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He made clear when he was appointed to fill McCain’s seat a few months ago that he wouldn’t run in the special election in 2020 to finish the final two years of McCain’s term. But there remained a mystery: Would he serve until then, or just a few months in a “placekeeper” role while Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey weighed a longer-term appointee?

Mystery solved.

Kyl wrote a letter dated Dec. 12 to Ducey, informing him of his resignation. The letter was hand-delivered to the Governor’s Office late Thursday afternoon…

“When I accepted your appointment, I agreed to complete the work of the 115th Congress and then reevaluate continuing to serve. I have concluded that it would be best if I resign so that your new appointee can begin the new term with all other Senators in January 2019 and can serve a full two (potentially four) years. Therefore, I will resign from the U.S. Senate effective 11:59 p.m. EST December 31, 2018.”

There’s an obvious candidate to replace him. She’s known statewide from her recent run for Senate, winning more than a million votes on Election Day and losing only narrowly. She has legislative experience, having served in the House for the past four years. She’s a veteran, one who rose to the rank of colonel in the Air Force. And she has the enthusiastic support of Cocaine Mitch McConnell. It’s Martha McSally time.

Wait, what’s that? It’s … not Martha McSally time?

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has lost enthusiasm for appointing Rep. Martha McSally, a fellow Republican, to the Senate in recent weeks even as Republican leaders in Washington have championed her…

There are several reasons McSally’s chances have faded, according to the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss private conversations. One is a post-election memo her campaign strategists provided to The Washington Post last month, which attributed her defeat in November to external factors. Among them: strong Democratic fundraising, a geographic disadvantage and voter hostility toward President Trump.

The memo sparked outrage inside Ducey’s circle and among broader swaths of influential Republicans, who felt her team did not own up to its strategic mistakes and was trying to deflect blame for her loss to Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema.

I, for one, am shocked that a young politician who just lost a big election would issue a self-serving list of reasons for her defeat. What did Ducey want her to say in the memo, “I sucked”? That would have been dumb under any circumstance but especially dumb in the context of her being a top contender for the McCain vacancy. Admitting that she ran a bad race against Sinema would have handed the media a club with which to beat Ducey if he went ahead and appointed her to replace Kyl. Headline: “DUCEY APPOINTS ADMITTEDLY BAD CANDIDATE.”

Read down further into the WaPo piece that I excerpted and you’ll detect a whiff of some gubernatorial vanity at play. Apparently Team McSally’s memo tried to explain why Ducey himself easily won reelection as governor on the same day that she fell just short against Sinema. Instead of kissing ass by praising what a strong candidate he was, they chalked it up to him being an incumbent who was facing a weak progressive candidate. (Sinema by contrast strained to present herself as a centrist despite her very left-wing past.) McSally’s also apparently being knocked for having repositioned herself as a staunch Trumpist after being more standoffish towards him before her Senate run. But that was a matter of pure strategy: Running against two populists in the primary, she had no choice but to try to make herself acceptable to Trump fans by embracing their guy. It would have been political malpractice if she hadn’t and the GOP likely would have ended up with Kelli Ward as nominee.

The problem for Ducey is that there are no strong alternatives to McSally. The strongest candidate would probably be Ducey himself, but he just won reelection as governor and did so with the entire electorate believing that someone else would ultimately be appointed to replace McCain. Having him suddenly vacate the governor’s chair to join the Senate would look like an electoral bait-and-switch. His chief of staff, Kirk Adams, has been mentioned but Adams has only served five years in elected office as a state representative. He’s never run a statewide campaign and would have to run not one but two in order to secure a full term in the U.S. Senate: First he’d have to win the special election in 2020 to finish McCain’s term, then he’d have to win a full term in 2022. (If McSally ends up as the appointee after all, it’ll mean she’ll end up running three times for the same seat in the span of four years.) He could always choose someone from the McCain family but that’s probably Trump’s least favorite option among the ones available.

I think it’ll be McSally despite Ducey’s misgivings. McConnell usually gets what he wants and he wants her in the Senate, as she’s a known quantity politically and not the sort of populist who’ll end up being a pain in his ass. He’ll twist the arms that need twisting.

Forty-nine families in Prince George’s County, Maryland, lost their sons in World War I. With their loved ones buried in European theaters of war, most of the families could not visit the graves.

