A new moderate Republican group, Conservative Agenda for Arizona (CAA), emerged recently in Arizona. Its leadership and advisory board are mainly Republicans associated with the party’s moderate wing, including outgoing Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.
Richer started a PAC for GOP fraud deniers soon after he took office and said during the Republican primary this year that he intended to vote for Joe Biden instead of Donald Trump for president.
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Republican strategist Scott Jennings said Wednesday night that he’s “heard” comparisons of prominent Republicans to German dictator Adolf Hitler going back to the George W. Bush administration during a panel on CNN.
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I write now, in the worst pain and shock, with news of my friend Joe Lieberman’s death just moments ago. I write because I know what his critics will be quick to write, what news reports have already re-circulated.
The same old attacks on Joe Lieberman, which he and I talked about so often, we both regarded as badges of honor: He often broke with his political friends and allies in the Democratic Party over matters of conscience. His critics did not just disagree with his positions. They had to attack him personally, call him names. But that didn’t dissuade him from sticking to his principles, regardless.
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Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, the Ohio man who became known as “Joe the Plumber” after confronting then-candidate Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, has died, his wife said. He was 49.
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The Republican Legislative Victory Fund (RLVF), a PAC which is run by Camelback Strategy Group (CSG), filed a campaign finance report this past week revealing that between the middle of July and the end of September, they raised over $1,606,795, but only about $7,000 ended up being spent to help Republican candidates. Instead, the RLVF spent about $735,000 on operating expenses for consultants, fundraisers, accounting, polling, etc.
Other than $7,398.45 for flyers/handouts/door hangers for one candidate, RLVF’s only expenditures helping candidates during this crucial point of the primary race and the beginning of the general race was $5,619 each for campaign websites. Maricopa County Republican Committee Member at Large Brian Ference, who designs websites for a living, told The Arizona Sun Times, “$5,619 for a simple website is considerably overpriced in the Arizona market. I have created dozens of political sites including candidates and the most a candidate should be paying is $2,000-$3,000 for a simple campaign website.”
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The Republican Party in one Nebraska county has chosen to censure GOP Senator Ben Sasse for supporting the impeachment trial of former President Trump in the Senate, and a number of other committee delegates throughout the state are reportedly thinking about doing the same. The Nebraska Republican Party will be holding a meeting later this month to discuss “possible action” related to Sasse’ votes in the Senate and his continual anti-Trump remarks.
The Scotts Bluff County Republican Party chair told the local Star-Herald newspaper regretfully that state law prevents them from recalling the senator.
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Senator Mark Warner (D) and challenger Daniel Gade debated health care and social security at a Tuesday debate hosted by the AARP and WTKR News 3. Warner stressed his record including support of the American Care Act (ACA) and criticized the Republican Party for trying to dismantle it. Gade described some potential compromises to the ACA and repeatedly called Warner a career politician.
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The late Sen. John McCain repeatedly called Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI-08) “totally unqualified” to serve in a national security position in President Barack Obama’s administration.
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A charismatic Republican venture capitalist from Tucson, Arizona is considering a run against Republican Senator Martha McSally in the Republican-leaning state’s primaries next year.
