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Elections

President Donald J. Trump meets with the National Association of Manufacturers at the White House on March 31, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

President Donald J. Trump meets with the National Association of Manufacturers at the White House on March 31, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

Republican Ron Estes prevailed in the Kansas special election, but underperformed enough for the media pundits to draw unsupported conclusions. President Donald J. Trump carried the 4th Congressional District by nearly 30 points and Mike Pompeo won reelection in 2016 by more than 30 points.

But now-Rep. Estes, the state treasurer, was in a political fight against Democrat James Thompson for a seat Republicans have held for more than two decades. He ran roughly even with Thompson in Sedgwick County, which represents about two-thirds of the vote, after President Trump carried it by a 20-point margin.

The last time a Democrat carried the 4th Congressional District was in 1992, and the media headlines before and after the election are painting the race as a referendum on President Trump. The Huffington Post two days ago had already offered their readers a headline, “How Democrats Are Faring In The First Tests Of The Trump Backlash.”

I’m not buying it. At least not yet. Put bluntly, the “Referendum on Trump” argument as an explanation for the closeness of the race is weak, and the cases (plural) for several other factors are just too strong.

Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Candidate Strength

The race was rated Likely Republican on the PPD Election Projection Model, despite the fact Mr. Estes was a particularly weak candidate. He scored a 2 out of 5 on candidate strength. Several variables determine this ranking, including ideology, charisma, fundraising and the current political landscape.

Regarding the latter, he was a member of and rightfully associated with Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s unpopular administration. The governor is reportedly being considered for an ambassador role by President Trump, and he might need it.

According to a Morning Consult Poll, two-thirds (66%) disapprove of the job Gov. Brownback is doing, while just 27% still approve. That’s markedly more poor than the President’s most recent approval rating on the PPD Big Data Poll, which put out the most accurate state-level surveys in 2016.

As far as ideology, the Brownback Administration is a conservative one. While Kansas is ruby red, it hasn’t elected staunch conservatives and Mr. Estes is not a Republican in the mold of the President–a populist Trumplican. The state also has a long progressive history that is often mischaracterized by other media pundits. It’s more accurate to call it a populist history, which is no longer synonymous with progressivism practiced by the modern Democratic Party.

Mr. Thompson scored a far better 3.75 out of 5 on the model’s candidate strength scale. He’s a likable and articulate candidate with no political experience in what is still an anti-establishment political environment. Mr. Thompson also had a remarkable personal story, starting in life as a homeless, out of school teenager who would go on to serve in the U.S. Army and practice law in Wichita for 13 years.

It also certainly didn’t hurt that he was a Republican until March 2016.

Trump’s Approval Rating

New numbers are due out later this week, but the latest PPD Big Data Poll put the national approval rating for the President at 43%, just under the historical threshold where a party has to worry about their leader being a drag on down-ballot races. In the district and statewide, President Trump is no doubt far more popular than the nation as a whole, meaning it would be a mute point.

Presidential approval rating matters, but our research shows the statewide average would need to be roughly 46% before partisan leans are impacted significantly, which it isn’t.

Conclusion

There are a few more claims I’d like to address before wrapping this up. Exhibit A:

First, prior to both the 2010 and 2014 Republican midterm wave elections, the party suffered a series of special election defeats. It’s true that they can have some predictive value, but these claims are wholly unrelated and more than a little misleading. Hillary Clinton also had a rather large national lead in the same polls claiming Democrats have a big lead on the generic ballot, which the PPD Big Data Poll does not show (it’s 2 points).

Nevertheless, President Trump won in an electoral vote landslide even as he lost the popular vote. Pointing to what may very well be a downward trend in Republican participation in deep blue California, particularly during a special election in a Democratic district, doesn’t speak to races in competitive states. President Trump even underperformed in more Republican-friendly Orange County, yet still cleaned Mrs. Clinton’s clock when and where it mattered.

