This is my final blog post for Essence.com

Today has been a day of transition for me.

Earlier, I concluded my final radio broadcast for WVON-AM in Chicago. It has been an amazing run over the last three years, and I have been truly blessed to do the show. I can never thank the owner of the station, Melody Spann-Cooper, enough for giving me the opportunity.

My new responsibilities as senior analyst for the Tom Joyner Morning Show, coupled with my increased television presence in prime time, made it too difficult to continue a three-hour morning show.

I'm also making some changes on the blogging front. Today is the last day I'll be blogging for Essence.com. I am expanding our blogging presence on RolandSMartin.com and doing some other exciting web ventures that I can't quite discuss yet.

Ever since we started a year ago, thanks to the uber-talented Angela Burt-Murray, a truly beautiful sister - inside and out - we have had a wonderful time communicating with you on the various issues in Black America.

And nothing has been as exciting as this presidential campaign.

However, my relationship with Essence is not over. We plan on expanding my work as a special correspondent with the magazine, and I know we'll be doing some exciting things there. So stay tuned.

So, if you need your up-to-the-minute fix, just go to www.rolandsmartin.com/blog, and we can continue to go back and forth. And I'll continue to visit Essence.com for timely and engaging information.

You can also sign up for my email newsletter on the homepage of www.rolandsmartin.com.

And as I sign all of my books, continue to do God's will and He will continue to bless all that you do.

Holla!

Roland S. Martin www.rolandsmartin.com CNN Contributor

Sent from Blackberry

Comments

[Rochelle]

You will definitely be missed here. GOd Bless.

[Lisa D]

Roland, we here in the Chi will miss you big time. But glad to see you reaching higher endeavors! Best to you.

[rob]

See ya over at rolandmartin.com!

[simplycharming47 from OkC]

Congrats on all your endeavors and many success...
OBAMA/BIDEN'08

[Tiffany]

I will miss you because you do not hesitate to speak the truth.

[Jay]

Roland,

You are doing a magnificent job and I will see you over at rolandsmartin.com.

God's Speed and God Bless

[Lyn]

Love you Roland!!! Love seeing you on CNN and hearing you on The Tom Joyner Morning Show. Also looking forward to seeing more of your blog on www.rolandsmartin.com. You are honest, passionate, and sincere. Thanks for all that you do!!

[rikyrah]

I will miss this, Roland. God bless.

[Serrana]

Roland, I like how you keep it real.God bless you.

[JEM]

Congrats, Brother Roland. I truly enjoyed your blog. I look forward to your new projects.

Be encouraged.

God bless

[Angela]

Congratulations Roland. You deserve great things. Saw you on CNN this afternoon.. good job keeping that black female journalist (can't remember her name) in check.......

[monique]

Congrats Roland, It is nice to hear that things are going well. Look forward to your constant wisdom - see you at rolandsmartin.com

[Donna]

Good luck and God's Blessings Roland and I will most defintely be going to your website , listening to your commentaries on the TJMS and of course watching you on CNN You Go Boy!!! and keep on keeping on and speaking the truth. Last but not least can you please for me the next time any of the CNN panelists bring up any of that negative crap about Obama /Ayers supposenly connection I have two words for them about John McCain "Keating Five" ( Oh my how soon do they forget)and how it is similar to what going on with the financial problems the country is facing now and then ask them if Mccain is still friends with and vacations with Charles Keating ? Or McCain's connection to that Follieri crook(actress Anne Hathaway's ex) and that scam he just got busted for by the Feds ?

[Gwen]

God's speed Roland!! You are not leaving, you're just evolving and I say you deserve all the best that God has for you. Will continue to follow you on the TJMS, CNN and your blog. You keep us informed on the news/facts that are important to all of America even if some don't want to acknowledge it. The Thomas household depends on you for truth telling.

[BYoung]

It's been fun, see you on your boards!!

[Mertis]

Roland, Congratulations on your many successess!!! Keep up the good work on CNN, TJMS and in all of your endeavors. Look forward to talking with you on www.rolandsmartin.com/blog. Peace and Blessings my Brotha...

[Informed and enlighted]

Good morning and AWWWWWWWWWW I'm gonna miss ya. Especially when Barak gonna come out with the Keating 5 against McShame. Kudos to you. You deserve everything you have ocming your way.

[Kim]

See you at rolandsmartin.com. You are doing big things. Congrats!

