Alaskan Wolf Pup Asks Tough Questions About John McCain: Can a Man This Cynical Save Our Children?

[McCamy Taylor]

I am one of the fortunate ones. I was not among the fourteen wolf puppies which were illegally shot and killed in their den as part of Gov. Palin’s aerial wolf kill this summer in Alaska. Someone please tell me what kind of woman launches a big hunt at a time when the momma animals are nursing their newborns? Is that something that responsibly hunters do?

http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/press_releases_folder/2008/07_23_2008_statement_regarding_illegal_killing_of_14_wolf_pups_in_alaska.php

I. Why Doesn’t John McCain Want Our Kids to Be Protected From Predators?

Mike Murphy: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

Chuck Todd: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/212920.php

If someone knows the answer to this question, would they please tell me? I thought that he believed in the Geneva Conventions---you know, not torturing prisoners, since he was once a prisoner of war himself. But cynical John McCain proved us all wrong on that when he went along with Bush and Cheney on torture in order to court the Bush base of conservative Republican voters. I guess there are some things that a seasoned politician like Sen. McCain has to do for votes.

However, there must be limits to how far the most cynical of cynics will go, right? I just sort of assumed that he believed in teaching kids how to defend themselves against sexual predators, since children who are victims of abuse grow up to have so many emotional problems. (John McCain should understand all about post traumatic stress disorder).

But apparently, John McCain does not believe in the programs which are used all across the country by schools, churches and other community organizations to teach children how to recognize “bad touch” and what to do if they encounter a pedophile. Because yesterday, he launched an ad campaign in which he criticized Barack Obama for supporting a bill while he was in Illinois which sought to give school children protection against predators.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/09/mccain-ad-obamas-lone-edu_n_125205.html

Parents who watch that ad and who see it condemn the teaching of “sex” to children as something wrong may hesitate to sign the permission slip that their child brings home---even though McCamy has seen these courses and assures me that there is never any discussion of graphic sexual matters. The instructors talk only about “good touch” and “bad touch” and what the kids should do if they are ever touched in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable.

What happens if some kids do not get this valuable training, because some parents have been confused by John McCain’s misinformation filled ad? And what if one of those kids is approached by a predator, and he does not know he has the right to say “No” to an adult in this situation?

Shame on John McCain for playing politics with the safety and well being of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens! And he claims that he has the moral judgment to keep us safe? He can not even keep our children safe.

II. What Does Gov. Palin Have Against Special Needs Kids and Unwed Mothers?

John McCain is a slippery character. He changes his opinions based upon what people want to hear and calls it "straight talk." It is easier to tell what the governor thinks about things, because she has stated her opinions so clearly. She wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that gave women the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. This has been her position throughout her political career. Rape and incest do not matter.

She has also run a state and a state government, so we know what kind of priorities she sets. Though she swore that taking extra special care of special needs children was one of her priorities, this turned out to be a lie (like her whopper about the Bridge to Nowhere). In fact, as governor, she slashed the budget for special needs children by 62%.

http://momocrats.typepad.com/momocrats/2008/09/sarah-palin-sla.html

She also cut the budget for a program for underage unwed mothers which was designed to provide shelter and job skills for that all important first year of the baby’s life. This was an essential program for someone who does not believe in abortion even for rape and incest. That’s right. Gov. Palin wants a girl who has been forcibly impregnated by her father to have the child—but it is up to the girl to take care of the baby. Consider that underage, unwed pregnancy is a major cause of children being born into a cycle of poverty in this country. In cutting this program, Palin condemned more kids to lives of poverty. These children would never have the advantages that she and John McCain had of being born into stable, working married families. They would be disadvantaged from day one, from a combination of poor nutrition, lack of preventive health care, poor maternal education as well as low family income. Conservative maybe, compassionate, no.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/02/palin_slashed_funding_to_help.html

III. Maybe John McCain Does Not WANT Your Kids to Have Affordable Health Care

He doesn’t want to talk about this right now, because he knows that health insurance is the number one priority in the country. But back in 2007, when Congress was trying to expand SCHIP so that it would cover an additional 10 million uninsured children, John McCain applauded George W. Bush’s veto.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/index.html#cnnSTCText

"Right call by the president," the Republican White House hopeful told CNN's John King. "We've laid a debt on these same children ... that we're saying we're going to give health insurance to."

The bill, which would cost $35 billion over five years, is meant to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program to provide coverage to an additional 10 million children.
Bush said he vetoed the bill because he considered it a step towards "federalizing" medicine and an inappropriately expanding the program's goal beyond its original focus on helping poor children.

Let me make one thing clear. Any kid who can not see a doctor when he or she gets sick is, by definition, “poor”. Health care should be a right, not a privilege, for our nation’s children. They are our precious future. Untreated illness in kids has lasting effects. Missed school, stunted growth---all of these create additional problems beyond the immediate health concern.

