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John McCain Denies He Knowingly Posed with ‘Rebel Kidnappers’ in Syria

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Photo Credit: AP

The photograph, released by Mr McCain’s office, shows the US senator standing with a group of rebels during his highly-publicised trip to Syria this week.

Two of the men in the image are Mohamed Nour and Abu Ibrahim, claimed Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star. The men are described as being part of a group who kidnapped 11 Shias last year.

They were identified by one of the kidnap victims, Anwar Ibrahim, who along with one other hostage has since been freed, the Star said. Negotiations over the freedom of the other nine are still ongoing.

“I recognised him (Nour) immediately. He was the photographer who was brought in to take our photos [during captivity]. He works with the kidnappers. He knows them very well,” Mr Ibrahim told the Star.

The Star claimed it had independently confirmed the identity of Nour, who reportedly acted as the spokesman for the kidnappers. The Telegraph has not confirmed the men’s identities.

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John McCain Tears Into Mike Lee on Senate Floor, Lee Responds (+videos)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeSen. John McCain provides yet another reason why many feel the “old bull” should be put out to pasture when he tore into fellow Republican Sen. Mike Lee on the Senate floor Thursday over Lee’s objection to negotiate the debt limit increase as part of the budget resolution.

“Perhaps the senator from Utah doesn’t know about that — the fact that even if they did raise the debt limit, it could not become law because it doesn’t go to the president of the United States,” McCain said.

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John McCain Refuses to Back Impeachment of Obama Over Benghazi (+video)

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Photo Credit: Huffington PostAs Republicans are increasingly calling the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi attacks a cover-up worse than Watergate and even floating impeachment, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) urged a note of caution on Sunday, saying he wasn’t yet willing to go that far.

“With all due respect, I think this is a serious issue,” said McCain on ABC’s “This Week.” “I will even give the president the benefit of the doubt on some of these things. We need a select committee.”

On Thursday, Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) accused President Barack Obama of overseeing “the most egregious cover-up in American history.” He added that “people may be starting to use the ‘I word'” before long.

Former Arksansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) also said on his radio show this week, “I believe that before it’s all over, this president will not fill out his full term. As bad as Watergate was because it broke the trust between the president and the people, no one died. This is more serious because four Americans did in fact die. And President Obama has yet to explain why did they die.”

McCain also defended Obama against impeachment during a late February town hall, saying, “I do not believe that the president has committed impeachable offenses — that’s high crimes.”


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GOP Leaders Again Claim that Constitution Shouldn't Apply to Alleged Bomber

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Photo Credit: isafmediaEven as the surviving 19-year-old Boston Marathon Bombing suspect was formally charged in a Massachusetts hospital room with federal terrorism offenses, some prominent GOP senators still insist that he should have been charged as an enemy combatant.

“I strongly disagree with the Obama Administration’s decision to rule out enemy combatant status for the suspect at this time,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted on Monday.

Graham and Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Rep. Peter King of New York had issued a joint statement on Saturday calling for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be held as an enemy combatant, which would have potentially given investigators more latitude to question him about other plots.

Dzhokhar suffered multiple gunshot wounds before being taken into custody on Friday, including a gunshot wound to the throat, which made it difficult for him to speak.

“It is clear the events we have seen over the past few days in Boston were an attempt to kill American citizens and terrorize a major American city,” according to the joint statement by GOP lawmakers. “The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans.

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McCain, Schumer: Obama Supports our Immigration Bill

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Photo Credit: White House

Sens. John McCain and Chuck Schumer said they were encouraged after a meeting with President Obama at the White House Tuesday, saying he supports the immigration reform bill they plan to introduce tonight and hope to pass by June.

“We’re feeling very good about this,” Schumer said outside the West Wing. “The president’s supportive of our proposal.”

“The president realizes that everybody didn’t get what they wanted,” McCain said. “We appreciate the president’s support. We believe that that’s important as we move forward with the process.”

One of the things the president didn’t want, Schumer said, was a trigger that tied the opening of a pathway to citizenship to tighter border security. But, he said, he and the other members of the Gang of 8 senators who brokered the legislation felt it was important to prevent a so-called third wave of immigrants, who would flood the country and require another immigration-reform bill in the future.

McCain credited the election in November with helping to build support for the measure, and he said it has a much better chance of succeeding than previous efforts. “Most Americans support this proposal far more than did in 2007,” he said.

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Establishment GOP Wages War On Newcomers

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Photo Credit: WND

Old guard Senate Republicans are using the term “wacko” to describe new members promoting the tea party call for smaller government and accountability, and a congressional source for WND says it’s a sign of an emerging inter-party clash.

Referring to the fallout from the filibuster this week by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a top Republican aide said there “could not have been a starker contrast in terms of the new reformers of the Senate, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, all fighting the overreach of this executive, versus on the handful of senators having dinner in one of the most expensive hotels in the country.”

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who both criticized Paul for his nearly 13-hour filibuster of the vote on John Brennan for CIA director, were among the Republican leaders who dined with Obama. According to the Huffington Post, McCain referred to tea party Republicans, including Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., as “wacko birds.”

