Senator Sinema Speaks Her Piece

 

A message for Arizonans from Senator Kyrsten Sinema pic.twitter.com/1XWFSWgGdh

— Kyrsten Sinema (@SenatorSinema) March 5, 2024

Having watched this a number of times, my brain has settled on translating the change of tenses as: "I was trying to solve problems by embracing working across the aisle, but we weren't having that, were we? So you lost out. Audi 5000, you guys." 

I've tried to grasp what makes an intelligent person who presented as a left-leaning politician decide to explore the middle and it always came up as a fashion statement--which isn't to minimize what she tried to do, it's just to say that when McCain did it, it was because he "remembered when". Now, I just got done posting that we could use folks willing to be bipartisan and bemoaned that guys like Jim Lankford weren't getting credit--from Republicans for doing just that. And I'm not saying bipartisanship is wrong--it's just that it can't exist for its own sake. Shafting voting bills or minimum wage raises--things dear to the Democratic base, is just masochism. 

What darlings would the GOP get asked to surrender? (Not the carried interest deduction. But what?) 

The valley that exists--the great disruption in our bipartisanship, has to do to a large extent with distrust. I think it was Grover Norquist who defined bipartisanship as "date rape"--meaning one side had the upper hand and the other had to comply by force. Graceful acquiescence to the needs of the present moment just isn't the current ethos. It's sad. It's true though. We just don't think doing business with the other side doesn't involve, to be extremely blunt--getting fucked. 

Trying to explore that middle ground cost Sinema a lot. I think a lot of us cynics could have told her what would have happened for free. And I wish her well in her future endeavors. And I wish Ruben Gallego VERY WELL in his. Please start contributing to this good man's campaign. 

The Nikki Haley Case

 

Trump says moderate Republicans are no longer welcome in the GOP: We are 100 percent MAGA now pic.twitter.com/Q2mvgGAR0x

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) March 3, 2024

Although Kristin Welker is in some ways, Chuck Todd but different, in addition to her idiotic claim this morning that Trump "allegedly" tried to overturn the 2020 election as if he didn't do it on live tv, she managed to tease out of Nikki Haley an admission of sorts that she might not support Trump for president despite the loyalty pledge the GOP imposed on its candidates. 

This is something I wanted to hear, not because I support Nikki Haley, but because I need to see Republicans walk away from Trump because our national security and national sanity depends on it. 

Trump said he didn't want Nikki Haley people to sign on to his campaign. They were "permanently barred." What is that supposed to mean? Is that like when Kari Lake said she didn't need the "McCain Republicans", lost her election, and then got so groveling she nearly begged Meghan McCain to not treat her like the dirt that she is? 

I feel like he gave her all the off ramp she needed to never do his business again. 

When It Isn't Worth It

 

Mitt Romney said he was stepping aside to make room for the next generation. But here’s the real reason he isn’t running for re-election — and it’s a sad one…

Romney feels he no longer fits in the Republican party and he is physically afraid of his party’s base. pic.twitter.com/OvRprw9LIF

— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) September 14, 2023

I'm not going to be misty-eyed over what the Republican party has lost or make over-effusive praise of Mitt Romney because both things would be both highly disingenuous and out of character for me. I don't think it can escape one that in the course of his 2012 presidential campaign and in trying to maintain ties with the GOP's newly-crowned leader in 2016, Romney wasn't above the kinds of comments and sacrifices of his dignity that we associate with the Trump era of politics. If anything, his realization that Trump was a disaster that his party was all too willing to follow seems too late because Trump isn't that new--his is just the most-recent incarnation of where the party has been headed for the entirety of Romney's career. 

Of course, it's easy to view Romney as one of the "good ones" and appreciate his intelligent and dishy commentary on the perfidy, fakeness and fears of his Senate colleagues, but the reason he seems like such a stand-out is precisely because the GOP has become so bad that criticism of his own party and its members and taking a stand in favor of facts as if it were his job have become acts of courage and never should have been. Such behavior should have been commonplace. More members of his party could have tried it over the years and simply...never did.

What we've experienced instead over the years from right-wing media and Republican politicians alike is an extremism, ideation of violence and oppositionalism for its own sake from the conservative wing because a kind of positive feedback loop has existed that exacerbated the inherent paranoid tendencies extant on the right for ages. 

