Tag Archives: CPAC

national news

Trump trashes McCain at CPAC … can you believe it?

So much for presidential promises.

Donald Trump reportedly had pledged to Meghan McCain, daughter of Sen. John McCain, that he no longer would criticize his fellow Republican.

McCain is fighting a virulent form of brain cancer. His daughter revealed only recently about a conversation she had with the president about his vow to be kinder to the stricken senator.

Then the president stood before the Conservative Political Action Conference and tore into — that is correct — Sen. John McCain over his “no” vote on plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Trump said this today to the CPAC audience: “Remember — one person walked into a room when he was supposed to go this way,” Trump added, giving a thumbs up sign, “and he walked in and went this way [thumbs down] and everyone said, ‘What happened? What was that all about? Who was that?’ I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t want to be controversial so I won’t use his name. What a mess.”

If you can get past the mangled syntax and the idiotic sentence structure of the president’s remarks, then you’ll understand that the president is doing precisely what he told the senator’s daughter he wouldn’t do.

In Trump World, a promise made is a promise to be broken.

Liar.

national news

Trump stokes the demagoguery machine at CPAC

Donald J. “Demagogue in Chief” Trump has fired ’em up at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

He has bellowed that if Democrats take control of Congress this year they are going to “take away your Second Amendment” rights to “keep and bear arms.”

Guns are on the top of people’s minds these days. A shooter went berserk in Parkland, Fla., killing 14 students and three educators in a killing spree that has thrown the nation into grief yet again.

So what does the president do? He goes to CPAC and sows terror in the hearts of the faithful. Democrats are going after the Second Amendment, he said.

I do not think that’s going to happen. History is an important guide here. Think about this for just a moment.

Democrats controlled the White House and Congress in 1964, a year after President Kennedy was murdered with a high-powered rifle in Dallas. Did they yank the Second Amendment away then? No.

Nor did they do so after President Reagan was shot and seriously wounded in 1981.

Democrats controlled Congress and the White House in 2009 and 2010. Congressional Democrats failed to reinstate the assault weapons ban.

Thus, Donald Trump is blowing it out his backside when he implies a repeal of the Second Amendment if Democrats take control of Congress. However, he had an audience that gave him lusty cheers when he tossed out that fiery rhetoric.

Are there ways to legislate some solutions to gun violence without taking away the Second Amendment? Yes. It just requires a concerted search for common ground to solve a quintessentially American crisis.

Demagoguery doesn’t cut it.

national news, political news

What a difference a year makes for CPAC

It’s been said that a “week is a lifetime in politics.”

So is a month, or perhaps an hour.

If any of those time measurements amount to a lifetime, how does a year compute?

I pose the question because of what transpired this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where Donald J. Trump took the place by storm, prompting rousing applause and cheers, declaring that CPAC finally had one of their own as president.

Do you recall what CPAC speakers were saying a year ago to equally rousing cheers and applause? They were calling Trump a phony conservative. You had the likes of U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz talking trash about Trump. The crowd ate it up, swallowed it whole.

Trump then went on to vanquish those two, and a host of other Republicans to take command of the GOP and ultimately to become elected president of the United States.

What gives? How fickle are these CPACers? I believe they’re quite fickle. You see, the president is still the same guy who got the raspberry a year ago.

Trump was supposed to speak to CPAC a year ago. Then he backed out, fearing his immigration policies would provoke disturbances at the conference … or so he said.

CPAC conservatives used to embrace free trade. They used to consider Russia to be a mortal enemy of the United States. They frowned on politicians who led less-than-upstanding personal lives.

Trump — the thrice-married admitted philanderer, free trade foe and supposed pal of Vladimir Putin — gets elected and then stands before CPAC to soak up all the cheers that once went to other Republicans.

What on this ever-lovin’ Earth am I missing?

national news, political news

Right-winger draws rebuke from conservatives … good!

It turns out that political conservatives have their limits on the level of provocation they are willing to tolerate.

My spirits are lifted when I read such things.

Milo Yiannopoulos, a right-wing provocateur, has been disinvited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference annual meeting after drawing a sharp rebuke from other conservatives.

Yiannopoulos, who is openly gay, recently stated that younger gay men would benefit from a relationship with — ugh! — older men. Oh, but he has condemned pedophilia and, I guess, he has tried to legitimize his hideous views by telling of the sexual abuse he suffered as a child.

He’s also written extensively against homosexuality. Go figure.

Right-wing bloggers, pundits and consultants are outraged that CPAC would invited this guy to speak in the first place.

According to The Hill: “Conservative blogger Erick Erickson on Monday slammed the ACU’s decision to include Yiannopoulos among their speakers, casting the move as more of a publicity stunt than a contribution to conservative dialogue.”

I am heartened to learn that conservatives have their limits on the level of bile and vitriol they would tolerate. Let’s flash back, oh, about two decades or so.

