North Korea has created a nuclear warhead that could fit inside its missiles, a possible precursor to more nuclear-tipped warheads in the future. President Trump says of the troubling news that “North Korea… will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” — Jenna Suchyta
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome the news that over a million Americans left the food stamp rolls in the first few months of the Trump administration and discuss new state work requirements and immigration law enforcement as contributing factors to this continuing decrease in government dependence. They’re also exasperated as Google fires an engineer for writing an internal memo criticizing Google for a diversity culture that is not at all diverse and makes people feel as though they’ll get fired if they say anything that doesn’t square with corporate ideology. And they get a kick out of Spike Lee scheduling a “United We Stand for Colin Kaepernick” protest outside of NFL headquarters later this month.
Best-selling author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza says American liberals are guilty of peddling the falsehood that fascism was a creation of the political right rather than the left and engage in fascistic ideas and methods today, all while claiming to be fighting the ideology thought to be buried in the ashes of World War II.
This is what D’Souza refers to in the title of his new book, “The Big Lie:Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left.” In an interview, the conservative scholar says we see this concept espoused every day in our political environment.
“Since Trump’s election, we’ve heard ad nauseum that Trump is a fascist, the Republicans are neo-Nazis party. The underlying idea here is that fascism and Nazism are a phenomenon of the right, that they’re somehow right wing. This goes way beyond Trump. This has been argued by progressives ever since World War II. I’m showing that this is actually the big lie,” said D’Souza.
“It isn’t just that Trump is not a fascist. It’s much deeper than that. Fascism and Nazism have always been on the left,” he said.
Comparisons of American political figures and ideas to Nazi Germany and even Adolf Hitler are increasingly commonplace on social media and beyond. So why D’Souza going there?
First, he says, many Americans use those terms with zero context.
“It is true that the use of the word Nazi or the Hitler comparison has been absurdly misused, and it’s partly because people don’t know what those words even mean,” he said.
When it comes to the history of fascism, D’Souza says it’s pretty clear where those nefarious figures thought they were lining up politically.
“(Italian dictator Benito) Mussolini was a lifelong socialist. He was the most famous Marxist in Italy when he created the fascist party and became the first leader of a fascist regime. Hitler’s party, of course, was called national socialism. Hitler changed the name of the German Workers Party to reflect that. These guys were firmly on the left. They were seen by their critics as on the left,” said D’Souza.
“It’s only after World War II that the big lie set in and fascism was somehow cunningly moved into the right-wing column so it could be promiscuously used against Republicans and conservatives,” said he added.
So how did this happen in the wake of World War II? D’Souza says fascism became forever synonymous with the Holocaust and became “completely morally discredited.” He says that’s when the revisionists got to work.
“Anti-fascism, in a sense, became the only morally reputable way to go. The left realized that and the moment they realized that, the progressives who were coming to power in academia and the media, they covered up the long, cozy relationship between the Democratic Party and the left on one hand and the fascists and the Nazis on the other,” said D’Souza.
“Then they basically said, ‘From now on, we’re going to be the anti-fascists. We’re still going to believe what we did. We’re going to act like we did. We’re going to pursue some of the same thuggish tactics that we’ve been using all along, but we will now use the moral credentials of anti-fascism so we can get away with it. We’ll act like we’re fighting Hitler in the 1930’s,'” said D’Souza.
And it’s that mentality that he believes is at work among the American left when it comes to the president.
“That’s how they act with Trump. Trump is supposed to be the new Hitler. These guys think that any tactics are justified in order to get rid of him,” said D’Souza.
Besides fascists being far to the left politically, D’Souza says Democrats use the same tactics of transference = accusing their opponents of the heinous things they’re actually doing. In Nazi Germany, he says Hitler accused the Jews of desiring world domination when it was really Hitler’s ambition.