So, when Romney (or John McCain or Liz Cheney) buck that trend, even marginally, they earn some liberal admiration--and the enmity of their party. I can't like Mitt Romney more than a true MAGA might hate him for being insufficiently loyal. 

Being physically afraid of one's base is a horrific thought. There's something to be said too, for what one might have to lose of oneself to be the person who doesn't have to be afraid of or in opposition to that mass of armed maniacs. It seems that it requires a kind of moral lobotomy. When a Mitt Romney looks with disdain on the younger characters of this scene, the J. D. Vance's and Josh Hawley's, maybe it's with some recognition and rue:

It isn't worth it.

Flies in the Vaseline (UPDATED)

 

It really does look like GOP AZ gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake is not going to pick up enough votes to win the contest. This shouldn't be an actual surprise since election-denying gubernatorial and secretary of state candidates have gone down this cycle all over. But this was the closest contest, in a state where there were actual Cyber Ninjas looking for bamboo ballots not that long ago, so this is the race where I do believe there will be some fuckery. 

Because I do not think Kari Lake will be ignored. Because even though rumor had it that the Trump election-deniers really wanted to start shit over a "close" PA race that never was close, the best shot they have for keeping the election fraud myth alive lies in AZ's supposed "slow" count. (Even though slow is careful. Dotting i's and crossing t's, as it were.) And because the "agents of intolerance" once decried by John McCain are very active in the election-denial movement. 

Kari Lake quite famously said she didn't want the votes of "John McCain Republicans" in more harsh terms. She might have wished she had been a bit more conciliatory, but hindsight is probably not more the strength of her faction of politics than foresight is. 

The people she does align with are the Jericho marchers. These are the sort of folks who, although white-bread Christians, see fit to blow a shofar horn as if they are genuinely acting out of a sense of having been chosen by God, even if this an appropriation of a tradition that is not their own. Their circumambulation suggests a threat, the reverse of people with faith in elections or democracy--to pull down the institution they surround. 

To get even weirder, Ali Alexander thinks he can "will" the election the way he wants via prayer, which, ok, but, you know. Trump lost. Among tons of others. So. His record is bad. 

For my part, I've tried to not talk about Kari Lake, despite her two-facedness regarding drag shows, and her obvious last-minute bid for sympathy by a "white powder incident" at her campaign headquarters which looks like a stunt--buy hey! not more complicated than Little Marco's!  And I almost felt a pang of sympathy for her eagerness to please when she vacuumed a rug for Donald Trump. It reminded me of Annette Bening's character in American Beauty.  She was going to sell this house today. 

I tried not to dismiss her and her odd robotic weird uncanny-valley nonsense as "Scary Flake"--it felt misogynistic. But if she wants to pretend that the election got stolen from her, if she loses by a margin not too dissimilar from the one Trump lost by two years ago, and in the company of Mark Finchem (a kook) and Blake Masters (who looks like he skins puppies because Yankee Candle doesn't come in that scent), well, it's just possible she's trying to be Trump's little darling today, but that won't do shit for her long-term chances at political relevance.

It would be better to go out with her dignity intact (such as it is) and take a run at the useless and badly implicated in 1/6 GOP AZ chair Kelli Ward, amirite? 

But that just like, my opinion. 

And I think it's pretty amusing the way Meghan McCain and Liz Cheney have already dunked on her via Twitter. For some Republican women, her act has already been a bridge too far. 

 

UPDATE: She's been to Mar-A-Lago, she's vowing to fight, she's got people wildly exaggerating about their "voter suppression" (when they still were able to vote!) and maybe her campaign has indicated that they just can't hold back those hardcore fans of hers to Maricopa Co.--fair warning! 

She is absolutely turning out how I thought she would. 

Scoundreltown

There is a saying to the effect that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, and I guess it looks a little bit to me like some folks want to set up a flag-draped resort community and throw stones from their little red white and blue glass bungalows. Of course, it's the Squad, alleged Ayatollah sympathizers, who can't be patriotic enough, or even deserving of PTSD if they came up in a war zone. According to the new hymnal,  Democrats are supposedly "in love with terrorists" now, as Rep. Doug Collins wants to put it, prompting veteran and Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth to respond explicitly:

"I left parts of my body in Iraq fighting terrorists." Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both of her legs serving in the Iraq War, ripped into the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee who has accused Democrats of being "in love with terrorists." https://t.co/2NpcDSyWdk

— CNN (@CNN) January 10, 2020

I don't expect Republicans to feel the sting of that one. I remember Max Cleland, who also left body parts behind, having his patriotism questioned, too.  I remember how scurrilous lies against John Kerry (who was later integral to the Iran nuclear deal and speaks about it eloquently) led to propaganda against his presidential campaign that also had some confused partisans practically mocking all purple heart recipients.

