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Can Anyone Stop John McCain?
National Review ^ | 07/31/2013 | Jonathan Strong

Posted on 07/31/2013 7:40:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Top Republicans woke up Tuesday morning to the news that President Obama was offering what he described as a “grand bargain,” offering lower tax rates in exchange for closing certain loopholes for big business. GOP leaders view Obama’s proposal as a regression from previous negotiations, however, and are working to swat down early press reports that describe it as a significant conciliatory gesture.

“Not a ‘bargain,’ let alone ‘grand,’” read the first GOP press release at 9:24 a.m. from Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell followed about an hour later on the Senate floor, ripping the proposal and saying that even offering it was “a serious blow” to chances “for true bipartisan action in Washington.” Throughout the day, congressional Republicans nearly universally panned Obama’s “offer.” Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina laughed mockingly at the notion Obama was offering a “grand bargain,” telling me it was just “the same old repackaged stuff coming out in another campaign speech.”

But it wasn’t impossible to find Republicans willing to praise the president. Senator John McCain of Arizona and his top ally, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, took a different tack from most of their colleagues. “It’s a good start,” McCain tells me. “Certainly we would not accept the president’s offer now. But we also want to continue the discussions we’re having, which we hope would lead to serious negotiations.” Somewhat surprisingly, given that he faces reelection in 2014 in a conservative state, Graham was if anything to McCain’s left on the issue. Specifically, he praised the idea of new stimulus spending on infrastructure, which McCain criticized. Obama’s offer “is moving in the right direction,” Graham says. “The big challenge for us is, what do you do about long-term entitlements? That has to be addressed.”

McCain and Graham are being hailed in certain quarters for providing a beleaguered president the newfound ability to pass meaningful legislation in the Senate, where the need for a 60-vote supermajority to overcome a filibuster affords the minority Republicans some leverage. The New York Times editorial board, for example, praised McCain and Graham’s efforts on immigration as “a welcome reacquaintance with reality” for the GOP. The Washington Post praised McCain for having the courage to work out a deal on nominations with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

But many House Republicans view McCain as the most lethal threat to a significant victory on spending cuts in the budget battles this fall. The Right’s worst fear about McCain is that he and five or six of his allies could sign on to a Democratic bill at the height of a debt-ceiling showdown, giving Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid the imprimatur of bipartisanship.

“The president is trying to grab a couple of Republicans in the Senate and then strike a deal with them to say, ‘Look — the Senate Republicans are rational, and the House Republicans are not,’” says Representative James Lankford of Oklahoma, the Republican policy chairman.

It’s a scenario that has occurred repeatedly since the GOP took control of the House, most recently on immigration. At times, as with the “fiscal cliff” and a fight over extending the payroll tax, a bipartisan Senate bill has completely destroyed the House’s standing in the fight.

The answer House Republicans give is that this time, they don’t care what the Senate does. “McCain can go hang out with the president all he wants — we’re focused on actually solving the problem,” says Republican Study Committee chairman Steve Scalise. Just because the Senate does something, that doesn’t mean the House will follow suit, Representative Tom Price of Georgia adds.

One factor that could ease worries in the House is that the ongoing budget negotiations between the White House, McCain, and a group of his fellow Senate Republicans are still largely focused on determining how big the deficit will be over the next 30 years, rather than on the achievable reforms that could rein it in.

Still, McCain is embracing his latest contrariness so eagerly that it has colleagues on edge.

The anger — “does that guy have an opinion on everything?” asks one House Republican lawmaker — is punctuated by the fear that no one can do anything to stop McCain.

“Nobody’s telling John McCain anything,” says Price, lamenting the “very challenging” dynamic in the Senate.

McCain, who jokes openly that he is a “Senate snob,” certainly won’t listen to the House. But many Republicans are wondering whether anyone in the party can stop McCain from helping the Democrats in the fall.

— Jonathan Strong is a political reporter for National Review Online.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: budget; debt; deficit; johnmccain

1 posted on 07/31/2013 7:40:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

With these two clowns working together, disaster looms.

