Thursday 28th March 2024

Home » Frontpage » Currently Reading:

Singer Campbell Became Contrite . . . Why Can’t The McCains Of The Political World Do Likewise?

August 13, 2017 Frontpage No Comments

By DEXTER DUGGAN

PHOENIX — Country-music giant Glen Campbell felt small back in 2003 after he was arrested for a drunken-driving incident here. A performer made famous with some everyman sort of music themes, he was humbled and contrite after committing the same kind of alcohol offense that hourly wage-earners might.
Having taken the road to fortune with chart-toppers like By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Campbell ended up living among millionaires here north of thoroughfare Camelback Road, but later took his life’s route away from Phoenix, apparently still stung by embarrassment over the incident that started at a strip mall, and deciding to go live elsewhere.
The strip mall wasn’t a high-end location but served everyday commerce like haircuts, dry cleaning, and groceries for folks like me. Nice neighborhood restaurants there, too.
Campbell died of Alzheimer’s August 8 at age 81 in Tennessee.
Just 10 blocks west of that Phoenix strip mall and just south of Camelback Road lives another celebrity, one who doesn’t seem so vulnerable to feeling embarrassment and contrition. He’s “maverick” Sen. John McCain, who sometimes appears to delight at hurting his own Republican Party and cuddling up with liberal Democrats so he can do “bipartisan” deals with conservatives’ foes.
McCain sent shockwaves and raised gasps in the Senate chamber in the early hours of July 28 when he unexpectedly voted no on the “skinny” repeal of Obamacare after having voted no on the full repeal July 26.
He’d campaigned as a leader out to repeal and replace Obamacare, but those were words to gull voters.
Don’t worry, McCain said later. We’ll do “bipartisan” work instead with the Dems on Obamacare. Which, of course, means no repeal. And if he tinkers hand-in-hand with leftist Democrats, expect to see Planned Parenthood lose its fat taxpayer funding about the same time that McCain’s luxury Phoenix condo freezes over in July’s swelter.
When GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, of Wisconsin, tried to throw McCain a lifeline on August 9 by suggesting that the Arizonan’s aggressive brain cancer and the lateness of the hour perhaps affected McCain’s judgment in voting against the skinny repeal, a McCain spokesman snapped right back that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Instead of McCain being grateful that he wasn’t left holding the bag of blame after all, it was GOP colleague Johnson who got slapped around for trying to lift the Grand Canyon State senator out of his abyss.
After a McCain spokesman growled that Johnson’s comments were “bizarre and deeply unfortunate,” an embarrassed Johnson squirmed that “I’m disappointed I didn’t more eloquently express my sympathy for what Sen. McCain is going through,” according to The Hill political news site.
Sometimes it seems that McCain is more than willing to bite off an extended hand, at least if it’s another Republican’s.
Meanwhile, many GOP politicians seemed to have no clue why they should stand up for Americans’ medical well-being by insisting that Obamacare repeal remain an urgent issue.
Repeal Obamacare? Over my dead body, say national Democrat leaders. As for how many ordinary people’s dead bodies need to pile up because collapsing Obamacare destroyed their health-care coverage, that doesn’t matter to these pols unless dominant media were to start putting them on the spot over the victims.
However, these media heaved a sigh of ideological relief that Obamacare was staying in place, at least for now. They had no urge to undo their delightful Democrat Barack’s disaster.
And McCain, having left the Obamacare burden nailed to wage-earners’ backs, headed back to Phoenix for the highest-quality medical care for himself and his tumor.
Political analyst Scott Rasmussen pointed out on August 9 how unpopular Obamacare remains, noting that 6.5 million Americans in 2016 paid a fine rather than sign up for insurance on the program’s exchanges.
This mandate “has always been the most unpopular part” of Obamacare, Rasmussen added. “In addition to those who pay the fine rather than buy the mandated levels of insurance, 15 million people would drop their Obamacare coverage if it were legal to do so.”
No matter how imperiled Obamacare is by its own dysfunction, there may be an even greater danger afoot to the future of Republican pols, the danger that disgusted voters next year will conclude time has run out for these fumblers, who can’t find much useful to do with their congressional majorities.
Conservative pundit Dan Bongino declared in exasperation that if the GOP even had a majority of 70 members in the 100-seat Senate — instead of its actual 52 — the party still would manage to find a way not to accomplish its goals.
Meanwhile, the shrinking Democrat Party at the national level throws its weight around as if it actually has clout. Well, maybe the perception of clout — aided by media distortion — is even more important than the real thing.
Amid sighs of media relief that Obamacare was spared, congressional Republicans sighed in relief that they could take their precious August recess after all instead of getting serious, staying in D.C., and hammering out a plan that would give them cred with voters.
The TV news hours, after all, didn’t report serious storm warnings flying over Obamacare being left intact. Just let these Republicans snooze away until November 2018, when public outrage that liberal pundits always fail to perceive might for a change actually help the donkey party.
Let August slip past then come back to D.C. and — what do you know? Why, Thanksgiving and Christmas are practically around the corner. Not enough time to repeal Obamacare and do tax reform and work on budgets. Let’s wait until 2018. Ooops, that’s an election year; gotta hit the campaign trail. Say, what about promising to get things done in 2019? Or 2020? Ooops, that’s an election year.
Here’s a shell game that’s completely a hollow shell.
