Cindy McCain, 53, John’s wife is a USC graduate and was a special-needs teacher. After her Dad died she took over his Budweiser distributing business and sales have doubled. It is a $100 million a year business. The McCains have a marriage prenuptial agreement, and her assets remain separate.

She is active with “Halo Trust” - to clear land mines, provide water and food in war ravaged and developing countries. Cindy has travelled the world clearing land mines these countries on a detonation team and serves on its board.

In 1991, Mrs. McCain came across a girl in a Bangladesh orphanage. Mother Teresa implored Mrs. McCain to take the baby with a severe cleft palate. She did so without first telling her husband. The McCain’s couple adopted the girl, nameing her Brigett (in 2000 she became an issue when opponents said she was a bastard child of an affair) She has had a dozen operations to repair her cleft palate and for other medical problems. Cindy has joined “Operation Smile”, a charity for corrective surgery on children’s faces. The McCain’s now have a Family Foundation for children’s causes.

The McCain’s have a 19 year old now serving in Iraq, another son in the Naval Academy, a daughter recently graduated from Columbia Univ., their adopted daughter is in high school, and another son who is the finance guy at the beer firm. The McCain’s raise their family in Phoenix declaring it better than Washington DC for kids.

Cindy has had two back surgeries and became addicted to pain killers.
She talks openly about it which she says is part of the recovery process.

The media has been generally mute about Cindy’s abilities and the McCain family’s attributes.

This is excerpted from an article by By MONICA LANGLEY in the Wall Street Journal April 17, 2008; on Page A8

You are now hearing all kinds of reasons as to why Hillary won Ohio and Texas last night. Personally I give a lot of the credit (or blame) to something a little bit different than what the pundits are saying. I think the attacks on Obama, the hits on the media and the support for Hillary by Saturday Night Live played a major part in slowing down Obama and helping out Hillary.

I happened to have watched the first parody of the Obama-Clinton debates on SNL. It was the first time I had seen anyone poke fun at Obama and at the media, too. The fact that it was dead on in it’s portrayal of the media’s fawning over Barack to the detriment of Clinton made it that much funnier.

I am not sure if anyone else could have done what SNL did. The media that weren’t falling over themselves to praise Obama were held back from criticizing him for fear of looking racist. It might also make the media look “old” for it was considered young and hip to be a part of Obama’s team.

Then came this show that is known for being young and hip and cool. And they had the guts to yell out that the Emperor didn’t have any clothes on. Wow. From that point on things began to change.

The media, to its credit, actually started to look at it’s past actions and realized that they had been unfair to Hillary and way too easy on Barack. So the honeymoon was finally over and Obama started to get hit with questions that were not only uncomfortable but even lethal.

Meanwhile, Hillary took advantage of this change. She referenced the skit in the next debate. She even showed that she could make fun of herself by being in another skit the next week on SNL. And it gave her heart and energy to throw off the pessimism of being a loser and started to act like a winner again.

And then there were the voters. The SNL skit showed them that Obama was infallible. Even that it was ok to make fun of him. That maybe the media had been unfair to Hillary. And it made the women start to rethink their options and take another look at Hillary.

I am not saying that the SNL skit was the only reason Hillary did so well last night. But it sure played a part in what happened. And I can only wonder what the candidate’s images and standing would be today if the writers of SNL hadn’t been on strike for the last few months…

Yes, I admit I occasionally yell back at the TV. But only when the current president struggles to make his thoughts known to us through the use of the English language. It’s also true at those particular times my soft, melodic voice raises to levels only dogs can hear, and I get so overly excited the blood rushes to my cheeks. But this happens only when I hear political pundits lying through their capped teeth. I can’t help it. That’s how I react when I’m confronted by stupidity and arrogance and a blatant disregard for the health and well being for this planet and all its inhabitants.

Change. It seems to be the most recent political buzz-word. As far as I can tell each and every candidate running for president has talked about and promised change.

Change. Yep, they all claim that America needs change, particularly in Washington, D.C. What makes this amazing is that three of the top four candidates, Clinton (both), Obama and McCain are all current members of the United States Senate. I do agree that if there is any entity in Washington that needs change it is the Senate.

Speaking of the Republican contest in Florida on MSNBC today, Keith Olberman said it is getting down to the “extremes.” By that he meant Romney and McCain.

Mathews agreed and said the reace was getting “very personal” between the candidates, which he said he “likes”. That like, sounds more like Jerry Springer material than serious news reporting. In a much later discussion, when told a lot of politics is not above the first or second grade, he chuckles, “I like it!”

So instead of having conservatives on his show to balance out liberals, he has chosen to only bring on like minded politicos. Sort of the One Handed Fist Fight he feels is the best he can do to being truth to his show.

Makes sense to me. Same thing worked for Stalin, Hussein, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, maybe modern Russia. No nasty fist fights that offends Olberman, and a more uniform Truth that many give homage to a civilized uniformity.

Everyone seems to have a plan and non of them are having great impact on the housing problems. That’s mostly because the most intractable part of the problem is that too many houses are overvalued, driven by fog a mirror housing finance that purshed demand for homes beyond the natural real need curve to a speculative demand dynamic and that will not be changed a lot by any plan out there, except possibly this “Homesteaders Act of 2008″

1. Change the whole deal and keep all current occupants in the house with a troubled mortgage as follows:
   1. Before foreclosure modify the mortgage deal to a profit sharing deal “Homesteading Act of 2008) with the owner occupant by lowering rate so all housing finance cost are less that 33% of gross income.
   2. Foreclose ASAP on non occpant owners and offer financing to the renting occupant as to the
2. Laws need to be changed to facilite this and formulas for profit sharing must be determined.

IMMEDIATELY send this or talk about it with you political prepresentatives, I have seen NONE talking about this human solution.

Send it to your press outlets and watch them ignor it.

Cuba is a one party political system. It punishes dissent or diversity.

There are 614 candidates on the ballot and are unopposed.

Black armbands can result in losing housing or jobs.

When will they get the relief they deserve?

Why is there no media coverage of this “democracy”?

Tonight in the Las Vegas debates, after Tim Russert asked John Edwards if his talking to Pakistani President Musharraf right after the Bhutto Assasication was appropriate given the belief by so many Pakistani’s that Musharraf was involved, Edward painted his wagon into a corner and I certainly hope I am not the only one to have noticed.

I posted this to “Poke The Press” because Tim Russert did not “ask appropriate followup questions” he asserted he would do just before the debates as a way to get to the truth. BAD, BAD Mr Russert.

In other venues I heard him say that he called Musharraf.

Everybody who talks a lot, like the President, reporters, pundits and your mother in law, eventually says something with unintended consequences.

1. Sometimes it’s just funny,
2. Sometimes it insults and
3. Sometimes it shows a bias they try to hide.

Tell us about what you heard today.