Archive for the ‘John McCain’ Category

It looks like John McCain’s final fight will finish in defeat. His final fight apparently is against President Trump. Based on this article, McCain finishes looking like a bitter loser.

John McCain always said he’d go down fighting, and so he has, dickering from his deathbed over CIA nominee Gina Haspel and pre-emptively disinviting President Donald Trump from his funeral, then leaving as a legacy some fierce final words for the leader of his party, who is now a political enemy. All Trump displays is “a reality-show facsimile of toughness,” the six-term Arizona senator and former GOP presidential candidate, who for a generation of Washington politicians has defined genuine toughness, writes in his forthcoming memoir.

There’s no questioning that John McCain, POW, was tougher than nails. What he did in the Hanoi Hilton took fortitude and then some. John McCain, the politician, however, is an entirely different story.

Sen. McCain, the politician, was a wimp. Further, he wasn’t that bright when it came to policy. As a senator, Sen. McCain swore to uphold the Constitution. That’s odd because Sen. McCain’s signature piece of legislation, McCain-Feingold, was thrown out because it violated the most sacred of our rights, the right to speak freely about our political opinions. The bill wasn’t just taken apart a little bit. It was totally uprooted.

Sen. McCain tried preventing Gina Haspel from becoming the CIA Director. He failed in his misguided attempt. Haspel’s sin? Doing what was legal at the time she did it while trying to protect the country from a terrorist attack.

The irony of McCain’s curtain-closing contretemps with the president is that it is clearly Trump himself who has inherited McCain’s mantle as the leading Republican maverick in Washington. Both men have often taken on the party orthodoxy across an array of big issues, with Trump running as the ultimate populist outsider in 2016 and spouting apostasies on trade, immigration and foreign policy; and McCain doing so on just about everything at one point or another during his long career. Both are known for being irascible and often bad-tempered, and unsparing toward enemies and rivals, even in their own party. Indeed, during McCain’s first run for president in 2000 he managed to enlist only a handful of his 53 Senate Republican colleagues to support him over George W. Bush, and some cited his volcanic anger and congenital impatience (traits that McCain insists he has since reined in) as reasons. As one GOP senator told me back then, “I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.” The two politicians even share some views on the proper use of American force in the world and the perils of palliative diplomacy—McCain opposed the Iran nuclear deal as fiercely as Trump, for one.

The difference between McCain and Trump is that we always know where Trump is on the important issues of the day. Sen. McCain was totally unpredictable in that respect.

It’s become a cliché to label McCain a “maverick” for his dramatic, and increasingly frequent, breaks with the Republican Party line. But it’s a cliché because the label fits: Over nearly four decades in Washington, McCain has given a master class in maverickism, and it is for this he will be most remembered.

Sen. McCain was all over the place because he rarely thought things through. He’s been short-tempered and not that bright.

Truthfully, the Senate will be a better place when Sen. McCain is no longer part of it. Hotheads that don’t respect the Constitution shouldn’t be part of the greatest deliberative body in the world.

In the gospel according to David Hogg, politicians who accept money from ‘special interests’ (like the NRA) have “blood on their hands when an innocent dies. If that’s the battlefield that Mr. Hogg wants to fight and die on, let’s have at it. Hogg insists repeatedly daily that politicians (like Marco Rubio) have blood on their hands if they’ve accepted campaign contributions from the NRA.

Let’s apply those principles to illegal immigration. Instead of the NRA, let’s plug in La Raza and Eric Holder or Luis Gutierrez. Let’s swap out the NRA and Marco Rubio. Mary Ann Mendoza lost her son in May, 2014 when her son “was killed in a head-on collision with a wrong-way driver.” The driver, Raul Silva-Corona, wasn’t “deported two decades ago after he was convicted for crimes in Colorado.”

In July, 2014, Ms. Mendoza wrote to then-President Obama, saying “The prosecutors were ‘lenient’ on him and several charges were dismissed. When he was convicted of these crimes (in) 1994 and the government knew he was in the country illegally, why wasn’t he deported? Why are any of these illegal criminals in this country? I am furious that the Federal Government allowed this criminal to stay in this country and KILL my son!” Tonight, Ms. Mendoza was interviewed by Martha McCallum. Here’s that interview:

Democrats insist that people who accept campaign contributions from the NRA have “blood on their hands.” By their definition, politicians who accept campaign contributions from La Raza or other open borders organizations have blood on their hands. By Hogg’s definition, politicians like President Obama, Eric Holder, Jerry Brown and Xavier Becerra have blood on their hands because they’ve let criminal aliens out of jail, only to see them be commit more crimes, including murder, rape and other violent crimes.

