“I am proud that during my time the Senate I have used my time to be a champion of women and that I have earned a reputation as someone who respects the women I work alongside everyday. I know there’s been a very different picture of me painted over the last few weeks, but I know who I really am,” Franken said.
Franken called it “ironic” that he is forced to resign for his sexual misconduct while people like President Trump continue to serve and Alabamians are on the verge of electing someone like Republican Roy Moore
Former President Obama spoke about the Trump presidency at a campaign event in New Jersey on Thursday afternoon,
What we can’t have is the same old politics of division that we have seen so many times before, that dates back centuries. Some of the politics we see, we thought we put that to bed. That has folks looking 50 years back.
It is the 21st century, not the 19th century. Come on!
Here is Obama’s full speech on the campaign trail with N.J. gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy.
Paul Ryan was the keynote speaker at the 72nd annual Alfred E. Smith Foundation charity dinner in New York City on Thursday evening.
Here are excerpts where Ryan roasts President Trump;
PAUL RYAN: I know last year, that Donald Trump offended some people. I know his comments, according to critics, went to far. Some said it was unbecoming for a public figure, they said his comments were offensive.
Thank God he’s learned his lesson…
A lot of people ask me, a guy from Wisconsin, what is it like to work on a daily basis with an abraisive New Yorker with a loud mouth. Once you get to know him, Chuck Schumer is not all that bad…
The press absolutely misunderstands and never records the big accomplishments of the White House.
Look at all the new jobs the president has created, just among the White House staff.
When you read the papers tomorrow, everyone is going to report this thing differently.
Breitbart will lead with: ‘Ryan slams president among liberal elites.’
New York Times will say: ‘Ryan defends the president in a state Hillary won.’
And the president will tweet: ‘300,000 at Al Smith dinner cheer mention of my name.’
Senator John McCain received the National Constitution Center’s Liberty Medal on Oct. 16, 2017. During his speech he said this about the Trump brand of nationalism: “To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain ‘the last best hope of earth’ for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.”
Full transcript of Sen. McCain’s speech:
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Thank you, Joe, my old, dear friend, for those mostly undeserved kind words. Vice President Biden and I have known each other for a lot of years now, more than forty, if you’re counting. We knew each other back when we were young and handsome and smarter than everyone else but were too modest to say so.
Joe was already a senator, and I was the Navy’s liaison to the Senate. My duties included escorting senate delegations on overseas trips, and in that capacity, I supervised the disposition of the delegation’s luggage, which could require — now and again — when no one of lower rank was available for the job — that I carry someone worthy’s bag. Once or twice that worthy turned out to be the young senator from Delaware. I’ve resented it ever since…
Joe has heard me joke about that before. I hope he has heard, too, my profession of gratitude for his friendship these many years. It has meant a lot to me. We served in the Senate together for over twenty years, during some eventful times, as we passed from young men to the fossils who appear before you this evening.
We didn’t always agree on the issues. We often argued — sometimes passionately. But we believed in each other’s patriotism and the sincerity of each other’s convictions. We believed in the institution we were privileged to serve in. We believed in our mutual responsibility to help make the place work and to cooperate in finding solutions to our country’s problems. We believed in our country and in our country’s indispensability to international peace and stability and to the progress of humanity. And through it all, whether we argued or agreed, Joe was good company. Thank you, old friend, for your company and your service to America.
Thank you, too, to the National Constitution Center, and everyone associated with it for this award. Thank you for that video, and for the all too generous compliments paid to me this evening. I’m aware of the prestigious company the Liberty Medal places me in. I’m humbled by it, and I’ll try my best not to prove too unworthy of it.
Some years ago, I was present at an event where an earlier Liberty Medal recipient spoke about America’s values and the sacrifices made for them. It was 1991, and I was attending the ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The World War II veteran, estimable patriot and good man, President George H.W. Bush, gave a moving speech at the USS Arizona memorial. I remember it very well. His voice was thick with emotion as he neared the end of his address. I imagine he was thinking not only of the brave Americans who lost their lives on December 7, 1941, but of the friends he had served with and lost in the Pacific where he had been the Navy’s youngest aviator.
‘Look at the water here, clear and quiet …’ he directed, ‘One day, in what now seems another lifetime, it wrapped its arms around the finest sons any nation could ever have, and it carried them to a better world.’
He could barely get out the last line, ‘May God bless them, and may God bless America, the most wondrous land on earth.’
The most wondrous land on earth, indeed. I’ve had the good fortune to spend sixty years in service to this wondrous land. It has not been perfect service, to be sure, and there were probably times when the country might have benefited from a little less of my help. But I’ve tried to deserve the privilege as best I can, and I’ve been repaid a thousand times over with adventures, with good company, and with the satisfaction of serving something more important than myself, of being a bit player in the extraordinary story of America. And I am so very grateful.
What a privilege it is to serve this big, boisterous, brawling, intemperate, striving, daring, beautiful, bountiful, brave, magnificent country. With all our flaws, all our mistakes, with all the frailties of human nature as much on display as our virtues, with all the rancor and anger of our politics, we are blessed.
We are living in the land of the free, the land where anything is possible, the land of the immigrant’s dream, the land with the storied past forgotten in the rush to the imagined future, the land that repairs and reinvents itself, the land where a person can escape the consequences of a self-centered youth and know the satisfaction of sacrificing for an ideal, the land where you can go from aimless rebellion to a noble cause, and from the bottom of your class to your party’s nomination for president.