Conservative GOP campaign consultant Constantin Querard on August 7 told The Wanderer that Republicans will get the results they deserve in 2018.
“Everyone in Congress, but especially the GOP, seems unaware of just how upset voters are and how little patience they have, particularly for broken promises,” Querard emailed. “If the GOP (Congress and the president) can’t show that they can govern and keep promises, GOP voters will stay home and they will pay a price in 2018.
“If the GOP can govern and keep promises, then the GOP base will turn out and the Democrats may actually stay home in anger at their party’s inability to stop Trump. At this point, it is safe to say that the GOP will get the election results they deserve in 2018,” he added.
Word spread that disgusted donors to the GOP were withholding their money. Giving an example, the conservative Washington Free Beacon site reported on August 8 that Texas-based donor Doug Deason had been quoted by the Associated Press that his checkbook was closed.
“Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed. You control the Senate. You control the House. You have the presidency. There’s no reason you can’t get this done. Get it done and we’ll open it back up,” Deason was quoted.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel sounded a kindred warning on Laura Ingraham’s national radio program on August 7, saying “there is a jeopardy in 2018” for the GOP if it hasn’t delivered on its promises.
McDaniel said she was hearing in response to GOP mailers and from big donors that there’s discontent over the GOP in Washington failing to support President Trump.
The RNC chairwoman and Ingraham also lobbed a specific warning against disloyalty by Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake. Flake is an open-borders, globalist Republican currently preening nationally about his purity and his animosity to Trump.
“There are so many people who will never pull the lever for Flake” next year in his campaign for a second Senate term, Ingraham said.
Interestingly, while claiming to be conservative despite his voting record, Flake also is dismissing conservative voters as backward for disagreeing with him.
Querard, the conservative GOP consultant, told The Wanderer:
“It is difficult to explain Jeff Flake’s actions if you’re trying to explain why someone up for re-election is doing what he’s doing. My sense is that he has decided he’s going to lose, so he’s going to go out guns blazing, which for him means attacking the party, its president, and conservatism itself, all while calling for failed policies like amnesty which are to blame for the current environment. He is likely thinking of his next job more than the one he has.”
With at least one GOP primary challenger guaranteed against Flake, The Wanderer asked Querard if it looks like Flake’s in trouble over being primaried. Querard replied, “Flake’s not in trouble because he’s being primaried, he’s being primaried because he’s in trouble.”
Running for his first Senate term in 2012, Flake growled about how tough he was on border issues until he was safely elected, then reverted to his previous well-known open-borders stand — using the same backflipping strategy as his amigo McCain.
Flake’s tough talk and pro-life stand may have been all that saved his narrow three-point victory over Democratic candidate Richard Carmona. A couple of months after that victory, an analysis in the politics-focused Arizona Capitol Times reported that “Carmona over-performed in several Republican-leaning areas in greater Phoenix, his home base of Tucson, and even rural areas such as Prescott.
“That over-performance helped keep the race close. His three-point loss was the strongest showing by an Arizona Democrat in a U.S. Senate race since 1988,” the article said.
San Francisco-area conservative commentator Barbara Simpson told The Wanderer that “Flake was elected to the Senate in 2012 on a platform of basic conservative values — less government, fiscal awareness, personal liberties — all political virtues appealing to Arizona’s traditional conservatism.
“But once in office, Flake swerved — actively speaking out against Donald Trump even before he was the GOP candidate, and that opposition hasn’t stopped,” she said. “He also tells Arizonans he doesn’t think the health-care act will be repealed or replaced in this term, or perhaps ever. That isn’t music to the ears of Arizonans, who pay some of the highest premiums in the country, if they can even find an insurer.
“Before he ran for the Senate, Flake had an open-borders reputation, which he pretended he repudiated until he got elected to the upper chamber. But then he swerved back to ‘a pathway to citizenship’ for nearly all immigrants, and increasing the annual numbers. He blasts Republicans as ‘nativists’ who criticize illegal immigrants, saying they should be ‘purged from the party’,” Simpson said.
“It’ll be a rough primary.”
The Wanderer asked a Phoenix GOP activist, Rob Haney, about the possibility of Republicans losing their majorities in 2018. Haney, retired chairman of the local Maricopa County Republican Party, focused on whether GOP conservatives would lose.
“The Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) believe they have demonstrated, with overwhelming success during the last 60 years, the strategy to maintain power over the GOP. Therefore, they do not fear losing RINO seats to conservatives. The strategy is simple,” he said.
“The Republican National Committee will back the RINO in the primary against the conservative. They may also ‘encourage’ another Republican to run to split the conservative vote. The RINO usually wins these contests and then the unity strategy card is played,” Haney said. “‘We can’t allow a far-left liberal to win the seat. Conservatives must unite with moderates for a Republican victory.’
“It seems to work every time. McCain has used it repeatedly,” he said. “In those rare instances where a conservative wins the primary, he/she can count on diminished support from the RNC, and socially liberal Republicans have demonstrated they have no qualms about supporting the Democrat. The establishment wins with a RINO or Democrat and maintains their power. And that is why the political spectrum continually moves left.”