So in 1925, the American Legion and the Gold Star families erected a monument in the county to them—and all soldiers who gave their lives in the “war to end all wars.” Known as the Peace Cross, it symbolizes both spiritual peace for the departed as well as hoped-for peace between the nations.

When the monument was erected, a cross-shaped gravestone was a common, even universal, symbol of service and sacrifice. But America’s religious profile has changed dramatically over the years, with growing numbers disavowing traditional beliefs.

In 1941, the American Humanist Association was founded. A tax-exempt organization, its mission is to enable “human beings to lead personal lives of ethical fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.”

Humanists provide social services like disaster relief. They promote their beliefs by running ads on public buses that say, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.” They express their beliefs, in public, with little fear of harassment or suppression.

But they took offense at the religious symbolism of the Peace Cross on government property and filed a lawsuit seeking to bulldoze it. The Supreme Court will now decide on their claim that the cross violates the Constitution’s establishment clause.

America’s Founders did not envision either a sacred or a secular public square. The First Amendment’s establishment clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion,” but it is increasingly misused by activists to erase any semblance of religion from public life.

Last year, the Supreme Court overturned an establishment clause challenge to a church’s ability to compete against secular organizations for public funds to renovate a school playground. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that excluding a church “solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand.”

Similarly, the high court should rule that excluding a memorial from public grounds simply because it has religious significance is odious to our Constitution. In America, humanists have the freedom to publicly commemorate the end of life without reference to God. Christians and people of other religions should be able to do the same with reference to God and hope in eternity.

At a minimum, we should respect the universal symbol of service and sacrifice that Gold Star mothers chose for us to remember their sons.

Much is at stake in the upcoming hearings. Our nation’s soil is richly populated with monuments to patriots of many religions from many battles. More than 60 different religious emblems grace the headstones of soldiers in Arlington Cemetery, from the cross to the Star of David, from the Crescent and Star of Islam to a symbol for an American Indian church.

And one symbol, of a person reaching upward with outstretched hands, is the symbol of the American Humanist Association.

The Veterans Administration permits these graphics on headstones and markers and pays for their upkeep because these symbols have meaning, not just to those who mourn, but to the generations who now enjoy the freedom for which those soldiers fought.

On Sunday, Americans from coast to coast commemorated the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I’s hostilities. All of us should be grateful for the sacrifices made on our behalf by veterans and their families.

And in an increasingly pluralistic country, our highest court should respect the freedom of all Americans to honor the dead according to the beliefs that they hold most sacred.

Originally published in The Washington Times.

If America’s auto manufacturers wrote letters to Santa, it’s not hard to guess what would be high on their lists: retaining the federal tax credit for electric vehicles.

For several years now, Uncle Sam (who often acts like Santa’s U.S.-based cousin) has tried to encourage the public to buy electric vehicles (EVs) by offering those who do so a tax credit of up to $7,500.

But the credit wasn’t created to be available forever, and it already caps out when a manufacturer has sold 200,000 EVs.

General Motors, which is more than happy to have taxpayer money propping up part of its business, wants the credit made permanent and the cap lifted. So do other auto manufacturers, such as Nissan and Tesla. Many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem more than happy to give them what they want.

Guess who isn’t? President Trump. When General Motors recently announced plant closings and a 15 percent cut in its workforce, the president said he was “looking at cutting all GM subsidies, including for electric cars.”

As well he should. Government has no business interfering in the market and trying to push consumers to buy what they don’t want. And it’s even more galling when lawmakers use taxpayer money to do it.

This type of cronyism is bad enough on principle alone. But it gets worse in the case of EV tax credits.

For one thing, the cost is borne disproportionately by lower- and fixed-income families who can’t afford electric vehicles. Who’s taking advantage of the subsidies? Primarily America’s wealthiest households. They don’t need a tax break to afford an EV, but hey, if it’s there, they’ll take it.

So, in an ironic twist, we have the government taking money from a wide swath of Americans, including those on the low end of the income scale, to put those who are more well off into “green” vehicles.

The Pacific Research Institute found that in 2014, 79 percent of electric vehicle tax credits went to households making over $100,000, while 99 percent of them went to households making at least $50,000.

Auto manufacturers, like any other company, should base their decisions about what to make solely on what customers want — not on what government wants them to want.

