Changes: Joseph McCarthy (Earth-1010)

Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fuelled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate.

The term "McCarthyism", coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.

McCarthy was born in 1908 in the Town of Grand Chute in Outagamie County, Wisconsin, and attended Marquette University, eventually earning an LL.B. from Marquette University Law School. At age 33, McCarthy volunteered for the United States Marine Corps and served during World War II. He successfully ran for the United States Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950 when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department.

In succeeding years after his 1950 speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the United States Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or homosexuality to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government.

McCarthy made various attempts to intimidate, and expel from government positions, persons whom he accused, or threatened to publicly accuse, of homosexuality. Former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson has written, "The so-called 'Red Scare' has been the main focus of most historians of that period of time. A lesser-known element... and one that harmed far more people was the "Lavender Scare", a witch-hunt McCarthy and others conducted against homosexuals," With the highly publicized Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, and following the death of Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming by suicide that same year, McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67 to 22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. McCarthy died at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. The official cause of death was acute hepatitis; it is widely accepted that this was caused or exacerbated by alcoholism.

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@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 | Aliases                 = Senator McCarthy; Tail-Gunner Joe
 | Identity                = Public
-| Affiliation             = U.S. Senate; formerly [[United States Army (Earth-1010)|US Army]]
+| Affiliation             = [[Masters of Evil (Earth-1010)|Masters of Evil]]; formerly U.S. Senate, [[United States Army (Earth-1010)|US Army]]
 | Relatives               =
 | Universe                = Earth-1010
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 }}
 [[Category:United States Army (Earth-1010)]]
+[[Category:Masters of Evil (Earth-1010)]]