SubscribeElsewhere on The Teleprompter: Sarah Palin | George W. Bush | RNC | Rudy Giuliani | Fred Thompson | Bill Richardson | David Axelrod | Mitt Romney | John Edwards |
# 3 Blogger
Wonk Room
Wonk Room (wonkroom.thinkprogress.org) has great John McCain news, photos, videos and more
Friday, Jan 29
Are We Willing To Sink Venezuelan Ships?
Indicating that they intend to keep up the pressure on the administration to immediately adopt these sanctions once passed, on Wednesday a group of senators — Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IL), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), David Vitter (R-L...
Thursday, Jan 28
Senate Republicans Who Used To Support PAYGO Now Vote Against It
And the blanket Republican opposition is particularly interesting considering that some Senate Republicans used to support PAYGO, even when it was opposed by their own party. For instance, in 2004, three current Senate Republicans — Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)...
To Glowing GOP Praise, Obama Calls Nukes, Coal, And Oil Drilling ‘Clean Energy Jobs’
President Barack Obama’s discussion of energy policy in his first State of the Union address pandered to corporate interests while demoralizing his progressive supporters. Though Obama made a strong case that real investments in clean energy such as solar technology, advanced batte...
Wednesday, Jan 27
U.S. Foreign Policy Is Not A Craps Game
Before getting to Robert Kagan’s call for President Obama to just go ahead already and roll the dice on Iranian regime change, a little background. One of the most interesting articles written during the 2008 presidential campaign was Michael Scherer’s and Michael Weisskopf’s July 200...
Tuesday, Jan 26
Shelby: A Commission Of ‘Citizens’ And ‘Presidential People’ Can Balance The Budget By Cutting Programs
A few Republicans have voiced cautious support for Obama’s spending freeze (including, of course, Sen. John McCain), but on Fox News today, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) criticized the move for having no substance. Shelby would prefer a deficit commission, and his version is possibly the mo...
FLASHBACK: Obama Called Spending Freeze ‘An Example Of Unfair Burden Sharing’
So it seems that Sen. Evan Bayh’s (D-IN) estimate that “there’s a fighting chance” of Obama proposing a freeze has been proven correct. Of course, during the Presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) proposed a similar spending freeze, which Obama repeatedly condemned as an “exampl...
Saturday, Jan 23
Bayh: There’s A ‘Fighting Chance’ That Obama Will Call For A Spending Freeze
There’s obviously something to be said for identifying programs that don’t work or that overlap with other programs. But a straight spending freeze is a blunt instrument that has no place in responsible budgeting. When the Republicans proposed various versions of a spending freeze duri...
Friday, Jan 22
GOP Criticizes Obama Plan Because It Would ‘Confine The Banks And Their Ability To Make Profits’
The names being thrown around the most as potential Republican targets for the administration are Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who was the only Republican to vote against repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999, and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who along with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has introduc...
Wednesday, Jan 20
Why The Prospects For Immigration Reform Didn’t Change Overnight
This morning, Politico published a story aptly pointing out that “all is not lost” for Democrats following the election of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate. However, one issue which Politico did identify as “toxic” is immigration reform. According to Politico, the...
Wednesday, Jan 13
Lisa Says, Let Alaska Melt
Senator Murkowski attempted to diminish the assistance provided by these lobbyists. The Washington Post, however, reports that both Holmstead and Martella briefed a number of staffers from other Senate offices on the draft Murkowski amendment.
The WonkLine: January 13, 2010
The New York Times explains, “the politically charged clamor [about terrorist threats] has lumped together disparate cases and obscured the fact that the enemies on American soil in 2009, rather than a single powerful and sophisticated juggernaut, were a scattered, uncoordinated g...
Friday, Jan 8
A Self-Described ‘Wiser Lou Dobbs’ Supports Legalizing Undocumented Immingrants
Politifact found “no point-blank case” in which Dobbs has explicitly opposed legalizing undocumented immigrants, however he did repeatedly refer to the immigration legislation he praised last night as an “amnesty bill” during the 2007 debate. Dobbs also slammed Sen. John McCain (R-A...
Wednesday, Dec 30
The Right Advocates Offering Lifeline To Iranian Regime
The best way to undermine the movement is to do exactly what Bolton is advocating. It is true that no matter what the regime will claim the protests are part of a western plot – the regime is already doing this – but this claim while perhaps persuading a few, doesn’t appear to be all that persuas...
Monday, Dec 28
Lieberman: Even Wronger On Yemen
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has been taking heat for his comments on Fox News yesterday about how we need to “act preemptively” against extremist networks in Yemen. While it’s almost always safe to assume that Lieberman, like his comrade-in-tinny-bravado Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), is in favo...
Tuesday, Dec 22
Is Copenhagen A ‘Nothing Burger’ To The Senate? ‘Not A Chance In Hell,’ Says Kerry
Now that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have returned from Copenhagen with a draft accord committing China, India, and the United States to a new era of climate action, the onus lies on the U.S. Senate to pass ambitious clean energy legislation. “Not a chance in hell t...
The WonkLine: December 22, 2009
The Associated Press reports that “President Barack Obama is on track to name more Hispanics to top posts than any of his predecessors, drawing appointees from a wide range of the nation’s Latino communities.” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told E&E News that the Copenhagen Accord was a “not...