[Debbie Langford]

Roland,
Thank you for this thoughtful and wonderful message to us. Thank GOD we will continue to have access to you in a variety of media and can count on seeing you within the pages of Essence.
With all good wishes,
Deb

[Every Wilson]

Roland, are Barack Obama surrogates going to attack Mccain's credibilty like he is allowing Palin (especially in regards to ayers, Renzko). Well, here is some info for him to start:

John MCCAIN: I WANT BARACK OBAMA TO QUESTION “WHO IS JOHN MCCAIN”, A COWARD OR HERO AND VIOLATOR OF THE CODE OF CONDUCT. HIS INJURIES WERE MAINLY FOM A PLANE CRASH NOT TORTURE! Here are allegations:

Cheater (Adultery, that is) -- Gambler -- Religion Shopping -- A Junkie Wife -- Keating 5 -- Mafia Ties -- Quotes -- Sources

* United States Naval Academy - Class rank? 894 out of 899 (meaning that, like George Bush, McCain was at the bottom of his class). Maybe this reflects the fact that McCain shouldn’t have been accepted in the first place. Maybe McCain got a little help from the fact that his father and grandfather were admirals. hmmmm… Maybe this is just like how George Bush got his Harvard MBA because of his dad’s connections.

It turns out that John McCain "didn't love this country" while at the United States Naval Academy. While being interviewed by Sean earlier this year John McCain said that he "didn't love America until being held captive" on Fox News. He has apparently said this over and over during the past decade in interviews and campaign rallies (as uncovered by Dan Abrahms on MSNBC).

Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hVeWZjB8zM

This means John McCain was at the US Naval Academy and while there he didn’t love this country. I expect this to be covered with the same hysterical 24/7 round the clock fervor that Michelle Obama’s comments were.

U.S. documents proving POW McCain seriously "collaborated" was obtained in 1991 by the US Veteran Dispatch through the Freedom of Information Act - these transcripts are 5 of the approximately 20 interviews McCain gave the communist.

Presidential candidate John McCain denied that the Soviets interrogated U.S. POWs in Vietnam. But, former U.S., Soviet, and Vietnamese intelligence agents say they did

John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

One of the sharpest critics of the Pentagon's performance was an insider, Air Force Lieut. Gen. Eugene Tighe, who headed the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) during the 1970s. He openly challenged the Pentagon's position that no live prisoners existed, saying that the evidence proved otherwise. McCain was a bitter opponent of Tighe, who was eventually pushed into retirement.

Included in the evidence that McCain and his government allies suppressed or sought to discredit is a transcript of a senior North Vietnamese general's briefing of the Hanoi politburo, discovered in Soviet archives by an American scholar in 1993. The briefing took place only four months before the 1973 peace accords. The general, Tran Van Quang, told the politburo members that Hanoi was holding 1,205 American prisoners but would keep many of them at war's end as leverage to ensure getting war reparations from Washington

