"Straight Talk" - McCain's Acceptance Speech

It's seriously troubling that McCain lies his ass off whenever he talks about policy proposals. Thankfully, the non-partisan Annenberg Political Fact-Check has looked into McCain's acceptance speech and pointed out the many false and misleading statements (it certainly saved me some time).

Here is the shorter, bullet-point version:

• McCain claimed that Obama’s health care plan would "force small businesses to cut jobs" and would put "a bureaucrat ... between you and your doctor." In fact, the plan exempts small businesses, and those who have insurance now could keep the coverage they have.
  
  
• McCain attacked Obama for voting for "corporate welfare" for oil companies. In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels.
  
  
• McCain said oil imports send "$700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much." But the U.S. is on track to import a total of only $536 billion worth of oil at current prices, and close to a third of that comes from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
  
  
• He promised to increase use of "wind, tide [and] solar" energy, though his actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy. He has said elsewhere that renewable sources won’t produce as much as people think.
  
  
• He called for "reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs," but as in the past failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce.
  
  
• He said Obama would "close" markets to trade. In fact, Obama, though he once said he wanted to "renegotiate" the North American Free Trade Agreement, now says he simply wants to try to strengthen environmental and labor provisions in it.

Part I: "I'm the only one the special interests don't give money to." False.
Part II: "Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues." False.
Part III: "Romney provided taxpayer-funded abortions." Highly misleading.
Part IV: "Iran[] taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." Unsupported.
Part V: "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels" False.
Part VI: "Saddam Hussein is on a crash course to construct a nuclear weapon." False.
Part VII: "Not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage." False.
Part VIII: "I have not missed any crucial vote" on renewable energy. False.

Straight Talk - Part VIII

John McCain (R-AZ), the most absent Senator this session, recently said this at the Aspen Institute:

McCAIN: I have a long record of that support of alternate energy. … I’ve always been for all of those and I have not missed any crucial vote. But my citizens in Arizona know that when I’m running for the President of the United States I have to be out campaigning.

Here is the video:


This claim is simply untrue. As the Center for American Progress points out:

McCain’s has actually missed several “crucial” energy votes. In July alone, he missed every single energy vote brought to the floor. This session, McCain has skipped votes supporting renewable energy tax credits four times, all of which were filibustered. In June, for example, McCain missed a vote on the landmark Lieberman-Warner climate change legislation.

McCain has also been the “crucial” absent vote on key legislation. In December, legislation stripping tax break giveaways to Big Oil and investing in cleaner sources failed by one vote, 59-40 (Vote #425); McCain missed that vote to campaign. In February, McCain skipped a vote on extending tax credits to renewables, which also failed by one vote (Vote #8). Both times, McCain was the only senator absent.

“It’s interesting to hear Sen. McCain talk about bringing Congress back” for a vote on offshore drilling, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said this week. “He wasn’t even in Congress when we had two very important bills on energy.”

As far as him being "for all of those" alternate forms of energy, it's worth pointing out that McCain is willing to heavily subsidize coal and nuclear, but not renewables. When asked by Grist Magazine, he said this:

Grist: What’s your position on subsidies for green technologies like wind and solar?

McCain: I’m not one who believes that we need to subsidize things. The wind industry is doing fine, the solar industry is doing fine.

Yet he calls for $2 billion in taxpayer money every year to subsidize the coal industry, and calls for 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 (which will necessarily require heavy taxpayer subsidies to the nuclear industry).

Part I: "I'm the only one the special interests don't give money to." False.
Part II: "Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues." False.
Part III: "Romney provided taxpayer-funded abortions." Highly misleading.
Part IV: "Iran[] taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." Unsupported.
Part V: "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels" False.
Part VI: "Saddam Hussein is on a crash course to construct a nuclear weapon." False.
Part VII: "Not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage." False.

Straight Talk - Part VII

Recently, John McCain has been going around and saying things like this:

"As for offshore drilling, it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston."

Here is the video:


But it's not just John McCain. This has been a popular myth, reverberating in the echo chamber lately:


Notice especially how McCain's campaign adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer (who, incidentally, was the top lobbyist for Koch Industries) says that "We withstood Hurricanes Rita and Katrina and didn’t spill a drop."

