Missing the Point, Intentionally

I'm not going to make the obvious crack that Meghan McCain, daughter of the late senator John McCain, is herself a vile, abhorrent, pig. Because she is no pig

El-Sayed is an absolute vile, abhorrent, PIG.

Usha Vance is a beloved figure in our country and in my opinion Vice President Vance's most powerful secret weapon. Women in America truly love her - attack her at your own peril democrat psychopaths. It will backfire. https://t.co/8HvbXuWI9d

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) August 24, 2026

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Democratic senatorial nominee Abdul el-Sayed here remarks

She's like, 'damn, I have to sleep with him?'  I mean, like, I guess she's pregnant, so, so I guess something is happening... Yeah, like, you gotta imagine, like, truly zero charisma. Like, Usha, get out, O.K.?

It's a little tasteless. And unlike most of his critics, I don't believe Vance is completely lacking in charisma. Further, we should recall a Vice President who was a presidential nominee in 2000 who garnered more popular votes than his Republican opponent and did so with less charisma than has a cadaver, or Vance (though a great public servant/activist). 

However, that's not Madame McCain's argument. Meghan  She argues of Usha "women in Amrica truly love her- attack her at your own peril democrat psychopaths".

It would be unfair to suggest that if McCain is intersted in "psychopaths," she should look in the mirror. So I won't. But the object of her ire are "Demoratic" psychopaths, not "democrat," and should be preceded by a comma. What were they teaching in the early 2000s at Columbia University?  Fortunately, the reference to "democrat psychopaths" was a tell that she was being hysterical. (And, yes, men also can be hysterical. But for McCain it is all too common.) 

Nonetheless, as John Oliver would say, "the point is" that the Senate candidate from Michigan was not talking about Usha Vance.  He was talking about J.D. Vance. the "I have to sleep with him," who has "truly zero charisma," might have been a clue.

Republicans did the same thing with Jon Ossoff's criticism of Donald Trump when they pretended that he was slamming Natalie Harp instead of her mentor, Donald J. Trump.  Although they'd never admit it, and Democrats would never accuse them of it, there is a whole cadre of woke Republicans. They evidently don't understand that "believe women" means to take a woman's testimony seriously, not to defend a woman against nonexistent criticism, a fine means to deny agency to women.  

There is, however, a greater sin committed by the nepo baby. She made me defend Abdul el-Sayed. That cannot be forgiven. 

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Meghan McCain, Theologian

Meghan McCain makes a few easily rebuttable claims in this excerpt about abortion in one of the episodes of The View. At the outset, she maintains

.... spiritual journey and relationship with God in their church is their own personal journey and I don't try to proselytize my spirituality on other people but if you are a devout Catholic as Presidenty Biden claims to be, abortion is a cardinal sin that can do deep spiritual harm to you."

Meghan McCain: “Abortion is murder.”

Also Meghan McCain: “The AR-15 is by far the most popular gun in America. I’m not living without guns …if you’re talking about taking people’s guns, there’s going to be a lot of violence." https://t.co/XgdL08n7Kr

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) June 21, 2021

I don't try to proselytize my spirituality on other people. Translated into English, that may mean "I don't impose my religious beliefs onto others," after which McCain does precisely that. She asserts "abortion is a cardinal sin that can do deep spiritual harm to you." Uh, no. According to Wikipedia

The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices, or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings, although they are not mentioned in the Bible. Behaviours or habits are classified under this category if they directly give rise to other immoralities. According to the standard list, they are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth, which are contrary to the seven heavenly virtues.

These are not "deadly" sins and do not cause one to drop dead. Rather, they are traits or emotions, along with innumerable others worthy of avoiding. None is characterized in Scripture as a "cardinal sin" nor is anything there labeled a "deadly sin." Instead, "we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God," which suggests a wider range of sin, without a specific claim of "spiritual harm," whose definition is elusive.

