WE HAVE A SERIOUS RINO PROBLEM IN THE SENATE

The Five Most Powerful RINOs in the United States Senate:

#1…John McCain
According to the Conservative Review:
• McCain is the lead author of the bill to regulate modern campaign finances (McCain-Feingold), a move that was universally condemned by conservatives as unconstitutional and tendentious to incumbent politicians.
• He has also been the leading voice within the Republican Party for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.
• He opposed the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, and is widely blamed for watering down the cuts and forcing sunset provisions that have caused some of the tax rates to expire.
• As a member of the Commerce Committee, McCain pushed for global warming and cap-and-trade style regulations on energy output, in addition to opposing some proposals to drill for oil.
• He has also been more open to federal mandates and regulations on private industry and weak on certain liberty issues.
• His advocacy of limiting campaign contributions and regulating tobacco shows a penchant for using robust federal powers and big government to limit freedom.
McCain has always taken the lead on foreign policy and as a member of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, he has pushed for very interventionist foreign policies, including supporting all insurgency movements attempting to displace dictators in foreign countries.

Not only has McCain been weak on tax and regulatory issues, he has been a vote for Democrats on many other key issues, while helping to strategize and secure votes for them against conservatives. Ultimately, it is clear that McCain is no conservative and even jokes that his “real” constituency is the press core.

#2…Mitch McConnell
“As GOP leader of the U.S. Senate, assessing McConnell’s conservative record goes much deeper than analyzing his votes, as he plays an outsized role in shaping Republican priorities and positions. While attempting to tack right over the last couple of years on style and substance, analyzing the long arc of McConnell’s career finds the shift is not grounded in conviction, but is rather an opportunist capitalizing on the resurgence of the conservative movement. McConnell is the consummate D.C. insider and calculated politician who rarely lets conviction get in the way of a “good” political move.

While quietly voting with conservatives throughout his career on issues related to life, guns (although he has taken a number of bad votes), and most tax issues, McConnell has failed to lead for conservatives on most critical issues during his time in leadership. In the few instances where he has publicly or privately spearheaded an initiative, it was for some of the most unpopular causes with conservatives, such as the Wall Street bailout, fiscal cliff tax increases, and debt ceiling increases.”

McConnell occasionally votes conservatively, but he has never used his leadership position to lead the Republicans against questionable policies, such as amnesty for illegal aliens, the war in Syria, and large spending bills. The only time McConnell has significantly led a conservative fight was in the battle against McCain-Feingold and other efforts to limit free speech. He has been active recently in fighting against the Obama administration’s war against coal, but only because it impacts his home state of Kentucky.

Senator McConnell’s career peaked after becoming Senate Majority Leader in January of 2015. As a result, it has become difficult for him to stay out of the center of attention on key issues. He has consistently faltered as the Republican leader in the Senate as he has to choose between aligning with the conservative base or satisfying his K Street donors and lobbyists.

Unfortunately, he regularly chooses the latter.

#3…Lindsey Graham
Much like his colleague, John McCain, he not only votes with Democrats on a number of key issues, he openly opposes conservatives on these policies while working with the Left. This tendency has recently been most notable on issues of immigration, global warming legislation, and certain aspects of foreign policy.
Unlike his close liberal ally, John McCain, however, Graham is also weak on trade and agriculture subsidies.

Graham was seen as a fairly conservative politician at the start of his career. That has changed, however, since he entered the Senate. For example, the Senator has voted for all of the bailouts, supports federal involvement in financial services and housing, and has even suggested that the federal government should take over banks. In addition to all this, he has voiced support to raise taxes to balance the budget.

Senator Graham seems to like taxes and is one of the lead supporters of the Internet sales tax proposal.

Serving on the Judiciary Committee, Graham has helped push many liberal judges through the judicial nomination process, including two Obama Supreme Court nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Graham has also worked with Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer to constantly bring up immigration legislation. He has also been one of the strongest advocates for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens
Graham has become one of the most influential and vocal members on foreign policy while serving as a member of the Armed Services Committee. However, he has clashed with conservatives by supporting military missions to support various Islamist insurgencies. And although he has been a vocal opponent of enhanced interrogations methods, he has also been the most vocal member of either party to express a willingness to clamp down on civil liberties as the price for national security.