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Amy Klobuchar addressed the controversial story about John McCain mentioning dictator names during President Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration on Jimmy Kimmel Live. During her Tuesday late-night show appearance, Kimmel asked the Minnesota Senator about McCain story she told last weekend. “Now you told a story at one of these rallies this weekend that I found so interesting about the late Senator John McCain,” Kimmel said. Klobuchar said McCain was referencing parts of the speech and mentioning dictator’s speeches during the inauguration. In addition, McCain referenced these dictators because he was concerned “about what this meant with this president,” according to the presidential candidate. She would not mention what dictator names the late Senator repeated to her and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. “I think the point of the story was that John McCain was a student of history and so he knew what was coming,” Klobuchar said. “He knew these cries for isolationism, what that meant if we don’t stand with our allies, what that meant for America’s standing in the world. And that’s what he was doing. He had said things similar to this publicly as well.” As the Minnesota Sun reported earlier this week, McCain’s daughter and View co-host…
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Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar revealed an unusual detail about what deceased Arizona Senator John McCain said during President Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration. Klobuchar told an Iowa crowd Saturday that McCain kept saying dictator names to her during Trump’s 2017 inauguration speech, according to CNN. This conversation happened while Klobuchar sat between Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and John McCain, according to the Huffington Post. “I sat on that stage between Bernie and John McCain, and John McCain kept reciting to me names of dictators during that speech because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation,” Klobuchar said. “He understood it. He knew because he knew this man more than any of us did.” McCain played an important role in spreading the fake Steele Dossier, which claimed the Russian government had damaging information about Trump. The Daily Caller reported that David Kramer, a former associate of McCain, provided the dossier to reporters from several media outlets. In unsealed court filings, Kramer said McCain gave a copy of the dossier to former FBI Director Jim Comey. “I think they felt a senior Republican was better to be the recipient of this rather than a…
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by Chuck Ross Court documents released last week in a lawsuit involving the Steele dossier revealed new details about the campaign to disseminate the infamous anti-Trump report to the press and within the U.S. government. Much was already known about Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele’s efforts to seed the dossier with reporters and government officials. Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson orchestrated several meetings between Steele and Washington, D.C.-based journalists prior to the 2016 election. It has also been widely reported that Steele and Simpson met with government officials in an attempt to ensure that Steele’s unverified findings landed on the government’s radar. A deposition given by David Kramer, a longtime associate of former Sen. John McCain, shed light on even more contacts with reporters and government officials. Kramer’s Dec. 13, 2017 deposition was released on March 14 along with a batch of other documents from a dossier-related lawsuit against BuzzFeed News. By giving the dossier to government officials, Fusion GPS and Steele were able to create news hooks for journalists to write stories airing the dossier’s unverified allegations. That was the case with Yahoo! News, Mother Jones, CNN and BuzzFeed News, all of which published stories not about…
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Retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who rocketed to the national spotlight when his Congresswoman wife Gabrielle Gifford was shot in a failed assassination attempt, announced Tuesday he’s running to finish John McCain’s last term in the U.S. Senate. Kelly is a top Democratic recruit to take on Republican Martha McSally in one of the most closely contested Senate races of the 2020 election. McSally is a former Republican congresswoman who was appointed to McCain’s seat last year after she narrowly lost to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. McSally leaned heavily on her record as the first woman to fly a combat mission as a fighter pilot, but she was hurt by her embrace of President Donald Trump. If Kelly is nominated, the race would pit a Navy veteran and astronaut against a trailblazing Air Force pilot in the contest to replace McCain, a legendary Navy flyer who was famously shot down and held captive. Democrats are eagerly watching the Arizona contest, having already defeated McSally in a Senate race just a few months ago. Kelly and Giffords have for years pushed Congress to enact gun control measures with little success. They shifted their focus to state legislatures in recent years, helping to strengthen…
