Hmm: Meghan McCain for Senate?

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Over the coming days, Americans will continue to pay tribute to the late Sen. John McCain, who died on Saturday after a protracted battle with cancer. McCain, a decorated and extraordinary war hero and the Republican Party’s 2008 presidential nominee, was 81 years old. (I commented briefly on McCain’s life and legacy in Friday’s week-in-review post, published shortly after his family revealed that the Senator had chosen to cease medical treatment). Under Arizona law, Gov. Doug Ducey will appoint McCain’s replacement, who will serve until the next qualifying general election — in this case, 2020. Ducey, quite rightly, has declined to publicly discuss his decision at this time out of respect, telling the Arizona Republic that the issue is effectively tabled until Sen. McCain is laid to rest:

Gov. Doug Ducey will wait to name a successor to John McCain until after the late senator has been buried at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery in Maryland, an aide to the governor told The Arizona Republic on Saturday. “Out of respect for the life and legacy of Senator John McCain and his family, Governor Ducey will not be making any announcements about an appointment until after the Senator is laid to rest,” Ducey’s senior adviser Daniel Ruiz II said in a statement. “Now is a time for remembering and honoring a consequential life well lived.”

. . .

From the Republican Party’s perspective, it would probably be most helpful for Ducey to select an up-and-coming figure within the GOP ranks, thus helping that person build and burnish his or her credentials in advance of a 2020 run in an increasingly competitive state. It’s also possible that Ducey could view this role as that of a place-holder or caretaker, in which case, former Sen. Kyl would be a sensible and sterling pick. Kyl, by the way, is currently acting as Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate ‘sherpa.’ By going this direction, Ducey would avoid putting his thumb on the scale in advance of an eventual 2020 primary, a show of favoritism that could potentially alienate certain factions within the party in the lead-up to the governor’s own active re-election push. As for the rumors that Mrs. McCain is in the mix — and a Senate wife getting appointed to fill a seat is hardly groundbreaking — I shared this thought on Twitter yesterday:

Many people reacted negatively to this idea, citing concerns about dynastic politics. As noted above, I share those concerns. My point is that if the governor decides that he’s inclined to appoint a McCain to fill this seat until the next general election, my preference would be Meghan. (She meets the Senate age threshold, but I’m not sure if she meets any applicable Arizona residency requirements). This is not a criticism of Cindy whatsoever; I just do not know much about her ideology. Meghan, by contrast, has really found her voice as a conservative media commentator, exhibiting fearlessness and tenacity on the set of a show that is often politically hostile to her worldview. She, like her father, is a Trump skeptic in some respects — but she frequently stuck up for the president on Fox, and has done so at The View, as well, much to the chagrin or Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, and most of the live audience. (Read more from “Hmm: Meghan McCain for Senate?” HERE)

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Mattis Makes Announcement on the Future of Military Exercises With South Korea

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U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. is preparing to resume military exercises with South Korea after they were briefly suspended this past summer.

“We took the step to suspend several of the largest military exercise as a good faith measure,” Mattis said at the Pentagon. “We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises.”

“We will work very closely … with the Secretary of State and what he needs done, we will certainly do to reinforce his effort,” he added. “But at this time there is no discussion about further suspensions.”

Following a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June, President Trump suspended war games with South Korea as a gesture of good faith in the denuclearization process. . .

However, relations with North Korea have recently stalled. President Trump cancelled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s planned trip to North Korea last week, citing the lack of progress in the goal of denuclearization.

(Read more from “Mattis Makes Announcement on the Future of Military Exercises With South Korea” HERE)

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Bag With Apparent Human Remains Found in the Bronx for 2nd Time in a Week

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Police are investigating what appear to be human remains found inside two plastic bags in the Bronx Tuesday night.

This is the second time within the past week that body parts have been discovered in the Bronx.

Police received a 911 call just after 7:30 p.m. from a person who discovered the bags inside Barretto Point Park at Barretto Street and Viele Avenue in the Hunts Point section.

One bag appeared to have a human leg, while the other also appeared to have human remains. . .

Human remains were found in two bags on a sidewalk in the Claremont section Friday afternoon. (Read more from “Bag With Apparent Human Remains Found in the Bronx for 2nd Time in a Week” HERE)

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Head of U.S. Bishops Conference Issues Shocking Statement on Pope Francis; Pope Refuses to Directly Answer Allegation Question

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By Daily Wire. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), will not defend Pope Francis following Archbishop Viganò’s explosive claim that the Roman Pontiff participated in the covering up of disgraced D.C. Cardinal McCarrick’s crimes of sexual abuse against seminarians.