August 12th, 2008 2:46 am
Irvine POW disputes McCain's Vietnam claim
Retired Marine colonel is angered by the presidential candidate's statements that he helped the enemy while the two were in a Vietnamese prison camp.
By Martin Wisckol / Orange County Register
Former Orange County supervisor Edison Miller is lashing out at John McCain, saying the presidential candidate falsely fingered him as a turncoat who was "actively aiding the enemy" while the two were imprisoned during the Vietnam War.
"He lied about me," said the Irvine resident, who retired as a Marine Corps colonel shortly after the war. "The attacks on my character and integrity are totally without
Compulsive Gambler
John McCain loves to play craps (dice), at the $15 dollar minimum-bet tables if not higher. This has been confirmed by his top campaign aides over the years (Mark Salter and John Weaver). His longtime friend Wes Gullet says they would play in Vegas for 14 hours at a time, (10am to midnight), and that McCain is superstitious, blowing on the dice and such. It's not hard to see his love of gambling in his political choices, such as Sarah Palin for VP. All very exciting when he's gambling his own money or his campaign; but if it's America's security at stake, his gambling might be a bit less charming.
That New Time Religion
John McCain grew up Episcopalian. He went to an Episcopalian high school. For at least 15 years, he has been listed as an Episcopalian in authoritative directories such as the Almanac of American Politics and Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America 2008. He told a reporter from McClatchy News Service in June 2007 that he was an Episcopalian.
Suddenly, in September 2007, he's campaigning in South Carolina, the heavily Baptist state where George W. Bush barely managed to stop McCain's presidential campaign 8 years ago. And guess what? McCain tells a reporter "By the way, I'm not Episcopalian. I'm Baptist."
When pressed, he said he's attended the North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona for more than 15 years, though he has never been baptized in that church. Now see, that's exactly the problem. Baptism is kind of a big thing in the Baptist Church. (That's how they got the name.) No baptism, not Baptist.
Anyway, details aside, this is one very clear indication of how McCain has changed. Now, he's just another hungry politician, happy to pander if it helps him win. Which eliminates the very reason people were excited about him in 2000 -- his honesty.
Founding Member of the Keating Five
Back in the old days, defendants in famous trials got numbers -- the Chicago Eight, the Gang of Four, the Dave Clark Five, the Daytona 500. McCain was one of the "Keating Five," congressmen investigated on ethics charges for strenuously helping convicted racketeer Charles Keating after he gave them large campaign contributions and vacation trips.
Charles Keating was convicted of racketeering and fraud in both state and federal court after his Lincoln Savings & Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $3.4 billion. His convictions were overturned on technicalities; for example, the federal conviction was overturned because jurors had heard about his state conviction, and his state charges because Judge Lance Ito (yes, that judge) screwed up jury instructions. Neither court cleared him, and he faces new trials in both courts.)
Though he was not convicted of anything, McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating after Keating gave McCain at least $112,00 in contributions. In the mid-1980s, McCain made at least 9 trips on Keating's airplanes, and 3 of those were to Keating's luxurious retreat in the Bahamas. McCain's wife and father-in-law also were the largest investors (at $350,000) in a Keating shopping center; the Phoenix New Times called it a "sweetheart deal."
Mafia ties:
In 1995, McCain sent birthday regards, and regrets for not attending, to Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonano, the head of the New York Bonano crime family, who had retired to Arizona. Another politician to send regrets was Governor Fife Symington, who has since been kicked out of office and convicted of 7 felonies relating to fraud and extortion.
Adulterer
For a guy campaigning on family values, John McCain has broken up a lot of marriages. When he met his first wife (a swimsuit model), she was married to another man. After breaking that marriage up, she stuck by him loyally as he went off to war and was a prisoner for 5 and a half years. When he returned to America, though, he found out that she had been in a car wreck and wasn't as pretty. So he had a series of affairs, by his own admission, and dumped his wife and adopted family for a younger, very rich blond (now Cindy McCain.) Cindy, the daughter of a wealthy Budweiser beer distributor, was addicted to prescription narcotics and even stole hard drugs from a medical charity that she ran. In February, 2008, the New York Times ran a big article about the unusually close relationship between John McCain and a young telecommunications lobbyist named Vicki Iseman (who looks uncannily like Cindy McCain did when SHE was 25).

They became so close that his staff, convinced they were having an affair, confronted both McCain and Iseman, telling them to back off. Now, a lot of people have criticized the Times for hinting without actually saying that McCain had sexual relations with that woman. But really, it doesn't matter. It's a matter of record that he accepted money and favors from her, spent a lot of time for her, and did favors for her clients. Among other things, McCain wrote two letters -- from a draft provided by Vicki Iseman -- to the head of the Federal Communications Commission -- which was way out of line, since McCain headed the Senate Commmerce Committee, which controls the FCC. McCain's pressure was so outrageous that, even though McCain was in charge of funding his commission, the FCC commissioner wrote a letter back rebuking him for his interference, at the height of McCain's "ethics in government" campaign.
So, was McCain sleeping with her, hoping to sleep with her, or being subconsciously manipulated by a cute young woman? It doesn't really matter. He was being led by his groin into ethical violations. Let's face it, he was 64 at the time and is 72 now. Whether he is still cheating or not, he seems to be led by his dick; witness the videos of McCain checking out Sarah Palin's butt during the speech where he introduced her

McCain was dubbed the “POW Songbird”
By Eric Verlo
NOT MY TRIBE - 6/01/2008 8:45PM MDT - 1 Comment
An excerpt from prisoner of war John McCain’s November 9, 1967 interview for the North Vietnamese newspaper NHAN DAN:

McCain's Treason Exposed
McCain is exposed as a fraud and war hero pretender.

Col. David Hackworth is a true military hero who won an amazing 78 combat awards in Korea and Vietnam. They include 2 Distinguished Service Crosses, 10 Silver Stars, 4 Legions of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, 9 Bronze Stars, 8 Purple Hearts and much more. This is what he wrote about McCain before his death in 2005.

