Just after midnight on Sunday night, August 26, the flag flying above the White House was hoisted back to full staff.
Earlier Monday, the White House flag had returned to its regular position even as other flags around Washington – including at the US Capitol – remained in the half-staff mourning position. But on Monday afternoon, August 27, the White House once again lowered the flag to half-staff and Trump, in his statement said he “signed a proclamation to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff until the day of his interment.”
Drumpf has been mocked for forgetting the colors of the American flag during a visit to a children’s hospital this weekend.
In pictures posted by Mr. Azar on Twitter, Drumpf fills in one of the stripes on the star-spangled banner with a blue felt-tip pen.
Affiliation
Chattanooga Times Free Press, Washington Post Writers Group
I’m the Editorial Cartoonist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, the husband of the talented Cindy Procious and I’m very lucky to be both.
John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and naval officer who served as a United States Senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives
~Wikipedia~
… if only for this, I will keep the good memories and toss the bad ones!!
I found this statement on Facebook yesterday as I was looking at the many postings about Sen. John McCain’s demise.
We know that there was a feud between these two ‘officials’.
There’s one right side and one correct side to this feud.
I know which one I side with.
Full credit is given to the writer … Bruce Lindner.
“Bear with me as I prognosticate a week or two into the future.
John McCain’s body has lain in state at both the Capitol Rotunda and in Phoenix, and now it’s the day of his funeral. Every broadcast channel and every cable news network will be covering it as the dignitaries file in. Cindy McCain, their daughters, even John McCain’s 106 year old mother are already seated.
There’s McCain’s friend and fellow Vietnam Veteran, ex SecState and near-running mate, John Kerry. Lindsey Graham, of course. All the other current and past Senators and House members. Sarah and Todd Palin will be there, Joe Lieberman.
Then the top military brass.
Fellow vets from his time in the Navy. Then the current and former heads of the FBI, CIA, NSA. Haspel, Hayden, Panetta, Petraeus, Brennan, Pompeo, Tenet, Webster, Gates, Woolsey, Deutch, Goss, Wray, Comey, Mueller, etc.
Then in March the diplomats. Tillerson, Albright, Kissinger, Baker, Powell, Rice. Then the foreign heads of state. Prime Minister Trudeau. Chancellor Merkel. Prime Minister May. President Macron. President Peña Nieto.
In come the past Executives, Bush 41 (maybe), Dan Quayle, Bill & Hillary Clinton. Probably Chelsea too. Al Gore. Bush 43, Laura and their daughters. Dick Cheney. Joe Biden. The crowd is hushed as Barack and Michelle Obama are seated.
The service is absolutely PACKED.
Love him or hate him, everyone who’s anyone in Politik Americana is there to pay their last respects to the “Maverick.” Well, almost everyone.
Meanwhile, back at the White House …
Donald Trump won’t be at the funeral. John McCain left a specific request: He asked for George W. Bush and Barack Obama to eulogize him – and that Donald Trump, current president of these United States, from his own party yet – NOT attend his funeral.
As far as I know, this is an absolute first in history. And just about as stinging a rebuke as anything I can conceive of. Donald Trump, whose number one drive in life is to be the center of attention whenever possible, will be confined to watching it on television along with the rest of us commoners. He won’t be sitting in the pews alongside his favorite sycophants, Mike Pence, Rand Paul and Devin Nunes, taking in that rarified air, being a part of history.
And the worst part for poor Donald? There’s that loser, Barack Obama, eulogizing McCain … a role traditionally reserved for the *sitting* POTUS. Hey! Aren’t I the POTUS? And OMG! Hillary Clinton is there too! What about her emails!? So unfair!
All this is being broadcast to his base by Fox News, as Donald pops open another Diet Coke and yells obscenities at Melania. Oh, the humanity! Whatever did he do to deserve such an indignity?
How about what DIDN’T he do to deserve it?
Okay, so I’m putting the cart before the horse here. But other than Obama’s roast of Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner seven years ago, I don’t think anything anyone has ever done to Trump will infuriate him as much as this.
Leaving instructions to bar Trump from his funeral is no mere “slight.” This is a personal, calculated statement by a dying man. John McCain, with whom I agreed maybe 10% of the time, really trumped Trump with this one. He won’t show his fury of course, at least not overtly. But he won’t be able to resist expressing it in other ways. By his tweets shalt thou know his wrath.
Well played, Senator. Very well played.
On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for your service. And for sticking it to this narcissistic fascist for all the world to see, one final and historic time.”
If John McCain were uninsured, his surgery could have cost $76,000
That means that if McCain happened to be one of his uninsured or under-insured constituents, and not a Senator with his healthcare subsidized by American taxpayers, he might have had to shell out some $76,000 for his surgery – more than the average annual household income in America.
“Why did the chicken cross the road?” is a common riddle joke. The answer or punch line is: “To get to the other side.”