In her sloppy and rambling way, McCain may be inferring that commission of a "cardinal sin" blocks admission to heaven. Given the universal inability to avoid all sin, that would enable none of us to be saved. rendering irrelevant the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  And without the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice as outlined in the Bible, it is unclear where McCain derives a Christian concept of God at all.The concept of seven sins as a unit is not a divine construct but a creation of human beings.

These sins also have nothing to do with abortion, whether of the intentional or the spontaneous sort. Ironically, Ms. McCain has herself had an abortion, known alternately as "spontaneous abortion" or "miscarriage,"  That was reportedly a traumatic event for McCain, memory of which should have prompted her to clarify what abortion, which is mentioned in the Bible exactly zero (0) times, God has expressly forbidden.

But that is Meghan McCain's choice- which is what this is all about. 

 

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The View's View

When Bill Maher's periodic segment "I don't know it for a fact, I just know it's true" runs, it usually includes items which are ridiculous and those he does know are true. The following is something in between.

Meghan McCain was trending early Thursday on Twitter, which only means that this is a day that ends in the letter "y." The vitriol directed toward her on such occasions is something to behold.

Today it included

-Meghan is so trashy and disrespectful. No home training;

- I challenge @MeghanMcCain- for an entire episode of @TheView - to refrain from using any of the following words: “I”, “me”, “myself”, “mine”… you get the gist. It’s enough already;

-What the hell just happened? Joy simply asked the toddler a question. She went nuts. Chile this girl is a mess!! EVERY FREAKING DAY.

And the most pertinent insult: "Meghan McCain is the epitome of a Karen."

However, in an unintended way, the tweet which gets to the point:

Are there seriously no other decent pundits to represent Conservatives on #TheView other than Meghan McCain?pic.twitter.com/CzQp0jj1Jb

— David Weissman (@davidmweissman) May 18, 2021

Of course there are. And when Meghan McCain was hired for "The View," she was what was, on the likes of Twitter, Hollywood, and Fifth Avenue, almost the epitome of a "decent" Republican pundit.

McCain began on "The View" in October, 2017. This was only two years after the USA Supreme Court, in its most overhyped ruling of modern times, had struck down all prohibition of same-sex marriage. Dubbed "marriage equality" by liberals and "gay marriage" by conservatives and a few centrists, it still was a controversial issue. For the right, abortion, "religious liberty," and same-sex marriage were the three spokes of the culture war. The producers, the cast, and other interested parties very likely knew that two years earlier.

“Republicans have to move on from this, or become relics,” said McCain, the TV personality and writer who is also the daughter of Arizona senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee for president.

“The GOP’s nominee in 2016 has to support this ruling,” she continued. “I think any anti-equality rhetoric will be lethal. We live in a world now where the reaction to Caitlyn Jenner is overwhelmingly positive and loving and accepting.”

She also got in a dig at Huckabee: “I’ve said this before, but Huckabee is one of the great imbeciles of American politics.”

The show must have at least one conservative co-host, lest the others spend the hour straining to find something to argue about. The daughter of  Senator John McCain, who only three months earlier had cast the deciding vote against ending Obamacare, would be a strong candidate. However, a conservative who supports same-sex marriage would be even better, gold to the executives in the corporate suites. Calling Mike Huckabee, once the high-profile Christian conservative candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, an "imbecile," was mere gravy.

Now, things have changed.  It is, significantly, almost five years out from Obergefell v. Hodges, the nature of marriage no longer is a major political issue and the cultural right largely obsesses on abortion and, to a lesser extent, the right to discriminate if religious belief is the rationale.

In the middle of the last decade, an individual's stance on "marriage equality" was the litmus test for Democratic politicians and the issue which for much of the left distinguished the acceptable from the irredeemable.

