McSally campaign whiffs again with her latest attack ad

The Martha McSally campaign has an unhealthy fixation on pink tutus. It is all the campaign and its allied Super PACs wants to talk about. It is insipid and stupid.

The only other point that the McSally and its allied Super PACs want to make is that Rep. Kyrsten Sinema “denigrated the service” of members of the military in protesting the Iraq War after 9/11.

In an earlier post, McSally ad lies to denigrate the First Amendment rights of Americans, I pointed out that a Politifact Fact Check rated the claim “mostly false” — Sinema did wear a pink tutu, but she did not “denigrated the service” of members of the military in protesting the Iraq War after 9/11.

The GOP Super PAC Senate Leadership Fund took exception to Politifact, based upon a subsequent report in CNN and sent a demand to PolitiFact to “Immediately Correct Your Patently False Rating on Martha McSally.”

CNN K File reported, Arizona Senate: Kyrsten Sinema’s anti-war group blasted ‘U.S. terror,’ depicted soldier as skeleton in 2003 flyers:

As an anti-war activist in the early 2000s, Arizona Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema led a group that distributed flyers depicting an American soldier as a skeleton inflicting “U.S. terror” in Iraq and the Middle East.

Sinema campaign spokeswoman Helen Hare that Sinema did not approve or design the flyers at the time. So once again, this is yet another guilt by association accusation.

If the GOP had any video, audio or written statements by Kyrsten Sinema actually “denigrated the service” of members of the military, you can be certain that it would be airing it every minute of every day from now to November. They’ve got nothing.

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Tyrant Trump has an ‘enemies list,’ abuses power to retaliate against his critics

I have been trying to avoid discussing the new season of Celebrity Apprentice: White House Edition with Amorosa Manigault-Newman.

But last night I happened to catch an interview of former CIA Director John Brennan on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell which was scheduled after this tweet yesterday:

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Lawrence O’Donnell wanted to know what Brennan meant by his comment “so dangerous to our Nation.” Watch the interview.

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It would appear that our egomaniacal narcissist Twitter-troll-in-chief “Dear Leader” must have been watching (although he would deny it) or reading his Twitter responses, because today the always vindictive and petty Trump revoked former CIA Director Brennan’s security clearance:

President Donald Trump has decided to revoke former CIA Director John Brennan’s clearance for access to classified information, he said in a statement read by press secretary Sarah Sanders Wednesday.

The courtesy of allowing a former administration official to retain security clearance has been “outweighed by the risk posed by his erratic conduct and behavior,” Trump said in the statement. “Mr. Brennan has a history that calls into question his objectivity and credibility.”

He added that Brennan “has recently leveraged his status … to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and on television, about this administration.”

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National School Walkout today at 10:00 a.m.

Today at 10:00 a.m., students across Arizona will walkout of their classrooms for a 17 minute vigil in remembrance of the 17 victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Philip Boas of The Republic writes, Why every adult should support students’ March 14 walkout:

If you believe young people shouldn’t be walking out of their classrooms on Wednesday to protest gun violence in America, if you believe this is a waste of precious classroom time and only encourages chaos and defiance …

you are wrong.

The kids are right.

These young people are citizens of this country, and every citizen has the right to commit acts of civil disobedience in the face of great wrongs.

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Sen. John McCain joins Sen. Jeff Flake in defending the free press from Donald Trump’s ‘fake news’ assault (updated)

Senator Jeff Flake announced earlier this week that he will give a speech Wednesday regarding our “Dear Leader’s” penchant to portray the free press as “the enemy of the people,” a phrase employed by Joseph Stalin to silence the media. Sen. Jeff Flake hangs the Stalin label on Trump for attacking the free press.

Today, Sen. Flake’s seatmate, Senator John McCain, joins him in defending the free press against Donald Trump’s attacks on the free press in an op-ed in the Washington Post. Mr. President, stop attacking the press:

After leaving office, President Ronald Reagan created the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award to recognize individuals who have fought to spread liberty worldwide. Nancy Reagan continued the tradition after her husband’s death, and in 2008 she bestowed the honor on human rights icon Natan Sharansky, who credited Reagan’s strong defense of freedom for his own survival in Soviet gulags. Reagan recognized that as leader of the free world, his words carried enormous weight, and he used them to inspire the unprecedented spread of democracy around the world.

President Trump does not seem to understand that his rhetoric and actions reverberate in the same way. He has threatened to continue his attempt to discredit the free press by bestowing “fake news awards” upon reporters and news outlets whose coverage he disagrees with. Whether Trump knows it or not, these efforts are being closely watched by foreign leaders who are already using his words as cover as they silence and shutter one of the key pillars of democracy.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 2017 was one of the most dangerous years to be a journalist. Last year, the organization documented 262 cases of journalists being imprisoned for their work. Reporters around the world face intimidation, threats of violence, harassment, persecution and sometimes even death as governments resort to brutal censorship to silence the truth.

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Keep the press free: We can’t let Democrats become Republicans

by Pamela Powers Hannley For years, the Republican campaign style has been increasingly restrictive. George W. Bush started it all. McCain, Palin, and others who followed fine-tuned the information control tactics– requiring pre-registration and tickets for political events, banning political signs, and requiring pre-approved questions. During the 2010 elections, this trend evolved into paid admission for … Read more