The riddle is an example of anti-humor, in that the curious setup of the joke leads the listener to expect a traditional punchline, but they are instead given a simple statement of fact. “Why did the chicken cross the road?” has become largely iconic as an exemplary generic joke to which most people know the answer, and has been repeated and changed numerous times.
The chicken crossed the road because, gosh-darn it, he’s a maverick!
BARACK OBAMA
Let me be perfectly clear, if the chickens like their eggs they can keep their eggs. No chicken will be required to cross the road to surrender her eggs. Period.
JOHN McCAIN
My friends, the chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.
HILLARY CLINTON
What difference at this point does it make why the chicken crossed the road?
GEORGE W. BUSH
We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or against us. There is no middle ground here.
DICK CHENEY
Where’s my gun?
BILL CLINTON
I did not cross the road with that chicken.
AL GORE
I invented the chicken.
JOHN KERRY
Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.
AL SHARPTON
Why are all the chickens white?
DR. PHIL
The problem we have here is that this chicken won’t realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he is acting by not taking on his current problems before adding any new problems.
~~GALLERY~~
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OPRAH
Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross the road so badly. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m going to give this chicken a NEW CAR so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.
ANDERSON COOPER
We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.
NANCY GRACE
That chicken crossed the road because he’s guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.
PAT BUCHANAN
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.
MARTHA STEWART
No one called me to warn me which way the chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.
DR. SEUSS
Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I’ve not been told.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
To die in the rain, alone.
GRANDPA
In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.
BARBARA WALTERS
Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.
ARISTOTLE
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.
BILL GATES
I have just released eChicken2014, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2014. This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?
COLONEL SANDERS
Did I miss one?
“As it appears in a Facebook timeline … full read/full credit”
We are all very much aware of the controversy that has been generated in view of the fact that the “donald” will not curb the avalanche of insults that drip from his surly, arrogant, egocentric mouth.
I’m no McCain fan yet, if anything, I sincerely honor his status as a POW.
A prisoner of war (POW, PoW, PW, P/W, WP, PsW, enemy prisoner of war (EPW) or “missing-captured”) is a person, whether combatant or non-combatant, who is held in custody by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict.
The earliest recorded usage of the phrase is dated 1660.
Donald Trump attack on John McCain war record is ‘new low in US politics’
Donald Trump attacked the Arizona senator John McCain on Saturday, July 18, for being shot down while a navy pilot during the Vietnam war.
Trump, who has been in a war of words with the 2008 Republican nominee, jibed of McCain:
“He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured?
I like people who weren’t captured.”
McCain was held prisoner by North Vietnam for five and a half years, and repeatedly tortured. Trump received several student deferments from Vietnam while in college. After graduating, he received a medical deferment.
Born and raised by underpaid public school teachers in Sanford, Fla., Andy Marlette graduated from the University of Florida and became staff editorial cartoonist at the Pensacola News Journal in 2007.
Marlette received a priceless editorial cartoon education while living with his uncle and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette in Hillsborough, N.C.
Doug’s tragic death in July of 2007 made evermore poignant the elder Marlette’s fierce and faithful devotion to the art form of editorial cartooning as a cornerstone of American free speech. With this in mind, Andy works daily to learn and uphold the disciplines and values passed on to him by his late uncle.
unprecedented breach of foreign policy protocol both in its form and its boldness
Now that the letter has blown up in their faces, Republicans like John McCain are pretending they didn’t even mean to sign it. One thing is clear: Republicans are a clear and present danger to world peace.
Open Letter to John McCain: Get Out of Washington, You Low-Life Scum
By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News
30 January 15
Dear Senator McCain,
“What would you call a war veteran who answers a veteran’s question about providing more jobs to veterans by saying it’s his “highest priority,” only to vote against more jobs for veterans when he’s back in Washington? What would you call a veteran who was tortured, survived miraculously, got elected to the U.S. Senate, sent more young men to die in a foreign war, voted to deny them jobs and benefits, and yet demands the arrest and full prosecution of those who exercise the constitutional rights he supposedly fought for? To borrow phrasing from you, Senator, I would call you low-life scum.
The Code PINK protesters you called “low-life scum” during a Senate hearing this week are Americans exercising their constitutional rights to freedom of speech, which you swore an oath to defend both as a naval officer and as a member of Congress. These protesters were also within their right to make a citizens’ arrest against someone who has committed a felony – in this case, war crimes. It’s critical for you to understand why these protesters are patriotic Americans and not “low-life scum,” as you called them.
When Henry Kissinger, whom you just vociferously defended from the dais, authorized the secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia in 1969 and 1970, his actions killed over 40,000 people, including civilians who had nothing to do with the Vietnam War. Kissinger has said he did so to stop North Vietnamese troops from using Cambodia as a staging ground. However, research has shown that all Kissinger’s bombing campaign did was pave the way for the brutal Khmer Rouge to take over Cambodia, then use the B-52 bombings as propaganda to justify their cause, leading to more death and destruction. Kissinger illegally bombed a sovereign nation that we never officially declared war on, destabilized its government, and allowed a violent, autocratic regime to seize power. If that isn’t a felony, I don’t know what is.