Worth noting, there were zero ticket-slits in 2016, adding to the suspicion that national polls are becoming more problematic due to polarization in and among key states.

Let’s first see how the race for the 6th Congressional District in Georgia goes before we pass further judgement. Democrats can certainly pull off an upset there, but their chances diminish greatly if they don’t take more than 50% of the vote in the first round of voting. President Trump underperformed juxtaposed to Mitt Romney in the district, but Democrats still have a low non-majority ceiling according to PPD Battleground State Likely Voter Metrics and Tom Price cruised to victory with nearly 62% of the vote.

Republican Ron Estes prevailed in the Kansas

Elections

Republican state treasurer Ron Estes, left, and Democrat James Thompson, candidates for the 4th Congressional District in Kansas. (Photo: AP)

Republican state treasurer Ron Estes, left, and Democrat James Thompson, candidates for the 4th Congressional District in Kansas. (Photo: AP)

Republican state treasurer Ron Estes defeated Democrat James Thompson in the special election for the 4th Congressional District in Kansas. It’s a district President Donald J. Trump carried by roughly 30 points, but the GOP barely outspent toward the end and slept on the race until late in the game.

With 79.9% of precincts reporting, or 95,748 votes, Estes led Thompson 52.2% to 46%, underperforming in Sedgwick County and over-performing targets in rural precincts. Sedgwick represents roughly two-thirds of the district vote.

The 4th Congressional District was represented by Mike Pompeo, who the president nominated and the Senate confirmed to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He won it by more than 30 points in 2016 and Republicans have held the seat for more than two decades.

But Democrats poured tons of money into the race with the hope the president’s low national approval ratings would put the seat in play.

Estes hauled in $312,000 from the beginning of the year to March 22, according to his pre-special election report. In the last three weeks, 48-hour reports show that he gained an additional $147,000 in donations over $1,000, bringing his total contributions to at least $459,000.

Thompson trailed Estes with $254,000 as of March 22, adding an extra $38,000 in large donations in the last three weeks to total at least $292,000. In the first two months of 2017, the Kansas Democratic Party raised $224,000. Further, the liberal website Daily Kos endorsed Thompson and put out a fundraising plea with a page that raised $178,000 in donations as of Sunday.

The race was rated Likely Republican on the PPD Election Projection Model, though Estes was a particularly weak candidate. As a member of Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration, he scored a 2 of 10 score on candidate strength.

Candidate Percent Votes
Ron Estes (Republican) 52.5% 63,505
James Thompson (Democratic) 45.7% 55,310
Chris Rockhold (Libertarian) 1.7% 2,082
Write In (Unaffiliated) 0.1% 90

96.6% Reporting, 120,987 Total Votes

Republican state treasurer Ron Estes defeated Democrat

World

Canadian Prime Minister Justice Trudeau, left, Ivanka Trump, to his right, and President Donald J. Trump, right to back of room, greet before a roundtable discussion on women business leaders.

Canadian Prime Minister Justice Trudeau, left, Ivanka Trump, to his right, and President Donald J. Trump, right to back of room, greet before a roundtable discussion on women business leaders.

The Syrian missile strikes by the Trump Administration seem to have taken the Kremlin by surprise. One of the ways this is noticeable is the coordinated narrative that emerged on Russian state media in response to the missile attacks. There was a couple days of delay; however, then the decision by the Kremlin became clear – let’s blame this on Ivanka.

The Kremlin does not like to be surprised. The strikes made Russian President Vladimir Putin look vulnerable to actions by an unpredictable new American president. To counter this, Russian media is focusing on the fact that Trump listens to his daughter, Ivanka, and she has his trust. The message is that Trump is weak and was manipulated by his liberal daughter.

The American media reportedly widely that Ivanka was the one outraged over the gassing of Syrian babies by nerve gas. This news has been all over the media in Moscow and throughout Russia, obviously coordinated by those in control of the narrative for the Russian people.