BTW, yes, that means that liberals like Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham and John McCain have blood on their hands, too. But I digress.

Let’s get serious about this. Democrats won’t vote for funding the border wall. Ever. They’ll play gimmicks and say that they’ll vote for funding the wall but they won’t actually vote for funding Trump’s wall. It’s a simple matter of admitting that Democrats are beholden to their open borders special interest allies.

Building the wall is imperative. If you think that walls don’t work, ask Prime Minister Netanyahu and the IDF if they work. Finally, here’s Ms. Mendoza’s letter to President Obama in 2014:

It’s 4 years later and Democrats still haven’t built the wall or secured the border. It’s time we stopped believing that Democrats give a damn about protecting US citizens. The façade is crumbling. It’s a myth to think that they give a damn about anything other than acquiring, then maintaining political power.

Technorati: Donald Trump, The Wall, Mary Ann Mendoza, Brandon Mendoza, Border Patrol, Republicans, David Hogg, Eric Holder, La Raza, Jerry Brown, Xavier Becerra, Sanctuary Cities, Barack Obama, Jeff Flake, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Luis Gutierrez, Democrats, Election 2018

Saying that Jeff Flake is a legislative lightweight is to demean lightweights. It’s insulting that Sen. Flake compared President Trump with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. What’s worse is that he made the comparison on the Senate floor.

Sen. Flake is a wimp and an airhead. Anyone that thinks that a combative president should be compared with a brutal dictator who killed millions of people isn’t intellectually qualified to be a U.S. senator. Further, Sen. Flake essentially capitulated to the Democrats on border enforcement. Thankfully, that’ll make it easier for Arizonans who worry about border security and preventing cartel-related human trafficking to elect a serious senator who won’t cave like Sen. Flake just did.

Sen. McCain wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post (naturally) that criticized President Trump. In that op-ed, “Mr. McCain joined his fellow Arizonan in calling for the president to stop attacking the news media.” In the op-ed, Sen. McCain said “We cannot afford to abdicate America’s longstanding role as the defender of human rights and democratic principles throughout the world. Without strong leadership in the White House, Congress must commit to protecting independent journalism, preserving an open and free media environment, and defending the fundamental right to freedom of opinion and expression.”

Coming from the man who wanted to gut the First Amendment, that’s rich. Further, Sen. McCain should know that the U.S. form of government isn’t a democracy. The Founding Fathers created a constitutional republic that said our rights come from “Nature’s God”, not from government. The difference between the 2 types of government is gigantic.

As President Reagan said in his farewell address, “‘We the People’ tell the government what to do; it doesn’t tell us. ‘We the People’ are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which ‘We the People’ tell the government what it is allowed to do.”

When Sen. McCain collaborated with Russ Feingold to write their campaign finance law, they wrote a law that told citizens involved in the political process when they could criticize politicians and what times were off-limits. Anyone who didn’t hesitate in telling ‘We The People’ how they can react is someone who isn’t morally fit to instruct presidents about right and wrong.

About 2 hours ago, Sen. John McCain announced that he’ll vote for the GOP tax bill. That pretty much guarantees the bill’s passage. In a statement, Sen. McCain said “After careful thought and consideration, I have decided to support the Senate tax reform bill. I believe this legislation, though far from perfect, would enhance American competitiveness, boost the economy, and provide long-overdue tax relief for middle-class families.”

It appears as though the only question left is whether any Democrats will vote for the bill. All day yesterday and thus far this morning, House Democrats have waged a furious Twitter war using #GOPTaxScam as their hashtag. This Pelosi tweet is typical. It says “Republicans will do anything to obscure the devastating impact their #GOPTaxScam will have on middle class families nationwide.”

It’s impossible to take Ms. Pelosi seriously. That tweet (and others like it) have a whiff of desperation to them. Sane people don’t think that the GOP tax cuts will hurt the middle class. Unfortunately, Democrats have deployed their fear-mongering tactics so long that that’s all they know. Check out Jeff Merkley’s tweet:

Headed to the floor to vote on whether or not to move forward with the most egregious bank heist in American history. My vote? No way. We don’t need a political system or an economy that is even more rigged for the privileged and powerful than it already is. Stop the #GOPTaxScam.

Remember that Merkley voted for all of the Obama budgets that produced the weakest recovery since the Great Depression. Today’s Democratic Party doesn’t have any credibility when it comes to the economy. That’s because most of them have gulped too much of the socialist Kool-Aid.

