Jeff Flake

The Senate begins the DACA debate today

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The Senate is doing something highly unusual today in the strictly scripted and tightly controlled Mitch McConnell era: it is beginning an open-ended debate on immigration and DACA legislation.

As Axios reports:

In the words of a senior Senate aide, Mitch McConnell will effectively tell his colleagues: “Listen boys and girls, you all have lots of different ideas about what should be done on immigration. So put your big boy and big girl pants on, and put your ideas on the floor for a vote. Do your best; try to get to 60 votes to pass a bill.”

POLITICO adds, McConnell’s immigration gamble:

Usually careful with his every move, the Senate majority leader is taking a gamble this week with his pledge for a free-for-all debate over the fate of hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants.

No one knows the GOP leader’s endgame, nor how he personally prefers the stalemate over Dreamers be resolved. It’s highly unusual for a Senate majority leader, particularly one as calculating as McConnell, to bring a divisive issue to the floor with no clearly intended result in sight.

Even his top lieutenants aren’t sure whether McConnell would ultimately support a final immigration deal that can clinch the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate.

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

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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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America’s racism runs deeper than racist Donald Trump

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So Donald Trump, once again, says ‘I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed’.

Yeah, “me thinks thou dost protest too much.” The Heartbeat of Racism Is Denial:

Mental health experts routinely say that denial is among the most common defense mechanisms. Denial is how the person defends his superior sense of self, his racially unequal society.

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The reckoning of Mr. Trump’s racism must become the reckoning of American racism. Because the American creed of denial — “I’m not a racist” — knows no political parties, no ideologies, no colors, no regions.

David Leonhardt and Ian Philbrick provide Donald Trump’s Racism: The Definitive List:

The media often falls back on euphemisms when describing Trump’s comments about race: racially loaded, racially charged, racially tinged, racially sensitive. And Trump himself has claimed that he is “the least racist person.” But here’s the truth: Donald Trump is a racist. He talks about and treats people differently based on their race. He has done so for years, and he is still doing so.

Here, we have attempted to compile a definitive list of his racist comments – or at least the publicly known ones.

Trump and his enablers (Sens. “Tehran” Tom Cotton and Sonny David Perdue – correction) really want to blame the government shutdown coming this Friday over the DACA negotiations on Democrats rather than on Trump’s racism towards immigrants, the very foundation of his 2016 campaign and appeal to the white grievances of GOP voters. Trump says ‘I’m not a racist,’ accuses Democrats of impeding DACA deal.

But Senator Jeff Flake, a member of the “gang of six,” says Democrats are negotiating ‘in good faith’ on Dreamers deal:

“One thing I do take big issue with the president on is he is saying that the Democrats aren’t moving forward in good faith,” Flake said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I can tell you I’ve been negotiating and working with the Democrats on immigration for 17 years and on this issue, on DACA or on the DREAM Act for a number of years, and the Democrats are negotiating in good faith.”

So add Trump’s political posturing to his list of more than 2,000 lies he has told since taking office.

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Sen. Jeff Flake hangs the Stalin label on Trump for attacking the free press

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Well, this should be fun. In planned speech, Sen. Jeff Flake compares Trump’s media attacks to comments by Stalin:

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) plans to give a speech in the coming days that compares President Trump’s public criticism of the news media to similar comments once made by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

A spokesman said that Flake, who will retire after this year amid intense political pressure sparked by his criticism of the president, plans to deliver the speech Wednesday before Trump announces the winners of his self-described “fake news” awards.

Trump announced via Twitter that he would be handing out awards Wednesday to news outlets he thought unfairly covered him.

Flake continues to be one of Trump’s most frequent critics, often speaking out to warn that the president’s words and actions could be detrimental to the future of the Republican Party and the nation’s standing worldwide.

In recent days, he was among the lawmakers who denounced Trump for describing certain African nations and Haiti as “shithole countries” during an Oval Office meeting on immigration policy. Flake has been negotiating a bipartisan deal on immigration with Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). In an interview with The Washington Post on Friday, Flake said that he was not at the meeting, but heard about Trump’s comment “before it went public. And what I’ve heard reported is consistent about what I heard about the meeting.”

“I’m not surprised at the sentiment expressed — it’s consistent with what he’s said — but that he would do that knowing the fury it would cause,” Flake added.

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Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio to run for the Senate to pick the pockets of the rubes who support this racist

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Oh sweet Jesus! Are we really going to do this? Alabamians are relieved today that an Arizona exists to make them look not so bad by comparison.

Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio is just a grifter, like his buddy Donald Trump, and is only interested in picking the pockets of the racist and white nationalist rubes who see him as a hero (sic). He doesn’t want to be a senator. Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio announces run for U.S. Senate:

Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who for years has teased potential runs for higher office, announced Tuesday that he is running for the U.S. Senate in Arizona.

“I am running for the U.S. Senate from the Great State of Arizona, for one unwavering reason: to support the agenda and policies of President Donald Trump in his mission to Make America Great Again,” Arpaio said in a tweet posted to Twitter at 9:06 a.m.

“You know I’m a hard worker and I don’t run to lose, so I’ll do whatever it takes to win,” Arpaio told The Arizona Republic later. “I’m out here to win.”

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