I know Trump had no problem mocking John McCain's service, or feuding with Gold Star families (plural--more than once). All the more reason for Collins to rethink his sycophancy for Trump if he really cared about who supports Gold Star families. (Trump, by the way, penalized Gold Star families with his tax plan, habitually lies about who achieved the veteran's CHOICE bill (it was a McCain-Sanders bill, signed by Obama)  and has given lip service to reducing troop levels in our wars abroad while raising troop levels.

Maybe there's Method in the Madness

President Trump on John McCain: "I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don't care about this. I didn’t get thank you. That's ok. We sent him on the way, but I wasn't a fan of John McCain." pic.twitter.com/hG4XwOiIBO

— CSPAN (@cspan) March 20, 2019

I've started wondering if Trump's feud with a Senator and war hero who has been dead for seven months, and his feud with George Conway, husband of KellyAnne, who has strongly indicated that Trump has a mental disorder, are related. Trump does strike me as a malignant narcissist and he's certainly gone off in speeches and on Twitter before, but it seems really extra of late. Maybe a little too extra?

Insanity defense as a last resort, anyone?

What the Hell Are You Doing? 2: Scholastic Edition

"Grab that record": How Trump’s high school transcript was hidden https://t.co/SeXZBTL2jN

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 5, 2019

The important takeaway from this is that Donald Trump sent folks out to make sure his grades and SAT scores and all that did not get out and about just after he made the silly demand to know about President Obama's grades. I would have to believe this is because, in retrospect, it occurred to him that just maybe, his own academic achievements would not stand up to a comparison with Obama's own. Which makes one wonder about the potential projection that made him crack on about Obama's school records anyway.

There's something very specific about a detail that seems very intentionally buried, though--it makes people curious.

I'd have to say Trump's proprietary guarding of his tax returns and the possible lie about whether he's under audit with the IRS are perhaps the same kind of potentially unnecessary guarded behavior that stems from a fear of comparisons more than a cover-up of any truly embarrassing thing. We know from photos that high school Trump was a capable athlete. But there are some open questions about his academic history.


To which I, not a snob, would say, "So what?" I went to a school that my parents could afford and that was one public bus away from my house. I'm not living in fear that people will think I'm a dope because I could have gone to a better school, or because people will know I changed my major a few times (I started in Biology, ended up in English Lit. These are not similar disciplines, which says a lot about my understanding of my interests and capabilities when I started college versus when I graduated.) Of course a person who is 18-20-something years old is going to be a little flexible about what they want to experience from life versus what they want to achieve academically, and their interest and efforts can shift depending upon their circumstances. And not everyone is really cut out to be an intellectual and deal with the theoretical or lab sides of their chosen work--if their passion is business, why not just go and do the work? I'm super-prepared to not deride 20-something Donald Trump from either half-assing his undergrad years or even give him a lot of shit for his several draft deferments. He had those opportunities to do academic things or business things instead of war things, which others of his generation did not have. He lived a life that he seems to prefer to cover up about rather than defend.


And that's the problem. See, if someone like, say, John McCain, knew that he wasn't exactly scholastically gifted, but knew he had other qualities, he'd just rest on his life record and admit that experience and a sense of duty made him who he was. Trump's life record, his business associations, practices, and those of the children he introduced into his business is potentially dodgier than his scholastic one. All are under investigation. And he is willing to delay or impede all of these inquiries. Which only would, in practice, make everyone wonder the more whether the secrecy means there is something worth hiding.


This is very much a "what the hell?" if you suspect Trump hasn't anything dodgy to hide. Why then, any elaborate cover-up attempts? Are bad grades or a poor SAT score even relevant to his current functions as C-in-C? It becomes a little more clear when you consider that malignant narcissism might motivate him, and simply make a requirement for his basic functioning that he only or mostly hears only good things about himself.

It becomes downright troubling when it extends to his sense of accountability regarding his conduct as the US world leader and how he conducts himself under our flag and in our name. What the hell is he doing? Do we even feel sure we know?

When Did This Thing Go So Wrong?