I want to give John McCain a little something special just before his nomination at the Republican convention. First I wrote about a little known event in 1967 where Israel deliberately attacked an American Navy ship, the USS Liberty, wounding or killing 70% of its crew here. Senator McCain's father helped the White House cover it up. Flight instructor McCain lost a third aircraft while flying a Navy trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game. Timberg wrote that McCain radioed, "I've got a flameout" before ejecting at one thousand feet. McCain parachuted onto a beach moments before his plane slammed into a clump of trees.
The Navy dismissed the crash as "unavoidable" and assigned McCain to the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal in December 1966, which was patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. In Spring 1967, the Forrestal was assigned to join the Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
McCain lost his fourth plane on board the Forrestal on July 29, 1967 when a rocket inadvertently slammed into his bomb laden jet. McCain escaped, but the explosions that followed killed 134 sailors. McCain was transferred from the badly damaged Forrestal to the USS Oriskany. Shortly afterwards, on Oct. 26, 1967, he was shot down and captured by the Vietnamese.
Here is another article from the same website about the potential for PTSD and McCain's suicide attempt while in Vietnamese custody.

WHY IS THE MEDIA AFRAID TO REALLY INTROSPECTLY INTO John MCCAINMILITARY RECORD: A COWARD NO HERO AND VIOLATOR OF THE CODE OF CONDUCT. HIS INJURIES WERE MAINLY FOM A PLANE CRASH NOT TORTURE

* United States Naval Academy - Class rank? 894 out of 899 (meaning that, like George Bush, McCain was at the bottom of his class). Maybe this reflects the fact that McCain shouldn’t have been accepted in the first place. Maybe McCain got a little help from the fact that his father and grandfather were admirals. hmmmm… Maybe this is just like how George Bush got his Harvard MBA because of his dad’s connections.

It turns out that John McCain "didn't love this country" while at the United States Naval Academy. While being interviewed by Sean earlier this year John McCain said that he "didn't love America until being held captive" on Fox News. He has apparently said this over and over during the past decade in interviews and campaign rallies (as uncovered by Dan Abrahms on MSNBC).

Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hVeWZjB8zM

This means John McCain was at the US Naval Academy and while there he didn’t love this country. I expect this to be covered with the same hysterical 24/7 round the clock fervor that Michelle Obama’s comments were.

U.S. documents proving POW McCain seriously "collaborated" was obtained in 1991 by the US Veteran Dispatch through the Freedom of Information Act - these transcripts are 5 of the approximately 20 interviews McCain gave the communist.

Presidential candidate John McCain denied that the Soviets interrogated U.S. POWs in Vietnam. But, former U.S., Soviet, and Vietnamese intelligence agents say they did

John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

One of the sharpest critics of the Pentagon's performance was an insider, Air Force Lieut. Gen. Eugene Tighe, who headed the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) during the 1970s. He openly challenged the Pentagon's position that no live prisoners existed, saying that the evidence proved otherwise. McCain was a bitter opponent of Tighe, who was eventually pushed into retirement.

Included in the evidence that McCain and his government allies suppressed or sought to discredit is a transcript of a senior North Vietnamese general's briefing of the Hanoi politburo, discovered in Soviet archives by an American scholar in 1993. The briefing took place only four months before the 1973 peace accords. The general, Tran Van Quang, told the politburo members that Hanoi was holding 1,205 American prisoners but would keep many of them at war's end as leverage to ensure getting war reparations from Washington