“I don’t think you could get a clearer and starker vision of what one side thinks Washington should be doing versus the other,” the source said. The energy generated by Paul’s filibuster and the stances taken by Sens. McCain and Graham show why “they don’t have the backing and support of the American people,” the source said.

In the hours after Paul’s filibuster, both McCain and Graham launched deeply critical attacks against Paul, claiming that, fundamentally, the American people have nothing to fear from their government. Paul, Cruz and Lee raised alarm when the Obama administration wouldn’t immediately assure the public it would not kill an American citizen on home soil with a drone.

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Rand Paul: ‘McCain Is On The Wrong Side Of History’ (+audio)

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On Friday, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul stopped by “The Mike Huckabee Show,” where he sharply criticized Sen. John McCain’s opposition to his dramatic filibuster earlier in the week.

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

“You know, I think he’s just on the wrong side of history, and the wrong side of this argument, really,” Paul said. “When you think about it, it is pretty important. … Our soldiers go overseas, and they’re fighting for our Bill of Rights, and I was sitting next to a war veteran here at a conference just a few minutes ago, and the whole idea is that it wouldn’t be important that everybody gets their days in court — that you could accuse someone of something, and they wouldn’t get to defend themselves.”

“I really think that goes against everything America stands for,” Paul continued. “I had this exchange with Sen. McCain on the floor about a year ago. The government can indefinitely detain someone — an American citizen — and I said, ‘Does that mean you could send them to Guantanamo Bay from America without a trial?’ And he said ‘Yes, if they’re dangerous.’ But that begs the question: Who gets to decide whether you’re dangerous person or not?”

Listen to audio:

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Rand Paul Filibuster Blasted By John McCain, Lindsey Graham (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore While Republican senators flocked to the floor Wednesday night to support Sen. Rand Paul’s nearly 13-hour filibuster, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) did exactly the opposite on Thursday.

McCain quoted heavily from a Wall Street Journal editorial that slammed Paul’s filibuster on the Obama administration’s drone use, including a line that said “If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in college dorms.”

McCain called Paul’s concern that the government could kill any American with a drone “totally unfounded.” He referenced Jane Fonda, as Paul did on Wednesday, calling her “not his favorite American” for her support of the Viet Cong, but said the American government would not have killed her.

To somehow say that someone who disagrees with American policy and even may demonstrate against it, is somehow a member of an organization which makes that individual an enemy combatant is simply false,” McCain said.

Graham also chided his fellow Republicans on the floor for joining Paul in his filibuster. “To my Republican colleagues, I don’t remember any of you coming down here suggesting that President Bush was going to kill anybody with a drone, do you?” Graham said. “They had a drone program back then, all of a sudden this drone program has gotten every Republican so spun up. What are we up to here?”

Watch video here:

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Hispanicked GOP Elite: They’ll Respect Us In the Morning

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Photo Credit: Gary CameronDon’t anyone tell Marco Rubio, John McCain or Jeff Flake that nearly 80 percent of Hindus voted for Obama, or who knows what they’ll come up with.

I understand the interest of business lobbies in getting cheap, unskilled labor through amnesty, but why do Republican officeholders want to create up to 20 million more Democratic voters, especially if it involves flouting the law? Are the campaign donations from the soulless rich more important than actual voters?

Without citing any evidence, the Rubio Republicans simply assert that granting 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens amnesty will make Hispanics warm to the GOP. Yes, that’s worked like a charm since Reagan signed an amnesty bill in 1986!

True, Romney lost the Hispanic vote, but so did John McCain, the original Rubio. (McCain lost Hispanics by 67 percent compared to 71 percent who voted against Romney.)

President George H.W. Bush created “diversity visas,” massively increased legal immigration and eliminated the English requirement on the naturalization test. In the 1992 election, he won 25 percent of the Hispanic vote — less than what Romney got.

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McCain Defends Immigration Plan To Angry Residents

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Arizona took center stage in the national immigration debate Tuesday as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano toured the state’s border with Mexico and Sen. John McCain defended his proposed immigration overhaul to an angry crowd in suburban Phoenix.

The presence of the top officials is the latest sign that Arizona will play a prominent role in the immigration debate as President Barack Obama looks to make it a signature issue of his second term.

Napolitano toured the border near Nogales with the highest-ranking official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the incoming chairman of the Senate’s homeland security committee and an Arizona congressman. Napolitano, Arizona’s former governor, said afterward that comprehensive immigration reform will strengthen the nation’s border against criminals and other threats.

Also Tuesday, McCain hosted two town hall meetings in Arizona, during which he defended his immigration plan to upset residents concerned about border security. A bipartisan group of senators — including Arizona Republicans McCain and Jeff Flake — want assurances on border security as Congress weighs what could be the biggest changes to immigration law in nearly 30 years. Arizona is the only state with both of its senators working on immigration reform in Congress, a sign of the state’s widely debated border security issues.

Immigration activists and elected officials say it’s only natural for Arizona to continue to take the forefront in the national conversation on immigration after years of internal debate on the topic.

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