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by Molly Prince The effort to rename a Senate office building after the late Republican Sen. John McCain has seemingly gone to the wayside as months pass without any further action. Following McCain’s death in August, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pledged to introduce a resolution that would change the name of the Russell Senate Office Building as a tribute to the Arizona senator. “As you go through life, you meet few truly great people. John McCain was one of them,” Schumer tweeted the day of McCain’s passing. ‘His dedication to his country and the military were unsurpassed, and maybe most of all, he was a truth teller — never afraid to speak truth to power in an era where that has become all too rare.’ ‘The Senate, the United States, and the world are lesser places without John McCain,” he continued. “Nothing will overcome the loss of Senator McCain, but so that generations remember him I will be introducing a resolution to rename the Russell building after him.” Schumer, however, never introduced the aforementioned resolution and his office did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation when asked if he was still planning on doing so. The…
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by Jeffrey A. Rendall Here’s a bit of wisdom: a liar is a liar is a liar. It isn’t complicated; if there’s a Democrat running for senate from a red state chances are he or she claims they’re “my own person,” intends to “work with President Trump” on the issues of common interest (like what?) will defy the dictates of Senate Minority Leader “Chucky” Schumer and his merry band of socialist henchmen and last but not least plans to be an “independent voice” in the upper chamber representing the citizens of state X [insert any of the ten states that went for Trump in 2016 yet are weighing-in on Democrat senators in this year’s elections]. Pick a contest and the campaign narrative’s always the same regardless. No Democrat would ever hire me as a consultant but they’d save a ton of dough if they did – or maybe they should just read this column. The only problem (for them) is it’s all male bovine poop — all Democrat candidates utter the same things yet when the newly elected lawmakers head to Washington they revert back to the rubber-stamp big government political hacks they’ve always been. Take Alabama’s Doug Jones…
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by Roger Kimball The big news last week revolved around the funerals of a 1960s pop singer and an unreliable Republican senator with a cult following among masochistic conservatives and cynical leftists eager to capitalize on his capacity to spread dissension among his nominal allies. I suppose the exploitation of funerals for grubby political ends is nothing new. Mark Antony did it with notable success when he eulogized Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. But there was something especially stomach-churning about the injection of partisan animus into the obsequies of Aretha Franklin and John McCain. Both were reminders—as if we needed any—of how these jangled, hyperpartisan times have the capacity to infect even the most solemn ceremonies of life with bile-filled histrionics, our latter-day version of the theater of the absurd. The race hustling reverends Al Sharpton and Michael Eric Dyson led the bandwagon at Franklin’s funeral, loading their praise of the soul singer with vicious anti-Trump rhetoric. Dyson described the president of the United States as an “orange apparition,” a “lugubrious leech,” a “dictator” and “fascist.” Nicely done, Reverend! The tone at John McCain’s spectacle was more restrained but the message of hatred and contempt for the president was just…
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U.S. Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee seems to want a wait and see approach on renaming a building in Washington, D.C. after the late Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill said the debate is a way for U.S. Dem. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. to score political points against Republicans. Schumer’s endgame — he wants to portray the GOP as racist, Gill said. As Time reported this week, a proposal to rename the Russell Senate Office Building after McCain is floating around the U.S. Senate. The name Russell refers to the late Georgia U.S. Sen. Richard Russell Jr., whom the website described as “a Southern segregationist Democrat.” U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly wants a bipartisan committee to find a less grandiose way honor McCain. Members of the U.S. Senate can best do that, McConnell said, by naming a conference room in McCain’s honor or hanging a portrait of him up on a wall. But Schumer’s seemingly single-minded focus is to rename the Russell Building. Gill said Schumer is not doing this to honor McCain. “He’s doing this because he wants to stir up political trouble,” Gill said. “Chuck Schumer and the…
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On Monday’s Gill Report – broadcast live on WETR 92.3 FM in Knoxville – Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill was dismayed by the media’s ability to say anything as a reason to criticize president Trump in the time of John McCain’s death. Apparently, following flag flying protocol just wasn’t enough. Gill went on to talk about Senator McCain’s passing and his true feelings he expressed during a 2010 campaign message where he was more than enthusiastic about “building the wall”. However, only when it served his re-election. Gill continued: John McCain’s passing has been met with a lot of disputes within the Republican party not the least at which has been a furor over the flag over the white house flying at half-mast for two days. Well lowering the flag for two days when a member of the Congress or top leader in government dies is the protocol set forth in the US code. You lower the flag for two days and then it goes back up to full staff. Which is exactly what the White House did. It wasn’t an attack on John McCain, it wasn’t a way to diminish his value they followed the rules, the protocol…
