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The key bit comes at the very end, in response to a question about who’s responsible for the temporary suspension of death benefits to families of fallen troops. McCain’s answer: Everyone in Congress — but, implicitly, especially the “defund” caucus. You can tell how eager Maverick was to make that point by how quickly he turns a segment about the administration giving short shrift to the military — normally an easy lay-up for a Republican against a Democratic president — into a lament about Cruz et al. I’m not sure a guy who’s positioned himself as the lead Republican opponent...

I don't seem to ever recall Democrats turning on their own like several "Republicans" have recently. I wonder how things would have turned out in the fight to defund, delay, alter ObamaCare if so-called Republicans would have listened to Reagan, when he underwent so many personal attacks during his 1966 campaign for governor, which led to the Eleventh Commandment: "Thou shatlt not speak ill of any Republican. Reagan said "It's a rule that I followed in that campaign and have ever since." McCain and others seem to like to evoke Reagan, but don't appear to follow what he said. In...

Republican Senator John McCain ripped conservative Senator Ted Cruz tonight before the final senate vote to approve a budget plan. McCain was on with Greta Van Susteren. McCain has a long history of bashing his fellow Republican. [video]

Sen. McCain says Rep. Gohmert has no intelligence, so therefore not capable of malice in his comment about McCain. #NBCNightlyNews

John McCain took a swipe at Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams Wednesday night. During the interview, Williams brought up a statement Gohmert made last week at the Values Voter Summit claiming that the Republican Arizona senator supports al Qaida. Speaking at an event at the conservative conference, Gohmert referred to McCain as a “guy who’s been to Syria and supported al Qaida and rebels.” McCain told Williams that it isn’t worth responding to someone who “has no intelligence.” “Sometimes… comments like that are made out of malice, but if someone has no intelligence...

I wasn’t aware that Maverick, whose pronouncements now carry roughly the same weight with tea partiers as Obama’s, is in a position to be guaranteeing anything about how House Republicans might behave. In fact, here’s what one GOP congressman said last night after the final conference huddle: As Republican lawmakers left the closed meeting Wednesday, some were already thinking of the next fight.“I’ll vote against it,” said Representative John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, referring to the Senate plan. “But that will get us into Round 2. See, we’re going to start this all over again.” If by “guarantee” McCain...

The latest outline of a potential Senate deal to end the fiscal impasse and government shutdown calls for keeping the government funded until Jan. 15 and raising the debt limit through Feb. 15, congressional aides told ABC News today. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are spearheading the negotiations as the White House postponed a planned afternoon meeting with congressional leaders to give them time to do their work. It is still a moving target, but the plan is the framework for what McConnell and Reid believe could make a deal -- "and avoid repeating...

Just turned on Fox & Friends. They said that the McCain people will be on this morning with Big news and they would immediately get a response from the Obama campaign. Meanwhile, while we wait they are FURIOUS about Acorn and are hyping the Acorn story big time.....

Do you ever feel like the Universe/God/Whoever is trying to tell you something? A couple days ago I saw Miley’s new photos. Apparently she didn’t kill Hannah Montana hard enough at the VMA’s, so she let notoriously gross photographer/video artist Terry Richardson take photos of her topless and in various other compromised states. Richardson has been accused of inappropriately touching his teenage models and exploiting underage girls. He’s the brains – or some other body part – behind Miley’s disgusting “Wrecking Ball” video, in which she rides a wrecking ball like a stripper pole in a bizarre attempt to prove...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Wednesday said he would like to see a clean funding resolution pass the House to end the government shutdown. McCain expressed hesitancy at criticizing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) or Republicans in the House but said he is trying to convince them to sit down and negotiate. “I would like to see that myself,” McCain said on CNN when asked if he would like to see the House take up the measure. “But also again I really am hesitant to pile on members of the House of Representatives.” “I try to keep in mind that many...

Infuriated over the delay of death benefits to fallen American soldiers due to the government shutdown, Sen. John McCain railed against the “false premise” that some Republicans have proliferated: that it is possible to repeal the Affordable Care Act. “To somehow think that we were going to repeal Obamacare, which would have required 67 Republican votes [in the Senate] was a false premise, and I think we did the American people a great disservice by convincing them somehow we could,” McCain said. "We started out with a false premise on this side of the aisle." In the Senate, 67 Republican...

Senator John McCain has been one of the strongest Republican voices in Congress opposing the conservative efforts to repeal, defund, or delay Obamacare. He took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to continue pressing that point, as well as scolding Congress and saying they should all be “ashamed” for allowing the government shutdown to keep going. McCain was set off by the news that during the shutdown, military benefits are being held up. He said Congress is so unpopular that “we’re down to blood relatives and paid staffers” at this point, asking his colleagues, “Shouldn’t we be embarrassed about this?...

Arizona Sen. John McCain and other like-minded Republican senators could end up reprising roles as key deal-makers as the party seeks a final negotiated solution to the government shutdown. With a core group of House Republicans sticking together in their chamber, and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell taking a low public profile in the fight, that leaves McCain and similar-thinking GOP senators to look for a deal. McCain has argued over and over again that this is one battle that the Republicans simply cannot win. And most Republican senators seem to agree with him, but there is little evidence that...

Four House Republicans from Virginia have broken ranks to try to end the government shutdown and blunt its expected political fallout on Virginia's tight gubernatorial race, The New York Times reported Wednesday. U.S. Reps. J. Randy Forbes, Scott Rigell, Frank Wolf and Rob Wittman have called for a government funding bill with no policy strings attached, which, if approved, would end the shutdown. The Virginia governor's race pitting Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli against Democrat Terry McAuliffe may wind up focusing on which party will take the blame for the shutdown, strategists told The Times. Swing-state Virginia is being closely...

The heck with this. (please see article at link)

Arizona voters are angry. They are not alone in their anger, for it seems betrayal on the vote to defund ObamaCare is not isolated to Arizona. However, Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit and John Hawkins at Right Wing News are on board with the recall, and I certainly feel their pain! I live in Alaska, not Arizona, but I certainly know what it is like to feel betrayal from a Senator! The difference is that I know mine are not Republican; yet McCain and Flake seem to think they are!

This is as low as it gets in politics. Sen. John McCain literally offering himself to become the mouthpiece of the Democratic attack machine against Sen. Ted Cruz. Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer even gleefully was the one to yield time to McCain so he could get up and make his attack today after Sen. Ted Cruz concluded his 21 hour, 19 minute filibuster against ObamaCare. What came out of McCain’s mouth were pure Democratic talking points. He lauded Democrats for the way they conducted the original process that passed ObamaCare into law (which was partisan and used Reconciliation to pass...

He's a Democrat. I don't mind that he's a Democrat, but he's going around the country claiming to be part of the opposition party. This is, essentially, the Democratic response: ObamaCare was duly passed, it was an issue in a presidential campaign that the GOP lost, end of story — whether or not there are 51 or even 60 votes in the Senate to defund this thing. He actually used the phrase “elections have consequences,” which must be the first time a member of the *minority* party has ever tossed that into a debate. Like Ramesh Ponnuru says, weren’t Ted...

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) supported the tactics that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is using to attempt to defund Obamacare before he was against them, Breitbart News has learned.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Friday said the GOP has become a "dysfunctional" party that has spent more time infighting over ObamaCare than targeting Democrats who passed the law. McCain blamed Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah.), the leaders of the movement to tie defunding of ObamaCare to the threat of a government shutdown, for driving wedges between Republicans.