BREAKING: John McCain calls for a select committee on Russia

[pbrower2a]

Does McCain have a list of 205 names of Russian spies secretly working for the Trump campaign?

Joe McCarthy was a hero and John McCain wouldn't have been fit to lace his boots.

Joseph R. McCarthy was a liar, a demagogue, and a hypocrite.

The number of spies got cut down to a dew security risks -- people who could be blackmailed, like people with relatives behind the Iron Curtain (which would include just about any Polish-American, Czech-American,  Hungarian-American, or Chinese-American), homosexuals, and drug addicts. As an alcoholic and a gambler on credit, McCarthy himself would have been a security risk. He ended up exposing no spies or traitors. Others, like Richard M. Nixon, did.  The worst, the Rosenberg spy ring, were nailed by regular law enforcement.

President Trump is practically a foreign agent. He's allegedly a conservative, but he praised Vladimir Putin but not the usual Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher who have been usual darlings of American conservatives. This is fishier than the Friday Night special at the Knights of Columbus. (In case you don't get it, don't expect ham or beef).    

[pbrower2a]

Does McCain have a list of 205 names of Russian spies secretly working for the Trump campaign?

Joe McCarthy was a hero and John McCain wouldn't have been fit to lace his boots.

Joseph R. McCarthy was a liar, a demagogue, and a hypocrite.   

OK, name one person identified as a communist by McCarthy who was innocent of the charge. It was illegal at the time for political extremists to be employed at the State Department. Would you have been so unconcerned about nazi supporters being employed there (also illegal). No of course not but then for you, no doubt, being a communist is less reprehensible than being nazi and you think even if they did support communism they should have been given a break.

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Lets get a few facts straight here shall we.  McCarthy originally claimed to have a list of 57 suspected communists (not 205 as later erroneously reported in some places) and that list was eventually lengthened, not shortened. The various people who were publically named by him in his Senate work (and he was careful not to name those for whom he had insufficient evidence) were later shown by later research to indeed be guilty of that charge. Owen Lattimore, Annie Lee Moss, Dorothy Kenyon, Haldore Hanson, Esther Brunner, Gustavo Duran etc, etc. All communist party supporters.

1. Whether Stalin was worse than Hitler is a quibble. Murder is always inexcusable, whether it results from a botched armed robbery or serves as a tool of repression or oppression. Good scholarship has reduced the toll of deaths from Stalin by recognizing double-counting (was someone executed for anti-Party activities or being an Enemy of the People? One could be both and thus be double-counted... but dead nonetheless. Also, people charged with mass purges overstated the number of people that they killed so that they could avoid being fired (and worse) for inefficiency, inadequacy, or subordination. Toward the end of his life, one of the harshest critics of Stalin for his death toll (Robert Conquest) recognized these realities. Still, Stalin was one of the greatest serial killers and mass killers of all time.

2. The Iron Curtain is now irrelevant.

3. Homosexuality is now irrelevant as an issue of security risks.

4. Alcoholism and drug use are still potential security risks. I would be wary of hiring an alcoholic for any job requiring responsible behavior.

5. Gambling on credit puts one at risk of committing crimes to pay off debts beyond easy payment.