Russian state news agency TASS, quoted Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, on the Ivanka narrative emerging in the Russian press, “Trump’s family relationship is not a matter of the Kremlin,” Peskov told reporters.

“The Kremlin is very careful in order not to interfere in domestic affairs of other countries and moreover in family affairs of leaders of other countries, and is always thankful for the adequate reciprocity in this issue,” he stressed.

However, TASS also added this, “Eric Trump told the Telegraph he was “sure” his sister Ivanka had used her influence over their father to encourage the US president to launch Syria strikes.”

This article appeared first on Tsarizm.com, news you need to know RIGHT NOW about Russia and the former Soviet Union.

The Syrian missile strikes by the Trump

Policy

Foreign Policy John McCain

There is nothing the political class in D.C. and Big Media elites want more than for President Donald J. Trump to involve the U.S. in another war. Democrats, both on the Hill and in the media, would rather his administration get bogged down in conflict than focus their efforts on bringing about the changes he promised to domestic policy.

But it’s also true that there is no issue in which the conventional wisdom of policy displays such as wide disconnect from academia than foreign policy. Policy-makers couch foreign policy in idealistic terms of morality and liberal rhetoric (not meaning leftwing), and too many believe we should act on them.

But the credible study of international relations is dominated by realism. In this article, which is the first in a series, we will outline the basic theories of international relations with the goal to give our readers a more informed opinion on U.S. foreign policy, both historically and regarding current events.

Let’s start with the basic schools of thought, the assumptions they make, as well as how those assumptions hold up to historical and empirical scrutiny. It is only when we have a grasp on these questions that we can begin to decide which are viable and prove useful when weighing the wisdom of a particular policy.

All international relations theories seek to answer the same questions. What motivates nation-states? Why do nations go to war with each other? Do all nations generally behave the same, or do certain nations act differently than others?

If we were to answer these questions, then we just may find a better means to either limit or end war, altogether. Each of the theories or schools also make assumptions, which often determine the intellectual strength of their argument.

And there in lays the problem with non-realist theories. Each of the bedrock assumptions realists make are also the most widely accepted as a “reasonable accurate representation of an important aspect of life in the international system.”

“Sounds theories are based on sound assumptions,” John Mearsheimer, the father of offensive realism, writes in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. We will return to offensive realism shortly because it’s best to start with human nature realism, also known as classical realism argued by Henry Morgenthau.

Realism

Mr. Morgenthau argued that nations are run by human beings, who are hardwired with a “will to power,” or the animus dominandi. This pushes them to strive for supremacy. He dominated academics from the 1940s to the 1970s, until Kenneth Waltz wrote his thesis (turned-book) on defensive realism entitled Man, the State, and War. In Theory of International Politics, Waltz continued to argue that states have a “status quo bias” and merely pursue power for survival.

States see power largely as the best mean to survive. Morgenthau explained security competition as an innate lust for power, but according to Waltz the state of anarchy played that role.

International Anarchy

The international state of anarchy is commonly explained like this: there is no global 911 operator nations can call when another nation-state actor threatens their security. Despite the existence of the United Nations (U.N.), there is no single or collective central authority backed by force that can protect states from one another. This is the great failure of the UN, the reasons for which have been incessantly debated.

But the most solid and accepted arguments surround the basic idea that self-interests have always prevailed over idealistic desires for collective cooperation.

Enter John Mearsheimer, who made the case the goal of states is to obtain as much relative power juxtaposed to rivals as is rational. He rejected Morgenthau’s assertion that states are endowed naturally with a lust for power. States actively try to increase power simply because “that is the optimal way to maximize their security.”

He challenged Waltz on his basic idea that states desire to preserve the status quo, arguing the international system of anarchy provides too many incentives. States “look for opportunities to expand power at the expense of rivals, and to take advantage of those situations when the benefits outweigh the costs.”