Hey, all, long time, no post here, but I just wanted to check in to say I'm pretty good, even if the Republic seems a little weird. If you know my handle, you can follow me on Twitter, where I don't comment often, but retweet with a sure hand and a speed-reading eye. Or something like that. Don't bother emailing me. Email is like using the telegraph or a fax machine. 

Anyhoo, obviously I've got some thoughts to jot if I'm taking to ye olde longforms again, and this is about the whole Kavanaugh nomination. I have no idea if he's getting up or down-voted (even if I feel like, barring a bombshell in three minutes, McConnell is definitely on track to speed to a vote regardless of the optics because his programming on SCOTUs appointments is a legacy issue timed to elections and partisanship, and I also know that pretend-moderates like Collins can't be stupid enough to think we are all that stupid), but I do know that one of the delights of not blogging with the flow of the news cycle is getting some rudimentary sense of history back. I also think my regular readers know me regarding me esteem for the timeliness and need for the Me Too movement. Kavanaugh strikes me as a member of Team Bro--he (apparently) has ascribed since early manhood to a version of masculinity that talks shit and does dumb things. Does that mean he has for real and certain done things that disqualify him for the seat?

Well, I know he's a partisan hack and perjured himself during the hearing so far and not for the first time, and probably is a vote against Roe vs Wade, so, frankly, even if I didn't natively have enough to nail him as a sexual assault perpetrator as a larval popped-collar preppy young Republican, I can feel pretty sure that he's a big old nope-in-waiting in a world where just the facts pertained--he's a guy who wouldn't be at the top of your SCOTUS list unless you were a chief executive who really was hoping that some executive privilege shine would prevent you from getting indicted on a charge of potential light treason. (Can I briefly mention what a wondrous penumbra executive privilege would have to cast on such an occasion where written opinion would presume that other assumptions of rights bestowed by the white spaces in the law as opposed to the black were eclipsed? But I digress.)

And yet it's been quite clearly alleged that the hesitant claims of drunken sleaziness (by other people, not those admitted in his own yearbook or memorialized in an albeit fictionalized version of himself from a close high school companion) are a part of a "Vast Left Wing Conspiracy".  Great shades of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" commented upon by the 2016 presidential election popular vote-winner, back when Kavanaugh was a part of that brigade, who uselessly spent taxpayer money investigating the suicide of her good friend Vince Foster, despite the pain of that man's family, and who spared no feelings in encouraging the most salacious and hurtful lines of questioning re: Monica Lewinsky.

If Kellyanne Conway or Mitch McConnell think they can get my fucking sympathy for poor old disrespected Brett, they've got this whole thing badly wrong. But they don't want my sympathy, they want the pissed off RW base who needs to see whores give birth to their babies they didn't want to be overjoyed that Roe Vs Wade has finally fallen. (See: Everything Erick Erickson has been Tweeting, lately because, wow! Us bitches have just been killing our children, for a value of children for us feminazis that is mostly teaspoon-sized with tails and no possible threat of pain, and his version being angelic teacup-toddlers who have a hotline to babby Jesus.) Also payback for Robert Bork, I guess, because Merrick Garland never existed. And the base doesn't realize Bork was a fucking mess. Or maybe they do--their kind of fucking mess. 

See, the other thing I have gotten perspective about from my blogular absence was the sheer difference between the sides. I abstained from chiming in about the death of Senator John McCain because I wanted to abstain from his hallowing--the spectre of St. McCain threatened to dampen the urge to Resist, and this doesn't work in any way, shape or form. For us libs, McCain's actual progressive usefulness to our side was always more of a promise than a threat to the Republican establishment. And the touchy-feely niceness of bipartisan remembrance, like GWB sharing hard candies with former FLOTUS Michelle Obama, really doesn't change a thing. Kavanaugh worked for Bush, and those withheld docs from his time working for that administration mean something. Did he support torture? (Amnesty International never weighs in on court noms--but here, they have.) Bush is still supportive of this freaking guy.  He didn't suddenly morph into some resistance dude over Werther's Originals with our "going high" spokesperson. 

And I'm not for going high, myself anymore. I am entirely down with hitting these fuckers right in the nuts.  Mitch McConnell, Russia's dubiously-useful idiot Donald Trump, and yep, even pore ole alleged incel until he was shockingly past high school Brett Kavanaugh, who somehow thinks talking about the activity of his junk post secondary school absolves him of any weirdness (as if penetration was the only kind of abuse!) all probably need some down-low smacking where it will hurt and count. 

