Lindsey Graham

Many failed actors work as waitstaff, or move back in with their parents. Some spiral into heroin addiction, prostitution or death. But it could be worse: a number end up in the United States Senate. This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee lent further credence to my long-held belief that anyone who declares an interest in running for political office should be committed to an asylum. The hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson bore closer resemblance to a remedial acting class than the inner democratic workings of a somewhat serious country. The right have been gorging on the clip of Democratic presidential hopeful Cory Booker giving it the full Olivier in his remarks to the judge.

Cockburn has never been much of a hawk, unless you count his begrudging deficit hawkery over the massive tab he ran up at his local bar. But many elected Republicans are very hawkish on foreign policy, supporting "peace through strength," as Ronald Reagan put it, as well as occasionally war through strength. So how are the GOP's highest-flying hawks handling Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Cockburn was surprised to find them divided. Nearly every Republican lawmaker (and Democrat for that matter) agrees that we need to throttle Russia with economic sanctions. It's on the question of whether the United States should implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine that the cracks begin to show.

It was a beautiful moment of bipartisan unity when, left and right, American and European, young and old, united to call Lindsey Graham a moron. The South Carolina senator made headlines Thursday night after appearing on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox. He openly called for Vladimir Putin to be assassinated: How does this end? Somebody in Russia has to step up to the plate. Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there more successful Col. Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends, my friend, is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out! You would be doing your country a great service and the world a great service. Graham doubled down on his insanely dangerous comments on Twitter right after. Best to put this kind of stupidity in writing, in case there was any confusion.

Conservatives in the DMV have been very loud in their opposition to mask and vaccine mandates — but how many are practicing what they preach? Truckers in Canada are risking their livelihoods to protest vaccine mandates, the US military is discharging service members who refuse to get the shot, and families have been thrown out of restaurants by police because their young children wouldn't wear masks. Meanwhile, many Republican politicians and conservative organizations seem to be sacrificing very little in the name of ending Covid restrictions.

Another assault on internet freedom and constitutional rights is underway this week as the Senate Judiciary Committee considers the EARN IT Act of 2022. The bill is presented as a potential solution to internet luring by creating a new National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention. The nineteen-member commission is tasked with coming up with best practices that internet companies can adapt to allegedly keep children safe from online predators. Yet tucked in the bill are more changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the law that keeps online platforms from being civilly liable for hosting and moderating third-party content. The first change involves reaffirming that victims of child sexual abuse can civilly sue interactive computer services.

Attorney General Merrick Garland was confirmed to the top post in the Department of Justice in March 2021 by a Senate vote of 70-30. Twenty Republicans crossed party lines to vote for President Joe Biden's nominee, who was previously denied a seat on the Supreme Court during the Obama administration. Here are the Republicans who voted to confirm Garland: Sen. Roy Blunt Sen. Richard Burr Sen. Shelley Moore Capito Sen. Bill Cassidy Sen. Susan Collins Sen. John Cornyn Sen. Joni Ernst Sen. Lindsey Graham Sen. Chuck Grassley Sen. Jim Inhofe Sen. Ron Johnson Sen. James Lankford Leader Mitch McConnell Sen. Jerry Moran Sen. Lisa Murkowski Sen. Rob Portman Sen. Mitt Romney Sen. Mike Rounds Sen. John Thune Sen.

The thing about childhood is that eventually you're supposed to grow up. It's with this in mind that we turn to Sen. Lindsey Graham, who when he ran for president in 2016 polled so low that he was relegated to the so-called 'kiddie table' GOP primary debate. It had to chafe. Graham back then was a loud Trump critic, yet there was Trump eating off the fine china while Graham moodily stirred his wagon wheel mac and cheese around his Toy Story bowl. At one point, the ultra-hawkish Graham did try to get the grown-ups' attention. If you're tired of fighting wars, he declared on Fox News, 'don't vote for me!' Republicans stopped eating for a moment, then took him at his word. I thought of that today, perhaps because it's almost the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and I needed some levity.

When Republican senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul walked out of a military briefing Wednesday over the recent US attack that took out top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, they were not happy about how that exchange went.Sen. Paul said the briefing was 'less than satisfying', blasting the meeting as 'insulting to logic and the Constitution'.A fiery Sen. Lee elaborated further. 'I had hoped and expected to receive more information outlining the legal, factual, and moral justification for the attack,' Lee said. 'The briefing lasted only 75 minutes, whereupon our briefers left. This, however, is not the biggest problem I have with the briefing, which I would add was probably the worst briefing I've seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I've served in the United States Senate.

Well, well, well. So President Trump isn’t serious about Syria. Sen. Lindsey Graham has announced that President Trump is pondering his declaration that its time to bring the boys back from the wasteland of Syria within 30-days. ‘I think we’re in a pause situation,’ Graham said on Sunday. Trump himself tweeted, ‘we’re slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time fighting ISIS remnants...’ This is classic Trump. Announce a bold policy, create a furor — and then move on. Disarm North Korea? Extract real concessions from Canada and Mexico? Improve relations with Russia? Bulky China into a trade deal on American terms? Build a wall?

A few weeks ago in these virtual pages, I wrote that ‘In years to come, no one is going to talk about ‘kavanaughing’ a candidate.’ Boy did I get that wrong. The word deployed may not be the mouthful ‘kavanaughed.’ Maybe it will, à la Lindsey Graham, be pleonastically expressed: ‘the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics’ about fits the case. I am writing on Friday morning. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote this afternoon. Punditry is not prophecy, but I am nevertheless going to predict that Brett Kavanaugh gets an up vote from the committee and that Chuck Grassley will have learned his lesson and bring the matter to a floor vote tomorrow, Saturday, as he said he would.