Responding to Viganò’s 11-page letter alleging that Pope Francis lifted sanctions that had been imposed on McCarrick by Pope Benedict, DiNardo did not take the Catholic left’s line of characterizing the Archbishop as a right-wing conspiracy theorist; instead, the prelate openly called for an investigation to uncover the truth.

“The questions raised deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence,” DiNardo said in a Monday statement, according to Crux Now. “Without those answers, innocent men may be tainted by false accusation and the guilty may be left to repeat sins of the past.” . . .

“I am eager for an audience with the Holy Father to earn his support for our plan of action,” said DiNardo earlier this month. “That plan includes more detailed proposals to: Seek out these answers, make reporting of abuse and misconduct by bishops easier, and improve procedures for resolving complaints against bishops.” (Read more from “Head of U.S. Bishops Conference Issues Shocking Statement on Pope Francis” HERE)

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This Abuse Scandal Leads All the Way to the Vatican

By NY Post. An ecclesial straight shooter. A reliable character. A serious man. That’s how sources familiar with Carlo Maria Viganò describe the Italian archbishop, who served as the Vatican ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2016. His reputation makes the publication Saturday of Viganò’s written “testimony” about the Theodore McCarrick affair all the more inconvenient for those in the Catholic hierarchy who tried to bury the truth about the disgraced American prelate.

The core claim in the 11-page document is that a high-powered circle of silence for years abetted McCarrick’s career, despite his well-known penchant for sexual abuse. The circle of silence, Viganò says, included the current successor of Saint Peter. In a cryptic statement to reporters on Sunday, Pope Francis refused to confirm or deny the allegations, instead urging them to “read the document carefully and judge it for yourselves.”

The Viganò testimony bears the mark of a man seething with anger and perhaps facing the mystery of death. “It is in moments of great trial that the Lord’s grace is revealed in abundance and makes His limitless mercy available to all,” the 77-year-old churchman writes near the end. “But it is granted only to those who are truly repentant.”

Either Pope Benedict XVI imposed private sanctions against McCarrick in 2009-10, barring him from celebrating public Masses and cavorting with seminarians, or he didn’t. Either McCarrick’s successor as cardinal-archbishop of Washington, Donald Wuerl, was aware of the sanctions, or he wasn’t. (Read more from “This Abuse Scandal Leads All the Way to the Vatican” HERE)

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Astronaut Candidate First to Resign in 50 Years

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A member of NASA’s latest class of astronaut candidates has resigned from the space agency before completing his basic training.

Robb Kulin, 35, is leaving the program just over a year after he was chosen to join NASA’s 22nd group of spaceflight trainees. His departure reduces the 2017 class, nicknamed “The Turtles,” to 11 members.

Kulin’s resignation, effective on Friday (Aug. 31), is “for personal reasons,” NASA public affairs officer Brandi Dean told reporters on Monday. No further details were released.

A native of Anchorage, Alaska, Kulin is a private pilot with a master’s degree in materials science and a doctorate in engineering from the University of California, San Diego. Prior to becoming an astronaut candidate, he previously worked as an ice driller in Antarctica, a commercial fisherman in Chignik, Alaska, and as the senior manager for flight reliability at SpaceX, leading the company’s Launch Chief Engineering group in Hawthorne, California. . .

The last time that a NASA astronaut candidate resigned before being qualified for a spaceflight assignment was 50 years ago. Chemist John Llewellyn, a member of NASA’s sixth group of trainees and second scientist-astronaut group chosen in 1967, withdrew from the program after realizing he was not cut out for flying jets. (Read more from “Astronaut Candidate First to Resign in 50 Years” HERE)

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Just How Popular Is the ‘Abolish ICE’ Movement?

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A new poll revealed how little support the “Abolish ICE” movement has, even among Democrats, despite the mainstream media attention that the advocates have received. . .

The poll from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that even among Democrats only 25 percent support the policy to abolish the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The “Abolish ICE” movement gathered steam after the media focused on the families affected by the “no tolerance” policy the Trump administration enforced on immigration law. This led to family separations of some immigrants petitioning for amnesty, and also of illegal immigrants. . .

Despite the lack of support for abolishing ICE, a majority of self-described Democrats have an unfavorable view of the agency (57 percent). Among those who describe themselves as liberal, ICE is even less popular, with nearly three fourths reporting an unfavorable view. . .