We’ll get into this more in follow up articles in the series, but it’s important to touch on the more ludicrous and indefensible theories that too many lawmakers and policy-makers subscribe to in Washington.

For the record, I would consider myself an offensive realist. Waltz made incredibly powerful arguments further developing realism, and perhaps even more brilliant arguments on the concept of nation.

But ultimately, I tend to agree with Mearsheimer on the motives of nations.

Further, the empirical evidence, both historically and since his work was first published, has validated his theories.

Liberalism, Liberal Internationalism and Neoconservatism

It’s best to wrap up these theories in the same section because they all have something in common–unproven idealism and cause for optimism. Americans are optimistic, historically. Realism offers a very pessimistic view of human nature and the future, thus it’s not a difficult task for politicians to convince the public of a moral or just cause.

Perhaps the most difficult liberal theory for realists to tackle was the democratic peace theory, a centerpiece of Bill Clinton’s foreign policy doctrine, which turned out to be built on a complete falsehood. It assumes that democracies’ motives and intentions are more certain, and generally benign.

In Grasping the Democratic Peace, Bruce Russett made the argument that democracies are less likely to make war with each other, if at all. Hence, if most or even all nations were democratic, then the world would be less war-prone.

But scholars, most notable Christopher Layne, shredded this claim to pieces.

Russett used narrow definitions of conflicts to define what constitutes a war, i.e. it’s only a war if this many soldiers died and these weapons were used. The death knell came when Layne took a deeper dive into the particular reasons for prior aversions to war, and found the system of government played little to no role determining the outcome of his case studies.

Neoconservatism, which was the central ideology that governed the Bush Doctrine, is one giant “Myth of Empire” because, if John McCain and Lindsey Graham got their way, it would mean a seemingly never-ending war that only ends when the U.S. exhausts its power.

Neoconservatives believe in the Primacy of Power and want to use it to shape the world in America’s image based on the failed democratic peace theory.

As Jack Snyder explains in Myths of Empire:

The strategy of gaining security through expansion is rarely effective because the ideas underlying it contradict two of the most powerful regularities in international politics: the balance of power and the rising cost of expansion.

In our next article in the series, we’ll gain a greater understanding of what the balance of power is, strategies employed by states to increase their relative power, and further follies of the liberal doctrine.

In the first in a series, we

Elections

Hillary Clinton, left, and Bill Clinton, to her right, attend a meeting with President Donald J. Trump on Inauguration Day. (Photo: AP)

Hillary Clinton, left, and Bill Clinton, to her right, attend a meeting with President Donald J. Trump on Inauguration Day. (Photo: AP)

At the University of Florida, one of the books on the required reading list for students studying legislative government was, Tell Newt to Shut Up. It was basically a book version of a series of reports published by The Washington Post documenting Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “day-to-day” efforts to govern after the Republican Revolution put the party back in power in 1995.

It painted the most successful Republican speaker in generations as an incompetent leader outsmarted by a charismatic Democratic president, who would later take all the credit for balancing the budget, welfare reform and other major conservative agenda items.

In reality, then-President Bill Clinton wanted to do none of these things. He was ultimately forced to sign them, by the speaker and the GOP Congress, who passed and put them on his desk numerous times.

Liberal professors, many of whom had been waiting for Mrs. Clinton to one day serve in the role her husband did and embarrass another Republican leader, absolutely loved it.

Once again, history is being repeated and rewritten. In an interview at the “Women in the World” summit, Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times asked Mrs. Clinton the following:

I have to ask fundamentally, a man who bragged about sexual assault won the election and won 53% of the white women’s vote. What does that say about the challenges that one faces in women’s empowerment, that in effect misogyny won with a lot of women voters?

Her response? Clinton’s answer was textbook identity politics, victimhood and excuse-making:

But it is fair to say as you just did that certainly, misogyny played a role. That just has to be admitted. And why and what the underlying reasons why is what I’m trying to parse out myself.