“This is exactly what the left does in America. In my last book, ‘Hillary’s America,’ I show how they do it with the race card. The Democratic Party has been the party of slavery and segregation and Jim Crow and the Klan. But somehow they blame the Republican Party for being the racist party,” said D’Souza.
“And similarly with fascism, it is the left that has had the actual ugly history of fascism. It was the left that was in bed with Mussolini in the ’20s and Hitler in the ’30s. Yet, these are the guys today who turn around and say, ‘Oh Trump. He’s a fascist. The GOP, that’s the party of fascism. This is pure transference. This is the classic use of the big lie in exactly the way that Hitler used it,” said D’Souza.
D’Souza points out that “the big lie” was a term used by Hitler, not to secretly admit his own tactics but for the empty charge he aimed at the Jews and other adversaries. He says we see it today in the Antifa rioters who shut down conservative speech in the name of fighting fascism.
“They wear masks. They cover their heads. They carry bike locks and baseball bats as weapons. They threaten, they intimidate, they use violence. These are the exact equivalent of Mussolini’s Blackshirts of the ’20s or Hitler’s Brownshirts of the ’30s, with the only difference being that the old fascists called themselves fascists, whereas the new fascists call themselves anti-fascists,” he said.
But while there may be a few messaging techniques in common, surely that’s where the parallels between the Democrats and fascists end, right?
Not at all, says D’Souza.
“Hitler himself admired the extermination of the American Indians by the Jacksonian Democrats in the 19th century. So in a sense, what Hitler is saying is that the Democrats did the first genocide. I’m going to do sort of the second one,” said D’Souza.
He also says racial and ethnic wedge politics are another common bond.
“Second of all, the deep history of racism that characterized the Nazi regime, of course in the Nazi case it was anti-semitism, but it mirrors the deep history of racism in the Democratic Party,” said D’Souza.
He says the Democrats’ transference on race is a narrative even high-profile Republicans are buying hook, line, and sinker.
“There’s a poor guy, Ken Mehlman, the (former) head of the Republican National Committee, who was traipsing from one black church to another, apologizing for the Republican Party’s history of racism. This poor fool doesn’t know that the Republican Party actually has no such history. It’s the party of emancipation, shutting down the Klan, fighting against segregation,” he added.
“He had bought into the big lie. He was so dumb that he actually didn’t know his own party’s history. So if you don’t have the knowledge, you’re not going to be able to fight back,” said D’Souza.
Not only do D’Souza’s critics dismiss any connections between the Democratic Party and the Third Reich, they repeatedly slam his characterization of the Democrats as the party of racism. They say slavery and Jim Crow are discarded policies from a party that has undergone a major shift over the past 50-60 years and that Democrats have been the champions of minorities and the poor for more than a half-century.
D’Souza says things there are still more similarities between the Democrats and the fascists than the left wants to admit, starting with their view of government.
“Let’s look at the fascism in the Democratic Party right now. First of all, the Democrats today remain the party of the centralized state. When Obama and Hillary and Bernie Sanders talk about increasing government control over all these sectors of the economy, this is actually classically fascist,” said D’Souza.
While right-leaning critics often describe Democrats and their policies as socialist, D’Souza says fascist is actually a more accurate label.
It’s not even really socialist because in socialist countries the government nationalizes an industry. We still have private hospitals. We have private health insurance companies. It’s just that the government tells them what to do. This notion of state-directed capitalism, this is the essential economic meaning of fascism,” said D’Souza.
In his book, D’Souza also decries the inability of conservatives to compete as broadly as the left in the battle of ideas. He says it’s time for the right to engage all of our culture, just has the left has done for generations.
“Republicans fight in one corner of the battlefield, electoral politics, and the left is making the long march through academia, the media, the whole entertainment world, including the world of comedy and including Hollywood,” said D’Souza.
He says pulling the strings on the media is another tactic used effectively by the fascists.
“Hitler said he understood that the media was the most important place to be to not only define what you stand for but get your message out. One of the first things the Nazis did when they came to power was that they made sure the media, the press, the German film industry and entertainment industry were all brought into line with Nazi ideology,” said D’Souza.
He says we’re seeing something similar in our pop culture today, only it goes by a different name.
“For the left in America today, we have political correctness, but political correctness reflects the success of the left in using its enormous power in media, in entertainment, and in Hollywood, and in academia, to enforce it’s own narrow ideology,” said D’Souza.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America like the new sanctions approved against North Korea, and they really like to see China, Russia, and other countries cooperating in this effort to rein in the isolated nation. They rip the New York Times for suggesting Vice President Mike Pence is planning to run for president in 2020 if President Trump does not, all because Pence is doing a lot of fundraising events — and they enjoy a little Kasich-bashing as the same Times article conjectures about Ohio Gov. John Kasich launching a primary challenge to Trump. And they react to Dunkin’ Donuts blaming a confusing store layout for an employee’s refusal to serve two NYPD officers in Brooklyn.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats announced a joint effort Friday, designed to track down and prosecute whoever is leaking classified information to the media, and former federal prosecutor Victoria Toensing says this problem can be addressed by putting the media on notice, limiting the number of people who see key documents and rooting out Obama holdovers from the National Security Council staff.
Toensing also urged caution before jumping to conclusions over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s assembling of a grand jury into the Russia, probe but she fears serious mission creep is afoot and wonders why there still isn’t a grand jury investigating Hillary Clinton over her email scandal or examining the actions of the Clinton Foundation.
The issue of leaks jumped to the forefront again this week, after the Washington Post published classified transcripts of President Trump’s conversations with other world leaders during the first days of his administration.
Toensing says there is clear-cut criminal activity involved.
“It is absolutely prosecutable. It is a leak of classified information. What the Washington Post is doing is effecting President Trump’s ability to do his job, because the Washington Post is absolutely committed to bringing down this presidency,” said Toensing.
“You know ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness,’ their new label, their new motto? Well, democracy dies in fake news in publishing classified information, which provides no news value. What did we learn in the publishing of that transcript? Nothing,” said Toensing.
Toensing says the most important thing to come out of the Sessions-Coats press conference is the warning that journalists will get subpoenaed if necessary to expose those responsible for the leaks. She says they don’t need to be prosecuted to assist an investigation.
“They don’t have to go that far. They can subpoena them and bring them before the grand jury, remember? Patrick Fitzgerald did that in the Scooter Libby-Valerie Plame situation and there hadn’t even been a crime there we all know,” said Toensing, referring to the investigation into the alleged leaking of the identity of a covert CIA operative.
No one was ever charged for the leak, which came from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Libby was charged with perjury and making false statements.
While bracing for cries of suppressing the free press, Toensing says using reporters to track down leakers is a far cry from how former Attorney General Eric Holder treated the media during the Obama administration.
“They went after 20 [Associated Press] reporters. There was hardly a peep. AP peeped a little but there was not any massive outcry in the press,” said Toensing. “They subpoenaed their phone records from Verizon. AP didn’t even have notice that these subpoenas had taken place,” said Toensing.
“Eric Holder’s people went after James Rosen from Fox News an called him a co-conspirator, a criminal, and he was a flight risk. Look what the Obama administration did without much of a murmur,” said Toensing.
But while that debate plays out, how can the Trump administration zero in those responsible for leaking classified information? Toensing says it starts with tightening the inner circle.
“The Post also said these are notes from staff people and that they are routinely shared with a number of people. I think that ‘routinely shared” has got to stop. They’re going to have to limit the number of people who get these kinds of documents,” said Toensing.
Toensing also urges a detailed numbering system for all classified documents, so that investigators can zero in on what seems to be getting leaked to the media. She says some reporters may go to jail rather than give up their sources, but the government needs to start applying pressure.
“I think the message has to go out there. I think they have to start intimidating some of these people who have just been blatant in providing and publishing classified information,” said Toensing.
She is also frustrated by reports than many staff from the Obama National Security Council are still working there.
“That’s the president’s fault. The president has been told, I know, whom to get rid of. He hasn’t done so and he only has himself to blame,” said Toensing.
But Toensing is also increasingly leery of National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster given some of his recent decisions.
“He’s gotten rid of some very excellent NSC staff who seem to be more conservative, like hardliners against Iran, which I thought was a good idea. Evidently, McMaster doesn’t and he’s gotten rid of them,” said Toensing, who is also fuming over McMaster choosing to allow Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice to keep her national security clearance.
“That concerns me. If Susan Rice is talking, she’s lying. That has been her modus operandi throughout the whole Obama administration from Benghazi to Sgt. (Bowe) Bergdahl,” said Toensing. “I have not seen her take on any major issue that she did not provide false statements. So why he stuck up for her I have no idea.”
When it comes to the revelation that Mueller has convened a grand jury over the Russia probe, Toensing is less concerned at least for now. She says a leak may not even be responsible for this news.
“That could or could not be a leak because you could have a witness called before the grand jury or someone who was asked to provide documents who provided that information, and that is not a crime,” said Toensing.
But Toensing is bothered by some aspects, including how the Mueller investigation appears to be delving into areas far afield from the the original focus of the probe. She says the Justice Department should have avoided that problem at the outset.
“It should have been circumscribed by (Deputy Attorney General) Rod Rosenstein. He should have said, ‘For the purpose of investigating Russian collusion only.’ And if investigating only Russian collusion you come across a crime, well then that can be prosecuted. But expanding this to business dealings before Donald Trump even thought about running for president is certainly mission creep,” said Toensing.
Some Trump defenders are alarmed to see several top ranking FBI officials on the apparent witness list for the grand jury, asserting that they are allies of ousted FBI Director James Comey and thus unfair to the president.
Toensing disagrees.
“When I was a federal prosecutor, I would bring in federal agents all the time because they’re doing the investigation. We don’t know whether they’d be fact witnesses, which would be one thing, or whether they are coming in because they have done X,Y, and Z and they need to tell the grand jury about their investigation,” said Toensing.
Toensing says assembling a grand jury may be an appropriate move in this case, but she is still puzzled over the FBI’s failure to have one looking into the Hillary Clinton email scandal and for its unusual habit of offering immunity to key figures in exchange for documents.
She says it’s still a good time for a grand jury to look at all questionable activities by the Clintons.
“They should do so now because the foundation has not been examined. There are a lot of new emails now, acquired by Judicial Watch, showing that there was lots of play-for-play back and forth, (such as) million dollars coming in, can you get my friend an ambassadorship,” said Toensing.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s decision to flip to the Republican Party, giving the GOP control of the governor’s office in 35 states. They also wade through the implications of Special Counsel Robert Mueller creating a grand jury for his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. And they unload on former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz for her shameful efforts to protect herself and her former IT staffer from a criminal investigation by alleging anti-Muslim bias by the FBI.
Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage the LGBT movement remains on offense and on key cultural issues many Republicans seem far less interesting in continuing the fight than their adversaries on the left.
And a leading expert on cultural and family issues says it is time for conservatives to engage in the debates that are engulfing our culture and threaten liberty, but she says the battle must be approached intelligently.
Last month, President Trump’s ban on transgenders serving in the U.S. military was met by fierce protest from Democrats, LGBT activists and a surprising number of Republican lawmakers, including Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, Richard Shelby, R-Alabama and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, as well as multiple House members. Hardly any GOP members offered strong support for Trump’s move, with most Republican lawmakers remaining silent.
Then a new Reuters poll showed 58 percent of Americans are in favor of allowing transgenders to serve, including 32 percent of self-identified Republicans.
In yet another survey, this one from Gallup, a record high 17 percent of Americans say they find polygamy morally acceptable and libertarian arguments are emerging that maybe the government has no business prohibiting polygamy since marriage isn’t even mentioned in the Constitution.
So is the political right engaging in a quiet surrender on some core cultural issues?
“Surrender suggests there was ever a fight,” said Ruth Institute Founder and President Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse. “On the political front at least there has never been a real, sustained effort to push back in a sustained and logical and forthright manner against some of the truly irrational things that have been coming at us from the sexual revolution.”
“It’s not surrender so much…but just a refusal to show up to the battle in the first place. The Republicans would much rather talk about taxes and things like that than to go and talk about the cultural issues,” said Morse.
She says the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare is crammed full of cultural issues, including the debate over taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, but the GOP usually defaults to economics alone in advancing their arguments.
“Those are a huge part of the Obamacare issue. So to pretend that we can avoid that and just talk about economics or just talk about foreign policy or something like that, that’s just putting your head in the sand,” said Morse.
When GOP lawmakers join Democrats in alleging discrimination or bigotry in Trump’s ban on transgender military service, Morse says they not only buy into the liberal talking points but prove they don’t see the real goal behind the liberal push on LGBT issues.
“To try to make everybody go along with the idea that you’ve just changed a person’s sex is a huge power grab. Republicans and conservatives generally I don’t think have recognized how big of a power grab it is and how much it’s really expanding the power of the state,” said Morse.
For those on the right with some inclination to defend traditional values, Morse says two more problems tend to keep them silent in these debates.
“Number one, people don’t know how to respond to these issues. And number two, they’re afraid. There are a lot of fear tactics that have been used by the cultural left, not just transgenders. Transgenders have just perfected the art form,” said Morse
She says the strategies used by the left have been standard since the dawn of the sexual revolution.
“The art form has been developed and cultivated over the years, starting with feminism. You know, a man’s not allowed to have any opinion on a whole range of topics or else he’ll be called a male chauvinist pig and basically silenced. That process of silencing people over cultural issues has been going on a long time,” said Morse.
Another intense source of pressure is a one-sided advocacy coming from all sectors of popular culture.
“if you have two sides of an issue and one side you hear every day, steadily, steadily. You hear it on the radio. You hear it on TV. You hear it on the news. You see it in sitcoms. You see it in movies. You see it on billboards. You see it everywhere, and the other side you hear nothing,” said Morse.
“No matter what the substance of the issue is, eventually the side promoting itself constantly is the side that’s going to win. That’s why institutions like the Ruth Institute and other pro-family organizations need to be getting their message out,” said Morse.
Another element in the silence on the right is embarrassment. Morse says most conservative people feel awkward talking about sex in public. She says folks on the right must get over that.
“That gives the radicals a huge advantage because they’re not embarrassed at all. They’re not shy at all. You can’t shut them up. They’re talking about it all the time,” said Morse.
“Every time you cringe and turn your face away, your opponents are moving forward. You’re giving them an opening. We must equip ourselves to deal with these issues in a logical way, in a non-panicked way,” said Morse.
Morse says social conservatives need to engage now because each win for the cultural liberals creates a push for another assault on traditional values, just as the legalization of same-sex marriage instantly triggered an intensification of the transgender movement.
“We’re trying to create a whole world where the sex of the body and the gender of the body and our physicality is somehow ruled out and written out of law. And since nobody’s ever confronted it, the crazier it gets the more confused people are,” said Morse.
But when it comes to engaging the culture, especially young adults, Morse says cultural conservatives cannot just dive into the debate in today’s headlines but need to extol the unparalleled value of marriage between one man and one woman for life.
“If we start from that perspective, we will at least have some credibility with the millennials. If you just drive right in and say gay people shouldn’t have kids and transgenders shouldn’t serve in the military and never acknowledge the 40 or 50 years of suffering that divorce has caused, you have no credibility at all,” said Morse.
Morse says that is why the Ruth Institute is leading the way in addressing this root issue through its Healing Family Breakdown Spiritual Workshop. She says even though the sexual revolution has gone far down the road from the explosion of divorce, that is where the battle must be waged.
“You want to talk about silent surrender, we surrendered on the divorce issue a long time ago. We’ve got to go back and fight that battle. We’ve go to go back and stick up for the rights of children to know their own parents,” said Morse.
She says young adults have never known anything but the carnage triggered by the divorce culture, whether in their own homes or among their friends.
“What that means is that the idea that marriage has something to do with the stability of a child’s relationship with their parents, that idea is completely foreign to them. When I stand in front of a college audience and I say kids have a right to their parents, they burst into tears sometimes. They’ve never heard anybody say that,” said Morse.
The concept of kids having a right to know and be raised by their biological parents is also why Morse believes polygamy must be rejected before it gains any more traction. .
“The reason you need some kind of institution like marriage is to protect the interests of children to have their own parents. If you start from the premise that children are entitled to a relationship with their parents, the two people who brought them into being, if you start from that position and you reason your way outward, you will end up with traditional Christian sexual morality,” said Morse.
She has no use for the libertarian argument of the government staying out of marriage altogether, even if it means the emergence of polygamy.
“To try to legislate against the law of nature on the scale we’re trying to do in our culture is one more example of the irrationality of the sexual revolution as we’ve seen it unfold here in the last 50 years,” said Morse.
While acknowledging the tide of forces advancing the sexual revolution into its next phase, Morse says the battle must be engaged and can be won.
“We’re being maneuvered and manipulated by the sound bite culture that is very, very noisy and unless you give yourself some silence, unless you give yourself some time to think, you’re going to be pushed and pulled by the latest noise making machine that comes near you,” said Morse.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America have good news from Wall Street: stocks are soaring, regardless of the chaos in Washington. Transcripts of President Trump’s January phone calls to the leaders of Mexico and Australia were leaked to the press this week, and Jim and Greg react both to Trump’s comments and the blatant leaking and publishing of classified information. And they have little sympathy for health insurance companies who are forced to bail on the Obamacare exchanges after losing huge amounts of money, but the vanishing coverage is leaving many Americans in a terrible position while Congress accomplishes nothing.
Sen. John McCain is getting most of the blame from the right and praise from the left for his vote to scuttle Senate legislation to repeal parts of Obamacare, but another GOP member is coming under fire for reneging on her vow to repeal the law and offering a weak explanation for her reversal.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, campaigned twice on ditching Obamacare and even voted for the straight repeal in 2015, when the bill was vetoed by President Obama.
This year, Murkowski opposed the motion to proceed on the health care debate and then consistently rejected a wide variety of GOP amendments, including the “skinny repeal,” which McCain famously opposed. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, was the other no vote. Of the three, only Collins opposed the 2015 repeal as well.
After seven years of railing against Obamacare, why did Murkowski end up as a deciding vote to save it?
“Number one, she’s a big government leftist. Anything that grows government, grows federal control, she’s for,” said Joe Miller, who ran against Murkowski in 2010 and 2016.
In 2010, Miller defeated Murkowski in the Republican primary, only to see Murkowski launch and narrowly win a write-in campaign in the general election. In 2016, Miller was a late addition to the Libertarian ticket and came in second to Murkowski by a wider margin, while still outpacing the Democrat in the race and a well-funded independent candidate.
Murkowski’s approach to the recent Obamacare repeal votes is especially galling to Miller, given the prominence of the issue in their 2010 campaign.
“Most Alaskans that have political contact remember what she did in 2010. She actually called me out and said I was a liar about her position on Obamacare because we had a YouTube clip of her waffling statements on Obamacare. We said, ‘Look this gal isn’t really for full repeal,'” said Miller.
“So she doubled down and said, ‘Yes, I am for full repeal.’ Of course, what did she do when push came to shove? She actually voted not to repeal even on the skinny act,” added Miller.
Murkowski voted for repeal less than two years ago, so has something changed or was that earlier vote purely political?
“When the vote actually counts, you know how she’s going to vote. She knew at that point, of course, that Obama was going to veto it. So there was no cost to what we would call her principles – those of expanding government. That was entirely a consequence, in our assessment, of knowing where the outcome of that vote was going,” said Miller.
Murkowski added more confusion to her shifting position on Obamacare by refusing to explain why she did it. After the early morning vote, Murkowski dodged efforts by The Daily Caller to get some answers.
“I am really very tired, and so you’re asking for a very thoughtful response. I actually appreciate your question, but rather than respond to each and every individual request from all of these cameras around me, I’m going to take a pass,” said Murkowski.
After laughing heartily at Murkowski’s comments, Miller said he was not surprised.
“That is so typical Lisa Murkowski. That’s what she does. I mean what do you you do when you’re confronted with a lie?. You evade. You don’t answer the question, and that’s what she’s done there,” said Miller.
“She knows who she is. She’s not motivated by any principle of good government. She motivated by principles that at least constitutional conservatives and libertarian-oriented people are against,” said Miller.
Miller believes the vast majority of right-leaning voters in Alaska want a full repeal of Obamacare and he suspects they won’t forget what Murkowski did.
“I think it’s woken up a segment of Alaska. Hopefully, they’ll remember it in five years but we’ll wait and see,” said Miller.
“If this continues to incur cost to the average American as it already has in increased health care costs, increased premiums, and loss of benefits, then of course the memory is still going to be there,” said Miller.
But while Miller is perfectly happy to point out his frustrations with Murkowski, he says the problem is bigger than one senator or even the three GOP members who killed health care reform for the short term.
“I think it’s wrong to just focus entirely on Murkowski, although that’s kind of my area of expertise since I ran against her. It’s really the system of government in D.C.” said Miller.
Miller minces no words when it comes to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, whom he blames in part for the results in 2010 and for the failure of the Senate to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or ACA.
“I saw what he did to me in 2010. Mitch McConnell is the reason that the United States has Lisa Murkowski. He and his colleagues stirred up [the write-in campaign] with Lisa Murkowski to defeat us,” said Miller.
“I think Mitch McConnell likes the ACA. I think it’s all a scam when he says he is against it. If you think he didn’t count the votes before that vote, then you really don’t know Mitch McConnell,” said Miller.
“This is an ingrained problem with people out there that call themselves conservative Republicans, or Republicans, and they have absolutely no principles that are connected with the party platform, and they’re scamming the voters,” said Miller.
Miller says a successful repeal of Obamacare would put the GOP in dominant political position. Instead, he says the party is in huge trouble.
“The Republican Party needs to get it’s head screwed on straight. Leadership is where it starts. Right now there is none. I think if we had done the right thing on ACA, there’s a real chance that it could have grown in the future. I don’t see that now,” said Miller.
In addition to the changes Miller wants to see at the national level, he is also intent on ripping control of the Alaska GOP from big government Republicans like Murkowski.
“I think she can be defeated. It’s going to take a real grassroots effort in Alaska to clean up a lot of stuff in this state. The establishment has controlled the state for a number of decades. Every once in a while we’ll see a brief glimpse of sunshine. We has Gov. (Sarah) Palin for a couple of years. But for the most part, that’s not happened. It’s time for a change and maybe this is what’s going to do it,” said Miller.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the Senate for approving Christopher Wray as the new FBI director with virtually no drama. They also discuss Rep. Mike McCaul’s reluctance to be considered to lead the Department of Homeland Security. While many border security advocates are not fans of McCaul, Jim wonders whether Trump’s public criticisms of administration figures will convince qualified people to pass on chances to serve. And Jim and Greg react as you might expect after the author of a Washington Post opinion piece slams President Trump for his use of the term “paddy wagon” in a speech,” claiming it is a slur against the Irish that should not be part of civil discourse.