2 posted on 07/31/2013 7:42:40 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
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To: SeekAndFind
Juan McInsane is truly the Manchurian Candidate, and the North Vietnamese were only willing to return him because they knew he would continue their Communist work in America.
3 posted on 07/31/2013 7:53:08 AM PDT by Navy Patriot (Join the Democrats, it's not Fascism when WE do it, and the Constitution and law mean what WE say.)
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To: SoFloFreeper

John “Fix the Damn Border” McPain won’t be “stopped” until his next campaign. Even then, it will only last for a few commercials during said campaign, and only apply to what he says during said campaign.


4 posted on 07/31/2013 7:54:51 AM PDT by C210N (When people fear government there is tyranny; when government fears people there is liberty)
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To: SeekAndFind; C. Edmund Wright
Senator John McCain of Arizona and his top ally, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, took a different tack from most of their colleagues. “It’s a good start,” ...

South Carolina .... Primary him! [AZ ... recall the geezer!]

5 posted on 07/31/2013 7:56:42 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: SeekAndFind
Ok, we all know that the tax-codes are a big mess and that none of this is going to be effective unless spending/debt-incurance is curtailed. Likewise, we know that assumption of debt will not be halted so long as the tax-system allows (a) the government to take interest-free loans, and/or (b) such complexity that they find errors with any reporting they choose.
Therefore we need to address both problems at once.
Fiscal Responsibility Amendment Tax Reform Amendment
Section I
The power of Congress to regulate the value of the dollar is hereby repealed.

Section II
The value of the Dollar shall be one fifteen-hundredth avoirdupois ounce of gold of which impurities do not exceed one part per thousand.

Section III
To guard against Congress using its authority over weights and measures to bypass Section I, the ounce in Section II is approximately 28.3495 grams (SI).

Section IV
The Secretary of the Treasury shall annually report the gold physically in its possession; this report shall be publicly available.

Section V
The power of the Congress to assume debt is hereby restricted: the congress shall assume no debt that shall cause the total obligations of the United States to exceed one hundred ten percent of the amount last reported by the Secretary of the Treasury.

Section VI
Any government agent, officer, judge, justice, employee, representative, or congressman causing gold to be confiscated from a private citizen shall be tried for theft and upon convection shall:
     a. be removed from office (and fired, if an employee),
     b. forfeit all pension and retirement benefits,
     c. pay all legal costs, and
     d. restore to the bereaved twice the amount in controversy.

Section VII
The federal government shall assume no obligation lacking funding, neither shall it lay such obligation on any of the several States, any subdivision thereof, or any place under the jurisdiction of the United States. All unfunded liabilities heretofore assumed by the United States are void.

Section VIII
The federal government shall make all payments to its employees or the several states in physical gold. Misappropriation, malfeasance and/or misfeasance of funds shall be considered confiscation.
Section I
No tax, federal or state, shall ever be withheld from the wages of a worker of any citizen of either.

Section II
No property shall be seized for failure to pay taxes until after conviction in a jury trial; the right of the jury to nullify (and thereby forgive) this debt shall never be questioned or denied.

Section III
The second amendment is hereby recognized as restricting the power of taxation, both federal and state, therefore no tax (or fine) shall be laid upon munitions or the sale thereof.

Section IV
The seventh amendment is also hereby recognized, and nothing in this amendment shall restrict the right of a citizen to seek civil redress.

Section V
No income tax levied by the federal government, the several States, or any subdivision of either shall ever exceed 10%.

Section VI
No income tax levied by the federal government, the several States, or any subdivision of either shall ever apply varying rates to those in its jurisdiction.

Section VII
No retroactive or ex post facto tax (or fee) shall ever be valid.

Section VIII
The congress may not delegate the creation of any tax or fine in any way.

Section IX
No federal employee, representative, senator, judge, justice or agent shall ever be exempt from any tax, fine, or fee by virtue of their position.

Section X
Any federal employee, representative, senator, judge, justice or agent applying, attempting to apply, or otherwise causing the application of an ex post facto or retroactive law shall, upon conviction, be evicted from office and all retirement benefits forfeit.