Wednesday, Dec 16
Treasury Official: ‘Going Back To Glass-Steagall Would Be Like Going Back To The Walkman’
McCain and Cantwell’s announcement comes one day after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said that House Democrats are considering reinstating Glass-Steagall. But as Sam Stein reported, “the idea hasn’t gotten any attention from the Obama administration, which does not attr...
Saturday, Dec 5
FLASHBACK — McCain: ‘I Say God Bless The AARP For Everything They’re Doing’
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has responded to the AARP’s endorsement of the Senate health care bill and its $436 billion of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid by encouraging senior citizens to rip-up their AARP cards and send them back to the AARP. Today, McCain argued that if the government limited t...
Wednesday, Dec 2
McCain And Bin Laden: Together On Timelines
Just as you can always count on Noam Chomsky to blame capitalism, you can always count on Sen. John McCain to advocate more war, more troops, and greater commitments. Literally minutes after the president’s speech ended, the Weekly Standard was pushing out McCain’s press release, full of...
Monday, Nov 30
Dick Cheney: The Perfect Symbol Of Conservative National Security Incompetence
Newsweek editor John Meacham — the same guy who insisted that Barack Obama’s election as president proved that America was a “center-right” country — thinks that a Dick Cheney run for the presidency would be great for America. Meacham that an Obama-Cheney match-up would “give us an occas...
Tuesday, Oct 6
McCain: Living With A Nuclear Iran ‘Very Likely’
Newsweek editor John Meacham seems to set out to rebut Fareed Zakaria’s pro-containment argument, but ends up strengthening it. He also produces a quote from Sen. John McCain that represents a more significant shift — both in terms of McCain’s views and for the debate over Iran more genera...
Wednesday, Sep 30
The WonkLine: September 30, 2009
As Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA) prepare to introduce comprehensive clean-energy jobs legislation today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he could “never, never, never” support it. The New York Times’ David Leonhardt explains “how a tax can cut health costs.”
Monday, Sep 14
McCain, Graham, Lieberman: McCain Was Wrong About Afghanistan In 2003
Pretty much any foreign policy op-ed co-written by Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman could be titled some variation of “Only Decisive Force Can Prevail in [fill in the blank].” What’s interesting about today’s item is that, in calling for further escalation in Afg...
Thursday, Aug 27
McCain Uses Kennedy’s Death To Argue Democrats Did Not Accept Republican Health Amendments
This morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) honored Ted Kennedy’s legacy by disingenuously arguing that Kennedy’s absence from the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) mark-up hearings allowed Democrats to reject Republican amendments “of any significance”...
Monday, Jul 27
McCain Says Spanish-Language Ads Cost Him Latino Vote: ‘Life Isn’t Fair’
MCCAIN: I don’t know…uh…I can’t speak for all Republicans…I know I was out there twice — on the floor of the Senate with Senator Kennedy — trying to pass comprehensive immigration with a path to legalization on it and I was attacked during the campaign for being anti-immigrant. Life isn’t f...
Thursday, Jun 25
Opinion: CD-ROM Converter Service Center HSI Doubles As The GOP’s Favorite ‘Academic Think Tank’
Indeed, the McCain campaign paid $50,000 to HSI, the same firm that wrote their health plan, to produce “independent” comparisons between the McCain health plan versus Obama’s. Trying to conceal the payment, the McCain campaign reported the $50,000 as “legal consulting.” Strangely en...
Saturday, Jun 20
McCain: Sanctimonious Grandstanding In Defense Of Liberty Is No Vice
Matt Corley already commented on a section of this clip, in which Sen. John McCain treated Iran’s Supreme Leader with the same “abject solicitousness” that Charles Krauthammer condemned from the president. But I think the segment is worth seeing in its longer form, as it neatly encapsula...
Wednesday, Jun 17
Republican Senators Attempt To Obstruct Markup of Health Care Bill
But as Sam Stein reported yesterday, it was Republicans who pushed for the incomplete HELP bill to be studied by the CBO, and “when poor results came back,” they pretended that the agency scored the entire bill. Indeed, yesterday, Reps. John Boehner (R-OH), Eric Cantor (R-VA), Sens. Mike En...
Monday, Jun 15
McCain Reminds U.S. Of Bullet It Dodged In November
We are back with Senator John McCain. Of course Republican from Arizona and former presidential candidate. By the way, Senator Lieberman has a proposal that we put sanctions on countries that sell gasoline to Iran. MCCAIN: Maybe we ought to think about passing that legislation.
Thursday, Jun 11
New Conservative Line: Iran’s President Doesn’t Matter!
As Dana Goldstein indicates, the newly minted conservative position on Iran is that, regardless of all the time and effort they’ve spent over the last four years setting up Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the new Hitler, it really doesn’t matter who the president of Iran is, because Supreme Lead...
Tuesday, Feb 24
Republicans Revive McCain’s Debilitating Spending Freeze
In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the GOP explained its rationale: The letter was signed by Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI).
Wednesday, Oct 15
Opinion: Conservatives Spread Benefit Mandates Myth
Yesterday, during an NPR segment about the impact of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) proposal to allow insurance companies to sell policies across state lines, Michael Cannon of CATO and Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) both repeated the false claim that benefit mandates significantly increase the c...
Tuesday, Oct 7
Palin’s Policies That Are ‘Great For The Middle Class’: Cutting Corporate Taxes and Earmarks
Yesterday, during an interview with NBC’s affiliate in Tampa Bay, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) was asked which economic policies she and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) support that would be “great for the middle class.” The policies that Palin cited included a corporate tax cut and earmark reform, nei...
