John McCain's ties to terrorists

As ThinkProgress points out, John McCain tried to stop the government from prosecuting domestic terrorists:

McCain's terrorism problem dates back to the early 1990s, when he sided with right-wing domestic terrorists and voted against tough new legislation cracking down on a wave of anti-choice domestic terrorism targeting women who visited abortion clinics, their doctors, and clinic staff.

In both 1993 and 1994, McCain voted against the anti-terrorism measure. On each occasion, McCain was one of thirty radical anti-choice Senators to oppose the bill Fortunately, despite McCain's opposition, it passed the Senate by a 69-30 margin.

At the time, right-wing anti-choice extremists were terrorizing women, doctors, and clinic staff across the United States with thousands of acts of physical violence and threats of violence each year.

Those groups had links to the militia movement, with both groups' violent tactics rising from a meeting of right-wing ideologues in Estes Park, CO. Larry Pratt, an attendee at the meeting, advocated for the palingenesis of America as a "Christian nation" through the work of small paramilitary cells. He built his ideas from a study of such groups in the killing fields of Guatemala and the Philippines, where labor activists and opponents of the authoritarian right-wing groups were slaughtered in massive campaigns of terror. Other attendees at the conference included seccessionists, white separatists and leaders in the anti-abortion movement, like the head of Operation Rescue. Pratt later bankrolled Operation Rescue's activities while the group declared bankruptcy to avoid paying legal settlements to its victims.

Does John McCain support widespread campaigns of domestic bombing? Does he, indeed, support the creation of revolutionary militias which would replace the Constitution with the Bible?

More importantly, does Sarah Palin?

While she hasn't had a say in laws regulating domestic terrorism, her ties to Larry Pratt and his agenda are easy to find. While it is currently unclear whether she ever belonged to the seccessionist Alaskan Independence Party, there's no doubt that her husband was a member, and that she cheerily attended the party's convention with her husband, and addressed their convention by video as governor. Regardless of whether she actually belonged to the group, she was clearly aligned with its basic principles. Party founder Joe Vogler declared "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." The party platform endorses, among other things, allowing jurors to reject laws which they do not agree with. This practice of jury nullification was a key tool of the segregationist South, where murderers would be set free if a jury decided that murdering a black man wasn't really so bad.

Palin also has ties to Larry Pratt. Pratt briefly co-chaired antisemite Pat Buchanan's 1996 campaign; Palin backed Buchanan's run as well, with Buchanan recalling that she "was a brigadeer in 1996 as was her husband." Pratt left Buchanan's campaign when the press began exploring his connections with white separatists, but the Buchanan camp never disowned him or his ties to the militias and secessionists. Buchanan's first major campaign in 1992 was advanced largely by an ultra-conservative group to which Pratt belongs: the Council on National Policy.

That shadowy organization is widely recognized as a major power broker in the Republican party. As one conservative religious site explains: "the role of the CNP appears to be that of a policy and funding conduit for the Religious Right projects, both political and religious." The first major action on McCain's part after securing the Republican nomination was to arrange a "make-or-break" meeting with the CNP, which the conservative Washington Times described as "the conservative movement's top donors and leaders."

When Palin's nomination was announced, the CNP was ecstatic. A reporter for the conservative Christian Broadcasting Network was "told that when conservative leaders heard the news [of her appointment] this morning at a meeting at the Council for National Policy, one attendee told me that there is 'nothing but elation. People are giddy. They are energized and they now believe that in fact this campaign has the ability to win this election.'" The reporter added: "let me just say that while Palin may not be known much nationally, conservative Evangelical leaders know all about her and think the World of her. They like her."

Among the other things the CNP likes: civil war in Central America, eugenics, The Rapture, young earth creationism, and of course, (via founding member Tim LaHaye) the Moonies.

Coming closer to John McCain's many homes, there's the simple fact that McCain's political career and financial fortune owe a great deal to two convicted criminals. The first, a major fundraiser for McCain's first presidential bid and a self-described "old friend": G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy was convicted for his role in Richard Nixon's criminal conspiracy to steal re-election, along with private psychiatric records. The second is his own father-in-law, a convicted bootlegger whose fortune bankrolled not only McCain's political career (after he hastily remarried and then divorced his first wife), but his many, many houses, cars, and $500 loafers.

And never mind John McCain's active involvement in a corruption scandal in which he and other members of Congress worked to make life easy for the most recent analog to the current financial crisis: the savings and loan collapse. And the fact that then as now, McCain was all too happy to surround himself with lobbyists and to do their bidding so long as their checks didn't bounce. Then as now, the taxpayer was stuck paying the bill when the lobbyists, and regular Americans, couldn't pay their bills any more.

Especially never mind that Sarah Palin is currently under investigation for improperly firing the well-respected head of Alaskan law enforcement, apparently because he was too interested in cracking down on domestic violence and sex crime. Her lawyer insists that "'The last straw' leading up to Monegan's firing… was Monegan's planned trip to Washington, D.C., to seek funding for a new, multimillion-dollar sexual assault initiative the governor hadn't yet approved." Monegan was the state's public safety director, and therefore also the boss of the former brother-in-law of the governor. Palin's claim that she fired Monegan in order to maintain Alaska's current position as the state with the highest rate of sexual violence is offered as an alternative to the accusation that he was fired to punish him for not firing the ex-husband of Palin's sister. The judge in the sister's divorce stated that Palin's disparagement of the husband amounted to "a form of child abuse."

All of which would be only mildly relevant but for two things.

First, that Sarah Palin and John McCain think it matters that Barack Obama is on a philanthropic board along with Some Old Dirty Hippy Whose Name I Refuse To Remember (SODHWNIRTR), an Old Dirty Hippy who was connected to people who talked about bombing the Pentagon when Barack Obama was 8 years old. If passing connections are so meaningful, we clearly have to check every closet for skeletons.

Second, because she was disturbingly unwilling to rebuke supporters who responded to a tirade about Obama and SODHWNIRTR by shouting: "Kill him!" This, I must insist, is not OK. But Palin said nothing. Similarly, McCain refused to rebuke an audience member who called Senator Obama "a terrorist," merely laughing, as if accusations of treason are funny.

They aren't, and if we're going to play hardball, then let's play hardball.