6 posted on 07/31/2013 8:02:56 AM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: SeekAndFind
But it wasn’t impossible to find Republicans willing to praise the president. Senator John McCain of Arizona and his top ally, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, took a different tack from most of their colleagues. “It’s a good start,” McCain tells me. “Certainly we would not accept the president’s offer now. But we also want to continue the discussions we’re having, which we hope would lead to serious negotiations.” Somewhat surprisingly, given that he faces reelection in 2014 in a conservative state, Graham was if anything to McCain’s left on the issue. Specifically, he praised the idea of new stimulus spending on infrastructure, which McCain criticized. Obama’s offer “is moving in the right direction,” Graham says. “The big challenge for us is, what do you do about long-term entitlements? That has to be addressed.”

It doesn't really matter how many good men you have on your side in Washington, D. C., because they can all be literally silenced by one or two big mouths who side with the Marxists.  You see, the art of politics in Washington, D. C. these days, as it relates to reporting in the nation's media, is such that logic and reasoning don't rule the day.  Simply having one or two "Conservatives"  (hack, hack, cough, cough...) voice an opinion clearly more Marxist than "the rest", casts "the rest" as rigid unyielding ideologues, thus nullifying their opinions, their line of reasoning no matter how valid it is.

Here McCain and Graham display this dynamic perfectly.  "Who cares what the others think, here are two reasoned people on the Right."  (Hack, hack, cough, cough...)  "Why don't the rest act like this?"  There you have it.  Their opinion matters, the opinions of all those who disagree relegated to the round file because "everyone knows" they're just rigid unyielding ideologues.

I and many others tried to explain this to Arizona's residents here in 2010.  It didn't matter.  They had every excuse in the book why McCain was the right guy.  In 2016, if McCain is found to have lied yet another time and decides to run, we'll have the same problem again.  McCain is NEVER TO BE TRUSTED.   That will not matter to the good citizens of Arizona any more than it did in 2010.

You can beat folks over the head with the facts, it just doesn't matter.  Many inundated the McCain supporters with facts.  The other candidate had made two errors they could point to, and that was all that mattered.  McCain, a man with literally hundreds of problems, was their guy and that was that.

You really have to wonder sometimes who people really are who come here and participate for years, then support a guy who has sold Conservatism out decade after decade.  If they don't support Conservatism, why do they spend years on the forum?  Seriously!

Well, we're experiencing six more years of this POS, just like we said we would.  Being right isn't all it's cracked up to be.  You know exactly what is going to take place, you watch folks who are too stupid to get out of their own way, and then you have to suffer the excruciating pain of watching your prediction play out in slow motion. 

John S. McCain, Only three and a half more excruciating years, of Conservatism being defeated time and again.  Enjoy!


Ramirez's latest political cartoon LARGE VERSION 07/30/2013: LINK  LINK to regular sized version of Ramirez's latest, and an archive of his political cartoons.




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7 posted on 07/31/2013 8:28:23 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (Kill the bill... Begin enforcing our current laws, signed by President Ronald Reagan.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I posted this on an earlier thread:

“McCain is the epitome of the enemy within, a traitor to his party, a bogus maverick, conservatives in Congress should start calling him out as such.”

Everyone should be cleaning their own house, Congress is very dirty.


8 posted on 07/31/2013 8:38:06 AM PDT by PoloSec ( Believe the Gospel: how that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again)
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To: SoFloFreeper
With these two clowns working together, disaster looms.

And as my pappy always told.

Son, whenever the RINO's and DINO's are seen working together, it means they are losing.

And their leader Obama has become such a clown, such a joke right now on the world stage, we will eventually see even more RINO's cross on over to the /other side.

9 posted on 07/31/2013 9:35:27 AM PDT by justa-hairyape
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To: SeekAndFind

John McCain is a collaborator.


10 posted on 07/31/2013 9:37:25 AM PDT by Hoodat (BENGHAZI - 4 KILLED, 2 MIA)
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To: Servant of the Cross

I am begining to loathe the both of them...


11 posted on 07/31/2013 4:31:52 PM PDT by C. Edmund Wright (Tokyo Rove is more than a name, it's a GREAT WEBSITE)
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To: SeekAndFind

This is probably an old rumor, but did McCain become the only POW to gain weight while he was in captivity.


12 posted on 07/31/2013 7:59:14 PM PDT by longhorn too
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