A brighter side of Senator Graham’s career is in his work of oversight as a member of Judiciary. He has aggressively challenged Senate Democrats to investigate the Benghazi scandal and has been an outspoken critic of Obama’s treatment of Israel. He has also been a consistent conservative vote on most social issues.

Unfortunately, his policy of confirming almost every liberal judge pretty much cancels out the benefits of those votes.

#4…Orrin Hatch
Ironically, Senator Hatch ran his first campaign in Utah by claiming that his opponent had been in Washington too long and had lost touch with his constituents.

Over 35 years later he has appeared to have suffered the same fate. Recognized as a well-practiced career politician, Senator Hatch’s voting record has shifted away from the right over the years and he has become a solidly centrist/left leaning “establishment” Republican, and especially leaning to the left on social issues
It wasn’t always that way.

He was elected to the U.S. Senate as a conservative “culture warrior.” It seems that Senator Hatch quickly learned his way around Washington and began to engage in complex deal-making instead of advancing a conservative agenda. For example, he voted for the creation of the Department of Education and has advocated federal intervention in education while on the HELP Committee.

What else?
While on the HELP committee, he supported the expansion of federal intervention into healthcare by sponsoring the first bill mandating the purchase of health insurance. Senator Hatch was also behind the SCHIP entitlement. At its creation in 1997, SCHIP was the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since Lyndon Johnson established Medicaid in 1965.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Hatch has done little to oppose the liberal nominees of the Obama administration. On the Finance Committee, Hatch has a long record of supporting tax pork for green energy and has been a passionate supporter of earmarks, especially those that benefit his state.

When it comes to illegal immigration, he has been one of the strongest voices for amnesty, having served as the critical vote for the Gang of 8 amnesty bill both in committee and on the Senate floor. Senator Hatch was also an early supporter of the DREAM Act and for agriculture jobs bills. These legislative actions have become the basis of the current Democrat immigration agenda.

Although Utah is traditionally a conservative state, Senator Hatch has been anything but on social issues. How so? For one, he was a strong supporter for the bills granting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. In addition, he supported special unions for same-sex relationships for many years and has argued that Republicans should not fight for traditional marriage.

Overall, Hatch has been to the left of his constituents in Utah and is someone to watch in his new role as Chairman of the Finance Committee. Given that this will be his last term and he will not face the primary voters again, his policy leanings may become unpredictable.

#5…Thad Cochran  

Although a Republican, Cochran has always worked closely with Democrats to expand federal government and to increase spending. In Washington he is regarded as a big-time pork barrel spender; so much so that he has often been referred to as the “King of Pork.”

Cochran does not take stands for the issues that make up the very core of the conservative movement. This has been evident in his willingness to consistently vote to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, his unwillingness to support conservatives against Obamacare, and in voting for amnesty for illegal aliens.

As a member of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Cochran has consistently opposed welfare reform and has dissented from conservatives on tax cuts. He even attacked his conservative primary challenger, Chris McDaniel, for supporting an essentially foundational GOP fiscal agenda.

Cochran has been disappointingly liberal on issues such as guns, abortion, and immigration. This is coming from a Senator from a socially conservative state like Mississippi. Cochran has betrayed conservative voters on many social issues, such as his support for embryonic stem cell research and as well as taxpayer-subsidized abortions.

Despite being a military veteran, Cochran has consistently supported treaties that weaken U.S. standing in the world, and he has opposed efforts to hold the U.N. and Iran accountable.

Over the course of more than 40 years in Washington, Senator Cochran has cast numerous liberal votes and has led liberal initiatives on fiscal, social, and national security issues. Despite four decades as a Republican Senator in Washington, Thad Cochran has failed to provide conservative leadership on almost every conservative issue.


OK, We know what the problem is.
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