She continued:

I would just say this: There is a constant struggle—and not just women, women and men—in a time of rapid change, like the one we are living through, between something that is different that may hold out even possible positive consequences, and something that is familiar and something that really is first and foremost about security of what you have right now. And I think in this election there was a very real struggle between what is viewed as change that is welcomed and exciting to so many Americans and change which is worrisome and threatening to so many others. And you layer on the first woman president over that, and I think some people — women included — had real problems.

Hillary went on to say her opponent “looks like somebody’s who’s been a president before.” She also cited an argument I’ve heard before that holds men are more liked as they become more successful, while the more successful women become the less they are liked.

This is absolute nonsense. We’re still waiting to hear which fake news story circulated by Russia cost Hillary Clinton the election, and instead of answering that question we get another outrageous round of excuses for her humiliating defeat.

First, polling is pretty definitive on Mrs. Clinton’s image. In the 1990s, she was and remained deeply unpopular. Her image only turned more positive during her tenure as secretary of state in the Obama Administration, a period in her public career when arguably she was perceived to be the most successful. Opinions once again turned negative the more Americans heard from Mrs. Clinton because, to state the obvious, she isn’t a very likable person.

Second, aside from being the former First lady, I’m not at all certain what makes her or her media sycophants like Kristof think she was successful. Mrs. Clinton tried to sell herself as the most qualified person to run for president. In reality, she changed her address to become eligible to run for Senate in one of the most liberal states in America, and flew around the world as secretary of state accomplishing nothing.

Libya, which was supposed to be her crown jewel, is now a terror breeding ground. “We came, we saw, he [Muammar Gaddafi] died,” she said chuckling on a hot mic.

Americans aren’t as stupid as politicians and Big Media hope they are.

Now that they don’t appear to be buying the Russian boogeyman narrative, we are hearing a list of excuses the Clinton campaign put together back in December.

The truth is that Big Data simply won’t support these false assertions. President Trump defeated Mrs. Clinton because of the fundamentals of the race, not because of any items on the growing list of “Why Clinton Lost” excuses. While the outcome of the presidential election was a shock to most of the political and media establishments, it wasn’t to us or our readers.

The now-embarrassed leftwing election forecaster and glorified poll-reader, Nate Silver, has helped to perpetuate one of these erroneous claims.

If we want to scrutinize the accuracy of this or one of the other myriad excuses, it only makes sense to reference the results of the poll that put forward the most accurate data. In addition to tracking the presidential race nationally, the PPD Poll had panels in every single battleground state, which tracked monthly until October when it tracked weekly.

We did see significant movement to President Trump in certain battleground states in the closing days, but support for him actually declined for several days after Wikileaks began to dump Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails. The President was ahead of Mrs. Clinton more than he was behind in our national and battleground state tracking polls, with her largest leads springing up during periods when he was down–i.e. the release of the Access Hollywood tape.

On October 23, the day Silver says would’ve meant a win for Mrs. Clinton, she trailed Mr. Trump by a little less than a point. On October 24, she began to take a slight less than 1-point lead due solely to a temporary increase in voter enthusiasm, not a significant increase in support among mind-changers.

The fact late-deciders broke hard for President Trump over Mrs. Clinton is not evidence of damage done by the Comey letter, but rather the result of simple consolidation by a previously damaged candidate who was seen by voters as having passed the presidential bar. I’ve long told readers and interviewers that Mrs. Clinton had more structural and fundamental deficits baked in the electoral cake, from the beginning.

But he had two main challenges to meet in order to win and, much to the dismay of his detractors, he met them. President Trump had lost much of his lead following the release of the Access Hollywood tape and voters unhappy with the alternatives were still willing to give him a chance to pass the bar.

The PPD Poll did find him with a deficit among suburban white women, particularly those with a college-degree. It just wasn’t nearly as severe as Big Media pollsters suggested. Mr. Trump’s main challenge was always whether he could hold on to traditional GOP and GOP-leaning suburban voters while adding his working class coalition.