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by Robert Donachie Sen. John McCain of Arizona passed away at his home in Arizona on Saturday evening, putting an end to a nearly six-decade-long career in public service. The 81-year-old senator ultimately succumbed to a battle with a highly malignant form of brain cancer, known as glioblastoma. Fewer than 5 percent of patients live beyond five years of the diagnosis, with a median survival rate of only 18 months. The same form of cancer claimed the lives of former Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Beau Biden, the late son of former Vice President Joe Biden. McCain started treatment shortly after his diagnosis in July 2017, splitting his time between Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland and the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. Despite undergoing aggressive rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, the senator managed to fulfill his day-to-day obligations in the Senate until December, providing a loud and prominent voice during both the health care and tax reform debates in 2017. Early Life The son and grandson of decorated U.S. Navy admirals, John Sidney McCain III was born Aug. 29, 1936 at the Coco Solo Naval Station in Panama. His father’s career forced the family to move frequently throughout his childhood, but…
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Senator John McCain has taken a barely-veiled jab at President Donald Trump’s avoidance of military service, sharply escalating their war of words. Republican McCain was interviewed by broadcaster CSPAN on the 50th anniversary of his being shot down over Vietnam, which led to his five-year stay as a prisoner in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison.…
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Once upon a time, there was a moral concept that taught if you had a problem with somebody, you went to that person directly and spoke of that matter in private – you didn’t throw darts at public walls. Then came Sen. John McCain. And in speedy order, then came George W. Bush and Barack Obama.…
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The surprise retirement of Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) may signal a rush to the exit door for other longtime establishment Republicans in the Senate. Several GOP members of the upper chamber — most of them advanced in age — have struggled to acclimate to the style and agenda of President Donald Trump. And some have drifted…
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Sen. John McCain says it would be “unconscionable” to send Dreamers back to their native countries, urging Congress to pass an amnesty program as a part of comprehensive immigration reform. “It is not conscionable to tell young people who came here as children that they have to go back to a country that they don’t know,”…
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Democrats, immigrant rights activists and other members of the anti-Trump resistance were enraged by President Trump’s pardon late Friday of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And so was Sen. John McCain. While most Republicans remained silent on the pardon, Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican who has frequently battled both Mr. Arpaio and Mr. Trump, released…
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A new list of approval polls for all 50 U.S. senators released this week seems to indicate the Republican senators with the lowest popularity among voters at home are those who have been the most vocally critical of President Donald Trump — and who have historically supported amnesty for illegal immigrants. The least popular GOP senators,…
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We know Sen. John McCain is no friend of President Donald Trump’s – but this is ridiculous. The Arizona senator, who says he’s a Republican, actually came out and told a left-leaning overseas newspaper, the Guardian, that Barack Obama provided better leadership for America than Trump. Seriously. Here’s the context: The Guardian, in a long-running hit…
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Two leading Republican senators on Sunday said President Trump is making a mistake by failing to more forcefully confront Saudi Arabia over the country’s treatment of women and other human rights issues in the Middle Eastern nation. Mr. Trump’s highly anticipated address in Saudi Arabia on Sunday will focus heavily on the fight against terrorism but…
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Establishment NeverTrumper politicians Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Arizona Sen. John McCain were quick to gloat as a rising swell of controversy hit the Trump White House. “The only thing I can say is I think we’ve seen this movie before. I think it’s reaching the point where it’s of Watergate size and scale,” McCain told…
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Republished with permission from ConservativeHQ.com. By CHQ.com Staff February 20, 2017 Yesterday, our friend U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky sure got it right during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” Paul said Senator John McCain’s comments criticizing President Trump’s comments about the press may be fueled more by personal animosity to the president than a legitimate concern about freedom of the press. McCain in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” warned that the suppression of a free press can lead to a dictatorial regime. He made the comments after Trump tweeted on Friday that the media is “the enemy of the American people.” “This is colored by John McCain’s disagreement with President Trump,” Paul said. “Everything that he says about the president is colored by his own personal dispute he has got running with President Trump — and it should be taken with a grain of salt because John McCain is the guy that has advocated for war everywhere.” “Actually, we’re very lucky John McCain is not in charge because I think we would be in perpetual war,” Senator Paul continued. “If you look at the map, there’s probably at least six different countries where John McCain has…
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