If people want EVs, fine. But it should be their free choice, not something they purchase because they get some “free” money.

But, some people may say, it’s worth it for the environmental benefit. “Switching to electric cars is key to fixing America’s ‘critically insufficient’ climate policies,” the Guardian wrote earlier this year. That’s the rationale the Obama administration used to justify its push for EVs.

But as economist Nicolas Loris points out in a recent article, “the numbers tell a different story.” In a study published in May, the Manhattan Institute calculated the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from increased adoption of EVs. The bottom line? Yes, EVs reduce emissions, but in amounts far too small to make a difference.

“Based on the [Energy Information Administration’s] projection of the number of new electric vehicles, the net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions between 2018 and 2050 would be only about one-half of 1 percent of total forecast U.S. energy-related carbon emissions,” the report reads. “Such a small change will have no impact whatsoever on climate.”

Plus, let’s keep in mind that the mining of materials for lithium-ion batteries for EVs itself pumps out a lot of carbon emissions. Add in the fact that the electricity being used to recharge these batteries is manufactured in coal-powered plants.

The auto manufacturers may disagree, but I have a better wish for Santa: end the EV credit and other forms of corporate welfare. Let the people decide what they want to buy without Uncle Sam putting his thumb on the scale.

Ed Feulner is founder of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).

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Surely, the caravan migrants who were promised easy entry and free stuff in America are frustrated.

They are, after all, being asked to take a number and get to the back of the line on their asylum claims.  The sweetener is that they can live and work in the U.S. for about two or three years, free and clear, earning money, before a court rejects their cost-free asylum claims and sends them back home.

Many migrants knew this, based on interviews with caravan migrants in the past two months, and that was their game all along.

But then there are the others, the ones who really did expect to get something for free from Uncle Sam.  Here’s the latest from that element of the group, as reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Two groups of Central American migrants made separate marches on the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana Tuesday, demanding that they be processed through the asylum system more quickly and in greater numbers, that deportations be halted and that President Trump either let them into the country or pay them $50,000 each to go home.

On the one-month anniversary of their arrival into Tijuana, caravan members are pressing the United States to take action but they are dwindling in numbers since more than 6,000 first arrived to the city’s shelters.

The “reparations” are for the U.S.’s role in supposedly messing up their country, as if Hondurans were incapable of doing such a thing on their own.  Not a lot of confidence in their countrymen’s capacities, it seems.  And not a lot of criticism for the far-left organizers who led them down this garden path, only to leave them with nothing.  In fact, based on the kind of demands being posted on Pueblo Sin Fronteras‘ website, the demands have the look of having been crafted from those quarters.  Apparently, the caravan has descended into irrelevance.  As they pack up; seek jobs in Mexico; or slip through to the U.S., possibly with the aid of cartel human smugglers, migrants have told the press that the Pueblo organizers are nowhere to be found.

Well, now they are, and they’ve marshaled their forces to call on Uncle Sam to hand them money.  Lots of money, $50,000 a head.  Not out of mercy, but out of a debt owed.  Or a payment to go away.  And to raise the political project to the front and center once again, as Rick Moran observes in this PJ Media piece here.  Any questions as to why the Tijuana residents were so turned off by the migrants’ sense of entitlement that they organized protests of their own? 

What leaps out here is the outrageousness of the demands, which is a typical tactic of the most extremist elements of the left.  Terrorists are famous for making crazy demands, but so are other kinds of radicals and mau-mauers.  It’s a signature tactic of the left: the louder and crazier the demand, the more likely it is to turn up in the news.  Mau-mauing, Jesse Jackson – it’s all the same sort of warfare.  The caravan organizers are banking on Americans being so revolted by illegal immigration that the U.S. will just shell out for them and pay them big bucks to go away.  They see how payouts work in America, and they’d like those even better than the privilege of living in America.

One can only hope that the sorry truth about this group and its political project are duly noted.

Image credit: Daily Mail screenshot, via YouTube.

Surely, the caravan migrants who were promised easy entry and free stuff in America are frustrated.

They are, after all, being asked to take a number and get to the back of the line on their asylum claims.  The sweetener is that they can live and work in the U.S. for about two or three years, free and clear, earning money, before a court rejects their cost-free asylum claims and sends them back home.