And the price tag, $35 billion over 5 years---Bush spends that much in 3 months in his war in Iraq. Which is more important? Policing the civil war between Sunni and Shia over there or providing health care to our kids over here?

As for “federalizing” medicine, that is just Republican code for stepping on the toes of the health insurance industry, which is afraid of losing some of its profit---money it makes for denying care to sick people, including kids.

Just in case anyone is wondering what the McCain health care plan looks like (since he does not like to talk about it) here is Dr. Howard Dean on the subject:

http://www.democrats.org/a/2008/04/howard_dean_joh.php

But McCain's Health Care Plan Does Little to Help America's Uninsured. McCain's plan does not focus on "reducing the ranks of the uninsured," of which there are about 47 million, or one in seven Americans. According to the New York Times, "The McCain campaign has no estimate of how many of America's 47 million uninsured would likely gain coverage under its plan."

March 2008: Latest Data Indicates 47 Million American Are Without Health Insurance. According to State Health Facts and the Kaiser Family Foundation, 46,994,627 million Americans were living without health insurance during 2006. One in five adults and over 12 percent of all children lacked health insurance.

What good is a “health care plan” if it does not include a plan for relieving the epidemic of uninsured Americans (adults and children)?

IV. Gov. Palin Wants to Teach WHAT In Public Schools?

Listen up, because the McCain/Palin camp is not going to want to talk about this stuff now that they have entered the general election season. Oh no! From here on out they are going to attempt to fool voters into believing that they are a pair of closet Democrats that only pretended to be ultra-conservative Republicans to advance their political careers.

I don’t know about you, but that kind of cynicism just does not jive with the straight-talking maverick image that Team McCain is trying to create.

Ever since she first ran for office as mayor, Palin has been a Newt Gingrich style conservative Republican. When she ran for governor of Alaska, she did it on a platform of having kids in school spend less time studying science and more time concentrating on:

1.Creationism (presumably, because it will help them compete with those well educated Indians in the high tech job market)

http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/elections/story/8347904p-8243554c.html

2. Abstinence only sex ed Everyone (except Palin) has figured out by now that abstinence only sex education is a great big waste of time and money. Their parents could tell them Don’t do it! at home for free. Then schools could use the resources to help pupils acquire some better computer skills, so that we would not have to outsource so many jobs to India.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/01/1320417.aspx

3. Global Warming is a Myth Like the Easter Bunny Actually, Palin may believe in the Easter Bunny. I don’t know. However, she does not believe in Global Warming. Even though the Arctic recently became a free floating island. And even though a bunch of my polar bear buddies have ended up like this.




If you want your children’s school day to be cluttered with a bunch of pseudoscience that takes time from learning important things, like how to read and write and do algebra, then Gov. Palin is the executive for you.

V. What Does John McCain Have Against Sickle Cell Kids?

Yesterday, Joe Biden struck a nerve. You can tell he did, because of the way that Team McCain reacted. Here is a short summary of what happened from the Dallas Morning News.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/national/stories/091008dnpolbiden.5e48d0cc.html

COLUMBIA, Mo. — John McCain’s campaign said Joe Biden “sunk to a new low” in his criticism of Republicans who didn’t support stem-cell research. Mr. Biden said that if Republicans talk about helping parents of developmentally disabled children, “why don’t you support stem-cell research?” Mr. McCain supports most stem-cell research, but running mate Sarah Palin doesn’t. “Playing politics with this issue is disturbing and indicative of a desperate campaign,” McCain campaign spokesman Ben Porritt said.

Funny Team McCain should talk about “playing politics with the issue”. If you go over to this Catholic site and read as they attempt to decipher John McCain’s stand on the issue of stem cell research, you may find yourself wondering if this is a theological discussion of the “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” variety. McCain wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Cynically, the old double talker says one thing to the Nancy Reagans of his party who want the research (“I am for it”) and another to the Hagees of his party (“I’m against it!”). The Catholics take comfort in the fact that Palin is 100% against it---which means that a lot of promising medical treatments stand to suffer under a McCain/Palin presidency, since the Senator presumably picked the governor because he approves of her policies--and he does not mind having her become the next president if his old age overtakes him in office.

http://catholicism.about.com/od/thechurchintheworld/p/Republican_ESCR.htm

I want to talk about sickle cell disease for a moment because a few months back, scientists were able to transform mouse skin cells into something like embryonic stem cells---and the anti-embryonic stem cell folks said “See, we can stop stem cell research.” However, if you read about the cure for mouse sickle cell anemia, you will see that there are risks when you start adding extra steps.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120602444.html

But researchers also cautioned that aspects of the new approach will have to be changed before it can be tried in human patients. Most important, the technique depends on the use of gene-altered viruses that have the potential to trigger tumor growth.