We are blessed, and we have been a blessing to humanity in turn. The international order we helped build from the ashes of world war, and that we defend to this day, has liberated more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. This wondrous land has shared its treasures and ideals and shed the blood of its finest patriots to help make another, better world. And as we did so, we made our own civilization more just, freer, more accomplished and prosperous than the America that existed when I watched my father go off to war on December 7, 1941.
To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain ‘the last best hope of earth’ for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.
We live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil. We are the custodians of those ideals at home, and their champion abroad. We have done great good in the world. That leadership has had its costs, but we have become incomparably powerful and wealthy as we did. We have a moral obligation to continue in our just cause, and we would bring more than shame on ourselves if we don’t. We will not thrive in a world where our leadership and ideals are absent. We wouldn’t deserve to.
I am the luckiest guy on earth. I have served America’s cause — the cause of our security and the security of our friends, the cause of freedom and equal justice — all my adult life. I haven’t always served it well. I haven’t even always appreciated what I was serving. But among the few compensations of old age is the acuity of hindsight. I see now that I was part of something important that drew me along in its wake even when I was diverted by other interests. I was, knowingly or not, along for the ride as America made the future better than the past.
And I have enjoyed it, every single day of it, the good ones and the not so good ones. I’ve been inspired by the service of better patriots than me. I’ve seen Americans make sacrifices for our country and her causes and for people who were strangers to them but for our common humanity, sacrifices that were much harder than the service asked of me. And I’ve seen the good they have done, the lives they freed from tyranny and injustice, the hope they encouraged, the dreams they made achievable.
May God bless them. May God bless America, and give us the strength and wisdom, the generosity and compassion, to do our duty for this wondrous land, and for the world that counts on us. With all its suffering and dangers, the world still looks to the example and leadership of America to become, another, better place. What greater cause could anyone ever serve.
“American schoolchildren put their hands on their hearts as they recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
Before watching a football game, you want to see those players be proud of their country. Respect our country. Respect our flag. And respect our national anthem and we think they will. We certainly hope they will.”
All American hearts are united with the people of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands who have faced terrible devastation in the wake of two catastrophic hurricanes. We are working night and day in cooperation with territorial and local authorities to assist those in need, to help save and sustain lives, and to begin the long recovery and rebuilding effort. Our commitment to those affected is this: We are with you, we will stay with you, and we will come back stronger than ever. We are sending tremendous amounts of supplies, tremendous amounts of food and water, and we are sending great people to help. I know that it’s been devastating. I know your police force and everything else has been absolutely hurt, but we’re sending people to help, and it’s getting better on a daily basis.
This week, I traveled to Indiana to announce historic tax reform for the American people. It is based on four key ideas.
First, we will cut taxes on all Working American Families. People will pay a lot less money. Single individuals will not be taxed on the first $12,000 of income earned. And a married couple will pay zero taxes on their first $24,000 of income. After that, taxable income will be subject to just three tax rates—12%, 25% and 35%, it use to be 7%. We will also expand the child tax credit, eliminate the credit’s marriage penalty, and provide a new $500 tax credit for elder-care and other adult dependents. This is the real and lasting tax relief that everyday Americans badly need and truly deserve. This is what working Americans have been after.
Second, our framework will make the tax code simple, fair, and easy to understand. Under our plan, the vast majority of families will be able to file their taxes on a single sheet of paper.
As part of simplification, we are also getting rid of taxes that threaten to put family businesses and American farmers out of business. Julie Ellingson is a 4th generation cattle rancher in Bismarck, North Dakota. Julie and her family’s legacy of hard work should not be taken away when she dies —we will eliminate the Death Tax and keep her American Dream alive. Most importantly, her family will long remember, and they’ll be working hard for many, many years on their farm.
Third, we are going to restore America’s competitive edge so that American businesses and workers can win again. We will cut the corporate rate below the average of our foreign competitors—and we will reduce the top marginal income tax rate on small and mid-sized businesses to the lowest in more than 80 years. It’s so important because our companies are leaving our shores and when they leave, they let go of the workers. And then they make their product and they send it back into our country. We don’t tax them, we don’t do anything. Those days are over. We now have a competitive tax where our companies won’t be leaving. Believe me, it won’t be happening like it has, it’s going to be a big difference.
Finally, our framework encourages corporations to bring back trillions of dollars in wealth parked overseas, and stops punishing companies for keeping their headquarters in the United States. That’s actually what’s happening. Companies that stay in our country are being punished by our tax code. This will switch our current offshoring model—a tax system that drives jobs to other countries—to a new American Model. Under this plan, we want our companies to hire and grow in America, to raise wages for American workers, and to help rebuild American cities and towns.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to pass tax reform and to restore our jobs, our wealth, and our great American Dreams. We will be able to dream again and those dreams will be met.
Now it is time—finally– for Congress to deliver. The problem we have is the Democrats don’t want to cut your taxes, they want to actually raise your taxes, and raise them very substantially. We can’t afford to do that as a country, that’s why our jobs are leaving, that’s why you don’ t have enough left in your pay check. We want to cut taxes and it’s going to be the biggest tax cut in the history of our Country.