And that down-low smack goes to anybody who wants to know where this thing went so wrong and why people are talking about their personal business (protesters of Kavanaugh are telling Congressional aides the stories of their assaults, the time they also realized they were Me Too) while they protest this latest outrageous degradation of norms and propriety. 

Trump and McConnell and any number of RW spokesfolks can claim Kavanaugh is a "fine man". I don't know what their definition of fine man is, though. Copacetic? Role-knowing? See, I remember the 2004 election, when John Kerry was what many of us libs would call a fine man, and he was Swift-boated by the same folks who called Obama a Kenyan and a Muslim. And he mentioned Dick Cheney's daughter in what all of us would have considered an off-hand way as being lesbian--which isn't a smear for Dems. It isn't. And yet--this mention was a big deal for Republicans.  It was completely true--she was lesbian, and mentioning it was beyond the pale. Even if things said contemporaneously about Kerry were fucking lies. And Dick Cheney was and is a proponent of torture. 

The right wing and the left in this country seem to have totally different ideas of what is even good. There isn't a great overlap of ideals anymore from what I can tell, and if that is the case, I'm just for fucking the Pro-Trumpists side right the hell up.

I don't know or care where this thing went wrong. I just know I stay resolutely on the side that isn't pro-torture and pro-infinite executive stay out of jail cards, and I'm pro-women aren't the sum total of their reproductive parts and pro-rubbing Mitch McConnell's Stepford Senator jowls into not delivering this particular Bro Keggernaugh to the SCOTUS.

Here I stand, I can do no other.  

About That Senate Tax Reform Vote

I went to bed just before the vote was announced, and just after noting that that there might be nekkid Rep. Farenthold selfies in the world, and I see a kind of connection, one is always just minutes away from seeing the unattractive side of a Republican.  The bill was over four hundred pages, thrown together with no hearings, addenda in the margins, and opinions from tax experts based on what was known about the outline of the bill that it really did not constitute a tax cut for the folks who could use a break--it gave a tremendous tax break to the wealthy. It also blows up the deficit. Exactly one Republican cared enough about the deficit to bow out--retiring Senator Bob Corker. But he still isn't a hero, because he voted to let this shambles of a bill get on the floor. (Sure, McConnell would have sent it out over the committees' heads, but then it just could have been on him.)

Where was the Senator McCain who stood up against the screwing of the ACA? Where was Senator Flake, who talked with such intensity about how politics had changed? Neither of them are seeing another battle for their seats--but they still had no trouble with this bill, even though, McCain, notably, had made quite familiar reservations known about a tax cut bill some time ago, but apparently has learned to love fiscal irresponsibility. 

Senator Flake sold his vote on tax deformation over a handful of magic beans called being part of a conversation on DACA. I already forget what kind of IOU printed on toilet paper Senator Collins got for her vote. 

There are no heroes on that side. Now, this doesn't mean this income-inequality-boosting bullshit bill becomes a law just yet--they still have to hash out the final deal against the House bill, and there is more than a little difference between them. But they are going to pass something to make up for not having passed anything of any great importance this year, and the end product will most definitely suck.

I trust Democrats should be working on how to run in 2018 and beyond based on this bullshit right here--but this is not even the first time Republicans were exactly like this. But here's a reminder for today and the foreseeable future--they are exactly like this. 

McCain Voted No.

LIVE COVERAGE: McCain votes no on GOP ObamaCare repeal bill https://t.co/TfheS67N2z pic.twitter.com/iXOt0jpidd

— The Hill (@thehill) July 28, 2017

And maybe that wasn't the upset vote of all time, but it was great. It followed on Collins and Murkowski, who stayed true to the idea that their constituents mattered more than the pride of the current POTUS, but it matters that McCain said "No".

I held out hope. I have dragged his old ass before and I always was ready to do it again. But I don't have to, now. He voted "no". And a protective circle is now set-up for Lisa Murkoswski because of her vote, and for Susan Collins, because we don't ever forget. And thanks to every Dem who stood firm. And this never could have happened if not for the activists, their visibility, their phone calls. But the thing I take away with wonder--McCain voted "No". I was so prepared for him to disappoint me. I still feel like he could.

But he voted "no" this one time.