This is quite simply a bald-faced lie, designed to promote McCain's off-shore drilling plan (which will do nothing whatsoever to gas prices, and will only marginally divert oil profits from Canadian to American companies - and not even that will happen for another decade). Either that, or McCain heard it from one of his oil-lobbyist campaign advisers and simply repeated it as truth (which is equally troubling, since McCain isn't very smart and these are the people who are responsible for designing his policy proposals for him).

In reality, as some of us remember, there were plenty of oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico during Katrina and Rita. Here is a satellite picture of one:


In fact, the Minerals Management Service wrote an entire report on the damage that was done (read it here). Among the findings:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused 124 Offshore Spills For A Total Of
743,700 Gallons. 554,400 gallons were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 189,000 gallons were refined products from platforms and rigs. [MMS, 1/22/07]

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused Six Offshore Spills Of 42,000 Gallons Or Greater. The largest of these was 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshold considered a “major spill.” [MMS, 5/1/06]

When will the news networks pick up on this and label McCain a liar? The media was all over Al Gore back in 2000 (for some statements they willfully misinterpreted as lies), yet McCain gets treated like some sort of "straight-talk" maverick.

UPDATE: Is anybody surprised by this:

"Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain
last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for
an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and
$208,000 in May."

Part I: "I'm the only one the special interests don't give money to." False.
Part II: "Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues." False.
Part III: "Romney provided taxpayer-funded abortions." Highly misleading.
Part IV: "Iran[] taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." Unsupported.
Part V: "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels" False.
Part VI: "Saddam Hussein is on a crash course to construct a nuclear weapon." False.

Straight Talk - Part VI

October 10, 2002:

"Saddam Hussein is on a crash course to construct a nuclear weapon."

As we know by now, this one just plain wasn't true. Yet McCain asserted it as fact.

Part I: "I'm the only one the special interests don't give money to." False.
Part II: "Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues." False.
Part III: "Romney provided taxpayer-funded abortions." Highly misleading.
Part IV: "Iran[] taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." Unsupported.
Part V: "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels" False.

Straight Talk - Part V

At a town hall meeting, Sen. McCain (R-AZ) recently had this to say about Iraq:

So I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it’s succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough and there will be setbacks.

Have we really drawn down to pre-surge levels? No. McCain was either lying or misinformed. Neither is very reassuring when the guy is running for President. Also, just to remind everyone, McCain was also mistaken on whether Iran was training Al Qaeda and sending them into Iraq. He was even mistaken as to who declared a ceasefire in Basra. It's really bizarre how this guy has such a reputation for being a "straight-talking" foreign policy expert.

Part I: "I'm the only one the special interests don't give money to." False.
Part II: "Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues." False.
Part III: McCain accuses Romney of going out of his way to provide taxpayer-funded abortions to Massachusetts. False.
Part IV: "Iran[] taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." False.

UPDATE: McCain lies about his statements:


UPDATE II: Obama responds:

Straight Talk - Part IV

Thankfully, Lieberman was there to whisper the correct answer into McCain's ear after he had gotten it wrong several times at a news conference. He quickly backed up and replaced "al Qaeda" with the word "extremists."

Part I: "I'm the only one the special interests don't give money to." False.
Part II: "Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues." False.
Part III: McCain accuses Romney of going out of his way to provide taxpayer-funded abortions to Massachusetts. False.

"Straight Talk" - Part III

Prior to the South Carolina primaries, when he still had some serious Republican opposition, John McCain sent out this horribly misleading mailer about Mitt Romney:


This is a dishonest advertisement. Plain and simple. First, with respect to the claim that "Romney provided taxpayer-funded abortions," it should be noted that Romney did not actually "provide" taxpayer funded abortions. The state law he signed provided expanded health care insurance for low-income residents, but it left the decisions on what to cover to an independent body (the Commonwealth Connector). This independent body (not Romney himself) ruled that abortions should be covered. But the reason why they chose to cover abortions was because of the Massachusetts Constitution itself. It is simply a part of Massachusetts Constitutional law (something Romney really had no control over) that if you provide certain types of health care, you must also provide for medically necessary abortions.