Many migrants knew this, based on interviews with caravan migrants in the past two months, and that was their game all along.

But then there are the others, the ones who really did expect to get something for free from Uncle Sam.  Here’s the latest from that element of the group, as reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Two groups of Central American migrants made separate marches on the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana Tuesday, demanding that they be processed through the asylum system more quickly and in greater numbers, that deportations be halted and that President Trump either let them into the country or pay them $50,000 each to go home.

On the one-month anniversary of their arrival into Tijuana, caravan members are pressing the United States to take action but they are dwindling in numbers since more than 6,000 first arrived to the city’s shelters.

The “reparations” are for the U.S.’s role in supposedly messing up their country, as if Hondurans were incapable of doing such a thing on their own.  Not a lot of confidence in their countrymen’s capacities, it seems.  And not a lot of criticism for the far-left organizers who led them down this garden path, only to leave them with nothing.  In fact, based on the kind of demands being posted on Pueblo Sin Fronteras‘ website, the demands have the look of having been crafted from those quarters.  Apparently, the caravan has descended into irrelevance.  As they pack up; seek jobs in Mexico; or slip through to the U.S., possibly with the aid of cartel human smugglers, migrants have told the press that the Pueblo organizers are nowhere to be found.

Well, now they are, and they’ve marshaled their forces to call on Uncle Sam to hand them money.  Lots of money, $50,000 a head.  Not out of mercy, but out of a debt owed.  Or a payment to go away.  And to raise the political project to the front and center once again, as Rick Moran observes in this PJ Media piece here.  Any questions as to why the Tijuana residents were so turned off by the migrants’ sense of entitlement that they organized protests of their own? 

What leaps out here is the outrageousness of the demands, which is a typical tactic of the most extremist elements of the left.  Terrorists are famous for making crazy demands, but so are other kinds of radicals and mau-mauers.  It’s a signature tactic of the left: the louder and crazier the demand, the more likely it is to turn up in the news.  Mau-mauing, Jesse Jackson – it’s all the same sort of warfare.  The caravan organizers are banking on Americans being so revolted by illegal immigration that the U.S. will just shell out for them and pay them big bucks to go away.  They see how payouts work in America, and they’d like those even better than the privilege of living in America.

One can only hope that the sorry truth about this group and its political project are duly noted.

Image credit: Daily Mail screenshot, via YouTube.

Skin color absolutely dominates liberal politics in the United States.

From “progressive” college diversity quotas to Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s ill-fated attempt to convince the nation of her Cherokee heritage, a majority of the left’s rhetoric depends on the belief that our country is a villainous hive of racism.

Fortunately, this misconception can easily be swept away thanks to a simple question posed to people around the globe.

The World Values Survey, which has decades of studies under its belt, asked residents in over 80 countries to choose what type of people they would not want as neighbors. One of the possible answers was “people of a different race.”

Respondents were grouped by country, with the neighbor-of-a-different-race rejection rate serving as a good indication of how racist the nation as a whole is.

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And if the results were presented as a list, America wouldn’t even be close to the top 25.

The findings of the survey, reported by The Washington Post in 2013, seem to vindicate America and many other countries in the western world.

The news organization also applied the data to a world map, letting it take on a whole new life.

The deep blue color of the United States indicates that it isn’t a dangerously racist country, but rather one of the most accepting on the planet.

And while America has its Bible Belt, the rest of the world seems to have a Hate Belt. It stretches from North Africa to the South Pacific, broken only by a surprisingly tolerant Pakistan.

Max Fisher, who wrote about the study in The Post, did have some doubts about the results.

One major hangup he had was the possibility that people outright lied while responding to the question.

“It’s entirely possible that we’re seeing some version of this effect in the U.S.-India comparison,” Fisher wrote. “Maybe, for example, Americans are conditioned by their education and media to keep these sorts of racial preferences private, i.e. to lie about them on surveys, in a way that Indians might not be.”

Another flaw in the study, according to Fisher, is the frequency of the surveys.

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A few results were recent to the writing of his article. Others stretched back a few years earlier, due to the fact that the survey is not done every single year.

These are valid points, but their effect on the general trend of the data would likely be negligible.

Although many factors can affect the pinpoint preciseness of this study, this much is clear: There are many racist nations, but the United States is not one of them.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

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