Conservatives were none too shy about defaming President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, by suggesting they were complicit in what they said were the murders of their political opponents. None other than the late preacher/demagogue/”Rev.” Jerry Falwell actually produced a video, “The Clinton Chronicles,” that suggested the Clintons were responsible for the suicide death of their longtime friend Vincent Foster.

I don’t recall hearing much protest then from the right about that shameful act of defamation.

That was then. Today is a new day, I reckon.

Milo Yiannopoulos is getting the scorn he deserves from his so-called political brethren.

As conservative consultant Matt Mackowiak said of CPAC’s decision to disinvite Yiannopoulos: This is not a hard call.

national news, political news

Perry questions HRC's 'loyalty'

Rick Perry thinks Hillary Clinton’s acceptance of foreign money to the Clinton Foundation — all of which went to earthquake relief in Haiti — gives Americans reason to question her “loyalty.”

To whom? To which country? Well, the former Texas governor — and probable Republican candidate for president in 2016 — isn’t providing any suggestions.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rick-perry-questions-hillary-clinton-loyalty

Perry was among a thundering herd of potential GOP candidates to rake Hillary Clinton over the coals at the just-concluded Conservative Political Action Conference.

The Clinton Foundation accepted $500,000 from Algeria right after an earthquake devastated Haiti. The foundation has raised tens of millions of dollars to aid the Haitians. The Algerian contribution went directly to relieve the victims of the quake.

Perry, though, wonders if that kind of foreign cash makes her more, um, loyal to the giver of the funds than — hmm — to her own country?

MSNBC.com reported: “The foundation acknowledged they should have alerted officials about the donation from the country.

“’As the Clinton Foundation did with all donations it received for earthquake relief, the entire amount of Algeria’s contribution was distributed as aid in Haiti,’ the statement said. ‘This donation was disclosed publicly on the Clinton Foundation website, however, the State Department should have also been formally informed.’

“But Perry said Americans will question this.

“’I’m really concerned that – not just going forward — but what has been received at the Clinton Foundation over the course of the years and how that affects this individual’s judgment,’ Perry said.”

I’m trying to connect those dots, but I’m trouble here.

Money given for disaster relief and is administered through an independent non-profit foundation somehow is supposed to cast doubt on the judgment of a presidential candidate? That’s how it goes?

As Denzel Washington said in the film “Philadelphia”: Explain that one to me as if I’m a 5-year-old.

 

national news, political news

Terrorists, union protesters: all the same?

Robert Reich is a former labor secretary during the Clinton administration.

He posted this message on Facebook today in response to a patently absurd statement made at the Conservative Political Action Conference by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Reich wrote this:

“Can it get any lower? Last night, at CPAC’s ‘beauty pageant’ for right-wing presidential hopefuls, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was asked how he would fight ISIS if elected president. Walker referred to his political fights with teachers and labor union members in his home state: ‘If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.’ I doubt Walker really believes Americans who peacefully protest for a decent wages are analogous to foreign barbarians who saw off peoples’ heads. But to him and the other right wing-nuts of the Republican party, political opponents are enemies rather than fellow citizens, to be ‘taken on’ mercilessly. This is why they can’t (and mustn’t) govern America.”

There you have it.

A governor who has all but declared war on the union movement in his home state equates facing down peaceful protesters in the streets with the monsters who are terrorizing innocent people on the other side of the world.

This is the kind of rhetoric that CPAC has been hearing from its dog-and-pony show of candidates strutting across the stage to fire up their followers.

The serious thinkers of the Republican Party need to be heard above the demagoguery that’s getting all the attention.

I share Reich’s belief that Walker really equates the protesters with terrorists. Then again, why does he spew such garbage? Oh, I almost forgot. He’s appealing to his party’s “base.”

national news, political news

Ex-Gov. Palin is wrong — again — on Obama

Sarah Palin has cast this remarkable spell over the nation’s political conservative movement.

With so many qualified public officials able to stand and deliver cogent messages, the nation’s Republican Party — particularly its far right wing — is transfixed by the former half-term Alaska governor who simply doesn’t know of which she speaks.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/sarah-palin-president-obama-radical-islam-isil-cpac-115565.html?hp=c2_3_b3

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Palin stood before the attendees and actually inferred that President Obama is ignoring the threat posed by the Islamic State terrorists.

What in the world is she thinking?

“Wake up, Mr. President,” Palin said on Thursday at CPAC’s gathering. “While Christians bow our heads and pray for you, radical Islamists want to cut off your head.”

Wake up? She wants the president to wake up? Hasn’t she been paying attention?

I know the answer. She hasn’t. She’s been busy listening to the sound of her own voice while ignoring more important voices within her party and certainly ignoring the spoken words and deeds of the incumbent president who’s been fighting the terrorists every day.

Palin parrots the GOP talking points about Obama allegedly not taking the Islamist terrorist threat seriously. Why? Because he’s instructed his administration to avoid using the words “Islamist terrorist.” There you have it. If you don’t say the right words, you’re not actually fighting the bad guys.

What an utter crock of moose dookey!

I had hoped to remain silent about the former governor. I cannot let stand her ridiculous assertions whenever she utters them. Palin did so again today at the CPAC meeting.