Sen. McCain Diagnosed with Glioblastoma

My history regarding covering Senator John McCain has been one of serious criticism, and that is not something I easily set aside--as a public servant, he has long been about diminishing what government does for one domestically, and expanding what government does on the international stage. I have found him at times a diffident and biased actor--not always following through on political claims for what I have assumed was partisan reasons. But there is one thing about him I will say, especially in light of his recent diagnosis with glioblastoma, a difficult, aggressive, and generally tragic form of brain cancer--

Senator McCain is a hero and does have a code of honor. It isn't something he telegraphs, but something he just lives. I disagree with him politically, but especially in light of certain recent political events, I have come to find his occasional equivocations and arguments more honest than what I see from people boasting the same party label at times today. This isn't to praise nor bury him. I just wish him an easy time of it, because cancer is a son of a bitch of a disease and he's got a rotten one. And no one deserves what it can do.

(Which, in keeping with my traditions, is why I endorse keeping Obamacare alive, because this sort of shit happens to humans less fortunate than Senator McCain, who don't deserve it either, and who have families and lives and loved ones and jobs to do.  Fuck cancer. Also, fuck Trumpcare, repeal and replace, or even just repealing. Because this happens to fathers, and grandfathers, and respected elder statespeople. And yes, I am using McCain's diagnosis to raise a point. I don't know that he would go so far as to use it, politically, himself. But of the people I know who have had and survived cancer-- care matters, treatment matters, and access is a matter of human welfare--fully in the purview of Congress. I would like to see him have an understanding now of what less-privileged folks already know--they utterly need access, affordability, regulations that protect them and their pre-existing conditions, and how.  But what I like is not McCain's problem. His own bout with serious disease is. )

Unfit to Serve

Wow. So, today President Obama weighed in on Donald Trump's very bad campaign, describing the GOP nominee as "unfit to serve" and inviting the GOP leadership to take note that if they genuinely disapprove of the things that Trump says, it rings hollow when they don't disavow the man himself. This is basically what I've been saying--you can't have it both ways. Every day that the leadership supports someone who clearly seems hell-bent on turning off large portions of the electorate in weird and almost deliberate-seeming ways, is another day that they are being part of his rolling disaster.

Now, while Obama was making this unprecedented statement for a sitting President (and to undercut what might appear to be the partisan nature of the comment, admitted that he felt no such sense of horrible lack in his own former opponents, Senator McCain and Governor Romney), Donald Trump was ejecting a lady with a crying baby from one of his rallies. I know, I know. You may be thinking that demonic Hillary Clinton enticed a fire marshal to plant the lady with a baby there, but no, he mocked a lady with a crying baby because of course he did babies are the worst. I guess it was stealing his attention. As you know, things are totally rigged for babies. Sad!

If it wasn't for being so unfit for office that POTUS had to comment on it, the baby-banishing thing, the fact that an oh-so-carefully-taught child was calling Hillary Clinton a "bitch" at Trump's event, and all that sort of thing, I guess we'd probably have time to note that he still hasn't apologized to the Khans, that he thinks if a woman is sexually harassed, she can just "change her career" (so in touch with working folks, you guys!) and that he accepted a Purple Heart as a gift, saying, "I always wanted one of these," which is utter madness for a guy with five deferments from serving his country to state.

Pretty much all of these things could be separate blogposts, if Trump could stop being horrendous long enough for a person to catch the hell up.

How Trumpian, Senator McCain!

As you all probably know, Senator John McCain is facing his second re-election race since Obama beat him in the 2008 race for the White House. It hasn't been easy. And it might not get better. The fact of the matter is, the top of a national ticket matters, and if the AZ Sen race seems to be close (or has his opponent, Ann Kirkpatrick, with a slight lead) the reality is, a fairly unpopular, not to say unqualified, GOP 2016 presidential candidate like Donald Trump--the man who got something like five Vietnam deferments and had the nerve to question McCain's own war hero status--could have a negative impact on his re-election chances.

But that doesn't mean the long-time Senator, with an underserved record of consistency and "Straight Talk", can't try to capitalize on Trump-sounding rhetoric. What McCain tried today was a bit of a Muslim-bait and switch--he blamed President Obama personally for the Orlando attack, calling him "directly responsible" for the murders. Then, before everyone had the chance to work out that the roots of ISIS started with the Iraq War and that the SOFA Obama was adhering to was for total withdrawal by 2011 and was signed by President George W. Bush, McCain tried to backpedal and explain. In a way that basically reinforced why what he was saying was bullshit. But as I linked to back in my 2008 criticism, there's a precedent for that kind of weasel-y Muslim-baiting.