Now it is "Karen."  Race- or, more generally, ethnicity- has become the defining issue of American politics. The seeds had been laid decades before, but when candidate Donald Trump came down the escalator in New York City, demonized immigrants from Mexico. and won the GOP presidential nomination with a racial appeal, race had been elevated to the most salient issue in American politics. The murder of George Floyd, the protests which followed it, and the backlash among overwhelmingly Republican voters have only reinforced this status.

I don't know for a fact that Meghan McCain was selected for "The View: because she was (probably still is) a gay-friendly conservative Republican. However, it was no coincidence. When McCain quits (or is fired from) the show, she will be replaced with a conservative culled from the ranks of Never-Trump Republicans, individuals formerly part of the party's establishment. She may be highly partisan and will have stellar conservative credentials but will take a reasonably progressive position on race. Even if, aside from that enlightened perspective, she is an imbecile.

 

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Violating

It's easy to pile on Tucker Carlson and if The New York Times isn't lying, he deserves all of this and more.  But this post isn't about Carlson; it's about Meghan McCain, one of the co-hosts of The View, and her, uh, unusual values.. The Washington Post reports

On Monday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson made a surprising accusation: The New York Times, he said, was trying to endanger him and his family by revealing where they live in an upcoming story. As he lambasted the newspaper on-air, Carlson suggested that his prime-time show could expose the home addresses of the reporter and Times editors.

Within hours, an army of conservative Twitter accounts started publicly posting the address and personal information of the reporter Carlson identified as the story’s writer. Many encouraged people to harass the reporter.

In a statement to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for the Times denied Carlson’s claims.

“While we do not confirm what may or may not publish in future editions, the Times has not and does not plan to expose any residence of Tucker Carlson’s, which Carlson was aware of before tonight’s broadcast,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to comment further when asked about the reporter’s doxing....

He identified the reporter behind the story as Murray Carpenter, airing his photo and calling the freelance writer a “political activist.” Carpenter’s website states that he focuses on science and environmental stories and has written for the Times, The Post and National Geographic, among other outlets.

Carlson also mentioned photographer Tristan Spinski and the Times’s media editor Jim Windolf by name.

“How would Murray Carpenter and his photographer, Tristan Spinski, feel if we told you where they live, if we put pictures of their homes on the air?” Carlson asked. “What if we published the home address of every one of the soulless, robot editors at the New York Times, who assigned and managed this incitement of violence against my family?"

He added: “We could do that. We know who they are.”

He- or, given that Carlson proudly uses the imperial "we"- they might as well as have done that because

Carlson’s supporters quickly got to work. Several accounts shared addresses, phone numbers and other contact information for the reporter. One account tweeted, “Give him a taste of his own meds.”

Of course, "meds" is popular shorthand for "medicines" or "medication," so Carlson's supporter was tweeting "give him a taste of his own medicines" or "give him a taste of his own medication." However, if that criticism is grammatically nonsensical, this makes even less sense:

This is extremely dangerous and a weird new norm. Even printing his neighborhood or building or home area is really dangerous. Why people feel comfortable doing this to people with whom their politics they hate is sick. It is the most violating thing in the entire world. https://t.co/hI67GEcaYq

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) July 21, 2020

It's curious that McCain would equate revealing a talk show host's "home area" with revealing his specific address. Carlson's program, is believed to garner more viewers than any cable news talk show in history, and Meghan McCain believes that identifying his current town of residence would be overly intrusive.

That would be "the most violating thing in the world." This, therefore, would not be:

The most violating thing in the world. The good news is that Meghan McCain evidently never has been raped, which would be more "violating" than what The New York Times was accused of planning. Even men understand that- but a lifelong Republican, a woman married to The Federalist publisher Ben Domenech, does not. She is still taken seriously.

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Legacy Admissions, And More

On Wednesday's The View. Joy Behar stated 

Legacy admissions, which means if your parents went to Brown, or to Howard, or UP (sic), you can go. But it's interesting because the idea of legacy admissions is racist in nature and I'll tell you why. It started in the 20's to keep out upwardly mobile immigrants who had started pushing for admission to elite schools. And I think that is a very, very bad system, legacy. Why should your kid get in because you got in?