In the end, he did and that’s what ultimately decided the outcome of the election. If the Democratic Party wants to recover from their devastating losses over the last three cycles, they will tell Hillary to shut up and make an effort to understand the real-life issues that caused that coalition to support President Trump.

At the "Women in the World" summit,

US

Kay Ivey, left, takes the oath of office as Governor of Alabama as she is sworn in by Acting Chief Justice, Lyn Stuart, Monday, April 10, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. (Photo: AP)

Kay Ivey, left, takes the oath of office as Governor of Alabama as she is sworn in by Acting Chief Justice, Lyn Stuart, Monday, April 10, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. (Photo: AP)

Kay Ivey was sworn in as the first Republican female governor of Alabama, and the second woman ever to occupy the office in Yellowhammer State. Former Lt. Gov. Ivey is taking over for Robert Bentley, who resigned in disgrace on Monday for myriad corruption scandals, including the use of state police to cover up an affair with his political advisor.

Ms. Ivey, 72, grew up in the small town of Camden, Alabama, which only has a current population of 1,930. She went from working on the family farm to being elected lieutenant governor in 2010 and again in 2014. In between, she was a bank officer, a high school teacher and assistant director of the Alabama Development Office. Ms. Ivey spent 13 years as one of the top executives of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education and would go on to serve two terms as state treasurer.

Now, she will be the first female governor of Alabama since Lurleen Wallace, the wife of Gov. George Wallace who stepped into the role for roughly a year in 1967 when state law barred him from running for consecutive terms. Gov. Ivey campaigned for Ms. Wallace as a student in the 1960s.

“I pledge to each of you I will do my very best. The Ivey administration will be open, transparent, and honest,” Gov. Ivey said during her swearing in ceremony in the state senate.

Kay Ivey was sworn in as the

World

Russia Warships Crimea

The head of the Russian Federation Council’s Defense and Security Committee says Russian armed forces based in Syria will not attempt to intercept any American missiles, if Washington orders another airstrike.

On Monday, Russian Senator Viktor Ozerov told the news agency Interfax, “Our armed forces are in Syria to fight terrorism — not to defend against external threats. That’s not our mandate, and we’re not going to intercept anything,” he said, adding that the Syrian military still has every legal right to try to shoot down the missiles.

 

Read Full Story on Tsarizm.com

[mybooktable book=”lost-bastards” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

The Russian Federation Council’s Defense and Security

World

FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2015 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, shakes hand with Syrian President Bashar Assad as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, looks on, at the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia. For five years fighting has raged in Syria -- a globally resonant nightmare kept going in part by the insistence of Bashar Assad’s opponents that he must go even though they were failing to dislodge him from power. Now an inflection point may finally be at hand, with increasingly important Turkey suggesting Assad could play a role in an unspecified transition period. (Photo: Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE – In this Oct. 20, 2015 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, shakes hand with Syrian President Bashar Assad as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, looks on, at the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia. For five years fighting has raged in Syria — a globally resonant nightmare kept going in part by the insistence of Bashar Assad’s opponents that he must go even though they were failing to dislodge him from power. Now an inflection point may finally be at hand, with increasingly important Turkey suggesting Assad could play a role in an unspecified transition period. (Photo: Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

The United States (US) has concluded Russia knew in advance of the chemical weapons attack in Syria last week, senior official told The Associated Press (AP). The report comes as foreign minister from the G7 meet to pressure Russia to rethink it’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Last Thursday, President Donald J. Trump ordered the U.S. military to launch Tomahawk missiles at airfields near the chemical weapons storage facility at Shayrat Airbase in response to one of the deadliest chemical weapons attacks in the country’s 6-year civil war. An estimated 72 people were killed and another roughly 400 were wounded.