Having gotten this little tantrum out of my system, I’ll take another from break monitoring Palin’s rhetorical nonsense.

 

Uncategorized

Sen. Paul does the seemingly impossible

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul has made two fascinating public appearances of late.

The Kentucky Republican — and tea party favorite — spoke to thundering applause at the Conservative Political Action Conference gathering. CPAC is where conservatives go for anointment by the Republican Party’s most faithful, the true believers, the hardest of the hard core right wing.

Then, just this week, the senator showed on the other coast, the Left Coast, and addressed a crowd of University of California-Berkeley students. Now this is where the lefties hang out to get their blessing from the progressive/liberal/lefty crowd. It’s also a place that usually doesn’t welcome those from the other side. But there was Sen. Paul, giving the Berkeley faithful a snootful of libertarian dogma.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2014/0322/Rand-Paul-most-intriguing-man-in-the-GOP.-Really-video

What gives here?

Is he actually the most “intriguing man in the GOP,” as Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus has posited? He might be.

The CPAC meeting was a no-brainer for Paul, who’s considered to be a virtual shoo-in as a candidate for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. He won the CPAC straw poll, beating the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The Berkeley event, though, raised my eyebrows. Too many colleges and universities — those bastions of progressive thought and supposed tolerance for all points of view — have rolled out the unwelcome mat to conservatives. Rand Paul appears to be the exception, though, given his libertarian views on things such as drug decriminalization and his pacifist view of war.

He’s a conservative, though. Frankly, I was glad to see him speak at Berkeley if only to know that at least one progressive institution in this particular instance was being true to the credo of openness and tolerance of differing points of view.

Now, let’s see if Hillary Clinton shows up at a right-wing-leaning school such as, say, Liberty University.

Uncategorized

Cruz needs a visit to the ‘woodshed’

OK, I have to make one more point about Sen. Ted Cruz’s latest rant involving his Republican Party elders.

He’s disrespecting two of them in a big way.

Cruz took it upon himself to suggest that Sen. John McCain and former Sen. Bob Dole didn’t stand for “principles” when they ran unsuccessfully as the GOP nominees for president in 2008 and 1996, respectively.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-08/cruz-draws-bob-dole-rebuke-over-stand-for-principle-comments.html

What’s so very troubling about this whipper-snapper’s comments is that he has called out two of more distinguished war heroes ever to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Cruz, let me add, never served his country’s military.

Dole shot back immediately at Cruz. “Senator Cruz needs to check the record before passing judgment,” the 90-year-old Dole said in a statement. “I was one of President Reagan’s strongest supporters, and my record is that of a traditional Republican conservative.” Ah yes, “traditional conservative.” That’s how Dole describes himself. He’s the kind of conservative who’s fallen out of favor with the current corps of firebrands who are mounting a takeover of a once-great political party. Cruz is the non-traditional conservative, to be sure. Indeed, he’s becoming the non-traditional senator, a Lone Ranger.

For the record, Dole suffered grievous wounds fighting the Nazis near the end of World War II. He lost the use of his right arm and was nearly killed on an Italian battlefield in April 1945.

And Sen. McCain? He was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and spent more than five years being tortured as a prisoner of war by his communist captors. He, too, suffered terrible wounds when his plane was shot down over Hanoi and he parachuted into a lake in the middle of the city.

These men need no lecture about honor or principle — particularly from a loudmouth such as Ted Cruz.

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Uncategorized

No surprise: Paul wins CPAC straw poll

And the winner is …

Rand Paul, senator from Kentucky, and now a presumed Republican candidate for president of the United States.

What did the senator win? The straw poll taken at the Conservative Action Political Conference meeting in Maryland.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/03/08/rand_paul_wins_cpac_straw_poll_121856.html

He finished far ahead of the second-place candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Dr. Ben Carson, a noted neurosurgeon finished third, with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie finishing fourth. Cruz pulled 11 percent of the vote, 20 percentage points behind Paul.

So, there you have it. Sen. Paul is now the presumptive frontrunner for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.

I know what you’re thinking. This is a straw poll. It matters not one bit. It was taken among members of the most fervent wing of the Republican Party. What about the rest of the party faithful?

Well, allow me to let you in on what I believe is a reality in modern GOP politics: CPAC represents the party these days. The middle ground in the GOP is shrinking faster than Lake Meredith in the summer. The CPAC crowd is calling the shots, or so it appears.

I normally wouldn’t give Paul’s “victory” in this straw poll much credence, except that the political landscape is changing before our eyes. Paul’s form of libertarian-strain conservatism seems to play well with the CPAC wing of the party. Rest assured, when the time comes for Paul to make up his mind about running — and I’m betting he’ll do it — he will look back at the CPAC straw poll as some sort of vindication for the message he’s been delivering.

He’s in step with most Republicans in wanting to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. He’s opposing almost all of President Obama’s domestic and foreign policy agenda. He thinks the Benghazi and the IRS stories still have legs.

He fits right in with this version of modern Republicanism.