Meghan McCain, the daughter of Captain John McCain and granddaughter of Admiral John McCain, both of the United States Naval Academy, struck back, confusedly. In response, Cenk Uygur, the top Turk of The Young Turks, remarked

But back to the legacy admissions. It does go to the point that we're all making here, which is legacy admissions don't make sense. I want my kids to go to all the same schools but that's unfair, an unfair advantage for them to have when if you're poor in West Virginia or Kentucky or the Bronx or wherever you are and you worked up and you didn't have the advantages my kids had, well, then, you earned it even more, not less.

Starting out strongly, Brooke Thomas added "we don't talk about  it enough, legacy admissions are the original affirmative action, which should make liberals/progressives question the concept of affirmative action itself." However, it was not to be, because fully recognizing the role of class is unacceptable when we can lay the entire blame upon race. So Thomas, unfortunately, continued

when you think about the college application process, you gotta get those letters of recommendation, you got to do, you know, your extracurriculars, you gotta list all this stuff, the personal essay, your score, all of that. Legacy admissions- they skip all of that and still account for almost 30% at some of these Ivy League programs and only the original people who could to go the universities were like wealthy white men and so these are their descendants.

As a form of affirmative action, granting preference where it is not earned, legacy admissions discriminate against blacks (and Latinos and Asian-Americans). But it is discriminating also against whites from backgrounds which aren't privileged, especially whites who attended high schools in lower-ranked high schools, generally in economically distressed (majority-white or majority-minority) communities.  And white- and especially Asian- applicants are additionally handicapped by more conventional affirmative action programs. The sins of the fathers, failure to attend the most elite schools, should not be visited upon their sons or daughters.

As Uygur emphasized, legacy admissions are unfair. They disadvantage students based on a factor- where their descendants attended college, if at all- which they cannot possibly control. The criterion of race does the same, rendering advantages and disadvantages based upon one's descendants, the color of their skin and/or the continent inhabited by their descendants.

The current scandal alleging massive bribery schemes to secure admission of individuals to several elite colleges may strike a blow against the practice of favoring applicants based upon the academic history of their descendants.  But we shouldn't stop there. Applicants should be accepted at colleges based on who they are and what they've done rather than who their parents are

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Another Gun Fiction

When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

That might be what Meghan McCain was thinking about when on Friday's "The View" she stated (in remarks beginning at 11:02 of the video below)

I agree that bigotry has to be called out wherever you see it, however you see it, agreed. New Zealand in particular- um, you know, guns are banned in New Zealand. So this obviously. There's obviously conversations regarding that to be had and it was obviously smuggled in or bought on the black market.

She might have gotten this from the NRA, or from a GOP politician, or from her husband, conservative Republican speechwriter/blogger/columnist Ben Domenech.

It's not surprising, then, that the allegation is fallacious.(She corrected herself after a couple of commercial breaks, but still....) As The New York Times reports, in New Zealand

an extraordinary number of people own weapons, with few restrictions. The authorities say the suspect in the assault used five guns he had acquired legally, including two semiautomatic assault weapons....

There is no dispute that acquiring a military-style semiautomatic weapon is relatively easy in New Zealand, where guns are plentiful. According to a 2017 small arms survey, there are more than 1.2 million firearms among the population of 4.6 million, or more than one gun for every three people.

Under New Zealand law, anyone 16 or older may seek a firearms license, and anyone 18 or older who has applied for a firearms license can seek a permit to possess a military-style semiautomatic weapon.

Perhaps McCain confused New Zealand with Australia, in which gun laws

were tightened following a 1996 mass shooting in which 35 people were killed by a lone gunman in Port Arthur, Tasmania. Within two weeks, Australian lawmakers banned rapid-fire rifles and shotguns and introduced tighter laws governing ownership of other weapons. New applicants must undergo thorough background checks and present a "justifiable reason" for ownership -- with self defense not applicable.