August 12th, 2008 2:46 am
Irvine POW disputes McCain's Vietnam claim
Retired Marine colonel is angered by the presidential candidate's statements that he helped the enemy while the two were in a Vietnamese prison camp.
By Martin Wisckol / Orange County Register
Former Orange County supervisor Edison Miller is lashing out at John McCain, saying the presidential candidate falsely fingered him as a turncoat who was "actively aiding the enemy" while the two were imprisoned during the Vietnam War.
"He lied about me," said the Irvine resident, who retired as a Marine Corps colonel shortly after the war. "The attacks on my character and integrity are totally without
Compulsive Gambler
John McCain loves to play craps (dice), at the $15 dollar minimum-bet tables if not higher. This has been confirmed by his top campaign aides over the years (Mark Salter and John Weaver). His longtime friend Wes Gullet says they would play in Vegas for 14 hours at a time, (10am to midnight), and that McCain is superstitious, blowing on the dice and such. It's not hard to see his love of gambling in his political choices, such as Sarah Palin for VP. All very exciting when he's gambling his own money or his campaign; but if it's America's security at stake, his gambling might be a bit less charming.
That New Time Religion
John McCain grew up Episcopalian. He went to an Episcopalian high school. For at least 15 years, he has been listed as an Episcopalian in authoritative directories such as the Almanac of American Politics and Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America 2008. He told a reporter from McClatchy News Service in June 2007 that he was an Episcopalian.
Suddenly, in September 2007, he's campaigning in South Carolina, the heavily Baptist state where George W. Bush barely managed to stop McCain's presidential campaign 8 years ago. And guess what? McCain tells a reporter "By the way, I'm not Episcopalian. I'm Baptist."
When pressed, he said he's attended the North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona for more than 15 years, though he has never been baptized in that church. Now see, that's exactly the problem. Baptism is kind of a big thing in the Baptist Church. (That's how they got the name.) No baptism, not Baptist.
Anyway, details aside, this is one very clear indication of how McCain has changed. Now, he's just another hungry politician, happy to pander if it helps him win. Which eliminates the very reason people were excited about him in 2000 -- his honesty.
Founding Member of the Keating Five
Back in the old days, defendants in famous trials got numbers -- the Chicago Eight, the Gang of Four, the Dave Clark Five, the Daytona 500. McCain was one of the "Keating Five," congressmen investigated on ethics charges for strenuously helping convicted racketeer Charles Keating after he gave them large campaign contributions and vacation trips.
Charles Keating was convicted of racketeering and fraud in both state and federal court after his Lincoln Savings & Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $3.4 billion. His convictions were overturned on technicalities; for example, the federal conviction was overturned because jurors had heard about his state conviction, and his state charges because Judge Lance Ito (yes, that judge) screwed up jury instructions. Neither court cleared him, and he faces new trials in both courts.)
Though he was not convicted of anything, McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating after Keating gave McCain at least $112,00 in contributions. In the mid-1980s, McCain made at least 9 trips on Keating's airplanes, and 3 of those were to Keating's luxurious retreat in the Bahamas. McCain's wife and father-in-law also were the largest investors (at $350,000) in a Keating shopping center; the Phoenix New Times called it a "sweetheart deal."
Mafia ties:
In 1995, McCain sent birthday regards, and regrets for not attending, to Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonano, the head of the New York Bonano crime family, who had retired to Arizona. Another politician to send regrets was Governor Fife Symington, who has since been kicked out of office and convicted of 7 felonies relating to fraud and extortion.
Adulterer
For a guy campaigning on family values, John McCain has broken up a lot of marriages. When he met his first wife (a swimsuit model), she was married to another man. After breaking that marriage up, she stuck by him loyally as he went off to war and was a prisoner for 5 and a half years. When he returned to America, though, he found out that she had been in a car wreck and wasn't as pretty. So he had a series of affairs, by his own admission, and dumped his wife and adopted family for a younger, very rich blond (now Cindy McCain.) Cindy, the daughter of a wealthy Budweiser beer distributor, was addicted to prescription narcotics and even stole hard drugs from a medical charity that she ran. In February, 2008, the New York Times ran a big article about the unusually close relationship between John McCain and a young telecommunications lobbyist named Vicki Iseman (who looks uncannily like Cindy McCain did when SHE was 25). They became so close that his staff, convinced they were having an affair, confronted both McCain and Iseman, telling them to back off. Now, a lot of people have criticized the Times for hinting without actually saying that McCain had sexual relations with that woman. But really, it doesn't matter. It's a matter of record that he accepted money and favors from her, spent a lot of time for her, and did favors for her clients. Among other things, McCain wrote two letters

-- from a draft provided by Vicki Iseman -- to the head of the Federal Communications Commission -- which was way out of line, since McCain headed the Senate Commmerce Committee, which controls the FCC. McCain's pressure was so outrageous that, even though McCain was in charge of funding his commission, the FCC commissioner wrote a letter back rebuking him for his interference, at the height of McCain's "ethics in government" campaign.
So, was McCain sleeping with her, hoping to sleep with her, or being subconsciously manipulated by a cute young woman? It doesn't really matter. He was being led by his groin into ethical violations. Let's face it, he was 64 at the time and is 72 now. Whether he is still cheating or not, he seems to be led by his dick; witness the videos of McCain checking out Sarah Palin's butt during the speech where he introduced her

McCain was dubbed the “POW Songbird”
By Eric Verlo
NOT MY TRIBE - 6/01/2008 8:45PM MDT - 1 Comment
An excerpt from prisoner of war John McCain’s November 9, 1967 interview for the North Vietnamese newspaper NHAN DAN:

McCain's Treason Exposed
McCain is exposed as a fraud and war hero pretender.

