McCain heckled for accepting most money from Big Oil.
By on Jun 19th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
McCain heckled for accepting most money from Big Oil.
Last night during a townhall event in Missouri, John McCain was confronted by a protester who yelled out that he had accepted a half million dollars this year from “big oil.” “That’s more than any other senator!” the protester said. “How can you be trusted?” (Raw Story has the video.) Later, McCain was asked about this in a news conference. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. So I can’t respond,” McCain said. The Wall Street Journal informs:
Indeed, McCain does lead all other senators, and all others who ran for president, in contributions from the oil and gas industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ analysis of federal data in the 2007-08 election cycle. McCain collected $724,000 through May.
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Nelson says:
Ha Haw!!
June 19th, 2008 at 7:11 pmStick with that answer, it’s the most truthful one you got!
June 19th, 2008 at 7:14 pm“I don’t know what he’s talking about. So I can’t respond,” McCain said.
This man is running for President of the United States, and he is an improvement over the current one.
This is the best republicans can do.
McCain does know what the protester’s talking about.
He’s copping the Ronald Reagan lines “I don’t know, I don’t remember, I can’t hear you”
June 19th, 2008 at 7:18 pmGeorge Bush “rising fuel prices are like a tax”
Those tax like oil prices drive record corporate profits, which are then dispensed to industry chiefs via “pay for performance.” Ironic, that they’re getting a portion of your tax money. And ignore the royalty free oil they’re drawing from the Gulf of Mexico.
Oil company PAC’s are flush with donations and searching for political influence to purchase. Big oil spends beaucoup bucks on lobbyists as citizens’ backsides go into flame from the mere act of pulling up at the pump.
As the biggest beneficiary of oil greased political donations, Senator John McCain feeds off “your tax money”. Are you tired of the carbon fuel smoke and mirrors yet?
June 19th, 2008 at 7:18 pmThe guy shoulda said “three-quarters of a million”.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:20 pm“I don’t know what he’s talking about. So I can’t respond,” McCain said.
Well, at least he is honest. McAlzheimers has lost his mind. Poor guy.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:22 pmI am Brian Fellows.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:24 pmIs there anyone from whom McCain will not accept money?
June 19th, 2008 at 7:24 pmI’d vote for Brian Fellows before I voted for McCain. But since I would never vote for McCain, that won’t be a problem.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:25 pmGrampy McSame says – My friends back in the day oil companies were giving money to everyone, our gas cost nothing, they paid us to use the stuff, my horse hated the stuff, and you sure didn’t light a match around the backend him either, now people claim that I have taken more money than any other Senator from Big Oil, I don’t know what they are talking about, all the oil guys I know are real Short, not Big at all, and as for that half a million, I don’t know about that at all, it was way more than that, my friends, and how am I gonna gas up the Straight Talk Express without that money, heck, I will have to use Cindy’s credit cards without it…I think I farted a plumb.
Yeah, it’s all in the wording ain’t it Grampy.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:25 pmIs there anyone from whom McCain will not accept money? -WAS-
Larry Sinclair?
June 19th, 2008 at 7:25 pmI guess we have determined that Johnny Boy is a K Street whore, we are just trying to determine his price.
Maybe we should ask all his ‘advisors’ from K Street, I bet they know to the penny, since many of them work for ‘Big Awl’.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:33 pmFrom RrOoGgEeRr’s link.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:34 pmWayne A. Schneider Says:
Is there anyone from whom McCain will not accept money?
He’s desperate.
He is lagging in funds raised.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:36 pmHe doesn’t have millions of people donating $10 up to Obama.
Most of those people probably wouldn’t go to one of McCain’s $1000 a plate dinners. heh
Is anyone keeping count as to how many times McCain has pulled the “I don’t know” defense in the past few months? Seems like it happens almost every day lately.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:36 pmbigeugene Says:
Is anyone keeping count as to how many times McCain has pulled the “I don’t know” defense in the past few months? Seems like it happens almost every day lately.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
We asked him but he said he didn’t remember.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:40 pmbigeugene Says:
Is anyone keeping count as to how many times McCain has pulled the “I don’t know” defense in the past few months? Seems like it happens almost every day lately.
I do think we will see that more and more as the campaign goes on; it allows Johnny Boy to appeal to the other mentally diminished people in the homes and living with their kids. After all, it did work for Ronnie Ray-gunz.
Still, kinda creepy for the leader of the Free World, don’t ya think?
June 19th, 2008 at 7:41 pmrogerse Says:
How many wildlife preserve drilling leases does $461k buy?
June 19th, 2008 at 7:44 pm(I did the math for you: $724k-$263k.)
“I don’t know what he’s talking about.” What a liar McCain is. He’s not forgetting, he’s lying.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:48 pm4 million gallons. Thats not a spill..
snarkon
June 19th, 2008 at 8:13 pmOh, Mr. McCain, this is the oil lobby calling, can we have our money back. We can’t count on you to do our bidness if you don’t even know that we own you.
June 19th, 2008 at 8:18 pmI thought I’d feel better when McCain just admitted he “didn’t know,” but really, it’s no comfort.
The man scares me, and I’m fearless.