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Abortion Advocates No Longer Consider It “A Necessary Evil,” They Celebrate Killing Babies

Last week, Kamala Harris became the first vice president in U.S. history to make a public visit to an abortion clinic. Though the Democratic party’s support for abortion is nothing new, Harris’ Planned Parenthood appearance does illustrate how that support has become a flagrant celebration of abortion as a public and personal good, essential to both “freedom” and to “healthcare.” At the appearance, Harris proclaimed,  It is only right and fair that people have access…Continue Reading

Wisconsin Supreme Court says Catholic charity group cannot claim religious tax exemption

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a major Catholic charity group’s activities were not “primarily” religious under state law, stripping the group of a key tax break and ordering it to pay into the state unemployment system. Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) last year argued that the state had improperly removed its designation as a religious organization.  The charity filed a lawsuit after the state said it did not qualify to be considered as an organization…Continue Reading

Walgreens and CVS Will Start Selling Abortion Pills That Kill Babies

The two largest pharmacies in America will start selling abortion pills this month that end the lives of unborn children by starting them to death. Walgreens and CVS will both sell the abortion pills despite the fact that they kill a developing human being and have killed at least dozens of women and injured tens of thousands more. They plan to initially roll out abortion drug sales in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, California…Continue Reading

Cardinal Burke announces novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for ‘crises of our age’

VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Raymond Cardinal Burke has announced the start of a global, nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, calling on Catholics to beseech Mary’s intercession on the Church and the world in the face of the “crises of our age.” In a new endeavour published online over the weekend, Cardinal Burke announced a novena beginning in March, and culminating on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.

Texas attorney general targets Catholic nonprofit, alleges it facilitates illegal immigration

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2024 / 21:15 pm Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to shut down a Catholic nonprofit organization in El Paso based on allegations that the group may be facilitating illegal immigration, harboring immigrants who entered the country illegally, and engaging in human smuggling.  Paxton filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Annunciation House, which has operated in the state for nearly 50 years. The lawsuit asks the District Court of El Paso…Continue Reading

The King of Kings

Cindy Paslawski We are at the end of the Church year. We began with Advent a year ago, commemorating the time awaiting the coming of the Christ and we are ending these weeks later with a vision of the future, a vision of Christ the King of the Universe on His throne before us all.…Continue Reading

7,000 Pro-Lifers March In London

By STEVEN ERTELT LONDON (LifeNews) — Over the weekend, some seven thousand pro-life people in the UK participated in the March for Life in London to protest abortion.They marched to Parliament Square on Saturday, September 2 under the banner of “Freedom to Live” and had to deal with a handful of radical abortion activists.During the…Continue Reading

An Appeal For Prayer For The Armenian People

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on August 29, 2023, issued this prayer for the Armenian people, noting their unceasing love for Christ, even in the face of persecution.) + + On the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, having a few days ago celebrated the…Continue Reading

Robert Hickson, Founding Member Of Christendom College, Dies At 80

By MAIKE HICKSON FRONT ROYAL, Va. (LifeSiteNews) — Robert David Hickson, Jr., of Front Royal, Va., died at his home on September 2, 2023, at 21:29 p.m. after several months of suffering and after having received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was surrounded by friends and family.Robert is survived by me —…Continue Reading

The Real Hero Of “Sound of Freedom”… Says The Film Has Strengthened The Fight Against Child Trafficking

By ANA PAULA MORALES (CNA) —Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Homeland Security agent who risked his life to fight child trafficking, discussed the impact of the movie Sound of Freedom, which is based on his work, in an August 29 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “I’ve spent more than 20 years helping…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59)…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)