Col. David Hackworth is a true military hero who won an amazing 78 combat awards in Korea and Vietnam. They include 2 Distinguished Service Crosses, 10 Silver Stars, 4 Legions of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, 9 Bronze Stars, 8 Purple Hearts and much more. This is what he wrote about McCain before his death in 2005.

I want to give John McCain a little something special just before his nomination at the Republican convention. First I wrote about a little known event in 1967 where Israel deliberately attacked an American Navy ship, the USS Liberty, wounding or killing 70% of its crew here. Senator McCain's father helped the White House cover it up. Flight instructor McCain lost a third aircraft while flying a Navy trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game. Timberg wrote that McCain radioed, "I've got a flameout" before ejecting at one thousand feet. McCain parachuted onto a beach moments before his plane slammed into a clump of trees.

The Navy dismissed the crash as "unavoidable" and assigned McCain to the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal in December 1966, which was patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. In Spring 1967, the Forrestal was assigned to join the Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
McCain lost his fourth plane on board the Forrestal on July 29, 1967 when a rocket inadvertently slammed into his bomb laden jet. McCain escaped, but the explosions that followed killed 134 sailors. McCain was transferred from the badly damaged Forrestal to the USS Oriskany. Shortly afterwards, on Oct. 26, 1967, he was shot down and captured by the Vietnamese.
Here is another article from the same website about the potential for PTSD and McCain's suicide attempt while in Vietnamese custody.

First, someone wrote about a little known event in 1967 where Israel deliberately attacked an American Navy ship, the USS Liberty, wounding or killing 70% of its crew here. Senator McCain's father helped the White House cover it up. Second I reviewed again why he may not be constitutionally eligible to be president here. Thirdly, I want further research into a claim that McCain crashed two (2) Navy warplanes during peacetime and one (1) during Vietnam. It appears the truth is he crashed four (3) Navy warplanes during peacetime and two (2) during Vietnam. If I am incorrect, please let me know.
McCain, the "below par" pilot, eventually lost 5 military aircraft, the first during a training flight in 1958 when he plunged into Corpus Christi Bay while trying to land. The Navy ignored the crash and graduated McCain in 1960.
While deployed in the Mediterranean, the hard partying McCain lost a second aircraft. Timberg described the crash: "Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula, he took out some power lines which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral..."

Flight instructor McCain lost a third aircraft while flying a Navy trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game. Timberg wrote that McCain radioed, "I've got a flameout" before ejecting at one thousand feet. McCain parachuted onto a beach moments before his plane slammed into a clump of trees.
The Navy dismissed the crash as "unavoidable" and assigned McCain to the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal in December 1966, which was patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. In Spring 1967, the Forrestal was assigned to join the Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
McCain lost his fourth plane on board the Forrestal on July 29, 1967 when a rocket inadvertently slammed into his bomb laden jet. McCain escaped, but the explosions that followed killed 134 sailors. McCain was transferred from the badly damaged Forrestal to the USS Oriskany. Shortly afterwards, on Oct. 26, 1967, he was shot down and captured by the Vietnamese.

[TopNotch]

Roland! Wow! Moving on and up! I give u applause! Yeah I will miss you on Essence...though I come online for the beauty/fashion/entertainment articles...I originally came on here to get my political and social commentary from you! I enjoy BAW (TomJoyner's site) and other blogs...but your's definitely in my top fav. You call a duck a duck and point out wrong, while giving solutions for what's right!

Anyway..God bless and god speed. I enjoy your presence and voice on the radio and on TV. You hipped me to snake-news stations like FOX. Keep doing what u do! BTW..will Essence pick up another blogger like a Jeff Johnson or Tavis or Dr. Micheal Dyson or Dr.West?

[Diane C.]

Hi Roland,

I just started reading your blog this year. I'm so sorry to see you leave but I've heard about the Tom Joyner opportunity. Much success and I'll check out rolandsmartin.com so you can keep me updated in the political world. Once again good luck!

[Gina]

Oh no! Don't go Roland! I wish you nothing but the best in all your endeavors and I will continue to listen to you on the TJMS and watching you on CNN (I will block out the rest of those so-called commentators).

[GreenLadyHere]

God Bless You! BUT---I'm going with you! :>) I'm signing up to do so!! :>)

[Les Jewell]

Hey Frat, Congrats. Much Love From St. Louis Missouri...
000000000000006!

Check Out This Shigaty..http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/mccain-does-nothing-as-cr_n_132366.html