McCain: Who are you calling an “interventionist”? « Hot Air…

He’s not the only one. Although Mark Levin was thrilled with the filibuster, he felt the need to clarify the definition of enemy combatants and non-combatants. Also on Bill Bennett’s show Thursday morning, it appeared that they didn’t understand the argument either. See, just like the people how didn’t get you hawk remark in the other thread.

Cindy Munford on March 8, 2013 at 7:48 PM

I was listening to Bill the other morning and I was surprised that he didn’t seem to understand the slippery slope we are on. The Patriot Act was presented with a sunset provision that was later removed and this act lead to the NDAA. What will the NDAA lead to?

Bill is really big on the Constitution and his shows are usually thoughtful and interesting. Whether or not it’s absurd to think Obama would drone Americans is beside the point. The President should not have the power of judge, jury, and executioner over Americans. Bill mentioned that we are in a war and needed to cede certain rights in a time of war, but this war looks endless to me. Bill then compared it to the submarine incident in WWII, but to me there isn’t a comparison. Those traitors were dealt with by military tribunal and the definition of enemy was very clear.

How can political pundits not understand the concern of many Americans that the President is granted such power at the same time many politicians around the country are trying to subvert the 2nd amendment? At the same time the Justice Dept. is listing veterans and tea party activists as possible threats, but refuses to call the Islamic threat terrorism. We are living in Orwellian times where up is down.

Seriously, why is it McCain is always so polite to “his friends on the other side of the aisle” but not to conservatives in his own party. And why isn’t the media calling for a nicer, gentler “tone” in DC when a sitting senator is so rude to his own party?

Next Brian Williams went and got F. Chuck Todd who is their political director, White House correspondent, whatever, and F. Chuck had a report here on this thing that happened, this change.

TODD: There’s something about Washington that seems different. Suddenly it’s a place where Republicans meet with a Democratic president for dinner. Suddenly it’s a place where a Senator who has an objection channels his inner Mr. Smith from the old Jimmy Stewart movie and actually goes to the floor of the US Senate to filibuster rather than hide behind some sort of congressional mumbo jumbo. Is this a brief respite or is something happening here?

RUSH: And they are terribly worried that there’s something happening there and that they are being left out of it. The power supposedly was at that dinner table. But it wasn’t. It was on the floor of the Senate.

Happy Nomad on March 9, 2013 at 9:00 PM

What a shame it is that you cannot see the trees from the forest.

Rand Paul is a TEA Party candidate who won not because of his father, but because of the conservatives and libertarians that worked to get him elected.

Yes, we know how you are one of the blind GOP elitist followers that could not care less if your beloved politician is actually a liberal that loves to attack the people making up the base of the Republican Party, but there is no law in America forcing you to think. IMHO, that is why people need to pass simple tests before they are allowed to vote.

Thanks to folks like you, 0bama won the election he had ZERO chance of winning before the GOP elitists got involved. Remember ABO? Your GOP changed it to ABC [anyone but [a] conservative].

Don’t bother clicking on this link. I wouldn’t want your illusions to be weakened by facts.

Sorry but I, for one, am not a fan of the cult following of Ron Paul and do not fully trust Rand Paul as a result.

If you don’t like the assorted pot-heads and isolationists that supported the racist doctor and don’t like the term Paulbot; what should we call them.

Because keep this in mind. Ron Pauls groupies are as scary as all these Obama-loving leftists. This nation runs best on the rule of law not the cult of personality.

Happy Nomad on March 9, 2013 at 9:00 PM

Don’t call them anything and judge Rand Paul on his words and actions. Paulbot, Palinista, Mittwit; all of these are childish and immature insults that take away from the very serious issues that need to be discussed. If you want to use those terms, go ahead, but you’ll be about as effective as McCain was with “whackobird”. Not everyone is a Ron Paul fanatic, I certainly as hell am not.

I don’t like cult of personality myself. I have run into cultists for a number of candidates on this site, but I am willing to give the candidates themselves a chance. Ron Paul lost me long ago, but his son has already shown signs of pragmatism that enraged his father’s followers. He is crafty, and on this filibuster, he was right.

…I always get a bile body feeling when I see the image of JugEars ANYWHERE!…now I’m starting to get nauseous every time I see a reflection of Senator Senile anywhere…I’m sick of feeling sick!

KOOLAID2 on March 9, 2013 at 12:52 PM

I’ve had that projectile urge for at least a decade now. I totally sympathize with Dreyfus regarding his nemesis, next I’ll probably develop an eye tic whenever I see the 3 amigos and their minkey up in the WH.

I have to stress this again: using dysphemisms like “paulbot” does nothing to strengthen your position. Like “whackobird”, it takes away from it.

Daemonocracy on March 9, 2013 at 7:32 PM

Sorry but I, for one, am not a fan of the cult following of Ron Paul and do not fully trust Rand Paul as a result.

If you don’t like the assorted pot-heads and isolationists that supported the racist doctor and don’t like the term Paulbot; what should we call them.

Because keep this in mind. Ron Pauls groupies are as scary as all these Obama-loving leftists. This nation runs best on the rule of law not the cult of personality.

“No one is going to be struck by a Hellfire missile, from a drone, that is not an enemy combatant,” McCain asserted. “That’s just a fact. By the way, the reason why we use Hellfire missiles overseas in places like Yemen, we don’t have the ability to capture them. We want to capture these people, not kill them.”

And Jews in 1930s Germany were constantly assured the Nazis had no intention of harming them.