The laws have had a dramatic effect on the frequency of mass shootings, as well as homicides. In the years after the Port Arthur massacre, the risk of dying by gunshot in Australia fell by more than 50% -- and stayed there.

This is the core of the mythmaking conservatives practice. Something inaccurate gets passed off as fact to an unwitting audience and then is repeated a hundred times over.  It's what they do.  Meghan McCain should stick to her habit of honoring her father.

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The Border

As a tease to his recent article in The Atlantic, David Frum on Tuesday tweeted "If liberals insist that enforcing borders is a job only fascists will do, then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals won't."

In her own confused way, a co-host on The View tried to makea similar point when

In a conversation Monday about the migrant caravan heading to the United States from Central America, The View’s Meghan McCain accused co-host Sunny Hostin of calling her a liar, after claiming that “the left” wants ‘open borders and no consequences’ for undocumented immigrants.

“When you see these images, this is a conservative fever dream and a gift to the mid-term elections because this is exactly what conservatives think people on the left want to have happen into this country,” McCain said. “What a lot of people on the left are saying, no one on this table, is that you want open borders and no consequences.”

Very few people on the left are "saying" that they "want open borders and no consequences." However, they- and yes, that includes Hostin- seem to be saying that. In his article, Frum criticizes President Trump and appears to understand that support on the left for open borders is neither policy nor explicit record. However, he observes 

in the Democrats’ liberal base, the mood toward the caravan is positively sympathetic. The caravan’s slogan, “People without borders,” chimes with the rising sentiment among liberals that border-enforcement is inherently illegitimate, and usually racist, too.

Frum adds

The theory behind the caravans—this latest, and its smaller predecessors over the past 15 years—is that Central Americans have valid asylum claims in the United States because of the pervasive underemployment and gang-violence problems in their countries. If that claim is true, that is a claim shared not only among the thousands in the current caravan, but the millions back home. A 2013 Pew survey found that 58 percent of Salvadorans would move to the United States if they could. The seven countries of Central America together have a population of some 45 million, or about the same as Mexico’s back in 1970, when the mass migration from that nation began.

The fortuitous rise in the ratio of workers to job openings, which may boost wages, undermines one of the legitimate arguments against increased immigration. Nonetheless, it is having a perverse effect as

The strong US job market is again attracting low-wage workers. After a dip in 2017, illegal crossings of the southern border in 2018 have returned to their levels of 2016—and are running well ahead of 2015. If the thousands of people in the caravan successfully cross the border, lodge asylum claims, and are released into the U.S. interior pending adjudication, many more seem likely to follow.

Why wouldn’t they? More than 60 percent of the population of Honduras lives in poverty, according to the World Bank, and very nearly 60 percent do so in Guatemala. While rates of crime and violence have declined in both countries since 2014, they remain appalling by world standards.

The likely political consequences should be evident and are, at least to Frum, who recognizes

For Trump, the caravan represents a political opportunity. Here is exactly the kind of issue that excites more conservative Americans—and empowers him as their blustery, angry champion.

For Trump’s opponents, the caravan represents a trap. Has Trump’s radical nativism so counter-radicalized them that they have internalized the caravan message against any border enforcement at all? If yes, they will not help immigrants. They will only marginalize themselves—and American politics will follow the European path in which anti-immigration parties of the extreme right cannibalize the political center.

The images of thousands (or what appear to be thousands) of refugees- demonized by Trump as immigrants or terrorists- is potentially devastating to Democrats, and are repeatedly played on cable news.  (It doesn't help that they appear to look different than most Americans.)

Pointing out that immigrants have a lower crime rate than native-born Americans, work hard,  are not terrorists, are in Mexico rather than knocking on the door in Brownsville, Texas, or often speak English (which, revealingly, goes unmentioned) will not erase those images. Nor will references to a "nation of immigrants," the promise of the Statue of Liberty nor to Jesus welcoming strangers and refugees, the poor and the persecuted.

