McCain the Gambler

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John McCain likes to illustrate his moral fiber by referring to his five years as a POW in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71 year old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whok he has four children. But there is another Mrs. McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator's presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain's three eldest children. And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain's first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965. She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam's infamous 'Hanoi Hilton' prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news. But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries. When Carol was discharged from the hospital six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter. Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self. Today, she stands at just 5ft 4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering. For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain devorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just on month later. A Little History Lesson In the 1920s, the Bronfman family of Montreal rose to power and wealth based particularly on its' Seagrams business, which had as its Prohibition Era partner Meyer Lansky, American Mafia boss. Bootlegging profits were enormous. The family branched into many areas, including media. In recent years, Bronfmana acquired a major chunk of Time-Warner. Michael Collin Piper is the author of several books including FINAL JUDGMENT and THE HIGH PRIESTS OF WAR. According to his research, Jack Ruby, Texas nightblub manager and silencer of JFK's alleged assassin, was a Bronfman asset. Piper identifies Ruby as "a key player" in the smuggling of arms stolen from U.S. military bases to Israel. In the years prior to World War II, the move into Arizona was made. In 1941, Gus Greenbaum of Phoenix started a national wire service for bookies. When he shifted to Las Vegas in 1946 to oversee Meyer Lansky's casino interests and subsequently replace the infamous, violent Bugsy Siegel, Kemper Marley was appointed crime syndicate boss of Arizona. According to sources within the Marley group, it was Bronfman who put him in the alcohol business and enabled him to build a statewide monopoly. In 1948, the feds sent 52 employees to prison for alcohol violations. Rumor has it that Marley rmained untouched because one of his lieutenants, James Hensley, took the fall and did a dime. Piper reports that Hensley's attorney and dealmaker was William Rehnquist. Yes, that would be the Chief Justice who later pulled his former girlfriend onto the high court and spent his last decade on the bench hallucination on drugs. Upon release, Marley gave Hensley one of the biggest Anheuser-Busch distributorships in the country - certainly the biggest in Arizona. Thank you for your faithful service. Then one day in 1981, an obscure, newly retired naval officer rode into the land of sun, cacti, and retirees. After his first wife, who had raised his children and waited for him became crippled in an accident, John McCain had dumped her overboard and married his mistress - Cindy, daughter of James Hensley. The next year the "straight talker" was installed in the U.S. House of Lords. Four years later he moved to the senate. So who owns honest John McCain? The mob that runs Arizona? The big Vegas money that continues to contribute heavily? The Israeli connection? You be the judge. UNDERSTANDING ECONOMICS - WHO NEEDS IT? Not long ago, McCain stated to a journalist that, "Economics isn't my strong suit" But he added, he is reading Greenspan. That would be Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan who, during his tenure, expanded the money supply more than in all the years since 1913. The Greenspan who kept the printing presses running at warp speed, turning out little pieces of paper called money and backed by the promise of politicians. Alan the Inflator fueled the dotcom bubble, the stock market bubble, and more recently the real estate bubble. It is no wonder that the LONDON ECONOMIST recently pegged 2007 true U.S. inflation at 17%. Just what we need - another president who is an economic illiterate. It's small consolation that McCain admits it, because if elected, he'd appoint the wrong advisors. FOOTNOTE: A few evenings ago I was watching one of the shows on tv similar to Nighline and one of the panelist stated that Obama had a very wise group that would be helping him during this recession crisis. McCain admitting that he knows very little about economics left little doubt who would be the person to elect as our new president.