UPDATE: The Dow roared past 24,000 today, at one point gaining 315 points. This is mostly attributed to the Tax Bill passing the Senate this week:

“This tax-reform bill is not just about” potentially lowering taxes said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade. “It’s also a psychological factor that Congress can get something done. That would be a positive.”

Sen. John McCain said Thursday he would support the bill, making it more likely that the GOP-led Senate will pass its bill. The Senate is expected to vote later on Thursday. If the upper chamber’s bill passes, the House and Senate would have to work on a new bill they can send to President Donald Trump.

This makes it official:

This article was written either by a dishonest reporter or a reporter who still doesn’t understand the political situation we’re in. Specifically, the reporter wrote “In a speech announcing his decision, he offers a stinging rebuke to the path of the Republican Party under Trump and says he felt he no longer had a place in the party. Flake’s decision generates uncertainty about the future of his seat and the GOP’s Senate majority.”

With tax reform now looking likely to pass by Christmas, the question isn’t whether Republicans will hold their majorities in the House and Senate. The question is whether they’ll gain 4-5 Senate seats or if they’ll flip enough Senate seats to hold a filibuster-proof Senate in 2019.

Sen. Flake’s speech showed how out-of-touch he is with his party, saying “And so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit or silent. I decided that I would be better able to represent the people of Arizona and to better serve my country and my conscience by freeing myself of the political consideration that consumed far too much bandwidth and would cause me to compromise far too many principles. To that end, I am announcing today my service in the Senate will conclude at the end of my term in early January 2019. It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, who is pro immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party; the party that has so long defined itself by its belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment that we have given in or given up on the core principles in favor of a more viscerally satisfied anger and resentment.”

Naturally, Democrats, both in DC and the media, are praising Flake. Whatever. Flake served a single term in the Senate. Saying that his time in the Senate was unimpressive is accurate. While he wasn’t the unpredictable vote that Sen. McCain was, Flake wasn’t the reliable conservative vote that Sen. Kyl was or that Kelli Ward will be, if and when she’s elected. After watching Sen. Flake’s retirement announcement speech, it’s safe to say that some of his points seem more than a little overdramatic:

It isn’t that I’ll spend a ton of time bemoaning the lack of civility in DC. What I will do is bemoan the fact that too many Republicans aren’t fighters. Principled compromise is a good thing. Unprincipled compromise is just capitulation. There’s too little of the former, too much of the latter.

This was always going to be a tough re-election for Sen. Flake. Now that he’s announced his retirement, let’s hope this moves this seat back into the Solid Republican category rather than letting it languish in the Toss-up category.

Kim Strassel’s latest WSJ article perfectly illustrates the threat that the Swamp poses to America. The question that Susan Collins, John McCain and Rand Paul needs to be asked is whether they hate President Trump more than they love America. At this point, it seems like they hate President Trump more than they love America.

Ms. Strassel notes that “Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have also led revolts against bills, again based on shared criticisms. But what do the Arizona maverick, the Maine moderate and the Kentucky libertarian have in common? Very little. Well, very little save motivations that go beyond policy. And that is the crucial point that is missing from the endless analyses of the McCain-Collins-Paul defections on health care. The media has treated the trio’s excuses for killing their party’s top priority as legit, despite the obvious holes in their objections over policy and process. What in fact binds the three is their crafting of identities based primarily on opposition to their party or Mr. Trump.”

Ms. Strassel eviscerates the trio, writing “The press was fixated this week on Mr. McConnell’s bad week, which is an easy piece to write. But it ignores the obvious reality that the Triumvirate seems to have never had any intention of letting its party succeed. After all, a senator who intended to stand firm on “regular order,” as Mr. McCain said, would have informed his colleagues of that demand at the beginning, rather than allow his colleagues to set up for another vote and then dramatically tank it (again) at the last minute. A senator who voted for ‘skinny’ ObamaCare repeal in the summer on the grounds that anything was “better than no repeal,” in the words of Mr. Paul, would not suddenly engineer an unreachable set of demands for his vote on an even better repeal.” This will never be forgotten by Republicans:

Let’s state this clearly. By making up flimsy excuses for why they’re opposing a health care plan that would be dramatically better than the ACA, this trio is proving that they’re putting egos ahead of doing what’s right for the American people. In that way, Paul, McCain and Collins are as disgusting as Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi.

