john mccain

If anything great should be remembered from this past election it should be the fact that Grover Norquist has become much less significant. The number of Republicans breaking with the Norquist pledge to not raise taxes keeps rising, with the latest one coming out today:

Open criticism of Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform group's anti-tax pledge continued to make its way to the forefront of debate on Monday, with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) saying that his only real obligation was to serve his constituents by finding a long-term solution to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff."

“I’m not obligated on the pledge,” Corker told Charlie Rose of CBS News, responding to a question about growing disenchantment among Republicans who had previously stood in agreement with Norquist's strict "no new taxes" pledge. “I was just elected. The only thing I’m honoring is the oath I take when I serve when I’m sworn in this January.”

Corker joins other big names, such as John McCain, Saxby Chambliss, Tom Coburn, Lindsey Graham and Peter King. These influential Republicans can really put pressure on the rest of their party to disavow the thinking of Norquist and finally work to move our country forward.

But any man in the midst of defeat, old Grover is resilient as ever:

Prominent American anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist on Monday insisted that his movement was as strong as ever and that Congress would withstand pressure to raise taxes even if more Republican lawmakers are spurning his anti-tax pledge.

I've been going through the exit polls from yesterday and they reveal a big problem for the GOP, and a problem I talked about the other day.

When it comes to race, the GOP has seen a decline of 2% women votes since 2008. I'm sure all, if not more, of that can be attributed to the GOP's war on women we have seen take place over the past couple of years.

But an even bigger problem exists in race. In 2008, John McCain got 31% of the Latino vote. This year, Romney got only 27%. The GOP is pushing out a growing demographic in the American electorate, and that is a huge problem.

My suggestion is for the GOP to spend the next four years working with Obama instead of against him. Apparently Obama is doing something right amongst this group, while the GOP isn't. It's time for the GOP to grow past the "party of old, white men" and increase the size of their tent. Just because they can taut people like Herman Cain doesn't make them the party of African Americans, not does Marco Rubio make them the party of Latinos.

Republicans now have four years to regroup and try to retake the White House. They are also likely to face some tough competition in 2016, like Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. Republicans really need to change their image and they need to start working on that today. If they don't, then they risk not being in the White House for a very long time.

In 2008 Sarah Palin was picked as a materialistic candidate. She had no real experience to become vice-President and the voters quickly saw that. But that didn't stop the right-wing pundits from trying to sell her to us with such qualifications as "she's hot" and "a great attack dog".

Fast-forward to 2012 and we are seeing a repeat. For example, here's a story that Matt Drudge is pushing:

Now back to 2008. That was a time when we heard the right got after Barack Obama for being "skinny", despite his body fat being estimated close to double that of Ryan's. Are appearences really what our Presidential selection process has come down to? Well Politico seems to think so:

Overlooked, understandably, in Saturday’s analysis and news that Rep. Paul Ryan will be Mitt Romney’s vice presidential nominee was one mostly — but not entirely — unimportant aspect: Paul Ryan is kind of hot.

Upon hearing the news of Ryan’s nomination, TMZ was quick to declare Ryan “the hottest vice presidential candidate ever.”

But looks shouldn't matter when it comes to President or vice-President. Instead the focus should be on experience and plans. The right seems to ignore this.

"I know you are, but what am I". Remember that one from grade school? Well that little jab might seem rather mature compared to Mitt Romney's latest defense about not releasing more of his tax returns. Here's what he told Fox and Friends:

“John McCain ran for president and released two years of tax returns,” Romney explained. “John Kerry ran for president. You know, his wife, who has hundreds of millions of dollars, she never released her tax returns. Somehow this wasn’t an issue.”

And neither did Cindy McCain, but has the left brought that up? No. And what happened to wives being off limits? I guess that is out of the question now.

But way to go Mitt. You have now shown you are the biggest child to entire presidential politics in a lifetime, if ever. Only you can sink to new lows like this. I'm just glad you're finally showing America what kind of man you really are.