Which is all just my round-about way of pointing out that while some Trump comments appear unique--they have a solid GOP lineage. McCain has been part of the problem long before the "Trumpening" of the GOP. Heck, he damn-near prepared the way.

Of Course Sarah Palin Endorsed Donald Trump

I could talk about the superficial comparisons between the two reality television stars as explaining the reason why Palin is throwing in with Donald Trump, but the one comparison that fascinates me is the way they both can stimulate a crowd. They make an interesting pairing. In a way, I don't see the Trump campaign as being possible without the spectacle that the McCain campaign became when she joined the ticket. Saying the right things took precedence over knowing the right things.

Does she want a possible cabinet position? Meh--if she found out what it entailed, she'd say "Thanks, but no thanks." But her endorsement in Iowa helps Trump with evangelicals and gives validation to her relevance as a political player who doesn't have to run to have power. You could call what she does a grift--but it's based on authenticity. (And, as always, there is her family, not always at her side, just, awfully near...who wants to be strongly vetted by the lamestream media all over again?)

It's at least the most interesting endorsement since Senator Graham endorsed Jeb.

Conflicted about Ted Cruz

You know, I was all about to write a "poor Ted" piece about what a shame it is that folks as diverse as Sen. John McCain (who has no real love for "wacko birds")and Ann Coulter (the Electra of the Wronged Right who finally has found her Fatherland Figure) are now questioning Sen. Cruz's citizenship requirement to be President in the wake of Donald Trump playing a game of "just asking questions"--I was gonna, but wow:



Something about him makes even decency just a little difficult.

47 Dumbass Ronin

I read about the open letter to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran last night and was just appalled. I couldn't put my finger on why, at first. They weren't offering aid and comfort to an enemy, per se, so you couldn't call it treason. They weren't in direct, private communications, solicited or otherwise, with the foreign government, so I don't know if you could consider it a violation of the Logan Act.  But is very unusual, and the tone was, I thought, disrespectful to the President, to other negotiators at the table, and disrespectful of their offices as US Senators. Because while this letter isn't necessarily treason or sedition--it's a political stunt over foreign policy made wide-open, which does not strengthen the President's hand in making a good executive deal, but rather aims at diluting the nation's effectiveness to carry out successful diplomacy.

I know this was the aim of the letter, because the freshman Senator who spear-headed the effort, Tom Cotton, has previously admitted he wanted to sabotage the negotiations. What astonished me is that he managed to get 46 other senators to go along with him. Not a one of them read the thing and thought it might be a bad idea?

John McCain's Shadow Has More Reflection Than He Does

Even if in jest, former half-term Governor Palin's admission that she may have contributed to the failure of the 2008 GOP Presidential ticket betrays a very real paradox:

“To claim last night, also, our president saying ISIS is not Islamic, um, ISIS says they’re Islamic,” Palin continued. “They are so full of deception that America should be concerned with the policies that are going on. And, as I watched the speech last night, Sean, the thought going through my mind is ‘I owe America a global apology. Because John McCain, through all of this, John McCain should be our president.’ He had the advice, today, still giving it to Barack Obama, and he will not listen to it, about the residual forces that must be left behind in order to secure the peace in Iraq that we had fought so hard for.”

The first sentence is absurd, and insulting to not only largely Islamic nations and groups that US interests intend to ally with, but to the hundreds of thousands of Muslim people slain by extremists boasting this murderous and unorthodox doctrine of indiscriminate slaughter. Leaving aside that Palin's syntax largely consists of intermittent dog-whistles and static mixed with uncertain subject/verb agreement, she makes the case that Senator McCain should be president, but is not, because she agreed to run with him.

She's being entirely too hard on herself. The only reason she was in a position to agree to that unfortunate bargain was that he asked. And he asked, because his campaign had begun in such a perpetual motion of fail-flail that she looked like a good life preserver anchor. (Recall, things got so bad at one point that he needed not only to be propped up by herself, but also a stand-in for Everyman in the form of Joe the Plumber.) She looked like a serious running-mate to him. The individual who went on to blustering with a struck-deer face though a relatively soft-ball Katie Couric interview and made Dan Quayle sound like Marcus Tullius Cicero whenever she opened her word-hole.