Also, with respect to the claim that Romney "refused to endorse Bush Tax Cut Plan," McCain fails to note that he himself was one of only three Republicans to vote against the Bush Tax Cut Plan. He also spoke out against it on MSNBC. That certainly goes beyond "not endorsing" the tax cut.

This ad does nothing but mislead low-information Republican voters in South Carolina. Yet the press gave McCain a pass on this, and continues to label him a "straight-talking" maverick. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Part I: "I'm the only one the special interests don't give money to." False.
Part II: "Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues." False.

"Straight Talk" - Part II

John McCain recently said this while campaigning in South Carolina:

Mr. McCain called for cutting the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent — which Rudolph W. Giuliani has also called for — as well as making Mr. Bush’s tax cuts permanent, establishing a tax credit for research and development, and repealing the alternative minimum tax.

And Mr. McCain proclaimed himself a believer in the notion that cutting taxes increases revenue for the government by spurring economic growth. “Don’t listen to this siren song about cutting taxes,” Mr. McCain told supporters gathered here under a tent in a driving rain. “Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues. And is there anybody here that needs to have their taxes increased?”

But nobody at the New York Times bothered to check the accuracy of that statement about cutting revenues. The fact that it seems so counterintuitive should have tipped them off.

Jon Chait looked into this claim, and actually went back to the last tax increase - back in 1993. He found revenues to steadily increase.


The same is true for previous tax increases. Notably during WWII, when taxes were increased and revenues quintupled.

Maybe we shouldn't be too surprised about this, given McCain previous admissions:

Take, for example, John McCain’s admission that economics isn’t his thing. “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” he says. “I’ve got Greenspan’s book.”

All in all, John McCain made a very false statement about taxes. For some reason, he got a pass on this, and is still labeled as a "straight talker."

UPDATE: McCain also claims that tax cuts increase revenue.

Part I: "I'm the only one the special interests don't give money to." False.

"Straight Talk" - Part I

Back in November, John McCain had this to say to the voters of New Hampshire:

Everybody says that they’re against the special interests. I’m the only one the special interests don’t give any money to.

This is a lie. Plain and simple. A ridiculous one, at that. McCain has taken plenty of money from special interests.

For example, McCain has taken the second-largest amount in the Senate from lobbyists (just behind Hillary Clinton). He has received the most money in the entire Senate from Telephone & Utilities, whom he also wants to grant retroactive immunity. Even back in 2000, George W. Bush was criticizing McCain for taking money from people who had business before his committees.

This isn't directly related to direct donations, but it's also worth noting that McCain has 59 lobbyists working for his campaign as bundlers. They even conduct their business on the Straight Talk Express bus (which is just a funny image).

Of course, McCain can argue that these lobbyists and special interests who work for and donate to his campaign simply do not influence him. That's fine. But to say that they "don't give any money to" him is outright false. Why is this guy labeled the Maverick Straight-Talker?

UPDATE: Commenter Warren Terra at The Atlantic has more to say on Charlie Black:

Black is listed as McCain's senior advisor, and is accompanying McCain on his tour full-time. Meanwhile, he continues to draw full pay from his lobbying firm, and is an "unpaid volunteer" on the McCain campaign - essentially meaning that Charlie Black's professional services are an unregulated donation from a lobbying firm to the McCain campaign. In what I suppose to be partial mitigation of this Black continues to lobby Congress on behalf of his corporate clients by cell phone from the back of the Straight Talk Express - a bus that happens to be the very focus of Republican hopes for power next year.

The whole situation with Black is emblematic, and it's massively corrupt. The so-called 'Straight Talk Express' should pull over on the side of the road; then, before the bus continues on its way, either the name should be removed from the bus or Black should be.

UPDATE II: Conflicts of interest aside, at least he has some examples such as this to point out:

In 1996, McCain was one of five senators, and the only Republican, to vote against the Telecommunications Act. He did it because he believed the act gave away too much to the telecommunications companies, and protected them from true competition. He noted that AT&T alone gave $780,000 to Republicans and $456,000 to Democrats in the year leading up to the vote.

Bill Clinton and Al Gore can't say the same for themselves.