Democrats promptly should turn the issue around, arguing that deportations have declined since Donald Trump became President, people are still overstaying their visas, illegal immigrants are staying in the country longer, and caravans will become the norm with this guy's policies. In the short term, the least Democrats could do is to emphasize that Trump's policies are a failure in protecting the interests of Americans. In the long term, they need a simple and coherent, yet sensible, message.

Otherwise, as David Frum realizes, Republicans in the Trump era are going to present Americans with an either-or choice: vote for those of us who will defend Americans, or for the ones who will defend the other. And the demagogues do not intend to lose.

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Leave Bad Enough Alone.

Like any snowflake, Arizona senator Orrin Hatch will melt away, and he will retire after this year. Managing to do two stupid things in approximately 24 hours

Sen. Orrin Hatch apologized Tuesday for his comments criticizing Sen. John McCain's reported request that President Donald Trump not attend his eventual funeral.

"I felt badly. I had spoken out of turn," the Utah Republican told reporters in the Capitol. "I felt like I shouldn't have said what I said."

On Monday, Hatch said he thought it was "ridiculous" that his fellow Senate Republican, who is recovering from cancer treatment in his home state of Arizona, wanted to keep the President from his funeral.

"He's the President of the United States. He's a very good man. But it's up to John. I think John should have his wishes fulfilled with regard to who attends his funeral," Hatch told CNN.
Hatch also told reporters Tuesday that he sent a letter to McCain.

The Arizona senator's daughter, Meghan McCain, rebuked Hatch earlier in the day following comments the senator made about her father.

"I'd like everybody to take a collective breath and chill out on my dad for a second — especially Orrin Hatch," Meghan McCain said on ABC's "The View."

"Take many seats right now," Meghan McCain said in response to Hatch.





Hatch was wrong. Senator McCain's decision to suggest that Donald Trump not attend the Arizonan's funeral was the right one for several reasons.  Trump advocated often and fervently for building a wall to keep Mexican immigrants from the USA. John McCain was an early supporter of comprehensive immigration reform. Trump maintained that John McCain wasn't a hero simply because he was captured during the Vietnam War and as a prisoner of war refused release until and unless his fellow prisoners were released.

McCain was the victim of "enhanced interrogation" at the Hanoi Hilton and Donald Trump is an enthusiastic supporter of torture. The President attacked McCain for his vote against health care repeal and has expressed an isolationist approach toward foreign affairs in stark contrast to McCain's commitment to an interventionist policy to further American values.

Those are only a few of the differences which justify McCain's wish that Mr. Trump skip his funeral.

The President's supporters boast that Donald Trump is a "counter-puncher." A President offended at McCain's slap could retaliate by simply directing Vice President Pence also to bypass the funeral. 

But Orrin Hatch made the situation worse.  Though Hatch was wrong on the issue, he wasn't rude or offensive by stating his opinion, especially in the relatively respectful manner as he did.

It's not a crime to be wrong. Many people often are, and Senator Hatch has made a career out of it.  Rebuked by Senator McCain's daughter, he could have stated "I believe it's important for the sitting President of the United States, especially a Republican, to attend the funeral of a long-time senator who also was our party's nominee for President." It's a mere difference of opinion.

If Senator Hatch was persuaded that his judgement was wrong, he could have simply acknowledged that it was faulty. He had not "talked out of turn," had committed no capital offense, and did not have to apologize. He took his earlier remark too seriously, a stunning lack of perspective for someone who was partially responsible for a far more consequential and reprehensible act of injustice some 27 years ago.