President Donald Trump has taken up the defense of ICE as part of his political platform. In various speeches and on social media he has decried the vilification of an office he sees as essential to the defense of the nation. (Read more from “Just How Popular Is the ‘Abolish ICE’ Movement?” HERE)

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Here’s What Happened When City Tried a Big Gov’t Solution for Homelessness

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In October 2015, the city of Portland, Oregon, decided to simply provide shelter to every single homeless family that asked for it. The plan backfired. . .

But by the end of 2017, the program was in a crisis. There weren’t enough shelter providers to handle the influx of homeless from outside the city and the county.

Rather than solving homelessness, the program spent all the resources the government had allocated to it, and not accomplished their goal.

The budget for the program exploded when it began to provide motel rooms for homeless families that they could not place in shelters. . .

Despite the “no-turn-away shelter strategy” failing spectacularly, the lawmakers say that the lesson they learned is that in order for it to work, it has to be adopted state-wide, and even nationally.

(Read more from “Here’s What Happened When City Tried a Big Gov’t Solution for Homelessness” HERE)

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Revealed: Big Majority of Americans Side With Trump, Not the Media, on Security Clearances

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Americans are backing President Donald Trump’s decision to revoke the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan.

In a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, 59 percent of registered voters think Brennan should have lost his security clearance. Another 64 percent said that former FBI Director James Comey and others at the FBI who were fired or demoted for their actions should lose their clearances, The Hill reports.

On the broad question of whether former national security officials who become consultants and TV pundits should keep their security clearances, 60 percent of registered voters said they should lose them.

“An overwhelming majority of the public thinks that former officials should lose their security clearance, and believe that former officials like Brennan and Coney should no longer have any clearance,” said Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll co-director Mark Penn.

“There would definitely be support for a wholesale policy revoking their clearances,” he added.

President Trump was viciously attacked in the media as a “dictator” who was attacking free speech after he pulled Brennan’s security clearance. This new poll confirms that most Americans don’t listen to and don’t care about the liberal media echo chamber. (For more from the author of “Revealed: Big Majority of Americans Side With Trump, Not the Media, on Security Clearances” please click HERE)

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Fox News Poll Has Bad News for GOP

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A new poll conducted by Fox News has disturbing news for the GOP: when Fox News asked respondents, “If the election for Congress were held today, would you vote for the Democratic candidate in your district or the Republican candidate in your district?”, 44% of men chose Democrats and 44% chose the GOP, but among women, 53% chose Democrats while only 34% chose the GOP.

Measured in total, 49% of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a Democrat than a Republican in their district; only 38% said they would be more likely to vote for a GOP candidate.

President Trump’s approval/disapproval rating was underwater, at 45%-53%. The highest approval rating Fox has had for Trump this year came in February, when his approval/disapproval rating was 48%-47%. Men approve of Trump by a 52%-47% margin; women disapprove by a much larger 60%-38% margin. (Read more from “Fox News Poll Has Bad News for GOP” HERE)

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Here Are the Questions Bruce Ohr Needs to Answer in His Testimony Before Congress

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Bruce Ohr is scheduled to testify Tuesday behind a closed-door session of the House Oversight Committee. Earlier this month, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes outed Ohr as an overlooked, but important, figure in the Obama administration’s targeting of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Recent revelations confirm Nunes’ characterization of Ohr: In his former position as the associate deputy attorney general under then-deputy attorney general Sally Yates, Ohr began feeding the FBI information from Christopher Steele, the former British spy who put together the unverified Trump dossier. Steele continued providing information to the FBI through Ohr, after the FBI had officially cut him off as a source and ordered him to stop gathering “intel.” Steele had leaked the investigation to the press. . .

While the oversight committee will be most concerned with understanding the role governmental actors played in Spygate, before questioning Ohr on those details, Gowdy should first establish the identity of everyone on the outside connected to the investigation of Russia and Trump. We know Ohr spoke with his wife Nellie Ohr, who also worked on the Russia opposition-research project funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton, as well as Steele and Steele’s Fusion GPS boss Glenn Simpson.

Who else, if anyone, provided Ohr with information on Russia or Trump? Who else provided Steele, Simpson, Nellie, Fusion, or governmental agencies information on Russia or Trump? Were there other sources? Were they paid? How did these individuals communicate? What telephone or text numbers, email accounts, or other methods of communication were used? What in-person meetings occurred? Where and why? . . .

Next, the oversight committee should ask Ohr to reveal the name of every individual within the DOJ who knew that he had contacts with Steele and Simpson about the Russia investigation. Similarly, the committee should ask which DOJ officials knew that Nellie worked for Fusion and was involved in investigating Trump. (Read more from “Here Are the Questions Bruce Ohr Needs to Answer in His Testimony Before Congress” HERE)

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