While there are other Republicans who haven’t enthusiastically supported President Trump’s agenda, this trio of traitors should be expelled from chairmanships and plum committee assignments. Rather than calling them “the Never-Trump Triumvirate”, let’s call this trio what they are: the trio who hate President Trump more than they love this nation. What a disgusting bunch. They’re more disgusting than the reptiles protesting during the National Anthem. They’re almost more disgusting than Antifa.

Technorati: John McCain, Rand Paul, Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, Graham-Cassidy, Repeal and Replace, Obamacare, The Swamp, Tax Reform, Republicans

Jazz Shaw’s post is today’s must reading for immigration hawks. In his post, Jazz cites this article. The highlight of the article comes when it starts citing statistics. Without further adieu, let’s get to those statistics.

The article’s opening paragraph says “Speaking on the second anniversary of the government’s move to seal Hungary’s border with Serbia — which is also an external border for the European Union — Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Chief Security Advisor, György Bakondi, announced that the fences have caused illegal immigration to collapse from 391,000 in 2015, to 18,236 in 2016, to just 1,184 in 2017.” According to Jazz, that’s a 99% drop in illegal immigration. Actually, it’s a 99.7% drop in illegal immigration but what’s seven-tenths of a point amongst friends?

Jazz sums things up perfectly, saying “The math here should be a bit too much for any but the most willfully blind to ignore. In 2015 there were an estimated 390,000 illegal border crossings. Thus far this year the number is barely over one thousand. That’s not just impressive… it’s staggering.”

The next time a wobbly Republican or a weak-on-law-and-order-Democrat start whining about the cost of building the wall or how walls don’t work or other BS, point them to this article, then ask them if a 99.7% decrease in illegal immigration is worth paying for. I’m betting that we’ll find that border security isn’t a priority with these politicians. It’s time to let them know that they’re in the minority. Yes, a majority of people want DACA-protected illegal immigrants to stay but it’s also true that they want the border wall built.

This information proves that walls work in keeping out drug cartels while stifling human trafficking in addition to stopping illegal immigration. Democrats and GOP fluffs like John McCain and Jeff Flake don’t support the wall. Is it because they want a deal so badly that they’re willing to ignore the other national security threats posed by lax border enforcement?

Here’s hoping that President Trump plays hardball with Democrats. This isn’t just another issue. To those living along the southern border, it’s a matter of life and death. Literally. Things have improved since President Trump took over, thanks mostly to Jeff Sessions’ work in taking border security seriously. What’s important, though, is noting that, without a wall, Democrats can stop taking border security seriously … again. and we’d be right back with floods of illegal immigrants again.

The wall will stop that flood forever. That’s the last thing that Democrats want, though minds are changing about that. As they settle into this country, lots of Hispanic immigrants start thinking of themselves as white. If that’s the case, then the political advantage for Democrats is overstated, which is a game-changer. At that point, enforcement becomes the most important issue. Once the fight moves onto that turf, Democrats, McCain and Flake lose.

Technorati: Build the Wall, National Security, Illegal Immigration, Human Trafficking, Drug Cartels, Jeff Flake, John McCain, Chuck Schumer, Democrats

If Minnesotans needed additional proof that Emperor Dayton doesn’t understand the importance of enforcing our nation’s laws, we got it this week. This past Tuesday, Emperor Dayton said that enforcing our nation’s immigration laws was “lunacy.” While greeting students outside Meadow Lake Elementary School in New Hope, Emperor Dayton said “It’s just shameful. I mean you have Republican members of Congress as well as Democrats saying this is the wrong way to go. Here in Minnesota we have a shortage of skilled workers. So we’re going to take some 6,200 that are here under DACA and send them away? It’s lunacy.”

I know that some Republicans don’t believe in enforcing this nation’s immigration laws, too. Names like John McCain and Lindsey Graham immediately leap to mind. The term “comprehensive immigration reform” immediately pops into my mind, too. Most importantly, the term open borders comes to mind because that’s essentially what we’ve had the past 16 years. This CIS report says that the “total number of illegal immigrants (11 to 12 million) has held roughly constant in recent years because the number arriving has roughly balanced the number going home or getting legal status. This has created the mistaken impression that the problem is largely over. The most recent estimates from the Center for Migration Studies indicate that 1.7 million aliens joined the illegal population from 2009 to 2013 and Pew Research Center estimates indicate 1.5 million, 300,000 to 400,000 a year. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates an additional 790,000 joined the illegal population since 2013 for a total of 2.5 million new illegal immigrants since President Obama took office.”

