McCain and his record against the Vet population
 

here is something I am curious that hasn't been brought up......yet


How is it that John McCain and vet and a POW (like we don't know already) has supposedly shown no love for his fellow soldiers? We are supposed to respect him because he is a war hero but he has constantly voted time and time again against bills going thru congress to keep vets from having a better life after serving our country.

Take a look.

This is what the AFL-CIO has to say about him:

McCAIN HAS NOT DELIVERED ON HIS PROMISES TO VETERANS

Union members respect Sen. John McCain’s service to our country. When will he start respecting ours? Although McCain talks about his support for veterans, he repeatedly votes against increased funding for veterans’ health care—and more. We call on John McCain to join us in supporting our veterans and working to turn around America.

McCAIN REPEATEDLY VOTED AGAINST VETERANS’ HEALTH BENEFITS

McCain Opposes the 21st Century GI Bill Because It Is Too Generous. McCain did not vote on the GI Bill that will provide better educational opportunities to veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, paying full tuition at in-state schools and living expenses for those who have served at least three years since the 9/11 attacks. McCain said he opposes the bill because he thinks the generous benefits would “encourage more people to leave the military.” (S.Amdt. 4803 to H.R. 2642, Vote 137, 5/22/08; Chattanooga Times Free Press, 6/2/08; Boston Globe, 5/23/08; ABCNews.com, 5/26/08)

McCain Voted Against Increased Funding for Veterans’ Health Care. Although McCain told voters at a campaign rally that improving veterans’ health care was his top domestic priority, he voted against increasing funding for veterans’ health care in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. (Greenville News, 12/12/2007; S.Amdt. 2745 to S.C.R. 95, Vote 40, 3/10/04; Senate S.C.R. 18, Vote 55, 3/16/05; S.Amdt. 3007 to S.C.R. 83, Vote 41, 3/14/06; H.R. 1591, Vote 126, 3/29/07)

Opposed an Assured Funding Stream for Veterans’ Health Care. McCain opposed providing an assured funding stream for veterans’ health care, taking into account annual changes in veterans’ population and inflation. (S.Amdt. 3141 to S.C.R. 83, Vote 63, 3/16/06)



and that is just three...take a look at this link and all the back as far as 1994 you can see his pattern.

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/mccain_vets.cfm


also...

The Pentagon had been withholding significant information from POW families for years. What's more, the Pentagon's POW/MIA operation had been publicly shamed by internal whistleblowers and POW families for holding back documents as part of a policy of "debunking" POW intelligence even when the information was obviously credible. The pressure from the families and Vietnam veterans finally produced the creation, in late 1991, of a Senate "Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs." The chair was John Kerry, but McCain, as a POW, was its most pivotal member. In the end, the committee became part of the debunking machine.

Included in the evidence that McCain and his government allies suppressed or tried to discredit is a transcript of a senior North Vietnamese general's briefing of the Hanoi Politburo, discovered in Soviet archives by an American scholar in the 1990s. The briefing took place only four months before the 1973 peace accords. The general, Tran Van Quang, told the Politburo members that Hanoi was holding 1,205 American prisoners but would keep many of them at war's end as leverage to ensure getting reparations from Washington.





that is a portion of the article...read the rest here:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/schanberg

I hate when there's an allegation that so and so voted "against" some group of people, then references a bill or a group of bills, as above, without further explanation.

For all we know, those were bad bills, or veterans benefits were ancillary issues attached to other bills.

At worst, these sorts of "articles" are lies, at best, they're extremely misleading.

This is no better than posting political forwards out of your email inbox.

Kevin there is a link back to the website that hold this information, you at your leisure, may wish to look at them yourself and see what you come up with...also as stated above are bill numbers for easy reference...this isn't just a 'random' e mail forward, this is info pulled from a source.

Don't be afraid to click the link.

At the very worst it could be the truth.

Yes, I'm sure the AFLCIO and The Nation would never dream of publishing misleading political information.

Having just the vote itself is only a small piece of the issue. We don't know the details of the whole bill, we don't know what was debated, nor do we know why someone voted the way they did.

I randomly looked at one of these 'no' votes (adding 430 million to the V.A. outpatient care, some amendment to a larger bill in '06). The Republican "no" votes were:

Sam Brownback, Tom Coburn, Larry Craig, Michael Crapo, John Ensign, Michael Enzi, Judd Gregg, James Inhofe, John McCain, Jeff Sessions, John Sununu, Craig Thomas, David Vitter
That's pretty good company as far as I'm concerned.

I just have to say, having met two of those three men, they are disgusting and so are you.

Tom Coburn is a great guy. I have more respect for him than just about anyone in Congress. Inhofe has done a hell of a lot of good for Oklahoma. He created a lot of jobs and wealth when he brought the assembly plant for the most aptly-named weapons system to probably be deployed in the middle east to Elgin, OK (I'm talking about the "Crusader," of course).

Anyhow, the folks on that list have extremely strong credentials as far as supporting the military goes, so when they vote no on a bill like that, I trust they had a damned good reason to do so.

I was about to ask was there further explanation on why it was voted down.

I hate it when either candidate says "So-and-so voted # times AGAINST this awesome thing" without offering an explanation as to why they voted against it. Like - John McCain voting against funding for the war because it had a timeline, not because he didn't think the troops needed funding.

People think it's so cut and dry but it never is - with all the pork added in to some of these bills it's almost impossible NOT to pass them if you don't want to get flack later on, because it can be turned around any which way that you voted against something that's important to however many people.