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Not So Fond Of Them, Either

There is a thing (from "The Other 98%") going around reminding us that Donald Trump has defended spousal abusers and neo-Nazis while denigrating Muslims, women, Haitians, Nigerians, Puerto Ricans, Mexican immigrants, African nations, and black athletes protesting racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

Very good, but not inclusive. Grump's other prejudice is more subtle because the President cleverly disguises his hatred of the group by constantly praising them- with a paternalistic touch. In his speech Friday to the Conservative Political Action Conference he stated

If we don’t have a strong military, you might be allowed into this room some day, okay. You may not have your houses, your homes, your beautiful communities, we better take care of our military, these are the greatest people and we’re going to take care of our veterans, we’re going to take care of the vets. We have been doing a good job on the vets. 

Yet, Trump also took a crack at the nation's most famous war veteran, despite- more likely, because- he is suffering from a brain tumor and thus would find it difficult to defend himself. He added

And, by the way, we’re having tremendous plans coming out now, health care plans, at a fraction of the cost that are much better than Obamacare. And except for one senator, who came into a room at 3:00 in the morning, and went like that [thumbs down], we would have had health care, too. We would have had health care too. Think of that.

But I think we may be better off the way we’re doing it. Piece by piece by piece, Obamacare is just being wiped out. The individual mandate essentially wipes it out. I think we may be better off. And people are getting great health care plans and we’re not finished yet. But, remember, one person walked into a room, when he was supposed to go this way, and he said he was going this way, and he walked in and he went this way and everyone said, what happened? What was that all about? Boy, oh, boy, who was that? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want to be controversial, so I won’t use his name. Okay. What a mess.





It would have been out of character had he used the Arizona senator's name, because that would have required a backbone, more glaringly absent in Trump's case than in most conservatives. The New York Daily News has reported that Meghan

McCain revealed that Trump had called her up and promised to stop taking shots at her 81-year-old father.

"I don't believe he would go there again," she told Politico's Women Rule podcast. "I don't think at this point in his administration it would be beneficial to him in any way."

It's not shocking to believe that Donald Trump would lie, or that he would tell the last person he speaks to whatever the individual wanted to hear.  It's also unsurprising that he would slam a war veteran.

That's not only because Trump infamously said- on his way to being the choice of GOP voters as its nominee for President of their country-  that John McCain is "not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured." Joe Scarborough noted that "McCain "could have stayed home like Donald Trump. He could have chased models." Grump's popularity took no hit whatsoever.

He could have stayed home and chased models, like Donald Trump, who once remarked "It's amazing, I can’t even believe it. I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world, it is a dangerous world out there. It’s like Vietnam, sort of. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave solider."  Man slut and combat soldier: six and one-half dozen of the other.

There are two differences between Donald Trump's distaste for almost everyone but himself (and Ivanka) and that for soldiers.  The President pretends to admire enlisted men and women- and he's rarely called out for the contempt he has for them.



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Streep Is Not A Creep

Meghan McCain has famously tweeted "This Meryl Streep speech is why Trump won. And if people in Hollywood don't start recognizing why and how- you will help him get re-elected."

McCain doesn't indicate how a speech made on January 6, 2017 elected someone on November 9, 2016. but never mind. She explains little, perhaps because she would seem to be the hypocrite she apparently believes Hollywood stars are. However, we don't know, because McCain did not mention why she believes Streep's speech will be so helpful to Trump politically.

It may have been wise to avoid facts, to which conservatives are often allergic, or the Arizona senator's daughter may realize that an individual living in a figurative glass house shouldn't throw stones.

Responding to McCain's tweet in a (mostly) righteous rant of his own, Charles Clymer says he "grew up in white poverty in central Texas" with a father "who is a lifelong car mechanic," a "mother (who has worked minimum wage jobs all her life," and a stepfather who "was junior enlisted in the Army." He warns "these folks- my people- don't need your condescending conservative asses speaking for our 'values.'"