The U.S. official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on intelligence matters and demanded anonymity, told the AP a Russian-operated drone flew over a hospital in Syria as victims of the attack were rushing to get treatment. Hours after the drone left, a Russian-made fighter jet bombed the hospital in what American officials believe was an attempt to cover up the usage of chemical weapons.

While Russia just prior to the strike on Syria said their support for President al-Assad wasn’t unconditional, they maintained that the chemical weapons were released when a conventional bomb hit a rebel storage depot and caused a leak in the containment.

The United States (US) has concluded Russia

Politics

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., right, hold a joint press conference in Washington D.C. (Photo: Reuters)

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., right, hold a joint press conference in Washington D.C. (Photo: Reuters)

In 2013, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tx., “crazy” for trying to defund ObamaCare. Now, the failed 2008 Republican nominee is threatening a government shutdown if defense spending isn’t increased further, something he previously said was “not rational.”

“We’re doing things that frankly are not rational in the view of our constituents,” he said on the Senate floor on Monday, October 3. ”I’ve expressed my deep distress throughout this process,” he added.

He said on CNN’s “State of the Union” in late October “the American people will not stand for another one of these things.”

Sen. McCain, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are beating the war drums hard in Syria. With a Republican president in the White House and the debt ceiling fight around the corner, the will of the American people is no longer a consideration.

He told reporters last week that he will not vote for a “continuing resolution” that keeps government spending at the same level until a budget is passed because he believes defense spending is too low.

“I will not vote for a CR no matter what the consequences because passing a CR destroys the ability of the military to defend this nation, and it puts the lives of the men and women in the military at risk,” Sen. McCain first told CNN. “I can’t do that to them.”

He repeated that line multiple times on Thursday, declaring that “there will be no continuing resolution.”

President Donald Trump proposed the biggest increase in defense spending ever for a single year, but Sen. McCain apparently doesn’t want to wait.

With conservative members wrestling with a continuing resolution that doesn’t increase spending, Sen. McCain’s debt ceiling demand increases the likelihood of a government shutdown. It was that very thinking that led the Arizona war hawk to say Sens. Cruz and Rand Paul, R-Kty., were “wacko birds.”

Like it or not, Sen. Cruz was at least keeping a campaign promise to the American people, particularly the working people of Texas. As the underdog against an establishment favorite, Mr. Cruz ran to the right of his opponent largely on the health care issue, and he won.

What’s Mr. McCain’s motivation?

According to OpenSecrets.org, 3 of the top 4 contributing industries to Sen. McCain from 2015 to 2016 were defense-related industries–Misc Defense (#1), Defense Electronics (#2) and Defense Aerospace (#4).

John McCain called Ted Cruz "crazy" for

Politics

Former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson testifies during his Senate confirmation hearing. (Photo: Reuters)

Former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson testifies during his Senate confirmation hearing. (Photo: Reuters)

Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said the strike on Syria created a “renewed harmony” between the U.S. and allies ahead of the G7 Summit. While the move was met with a backlash from his base, President Donald Trump received widespread support from Europe after the military strike on Syria.

“We need to remember that not 10 years ago, but 100 or 120 days ago, the concern in Europe was that the United States and the EU were moving apart,” Minister Alfano said on Sunday. “I welcome this renewed harmony.”

Last Thursday the President ordered the U.S. military to launch Tomahawk missiles at airfields near the chemical weapons storage facility at Shayrat Airbase in response to one of the deadliest chemical weapons attacks in the country’s 6-year civil war. An estimated 72 people were killed and another roughly 400 were wounded.

The meeting of foreign ministers, which will be hosted by Minister Alfano and is the first since President Trump took office, comes a day before U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will travel to Moscow to discuss the situation in Syria with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov.

Mr. Tillerson–along with Minister Alfano, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and other allied ministers–hope to pressure Russia to withdraw its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

While Russia just prior to the strike on Syria said their support for President al-Assad wasn’t unconditional, they released a joint statement with Iran on Sunday.

“What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines,” the statement said. “From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well.”

Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said the

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