Face it - the GOP has a really bad memory. It became evident in January of 2009, when Republicans suddenly realized our economy was in serious trouble the day President Obama was sworn into office. They constantly ignored that the great recession had already been going on for over a year and anytime someone on the left tried to remind them, the Republicans stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted "na na na - I can't hear you. Stop blaming Bush!".

As matter of fact it has been so bad that the Republicans have either ignored or tried to rewrite a big part of this history of this recession - TARP. They constantly act like TARP was an Obama planned, enacted by him while in office. But here are the key facts around TARP:

• During the 2008 campaign, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain took an unprecedented step to suspend his campaign to work on TARP.
• TARP passed the Senate in October of 2008, with both Senator Obama and Senator McCain voting for it.
• On October 8, 2008, President George W. Bush signed Tarp into law.

There were a number of Republicans in the House that voted against TARP (108 to be exact), so President Bush could have pulled out the veto pen, especially given the fact that the House was 20 some votes short of a veto-proof majority. But he didn't. Instead he signed it into law and became the President that actually enacted TARP.

Another interesting supporter of TARP was Paul Ryan. This is the GOP's man when it comes to budget and monetary policy. They always turn to him for guidance and plan, yet they ignore the fact that he supported a key piece of legislation that the GOP now opposes.

Leave it to John McCain to just pull any old thing out of his ass. The latest is the wildfires in Arizona, which McCain is trying to pin on illegal immigrants:

Latino activists accused U.S. Senator John McCain of "fanning the flames" of intolerance Saturday after he blamed illegal immigrants for some of the massive wildfires sweeping Arizona.

In a press conference after touring the scorched fire-damaged areas, the former presidential candidate said "there is substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who crossed our border illegally."

In addition to following forest maintenance measures, McCain said a solution to future fires would be a "secure border" to keep immigrants from coming into the US and setting campfires.

But for McCain, the problem is that this isn't true. According to U.S. Forest Service there is no evidence that these fires were started by illegal immigrants, even though they do believe a human factor to be involved.

That isn't stopping McCain though! When confronted about his false claims, the story simply changes to:

As far as McCain is concerned, is the Forest Service lying? Not at all, the senator’s office said. McCain was simply talking about a different fire.

And Steve Benen really sums it up nicely:

Got that? McCain toured the Wallow fire in Southeastern Arizona, spoke at a press conference for reporters covering the Wallow fire in Southeastern Arizona, talked about immigrants as being responsible, but was really just talking about some other fire.

Could you imagine a Democrat making this claim, instead of a Republican presidential contender?

Now comes presidential candidate and "enhanced interrogation" supporter Rick Santorum arguing on Hugh Hewitt's radio show that McCain simply "doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works." Yes, he's talking about the same John McCain who, in his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, was interrogated during a program of beatings and torture.

Here's the full context of what Santorum said (via Salon):

HH: Now your former colleague, John McCain, said look, there’s no record, there’s no evidence here that these methods actually led to the capture or the killing of bin Laden. Do you disagree with that? Or do you think he’s got an argument?

RS: I don’t, everything I’ve read shows that we would not have gotten this information as to who this man was if it had not been gotten information from people who were subject to enhanced interrogation. And so this idea that we didn’t ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, he doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative. And that’s when we got this information. And one thing led to another, and led to another, and that’s how we ended up with bin Laden.

Don’t you just love a little domestic drama?

Sen. John McCain's wife Cindy appears in a new ad that harshly criticizes the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and government officials and religious leaders generally, over what she and others describe as complicity in the bullying that has led to a rash of highly-publicized suicides among gay youth.

The Republican senator from Arizona has spearheaded opposition to legislative repeal of the military's ban on openly gay servicemembers in the upper chamber, vowing to filibuster if necessary a bill similar to the one that passed the House earlier this year. In the ad from the NOH8 campaign -- an activist group formed in response to Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage -- Cindy McCain seems to be suggesting that her husband is partly responsible for the bullying that has claimed a number of gay teens' lives.

"Our political and religious leaders tell LGBT youth that they have no future," Mrs. McCain says in the ad, which features her alongside celebrities such as Denise Richards and Gene Simmons. "They can't serve our country openly."