I’d love to hear Emperor Dayton explain why consistent enforcement of our nation’s laws is lunacy. I’d love to hear him explain why turning a blind eye to illegal immigration is acceptable. President Obama and Emperor Dayton have turned a blind eye towards this problem. As a result, wages have stagnated and economic growth has been pathetic.

When President Obama and Emperor Dayton turned a blind eye towards illegal immigration, things got worse, not better. When Rahm Emanuel turned a blind eye towards gun violence, things got worse, not better. That’s the history of pacifism. Things get worse, not better. Pacifism told Ayatollah Khomeini he could start an Islamic revolution. Pacifism told Hitler that he could conquer Europe without much of a fight. Now, pacifism is telling illegal immigrants that they’re welcome to stay here without impunity.

Pacifism is lunacy. Consistently enforcing the law is the start of sanity.

Technorati: Mark Dayton, Tina Flint Smith, Illegal Immigration, DACA, Pacifism, DFL, Center for Immigration Studies, Law Enforcement, Republicans

Anyone who’s followed Sen. McCain’s political career knows that he’s had a holier-than-thou attitude. When he co-authored the unconstitutional McCain-Feingold legislation, his interviews on the legislation focused on perceived corruption rather than on whether the legislation violated people’s civil rights. Sen. McCain insisted that ridding society of corruption, whether it was real or imagined, was more important than protecting a person’s civil rights.

Later, Sen. McCain helped push through legislation that tied the hands of interrogators interrogating terrorists, supposedly because these EITs were helping terrorists recruit more terrorists and because the EITs (enhanced interrogation techniques) were hurting our standing in the world. The truth is that a handful of countries were complaining about the EITs but that the problem was more imagined than real.

Now, Sen. McCain is criticizing President Trump’s pardon of Sheriff Arpaio, saying “”No one is above the law and the individuals entrusted with the privilege of being sworn law officers should always seek to be beyond reproach in their commitment to fairly enforcing the laws they swore to uphold.”

It’s indisputable that Sen. McCain is an American military hero. Spending years in the Hanoi Hilton bought him that honor. As a politician, though, he isn’t an American hero. It’s important to separate those identities. Sen. McCain isn’t a team player. He’s loved playing the part of a maverick essentially the last half of his political career.

I salute McCain, the war hero and POW. I’d ignore Sen. McCain, the politician, if he didn’t keep jumping into the middle of controversies, then making ill-advised decisions.

The Left’s latest chanting point is that President Trump’s pardon of Sheriff Arpaio means that he might pardon his friends facing federal investigations. That’s why it isn’t surprising to read Phillip Bump’s article, which reads like a liberal hissy fit on the subject.

Bump writes “The broader question raised by the pardon, then, is where Trump would draw the line. If he’s willing to pardon Joe Arpaio for ignoring a court order in service of a political goal Trump embraces, why wouldn’t he pardon another individual he respects for similarly ignoring a demand from the court.”

First, Bump’s premise is beyond flimsy. Presupposing that members of President Trump’s administration have committed crimes isn’t supported by any investigations. Until there’s more than unsubstantiated allegations of crimes being committed, I’ll ignore Bump’s liberal bias. The naming of a special counsel doesn’t prove anything except that Democrats will do anything in their attempt to delegitimize President Trump’s election. I’ll categorize that as the longest case of sour grapes in political history.

If there’s any doubt that this is the Democrats’ latest talking point to delegitimize President Trump’s election, check out this interview:

Then check out how similar this interview is to the first interview:

The clear message that I think President Trump is sending is that he isn’t like President Obama because he’s serious about protecting Arizona’s people from drug cartels and human traffickers. If Democrats want to pick that fight, let’s get it on. The Obama administration found a liberal judge to torment Sheriff Arpaio with a BS verdict.

Further, the Obama administration wasn’t serious about fighting illegal immigration. That’s indisputable because they frequently tied law enforcement’s hands behind their backs on immigration:

A group of immigration agents filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration Thursday, saying they are sick of being told not to do their jobs, a feeling intensified by the president’s new non-deportation policy and a previous memo directing them not to arrest certain illegal immigrants.

Sen. McCain, Sen. Flake, former President Obama and essentially all of the Democratic Party serving in DC have fought against enforcing the Tex-Mex border. Most importantly, they’ve fought against protecting law-abiding U.S. citizens.

As for the possibility of a president pardoning people whenever they want, that’s always been a possibility. There’s no reason to think that President Trump will pardon his political cronies, partially because his campaign staffers aren’t in trouble. The other faulty part of Bump’s premise is that there isn’t any proof anyone’s broken any laws. Why would anyone lie if they didn’t need to?