Washington D.C. statute allows for citizens’ arrests in the case of a felony. And in Code PINK’s case, war crimes are certainly a felony offense. When you called on the capitol police, it should’ve been to arrest Kissinger, not Code PINK activists. But your classless outburst during that hearing is indicative of the allegiances you hold, and the longstanding hypocrisy of your entire Congressional career.
Despite going through a war firsthand, and going on record saying “war is wretched beyond description,” you are one of the loudest voices consistently in favor of going to war with anyone at the drop of a hat. You bragged to a conservative radio host that nobody supported President Bush’s war in Iraq more than you. You were the first member of the Senate to call for airstrikes on Syria. You’ve openly said you’d like to keep troops in Iraq for 100 years. You even made a joke about bombing Iran at a campaign rally. As a Vietnam veteran, haven’t you had enough war for one lifetime?
Speaking of veterans, I would think that someone who has personally experienced the worst imaginable hell of war would be the first one to stand up for veterans when given the chance. But you, Senator McCain, have turned your back repeatedly on America’s veterans when they asked for even the most concrete necessities.
When the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) urged you to pass the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits & Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014, you voted against even bringing it to the floor for debate, despite the fact that several of your Republican colleagues supported it. You claim to support better healthcare for veterans, and that bill would’ve provided that care by, among other things, expanding the Comprehensive Caregiver Assistance Program, and advanced veterans’ retirement payments even in the event of a government shutdown. As a fellow veteran who bears permanent scars of war, how could you deny your brothers and sisters at the PVA this vote?
After you came home from Vietnam, where you endured years of cruel imprisonment, solitary confinement, and torture, where would you be if you didn’t have for a father a four-star admiral who commanded all U.S. forces in Vietnam? Unlike you, many of the veterans who are lucky enough to come back from the wars you eagerly sent them off to don’t have wealthy, highly-connected families to support them when they return stateside. Almost 50,000 veterans today are struggling to survive on the streets despite serving their country. Yet when you were given multiple opportunities to show your commitment to homeless veterans, you did nothing.
When the House of Representatives passed the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, which would have funded the transition for veterans to go from wandering the streets to having a roof over their head, you allowed the bill to die, and said nothing. You even allowed your party to kill the Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans with Children Act of 2009, which would have provided homes for single mothers who served their countries with distinction in the military. But as bad as your inaction was on those bills, it still wasn’t your biggest slight to America’s veterans.
At the 2012 Republican National Convention, Meg Lanker-Simons, a veteran and journalist, asked you about providing more jobs to veterans, 14 percent of whom are unemployed. You responded, to her face, that you were going to “try to find more and better ways to hire veterans,” that chronic unemployment of veterans was a “national disgrace,” and that making more jobs available to veterans was your “highest priority.” But just a month later, when the Senate was voting on the Veterans Job Corps Bill, which would’ve paired veterans up with job opportunities based on their skill sets, you mocked the idea before voting it down. While your reason was that the $1 billion cost was too high, the bill would have paid for itself by $1 billion of new revenue for the office of Veterans’ Affairs. So, Mr. McCain, not only are you a hypocrite, but a liar as well. If you didn’t run for elected office to serve your fellow veterans, why did you run in the first place?
With a net worth of over $10 million, you are one of the richest members of Congress. And as everyone learned in 2008, you own 8 properties, making you one of the wealthiest 0.01 percent of Americans. During your Congressional career, you voted 19 times against increasing the minimum wage, yet in 2010, you voted to extend George W. Bush’s tax cut package. That was a complete 180 from your earlier position against it, in which you rightly called it “generous tax relief to the wealthiest individuals of our country at the expense of lower and middle-income taxpayers.”
You also voted for a $700 billion bailout of the big banks that crashed our economy in 2008. Those same banks gave you almost $2 million in campaign and leadership PAC donations between 2005 and 2010, including over $50,000 from bailout king Goldman Sachs. If someone who didn’t know any better took a look at that data, they would think you’re only in office to serve yourself.
You’ve been in Washington long enough, Senator McCain, and you’ve done enough damage to veterans and working people. Either resign now with some semblance of dignity, or prepare to be thrown out of office in 2016.”
Disclaimer …. We take no personal credit for the above information. It’s the intellectual property of it’s writer, Mr. Carl Gibson.
Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary “We’re Not Broke,” which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
You can contact him at carl@rsnorg.org carl@rsnorg.org, and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.
Sen. John McCain had some choice words for a group of protesters heckling former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger Thursday, January 29. McCain called the protesters ‘low-life scum,’ and kicked them out of the hearing.
It Is What It Is 