable vote for the Republican right—for the Gramm-Rudman Act to slash federal social spending… and for (with a few exceptions) measures to deregulate business and cut taxes for the wealthy.

The overriding feature of McCain’s career, however, was his reflexive hawkishness on foreign policy. He supported war after war, intervention after intervention, always promoting the use of force as the primary feature of American foreign policy, and always advocating the maximum allocation of resources to fuel the Pentagon. In his honor, after his diagnosis with brain cancer made it clear that he was unlikely to survive this year, his Senate colleagues named the 2018 version of the Pentagon budget bill the John McCain National Defense Authorization Act….”