Clymer slams McCain for pretending to care about the working class while she is "a privileged white daughter of a U.S. senator who used her dady's connections to get this far ahead."  Evidently, McCain did not graduate from Podunk High School in Flyover Country, Kansas or Working Class U. in Oklahoma, Alabama, or Idaho. Wikipedia helpfully informs us she "attended Phoenix Country Day School and Xavier College Preparatory, an all-girl Catholic high school. She attended Columbia University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in art history."

That doesn't preclude Ms. McCain from speaking on behalf of the average Joe and Jane (or if younger, Joshua and Jessica).  However, it doesn't give her the street credibility that she understands Meryl Streep lacks- but in fact never claimed.

McCain may have been motivated by outrage that political commentary would be offered by an elite actress or because she now has obtained a fine gig at Fox News.  She may be unnacustomed to the humility demonstrated when Street approvingly recalled "Tommie Lee Jones said to me 'isn't it such a privilege, Meryl, to be an actor?'" Streep didn't claim it to be an "honor" nor pretend to be "humbled," instead recognizing it as a privilege.

Or there may be something more serious, more disturbing, more dangerous involved. Before endorsing the Committee to Protect Journalists, Streep explained "we need the principled press- to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet, be outraged."  There is probably nothing Donald Trump, nor his supporters, hate and fear more than a free press. For one night at least, an actress reminded us of the danger ahead, and if it happens to be an extremely privileged, wealthy celebrity, someone had to do it.












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A McCain Hits It

There is more news in Barack Obama's effort to assure the re-election of a Republican as governor in New Jersey.  Politico reports

Vice President Joe Biden will head to the Garden State next month to campaign for Democratic Senate candidate Cory Booker, Booker's campaign said Friday.

Biden will visit New Jersey on Oct. 11, five days before the special election to replace the late Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died in June at the age of 89.

Joe Biden is going to New Jersey to campaign for Cory Booker, whose lead over Repub challenger Steve Lonegan has diminished, but is still overwhelming.  President Obama also has endorsed Newark mayor Booker but has ignored the race being run by the progressive NJ State Senator Barbara Buono, who has been running an uphill campaign against incumbent Chris Christie. Wednesday, a blogger for bluejersey.com noted

So yesterday President and leader of the United States Democratic Party, Barack Obama, held a fundraiser in New York for Bill de Blasio, the presumed winner of the New York City Mayoral race. This is yet another time that Obama is standing up for a Democrat in a major race, a Democrat within an hour of New Jersey, a Democrat in a race that is essentially already won and still steadfastly refuses to provide any support -- even a word of encouragement -- to Barbara Buono.

Buono's opponent, public school opponent Chris Christie, arguably is Obama's favorite governor, having appeared twice (after Hurricane Sandy and the day after Memorial Day 2013) with the President in photo-ops.    While the first occasion, taking place mere days before the presidential election, assisted Obama, the second event was undertaken primarily to boost Christie's standing in a state in which President Obama still is fairly popular.

Chris Christie, then, has appeared before the cameras twice with a Democratic president primarily to advance his favorite cause, Chris Christie. While he usually is conveniently far right and occasionally there is one constant in his behavior- self-interest.   But while the media fawns over Christie and he receives criticism only from the non-traditional conservative media, one famous Republican is not fooled.

Asked (video, below and transcript, here) by Piers Morgan about the New Jersey governor, Meghan McCain responded "I used to love Chris Christie.  I'm kind of done with Chris Christie right now." She added

You know ever since his speech of the convention, I don't know if you remember it was so -- you know, he just talk about himself the entire time and I think politicians obviously, there's at some level of self-promotion that you have to do but I would like the next leader of the Republican Party and the next nominee to maybe be a little more interested in helping the country than just their platform.

Unfortunately, the daughter of John McCain is yet to understand that being tied to the hip of corporate interests, rather than not "coming to terms with the trends that are changing in America," is the defining characteristic of the Repub Party and presents its greatest threat to the nation.  Still,she at least recognizes what few others do, that Chris Christie is about nothing but Chris Christie.








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