I don’t know about you, but I have serious ethical concerns about injecting kids with “cures” that give them cancer. And if using real embryonic stem cells could actually cure those children of a painful, debilitating, life threatening disease and the only reason the cure was withheld was because cynical John McCain was pandering for right wing votes---I would have problems with that, too.

"All the progress in this field was only possible because we had embryonic stem cells to work with first," Jaenisch said. "We need to make more ES cells and really define which are going to be the best ones for different applications."

Someone who really cares about kids would not throw up roadblocks in the path of scientists who are looking for cures for diseases like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia. I am betting the average physician has better judgment and ethics than the average politician.

VI. It’s the Economy, Mommy

Kids suffer more than anyone else in a recession. And the fat trickles down to them last of all when you rely upon tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations to stimulate your economy. John McCain believes in tax cuts for the wealthy. He believes in Bush/Cheney economic policies. His financial adviser is Phil Gramm, the man who called us a “nation of whiners” and the man who created our present mortgage crisis which is costing so many Americans their homes. John McCain has made it clear that he thinks that we are doing just fine, and that he will continue things the way that they are---which makes me wonder why he even bothers to use the word “change” as a campaign slogan. More John McCain double talk.

Here is the kind of stuff you will never find him talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

In 2006 the poverty rate for minors in the United States was the highest in the industrialized world, with 21.9% of all minors and 30% of African American minors living below the poverty threshold.<7> Moreover, the standard of living for those in the bottom 10% was lower in the U.S. than other developed nations except the United Kingdom, which has the lowest standard of living for impoverished children in the developed world.<8> According to a 2008 report released by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, on average, rates of child poverty are persistently higher in rural parts of the country relative to suburban areas and share similar rates with many central cities.

My mom, the she wolf takes better care of me that the Bush-Cheney administration has taken care of your country's children. My pack values me more than the Republicans value the kids of the United States. I think wolves have a lot to teach humans.

Look at the graph in the article about poverty and you can see some differences in U.S. poverty rates under different administrations. When LBJ was president, directing his “Great Society” poverty went down. Under Reagan, it began to rise again. Under Bill Clinton, it started to level off. But then George W. Bush stole that election in Florida and all the good work that Democrats in the White House had been able to do was wrecked.



Imagine what 2012 is going to look like if the lobbyists who surround John McCain, calling all the shots, get to run the country for four more years?

The poverty rate for children under 18 years old increased from 16.2% to 17.8% from 2000 to 2004

And that was before the recession, before all the layoffs and home foreclosures. Now food prices are sky high. Education prices keep rising so that college is just a dream.

No child left behind? You know, no one protests their love for a child more than the abusive parent. No health care, no hope for college, dirty air to breathe, no house in which to live, no job for mom or dad, a school curriculum that does not prepare them for the working world----maybe it’s because they are too young to vote.

[malta blue]

1. great post...again

:kick:

[life long demo]

2. YOU'VE COVERED JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING I LOVE

in the world in your post. Actually had tears running down my face reading about what is facing the animals, children, the working poor, the elderly, families, the earth with McCain/Palin. To top it off, after reading your article, I went back to start clicking on the websites. Could not get past the Defenders site on the wolf cubs. Oh God help us.

[blondie58]

4. ditto here, life long demo and welcome to DU

I don't see how these people can do these sort of things to such beautiful creatures. I can not get off of my mind the aerial hunts, running the wolves ragged until they could go on no further. I have donated to Defenders, NRDC, World Wildlife Fund and the Sierra Club for years. As a Christian, I feel that it is our duty to be the stewards of this planet and the creatures that inhabit it. It is so barbaric. And then to shoot the puppies- that is inhumane. These are Gods creatures, too- doesn't that mean anything to them?

[wiseoldman]

3. McCamy, Hope you don't mind....

I just sent this out to everyone on my email list:

I am one of the fortunate ones. I was not among the fourteen wolf puppies which were illegally shot and killed in their den as part of Gov. Palin’s aerial wolf kill this summer in Alaska. Someone please tell me what kind of woman launches a big aerial hunt at a time when our mothers are nursing their newborn? Is that something that a responsibly hunter, or a responsible mother would do?

http://www.adn.com/wildlife/story/491012.html

[blondie58]

5. welcome to DU, wiseoldman

and thanks for that other link. This makes me so angry. I am not a big fan of hunting, anyway but I have accepted it if the meat is eaten, as in deer and elk. But to kill for the sake of killing, especially defenseless babies- that is so wrong.

[blondie58]

6. thank you again, McCamy

these issues are very important to me, although I must admit recent reading of such events have really disturbed me. This is so wrong, so inhumane. I wish that the wolves could fight back- have some Republicans for a meal.

[rpannier]

7. Proud to be number 5 rec

Thanks for the post

Spot on as usual

[brentspeak]

8. Well done!

:kick: