Trump Ignites Firestorm With McCain 'Not a War Hero' Comment

Donald Trump left no doubts at Saturday's Iowa Family Leadership Summit: He was there to speak his mind on immigration, President Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain, and many other topics, politically correct or not.

He used the forum to escalate his feud with McCain, denying that the former prisoner of war should be considered a hero and referred to McCain as a 'loser."

"He’s not a war hero," Trump said. "He’s a war hero because he was captured? I like people who weren’t captured. ...  Perhaps he is a war hero, but right now, he said some very bad things about a lot of people."

McCain was a Navy pilot in the Vietnam War who was shot down and held for more than five years in North Vietnam's "Hanoi Hilton" prison, where he was repeatedly tortured.

Trump said he avoided service in the Vietnam War through at least 4 student and medical deferments, adding that he did not serve because he "was not a big fan of the Vietnam war. I wasn't a protester, but the Vietnam war was a disaster for our country."

Trump also referred to McCain as a '"loser."

McCain, said Trump, "is not so hot," and "I supported him for president. I raised $1 million for him. He lost, he let us down. He lost. I have never liked him as much after that."

He also refused to apologize for calling McCain "a dummy" earlier this week for slamming his supporters, saying he doesn't think that his words are inappropriate from a person running for president.

"I'm in Phoenix, we have a meeting that is going to have 500 people," said Trump. "We get a call from the hotel. Turmoil. Thousands and thousands of people are showing up in three or four days. The hotel says, we cannot handle this.'"

Eventually 15,000 people showed up, said Trump, "wonderful, great Americans," and McCain "called them all crazy. They were not crazies. They were great Americans...I know all about crazies. He insulted me and he insulted everybody in that room."

A spokesman for McCain, Brian Rogers, said no comment when asked about Trumps remarks, the Associated Press reports.

Trump made it clear that he wouldn't pull his punches for anyone.

"We are so politically correct that we cannot move anymore," Trump told moderator Frank Luntz, who reminded the real estate magnate to watch his language he was using in front of the evangelical audience attending the Iowa event. 

Reaction was swift as rivals who had thus far failed to take on Trump blasted the real estate mogul on Twitter. In an even more unusual move, the Republican National Committee weighed in with a statement condemning Trump.

RNC Chief Strategist and Communications Director Sean Spicer released a statement hours later:

"Senator McCain is an American hero because he served his country and sacrificed more than most can imagine. Period. There is no place in our party or our country for comments that disparage those who have served honorably.”

His fellow candidates and the Republican National Committee quickly moved to isolate Trump for his attacks on McCain, the party's 2008 presidential nominee.

"His comments have reached a new low in American politics," said former Texas Governor Rick Perry in a statement calling for Trump to "apologize immediately." 

"His attacks on veterans make him unfit to be Commander-in- Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, and he should immediately withdraw from the race for president," added Perry, a former Air Force captain. 

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee managed to flash a sense of humor along with a well placed barb.

Via: Newsmax

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Iran Deal: Andrea Mitchell's Mushy Softball to Kerry About Vietnam

Andrea Mitchell had the chance to ask John Kerry, on live national TV, any question she wanted about the Iran deal. She could, for example, have confronted him over the lifting of the conventional arms and ballistic missile embargoes that were included as a nice little parting gift to Iran. Instead, in a moment of media malpractice, Mitchell lobbed up the mushiest of softballs on today's Morning Joe, asking Kerry "what that moment meant to you" when at the final negotiation meeting, he reminisced about going to Vietnam as a 22-year old "and that you never wanted to go to war without having exhausted the diplomacy."  A shame Andrea and John weren't in the same room so they could have exchanged a heartfelt hug.

Note that Kerry, so diplomatic with his Iranians friends, didn't hesitate in the course of responding to take a gratuitous swipe at George W. Bush regarding Iraq.

ANDREA MITCHELL:  Mr. Secretary, there were so many ups and downs, emotional roller coaster and the 18. 19 days were. There are reports that at that final meeting on Tuesday of all the ministers, they went around the table. And when they came you to, you talked about being a 22-year old going to Vietnam and that you never wanted to go to war without having exhausted the diplomacy. Can you speak to that, to what that moment meant to you? 

JOHN KERRY: Andrea, I believe that the alternative to what we are trying to do here is conflict. If we are not able to hold on to this, then the Iranians will say, well, the United States can't be trusted. You can't negotiate with the United States. And they will feel free to go forward with their program. I can hear everybody clamoring. So what you are going to do now? If they start to enrich, you know that every presidential candidate appearing on your show WILL say it's time for President Obama to show how tough he is and bomb there. There will be no alternative and the president said it the other day. This is a choice between diplomatic solution and war. And military action.

And so, yes, I did talk about the lesson I learned, before you sebd people off to put their lives on the line, you need to exhaust all of the remedies available you to. George Bush promised that there would be a last resort of war in Iraq. And obviously it didn't turn out that way. People are bitter about that. So I really believe that is an imperative of diplomacy and public life and I vowed when I came back and opposed the war that if I ever had an opportunity to be in a position of responsibility, I would fight for that principle.

Via: Newsbusters

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ONE MORE MISSION: MARINE JIM WEBB TO TAKE ON HILLARY

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

by RICH TUCKER2 Jul 2015256

He’s served as a Marine in Vietnam, a citizen as Secretary of the Navy, and as a Virginian in the U.S. Senate. Now Jim Webb wants to serve his country again — as a presidential candidate.

He will challenge Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, and Lincoln Chaffee in the Democratic primaries.

Webb admits it won’t be easy.

“I understand the odds, particularly in today’s political climate where fair debate is so often drowned out by huge sums of money. I know that more than one candidate in this process intends to raise at least a billion dollars – some estimates run as high as two billion dollars – in direct and indirect financial support,” he writes in a letter to supporters.

Webb vows to focus on restoring the military. He criticizes both of the last two administrations, saying he wouldn’t have intervened in Iraq (Bush) or Libya (Obama). “And today I would not be the President to sign an executive order establishing a long-tem relationship with Iran if it accepts Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons,” Webb adds. The Iran agreement could be signed later this month.

Webb also prescribes an aggressive domestic policy. “Let’s give our younger people a cause worth fighting for. Let’s clean out the manure-filled stables of a political system that has become characterized by greed,” he writes. “Let’s rebuild an educational system that gives everyone a fair chance. A democracy is only as strong as the promise it offers its young citizens through the public education system.”

He concludes his announcement with two promises:

The first is that every endeavor will be based on the premise that has been the foundation of our society from the day the United States Constitution was signed: that we are a nation of laws, not of specially privileged people, and that our greatest strength comes from the power of our multicultural heritage.

And the second is that I mean what I say, that if I make a promise I will keep it, and that outside my faith and my family, my greatest love will always be for this amazing country that for more than 200 years has given so many people the opportunity to have a good life, raise a family, live in freedom, and achieve their dreams.

Via: Breitbart

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100 Days: State Dept. Sets Record for Violating Deadline for Human Rights Reports

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. State Department has set an all-time record this year in the duration of its failure to comply with the legal deadline for submitting its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to Congress.

Current law requires the department to submit the reports by Feb. 25. Today, June 5, is the 100th day past that deadline, and the State Department still has not presented the reports.

Prior to this year, 89 days was the longest the department went past the legal deadline before releasing the reports. The 89-day delay took place in 2012, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

As the post-deadline delay in the release of the human rights reports hit its 100th day today, the State Department was finding time to celebrate an event it billed as "Pride at State."

That event, scheduled for 2:00 p.m., will feature remarks by Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom and has been jointly organized by the department itself and GLIFAA, which State says is "the officially recognized employee affinity group representing LGBTI employees at the Department of State, USAID and foreign affairs agencies."

When the department does release the overdue human rights reports, they will include details of human rights abuses in, among other nations, Iran, Cuba, Malaysia and Vietnam. The administration is currently in the final phases of negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, has recently re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba and is planning to include Malaysia and Vietnam in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

The annual reports were first published in 1977, under a legal mandate included in the 1976 International Security and Arms Export Control Act. According to the law as originally enacted, the reports were supposed to detail the human rights abuses in nations receiving security assistance from the United States so that members of Congress would be better informed about the nature of the governments that were receiving this type of aid.

Via: CNS News

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Russia Seeks Access to Bases in Eight Countries for Its Ships and Bombers

(CNSNews.com) – At a time of escalated tensions with the West over Ukraine, Russia says it is negotiating with eight governments around the world for access to military facilities, to enable it to extend its long-range naval and strategic bomber capabilities.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday the military was engaged in talks with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Algeria, Cyprus, the Seychelles, Vietnam and Singapore.

“We need bases for refueling near the equator, and in other places,” ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying.

Russia is not looking to establish bases in those locations, but to reach agreement to use facilities there when required.

The countries are all strategically located – in three leftist-ruled countries close to the U.S.; towards either end of the Mediterranean; in the Indian Ocean south of the Gulf of Aden; and near some of the world’s most important shipping lanes in the Malacca Strait and South China Sea.

Access to the new locations would extend the Russian military’s potential reach well beyond its existing extraterritorial bases, at the Syrian port of Tartus and in former Soviet states – Ukraine’s Sevastopol, Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and the occupied Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Shoigu said Russia was also beefing up its existing military presence in the post-Soviet region, doubling its troop numbers in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and deploying a regiment of troops to Belarus where it already has fighter aircraft stationed.

Via: CNS News
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6 Groups Targeted to Make the Shutdown Look Worse

A partial government shutdown just wasn't going to hit people the way the Obama administration needed it to, so officials resorted to some unprecedented acts to make Americans feel the pain, as Conservative Intel's David Freddoso notes:

Most people — even the poor in state-run safety net programs — don’t have that many interactions with the federal government agencies affected right now by the shutdown.

So it’s a challenge to make people notice that your agency is vital to the survival of the Republic. The feds have to apply a lot of force and behave in unsubtle ways to make you angry with Congress.

1. Veterans

No group has been more visible during the shutdown than veterans. Memorials were closed, and House Democrats voted against bills that would restore funding to veterans programs.

A short list of some of the monuments closed (note that veterans moved barricades to see their monuments anyway):

» World War II Memorial

» Normandy cemetery

» Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall

» Iwo Jima Memorial

Just 4 percent of employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs have been furloughed, according to Government Executive magazine, making it even more odd that the department’s funding wasn’t restored.

Via: Fox News

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