It could be worse, of course. Sarah Palin has hardly been the albatross to Sen. McCain's credibility that, say, wanting to arm Gaddafi or, say, ISIL, should be. And yet the fact remains that Sarah Palin is, as these things go, a guest on a putative news-related program doling out foreign policy critiques when she is far better versed with drunken brawls * than the intricacies of basic newspaper-content. And McCain himself is still left claiming that he knows very well who to arm in Syria.  And I would humbly posit this claim is murky at best. But probably less murky than whatever impetus allows for McCain still being put out there by news-outlets as expert in any damn thing when the legacy of his 2008 run, Sarah Palin, follows him like a very loud and wrong shadow.

She is the proof of how unsuited for office he ever was and is.

*About which--you'll find the link comprehensive if not obsessive regarding the Palin Clan's dead common behavior, with such appallingly déclassé touches as a "stretch Hummer", the tacky war-cry of the barely-been: "Do you know who I am?", and the mental image of Track Palin, tipsy and shirtless, as though auditioning for a role on that long-running FOX reality program--Cops. Yes, there is a touch of schadenfreude within that scene--but however did she and the family end up in such a scene? It would appear, a lack of even basic social diplomacy skills, tribal loyalty, and a predilection for violence. And yet, not once has Sen. McCain issued a "global apology" for elevating the status of this unique creature to serious consideration for the Oval Office.

Senators McCain and Graham Don't Agree About Iran.

I was actually shocked this Sunday to hear that Senator Lindsey Graham thought that maybe coordinating our response to ISIL with Iran was a good idea.

But Senator McCain thinks this is a very bad idea.

I don't know to what degree that McCain decided that coordinating with Iran was a bad idea after having heard that SOS Kerry was considering it, but I see his point. The enemy of our enemy does not become an ally. If Iran wants to "protect" key Iraqi cities from ISIL, it's because they would like to maintain or increase their influence.  I don't know that if we need to "help" them, there, but I do suspect that there is no way we get any alliance with Iran that's more than transactional, temporary, and liable to have blowback of some kind. Just a feeling.

Is the McCain/Graham Show Quite Farce, Yet?

The Statler and Waldorf of Obama foreign policy, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, are burdened with glorious purpose again with the mention of Iraq (there is a big US embassy there, and the wind whispered, "Benghazi"--and daddy needs a brand new rug) and are primed and ready to offer their unique comedic styling that almost resembles foreign policy thought.

Except, as I've noted before, Senator McCain likes to sling the lingo, but he just doesn't do the work where grasping foreign policy is concerned.  He very recently left a briefing on Iraq in the very highest dudgeon, within mere minutes and having learned probably less than nothing because--uh, feels?

Or did he dislike having his beliefs shaken by facts, which could happen to the best of us if we bothered being receptive to them?

We may never know.

But regarding Lindsey Graham, even with his primary behind him, he is consistent in being so skeered of what is coming.  And this is really his position: I am skeered/we should do stuff.

Why the hell aren't these two on Sunday morning chat shows more, is what I want to know.  And how can we make them even more the thing featured on every news network, being wrong and emotional about said wrongness?  C'mon old media, make this happen. It will be educational for the kids in how not to.  They are the best examples of Goofus in existence. They are just always simply wrong.

Peak Senator McCain--or merely McCain's Pique?

This blog has long concerned itself with Senator McCain's flip-flops and misstatements. It is in the interest of consistency that I note that, for some appalling reason, Senator McCain has decided that the five Taliban (decrepit greybeards with going on a decade-plus of prison-mileage on them) were not merely the worst killers ever (in a world that has boasted Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot, no less) but that these fellows were actually behind 9/11.

Can we just all agree that is nonsense? Would it even make sense that those guys would still be alive today to trade if that were verifiably the case? Because I don't see it. I honestly think if we could connect those guys to 9/11, they would be ashes right now. Here's what has actually been said about them:

Retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who was the former top prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, told MSNBC on Saturday that the prisoners released in exchanged for Bergdahl were so inconsequential that he did not even know who they were.

“My role as chief prosecutor was to review the information we had on the detainees to determine which ones we could potentially bring war crimes charges against,” Davis recalled. “When I saw the names of the five individuals, when they were reported last weekend, my first reaction was, ‘Who are they?’”

“I never saw the names before, which means there was not enough information to even make it on our list of potential prosecution,” he explained. “To trade five of them for a U.S. service member, in my estimation, and I’m often critical of President [Barack] Obama, I think they struck a pretty good deal.”