In a profile piece on John McCain for Fortune Magazine adviser Charlie Black says:
On national security McCain wins. We saw how that might play out early in the campaign, when one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy – this according to McCain’s chief strategist, Charlie Black. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an “unfortunate event,” says Black. “But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us.” As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,” says Black.
John McCain responded to the piece saying:
Meanwhile Black told reporters he regretted the comments:
“I deeply regret the comments. They were inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration.”
MoveOn.org had previously launched an attack on Black for representing “some of the world’s worst tyrants” while working for his form Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly.
Senators Obama and Clinton will campaign together this Friday in the town of Unity New Hampshire. Not only is the name symbolic but during the primary both candidates received the exact same amount of votes there, 107. NH will likely be a battleground state this November.
Thursday the candidates will meet privately together with high dollar Clinton donors.
Today John McCain is proposing a $300 Million dollar government award to whomever can create a new car battery capable of delivering power at 30% of today’s costs and have “the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.” The prize equates roughly the cost of $1 per person in the U.S. and something McCain calls “a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency.”
A similar approach was taken to commercial space travel under the X-Prize Foundation, which under the Ansari X PRIZE, awarded Burt Rutan $10 Million in 2004 for building a private suborbital spacecraft. The challenge resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in research and development by private teams who competed. Similar prizes for medicine, lunar exploration and yes automotive are currently being pursued.
From the New York Post in light of the recent Supreme Court decision to grant Habeas Corpus rights to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Senator Obama’s foreign policy advisers say if Osama bin Laden is captured he should have the right to defend his case in court.
Monroe Rising notes that this would mean the presumption that Osama bin Laden is innocent of the crimes of 9/11 until a court of law finds him guilty.
Obama also noted on June 18th that he would like to see bin Laden adjudicated in the manner of the Nazi War Crime Tribunals at Nuremberg. However, as John McCain noted on his Web site Nazi War criminals were not given habeas
“Unfortunately, it is clear Senator Obama does not understand what happened at the Nuremberg trials and what procedures were followed. There was no habeas at Nuremberg and there should be no habeas for Osama bin Laden….By citing a historical precedent that does not include habeas, he sends a signal of confusion and indecision to our allies and adversaries and the American people.”
Habeas Corpus is the right of those detained by the United States to be taken to court so that their case can be heard to determine if their detention is lawful or not. The police or the government, for example, cannot simply grab a person off the street and put them in jail with no cause or evidence that you have committed a crime. If they attempt it, you have the legal right as a person to have your case heard. This was not the case until this decision for those prisoners at Guantanamo Bay who were captured by the government in War as members of a stateless terrorist group. The Supreme Court granted these prisoners the right to be taken to court and forces the Government to make their case against them known.
During the Nuremberg trials, no such right existed under American law because they were being tried, in Germany under an international tribunal. While Obama may have been describing conditions whereby Nazi War criminals were given a trial, they did not appear to have the right to question their detention.
Many on the right are juxtaposing Obama’s profession as a Constitutional Law scholar with this very obvious historical and legal misstep.
Fundraising numbers for the month of may are in and while Senator Obama raised $22 million, by any normal measure an amazing haul, it was his weakest month for the year and came as his rival Senator McCain pulled $21 million marking his best month of the year. The two are about equal, Obama with $33 million cash on hand to use until the convention and McCain $31.6 million cash on hand to use until the convention.
The numbers also showed that Senator Hillary Clinton’s personal campaign loans totaled $12.175 million. Interestingly enough Clinton also raised $23 million for the general election, money she cannot use to pay off her campaign debts or to pay back her personal loans.
Right now Senators Obama and McCain are in a fight over drilling, energy policy and the best way forward for the country. While McCain is urging for more domestic oil production through offshore and ANWAR drilling, Obama is coming out strong against it. His reasoning? Drilling will not change the price of oil in the short term.
“Believe me – if I thought that there was any evidence at all that drilling could save people money who are struggling to fill up their tanks by this summer or this year or even the next few years, I would consider it. But it won’t. And John McCain knows that.”
Obama’s plan in the short term is to tax oil companies profits and then give the money to people through $1000 tax cuts and rebate checks. While this is an interesting plan, wouldn’t oil companies simply pass off the new taxes to the consumer? Meanwhile Obama is opposed to McCain’s short term plan of providing relief from taxes on oil at the pump, a move that would certainly low prices, though it is questionable what effect it would ultimately have to the pocketbook.
Meanwhile Obama’s only other plan would also take time. While it is estimated 10 years would need to pass for more drilling to take effect, Senator Obama’s plan of investing $150 billion over the next ten years in clean, affordable, renewable sources of energy would also take at least ten years, maybe more, to show substantial changes in the way we produce and use energy.
So in effect, neither side can really change the way we use or produce energy in the short term and yet both sides are attacking one another. Shouldn’t we be doing both? Producing more domestic oil AND promoting energy conservation and new technology? Combined we could start seeing real change in the next few years with the knowledge that both will take time to go into full effect.
Both sides are touting “comprehensive” plans, but neither side is truly comprehensive without the other. So in short, while both stand opposed to the other, neither side is complete.
For weeks now the McCain campaign has been hitting Michelle Obama over her comments that she did not feed pride for her country until her husbands campaign for president. Just yesterday Cindy McCain, wife of the Senator, personally took a shot at Ms. Obama over the comment. Now Dan Abrams of MSNBC has this piece showing McCain telling FOX News he did not “love America” until he was a POW. Further MSNBC has found that during the 2000 campaign this statement was a running theme of the McCain camp.
The AP reports that a day after meeting with Obama’s VP selection team Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick has revealed former Senators Sam Nunn & John Edwards are on the list of potential running mates.
“We’ve been brainstorming in the Congressional Black Caucus. Former Senator Sam Nunn’s name has come up, as well as John Edwards’ name has come up among our CBC members. I reported that to them and they had both of those names on their list,” Kilpatrick said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Kilpatrick said she made several suggestions during the 45-minute meeting, including former Vice President Al Gore, Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. Gore endorsed Obama on Monday.
After suggesting he would help reform the election system by utilizing the federal public financing system in a general campaign, Senator Barack Obama has now announced he will instead opt out.