Well, I won't take the AFL-CIO's word for stuff, but I did get the congressional report card from IAVA (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America) just now and looked up the presidential candidates, in addition to my own representatives. They used 9 votes in this past session (including the new GI bill and VA funding) as criteria. McCain got a grade like many other vet organizations have given gim: D. Obama got a B.

http://www.veteranreportcard.org/

doesn't help when you are not voting.

(emphasis added)

ETA: Never mind.

You know, the Nation is not a publication that has the best interest of our armed forces in mind. Are there any veterans' advocacy groups that have endorsed one of the candidates, or at least described what each candidate's recent record has been regarding veterans in the Senate?

I find it very hard to believe that McCain would vote against a veterans' bill because he was being a meanie.

DS, you're beginning to look like a left-wing Tom Earp. That's never good.

Hey Kevin -- given the source, I'd take this as a compliment.

Kstar's fine.. as soon as the election is over, she'll revert back to being a (semi) normal person. I take everything she says with a big 'ol grain of salt.

I've been called much worse.

ETA: If she's saying I'm anything like Tom Coburn, thank you. I don't agree with him on social issues, but I line up with him on just about everything else.

yes I totally agree. The AFLCIO link was posted (I believe) on the McCain's running mate thread, but I still didn't pay much attention to it. There is a reason why McCain, a veteran, would vote against these bills. Maybe there was a stipulation in there that he didn't agree with.

Ignoring the AFL/CIO and The Nation are fine, but why is everyone skipping over what scbelle posted? I think it's interesting info. if a veteran's advocacy group gives only 4 Senators a grade of "D" and McCain is one of them. http://www.veteranreportcard.org/list.html

I checked it, I saw the "A" list consisted primarily of Democrats, whereas just about all (if not all) of their unacceptable folks were the Republicans who would self-identify as fiscally conservative.

The report card is based upon 22 votes by Congress and how the congressmen voted on those "key" 22 issues. It's not surprising that Republicans would be voting against these bills, drafted by Democrats, with God knows what else in them.

I can't get the website to show me what the particular 22 issues were (it stalls when I query the page), but I'm guessing we don't have links to the full bills or the explanation as to why someone might have voted the way they did and whether their motivation had anything to do with screwing veterans.

I can't get to the pages showing what their scored votes were or their legislative agenda either. But yeah their "A" list is most of the Democrats in the Senate which indicates that their scoring is probably not as well focused as some of the big scorecards on other issues. And since their main scored vote seems to have been the GI bill I looked up why Republicans voted against it:

From Politico.com at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9966.html
So it seems that Republicans voted against it because the Secretary of Defense said that it would hurt troop retention and they had their own alternative which focused on troop retention but the Democrats just passed their version without trying to negotiate on it. That would explain Republican "No" votes on the bill which was the main focus of the scorecard and thus why Democrats have all the A votes and the most pro-military members of the Senate having a "D".

How is not voting for bills that would expand the power of government automatically voting against anyone?

It's "against" the poor soul who gets less of my money handed to them because they happen to fall into a certain category of people more favored by the government.

You can read all the descriptions and all the votes here -- http://www.veteranreportcard.org/reportcard.pdf To be fair, after digging in to the Senate side, McCain was absent for 6 of the votes; of the 4 votes he cast, 3 were 'with' veterans, 1 was 'against'. So they must still be holding the absences as non-support for their issues.

ETA: and to the vote discussed above regarding the GI Bill, read the veterans description of that, it took 3 iterations and three votes on that issue, the veterans saw the Republican push to stop the original bill as "keeping" educational benefits out of reach of veterans because they felt it would help troop retention -- this may be a perspective thing, but some may see that as the worst kind of political manipulation, instead of fulfilling the promises of joining the military, serving and earning the right to education benefits and more options in life, they maneuver to keep soldiers with military as their only option or change the terms of their deal to 'earn' the educational rights previously offered by the GI Bill. I don't see how that can be defined as "pro-military".

I wanna know how McCain got a "D." They picked 9 key votes, McCain agreed with them 3 times, and the other 6 were "not scored."

http://i38.tinypic.com/6iqqzc.jpg

I don't know how they are doing it, but it seems there are many "passed" and "Agreed to" statuses. Why didn't they score the first 6?


ETA: I will admit I haven't looked around the website much but it is a website for Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans. It seems a lot of those bills & things are for those veterans and not for veterans of other wars (like my dad who fought in Vietnam)

This is why I rarely pay heed to the "my opponent voted for/against X umpty-dumpty times" claims, regardless of who makes them. Legislation is rarely that cut-and-dry. Even if you support the ultimate goal of a particular bill, there can still be very valid reasons to vote against that bill.

The question is...when those votes came up, was McCain in those sessions?


If not where was he and why wasn't he there?

kevin you did see the search tool that allows you to place your representative of choice in it and pull thier record up right?

The PDF claimed he was "Absent" in those votes. Obama was absent in votes as well, so you can ask yourself the same question (where was he and why wasn't he there).

Plus Obama got 2 extra points for the 9/11 bill, while McCain didn't. IMHO, i would have agreed with McCain.

Nope, when I checked the site, it was running slow and a lot of things were freezing up when I queried them.

As the above posters mentioned, knowing what a Congressman's vote on a particular issue happens to be is not enough information to form a conclusion as to anything.