Tom Cotton
January 29, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Michael Morell is the former Acting Director of the CIA and current contributor to The Cipher Brief. He hosts the site’s Intelligence Matters podcast. In his January 25 podcast he interviewed Senator Tom Cotton (audio below). Here is the summary: Republican U.S. Senator and Army veteran Tom Cotton is often described as a hawkish conservative for taking a hardline stance on issues like immigration and the Iran nuclear deal. In
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January 24, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The following isn’t exactly fake news, but it’s certainly misleading. The New York Times (per Maggie Haberman, Katie Rogers, and Michael Shear) reports: President Trump said on Wednesday that he is open to a path to citizenship after 10 to 12 years for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, days after rejecting a bipartisan plan with that as its centerpiece. Mr. Trump once
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December 1, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
John noted last night that, according to strong rumors, Sen. Tom Cotton will resign from the Senate and succeed Mike Pompeo as head of the CIA. Pompeo, according to the same rumors, will become Secretary of State. I’d rather see Cotton in the Senate than at the hornets nest across the river in Langley (and, frankly, the hornets nest of the Trump administration). However, I think I understand why he
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November 7, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Last night, in a post about Tom Cotton, I suggested that the Senator might be one who, along with President Trump himself, helps “shape Trumpism into a functional, more traditionally conservative but still nationalistic approach to governing.” David Azerrad of the Heritage Foundation discusses the kind of synthesis I had in mind. Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of Trumpist populism, in its current form at least, is that it can at
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November 6, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The New Yorker is running a piece by Jeffrey Toobin called “Is Tom Cotton the Future of Trumpism?” Toobin is a left-wing hatchet man. Ed Whelan has called foul on him several times, including here (for his treatment of Justice Scalia) and here (for his treatment of then-Judge Gorsuch). Adam White did so here. Toobin’s treatment of Cotton is far from fair and balanced. Consider this ludicrous passage: In describing
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August 3, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
A friend and long-time Power Line reader has this to say in response to my post in praise of the RAISE Act — the immigration reform proposal of Sens. Cotton and Perdue that President Trump forcefully endorsed yesterday: Yesterday on my drive home, I listened to a long NPR radio story about the bill’s introduction. As the story ended, I drove past a large apartment complex that is being built
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August 2, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
In February, I wrote about the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act. This legislation, proposed by Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue, would cut legal immigration to the U.S. in half and prioritize high-skilled immigrants, while ending family preferences for all but the spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent legal residents. Today, President Trump, with the two sponsoring Senators by his side, publicly backed
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June 6, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton sat for an interview with former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod late last week at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics (video below, posted here on YouTube). Judging by the derisive laughter of the audience in response to Axelrod’s lame japes and brain-dead left-wing talking points, I take it that the interview was conducted before a crowd mostly hostile to Senator Cotton. Axelrod, of course,
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May 5, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post argues that Sen. Tom Cotton is “walking a tightrope” when it comes to Obamacare. Sullivan says that Cotton finds himself in this precarious position because he campaigned against Obamacare but Arkansas is “filled with constituents who have benefited from Obamacare.” Sullivan adds that Cotton and other Republicans in his position must also worry about President Trump’s “willingness to lash out at unruly GOP lawmakers.”
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March 21, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Sen. Tom Cotton announced today that he will not vote for the American Health Care Act in its present form. He released the following statement: Despite the proposed amendments, I still cannot support the House health-care bill, nor would it pass the Senate. The amendments improve the Medicaid reforms in the original bill, but do little to address the core problem of Obamacare: rising premiums and deductibles, which are making
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March 15, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
I have written about how congressional Republicans are subscribing to the view that key parts of Obamacare cannot be repealed through “reconciliation” — i.e., without 60 votes. This view — reflected in the House “replacement” legislation — holds that the GOP cannot repeal the price-hiking, competition-destroying regulations that form the core of Obamacare because the parliamentarian, pursuant to the Byrd Rule, won’t allow such repeal through the budget reconciliation process.
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March 15, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
We wrote here (per Eliana Johnson) about White House pushback against the selection of Anne Patterson for the position of undersecretary of defense for policy. As ambassador to Egypt in the Obama administration, Patterson strongly backed Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government. I’m happy to report (per the Washington Post) that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has withdrawn Patterson as his choice for the Pentagon policy post. Mattis did so
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March 14, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday’s CBO report on the House GOP Obamacare replacement plan caused me to wonder: What kind of a political party front-loads reform legislation with pain — in this case, higher premiums — and backloads it with benefits — here, lower premiums and budgetary savings? The answer is, a political party led by Paul Ryan. The Speaker believes in legislating to fix problems in the long-term and, while waiting for the
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March 14, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Sen. Tom Cotton continues to speak more sensibly about Obamacare repeal than any legislator I knew of. Last week, he argued that the GOP is moving too fast on the matter. He stated, “I would much sooner get health care reform right than get it fast.” Considering the stakes for the country and for the Republican Party’s future, it seems difficult to disagree this common sense proposition. Today, Sen. Cotton
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January 11, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Scott has written about Sen. Cory Booker’s vacuous testimony against the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general. Booker broke with Senate tradition, becoming, it is said, the first U.S. Senator to testify against the nomination of a colleague. Why did Booker do it? I believe he did it to establish his place as a possible contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. Before Booker testified, Sen. Tom Cotton had
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January 6, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on Russian hacking especially as it pertained to last year’s presidential election. Paul Kane, a liberal at the Washington Post, gives this account: Senate Republicans walked a tightrope Thursday trying to show their toughness against Vladimir Putin’s Russia without undermining the legitimacy of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in November. Again and again during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Russian
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December 25, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Our friend Sen. Tom Cotton issued this statement about President Obama’s decision to “abstain” from voting on the U.N. Security Council’s anti-Israel resolution — a decision that enabled the resolution to pass: President Obama is personally responsible for this anti-Israel resolution. His diplomats secretly coordinated the vote, yet he doesn’t even have the courage of his own convictions to vote for it. This cowardly, disgraceful action cements President Obama’s richly
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