Sorry Senator you are a senile old man. Go home to your trophy wife, idiot daughter, and memories of the past (while you still have them). Leave the leading to men and women of character, integrity, and principle.

unclesmrgol on March 9, 2013 at 6:27 PM

I have to stress this again: using dysphemisms like “paulbot” does nothing to strengthen your position. Like “whackobird”, it takes away from it.

a) I don’t quote Mr. Biden.

b) If you read Mr. Holder’s letter (which I’ve quoted above in its entirety) Sen. Paul got absolutely nothing.

c) It lasted one news cycle, and Mr. Paul said enough strange things during the filibuster that, in his next run for public office, he will be fighting himself.

d) I don’t think there will be a sea change in American foreign policy — that’s a pipe dream of the Paulbots. To do so is to cede the world to the Chinese and will cause the fight against the terrorists to return to our soil. We certainly deserve what happens to us if we do that.

e) Republicans have been relevant, no matter what happened this electoral cycle. The Democrats have bought many votes, and the payment will come due in our children’s time.

unclesmrgol on March 9, 2013 at 6:27 PM

a) I don’t call him “Mr.”

b) Incorrect, he got them to respond. One man, one state, one cause, and he got a written response from them. Holder may have used slippery wording by specifying drone attacks only, but really now, how is hiding behind legal wording going to benefit the White House in the eyes of the public? Rand Paul created sufficient pressure to draw a response, meaning he won the moral argument and now he can press forward with Ted Cruz on their amendment against Obama’s use of executive force; he’s just getting started.

c) No, it is still being talked about and will continue to be as he pushes his amendment with Cruz and further challenges Obama’s executive authority on such matters. The only other thing he said during his filibuster was in regards to Lochner, and considering Paul’s slick rhetorical skills compared to Romney, McCain, or his own father, I look forward to hearing him take on progressives and argue in favor of the worker’s right to contract.

d) Paulbots? Who talks like that? I am no “Paulbot”, and interventionism has killed the Republican party. I am against Ron Paul’s stubborn isolationism, but Rand Paul should be judged as his own man and not just by his last name.

“Cede the world to China”? Our dire fiscal situation and devalued currency is what weakens us against China, I’ll put Rand Paul up against any other Republican when it comes to returning to fiscal solvency.

Thanks to McCain and Graham melting down, there is already an active debate going on in Conservative media about where we need to go with out foreign policy, and at least on talk radio Paul has the advantage.

e) Republicans aren’t relevant because they can’t connect with neither their base nor the nation as a whole. They have no leader, they have no message, they have no identity, and this is a void Rand Paul stepped in to fill. It’s one step, but it is a beginning of a greater struggle within the party.

As for the children, they are voting for Obama and the only Republican to break through to them lately was Rand Paul. Not McCain, not Graham, and not the boy wonder Rubio who will be bald by the time 2016 comes around.

but if they try to claim that the whole world is a war zone, a war without end

Obama and the neocons are essentially declaring martial law, suspending the Constitution and Bill of Rights by fiat whenever it’s convenient for the ruling class. They are un-American and unfit for power.

That is a huge misread of what he accomplished. An obscure freshman Senator from Kentucky succeeded in capturing the media narrative, putting the White House on the defensive after they had been steamrolling the GOP, and laid the ground work for a seismic shift in Republican foreign policy (which is why McCain and Graham are flipping out). Republicans are relevant again.

to quote Joe Biden, this is a big f’ing deal.

Daemonocracy on March 9, 2013 at 4:45 PM

a) I don’t quote Mr. Biden.

b) If you read Mr. Holder’s letter (which I’ve quoted above in its entirety) Sen. Paul got absolutely nothing.

c) It lasted one news cycle, and Mr. Paul said enough strange things during the filibuster that, in his next run for public office, he will be fighting himself.

d) I don’t think there will be a sea change in American foreign policy — that’s a pipe dream of the Paulbots. To do so is to cede the world to the Chinese and will cause the fight against the terrorists to return to our soil. We certainly deserve what happens to us if we do that.

e) Republicans have been relevant, no matter what happened this electoral cycle. The Democrats have bought many votes, and the payment will come due in our children’s time.

to quote Joe Biden, this is a big f’ing deal.

Daemonocracy on March 9, 2013 at 4:45 PM

Absolutely right.

“No one is going to be struck by a Hellfire missile, from a drone, that is not an enemy combatant,” McCain asserted.

And an “enemy combatant” is anybody that the ruling class decides it is, without any due process. That’s why the founding fathers gave us the right to a speedy trial of impartial jurors comprised of our peers, to stop fascist buckets of crap like McCain and Obama and their useful idiots, like Bill Kristol and Andy McCarthy.

also see: Hindenburg and Adolf, 1933

My vote for him in 2008 is making me more and more ill with each passing day.

besser tot als rot on March 8, 2013 at 7:15 PM

Tell yourself you were voting for Palin. At least she’s a conservative.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rubio-vote-no-continuing-resolution-unless-health-care-202855803–politics.html

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio announced on Thursday night that he would support a continuing resolution—a spending bill that would keep the government funded through the fiscal year—but only if it strips funding from the Democratic health care law that passed in 2009.

Rubio made the announcement during an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, saying he will vote for an amendment to the continuing resolution that defunds the Affordable Care Act. But if that doesn’t pass, Rubio said, he won’t support the final spending package. (With Democrats in control of the Senate, any move to defund the health care law will be rejected.) The House and Senate must come to an agreement on funding levels by March 27, the date that the last stopgap measure expires, or face a government shutdown.

“If that gets onto the bill, in essence if they get a continuing resolution and we vote on [defunding the Affordable Care Act] and we can pass it onto a bill, I will vote for a continuing resolution, even if it’s temporary,” Rubio said.

….of course, he might change his mind. Or he might not, or he could, or couldn’t. Before, during, or in the middle of the debate, or if it happens on Tuesday, or maybe one of the other 6 days of the week. But he’s firm.