June 19th, 2008 at 9:39 pmMore and more ae catching on to the Big Oil scam. Listening to progressive radio today topics were in the area of:
* we need to investigate Cheney’s secret energy meetings during the beginning of his first term
* Big oil getting no bid contracts in Iraq
* MSM directing topics of high gas prices to off shore drilling as a solution. As it turns out this would not be a solution but has been a distraction
* The Dems have been the scapegoat for high gas prices… it is the liberals fault as they will not allow drilling
And the best conversations I have heard today:
WE NEED TO NATIONALIZE OUR GAS!
June 19th, 2008 at 9:42 pmCan’t wait for the debate, when Obama sticks one to him, and he replies (with hands over ears) Naah! Can’t hear you! Naaah!
June 19th, 2008 at 10:54 pmEven if Obama did accept money from oil company EMPLOYEES (not corporations), it still doesn’t mean anything if Obama is opposed to drilling in ANWR and the coasts.
The REAL problem here is that McCain is pushing for this extra drilling in sensitive environmental areas and getting over 3/4 of a million dollars from actual oil companies! Not the employees, but the companies themselves…get it? It’s no wonder he’s pushing to drill…considering he was opposed to it in the past. I guess money does talk and it’s coming from McCain’s mouth.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:17 pmAnybody remember the Teapot Dome scandle? About 100 years ago, the first “fundamentalist” movement was spearheaded by William McKinley. A faithful advocate of business (and, if memory serves, a Yale grad), the industrialists got their hooks into the White House through the “religous faithful”. Not long after, Warren Harding was elected by a powerful group of businessmen, many of who wound up in Hardy’s cabinet. Until the current administration, [which of course is populated with the same kind of cronies and business partners] Harding ran the most corrupt White House in history. Just before he died in office, the “liberal” opposition discovered that a couple of cabinet members had diverted the naval oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming to themselves. When Harding died, Calvin Collidge took over and spent his days in the oval office cleaning up the scandle and “preserving the existing economic order.” All the while, Herbert Hoover was Secretary of Commerce working hand in hand with the power elite of the day. Elected by the same “conservatives” he served in his last job, Hoover led this nation into the Great Depression with a cultlike “devotion” to letting business fix its own problems and “preaching” that the federal government was too big and was involved in economic areas it hadno power over. With the advise and cousel of Chief Justice Howard Taft and a conservative Supreme Court, the nation went bankrupt protecting their fundamentalist “power base” and its supply side economic theories.
Now you may be thinking, “what in the world has this got to do with McCain and the oil companies?” Well, it seems to me that social and economic conditions of 2008 are not all that different from 1908. Fundamentalists rose from the ashes of the civil war around 1880. Fundamentalist christians, in the persona of Jerry Falwell, rose in 1978 from the ashes of Vietnam. The was an industrial revolution at the end of the 19th Century and a technolgical revolution at the end of the 20th Century. Supply side economic were all the rage in 1880, then brought back from the dead by Ronald Regan in 1980.
Throughout the early part of the 20th Century we had deplorable working conditions and child labor, massive immigration from Europe, a World War, and small portion of the population making enourmous amounts of money while large segments of the population were living in poverty, and prohibition created violent crime at a time where media and communications had reached a level of distribution cable of reaching almost everyone. Women were descriminated against, medical care was expensive and hard to find, and our politicians were committed to preserving the status quo for their wealthy “power base”. eems to me, that although our society is much larger and far more complex, the social issues we face are pretty much the same.
On the economic side, one need only look at our nations reports to the WTO from 1996 to 2008 to see the devastating effect Bush’s elitist economic policies have had on our economy, and for the second time in a Bush administration we are faced with an economic crisis arising out of residential mortgage financing. Did you know that not did George Bush an his father make their money in the oils business, but George H.W. Bush’s father, Prescott Bush, and his uncle were investment bankers? Do you remember the failure of the savings and loans in the 1990’s? Do you think it is simply a coincidence that the sub-prime mortgage industry was financed by foreign investment and fell apart under Bush’s watch? Do you find it curious that it was a conservative Supreme Court that backed Herbert Hoover’s economic policies in the 1920’s and 30’s, and that Bush was elected to office by the very next “conservative” Supreme Court?
I read somewhere that, “fundamentalism thrives in conditions of economic and social crisis”. Like a security blanket or a safe harbor, religious teachings become more intollerant and political when in times of hardship and change. When secularism and modernity begins to challenge the statue quo, fundamentalist politicians pray on the fear and uncertainty of the faithful to obtain power and influence. Something along the lines of “money is the root of all evil.”
McCain, like Coolidge, is offering his services to the fundamentalists by adopting a policy of more of the same. Like Coolidge, he is not a bad person nor is he responsible for Bush’s stubborness and corrupt administration. He can’t get elected on his own merit so he needs the support of the powers that be to get over the hump. If he succeeds, history tells us that we will be lulled to sleep by his efforts to clean up Bush’s corruption, so that a really corrupt fundamentalist can sneak in behind him and really use the oval office to conduct his personal business affairs.
The Great Depression ended when Roosevelt defeated Hoover in a landslide election. By my way of thinking, Obama needs the same margin of victory to put this horrible era behinds us and get on with things like saving our environment and apologing to our friends and neighbors for being so arrogant and imperialistic. It is and remains my true hope that Obama and Clinton will set aside their differences and agree to run on the same ticket to insure a margin of victory that will send a mandate, not a message, to all fundamentalists that America has again defeated thier plague and we can again devote our attention and tremendous wealth to public policies that benefit mankind, not just a particular kind of man.
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:08 am