Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:04 pm
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) may have unendorsed Donald Trump back in June but don’t get the idea that he is in any way the moderate Republican he would like you to think he is, let alone an upright guy.
No, Kirk, who says he likes to drive fast through black neighborhoods, claims that in returning $400 in Iranian money to Iran, President Obama is “acting like the drug dealer in chief.”
He told The State Journal-Register last week that,
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“We can’t have the president of the United States acting like the drug dealer in chief. Giving clean packs of money to a … state sponsor of terror. Those 500-euro notes will pop up across the Middle East. …. We’re going to see problems in multiple (countries) because of that money given to them.”
Now we’re back to Donald Trump’s airplane full of money. When Tammy Duckworth’s campaign said Kirk, who has previously claimed Obama wants “to get nukes to Iran,” should apologize for his “deeply offensive” comments, Kirk’s campaign manager, Kevin Artl, shot back,
“Sen. Kirk was referring to the administration’s decision to send pallets of cash, not even US dollars, but euros and Swiss francs, in a clear ransom payment to Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The decision sets an awful and dangerous international standard that should be investigated and the lack of transparency from the administration clearly indicated they knew their actions were not above board.”
Well. It isn’t a payment when it’s Iran’s own money. That would be like arguing that when I withdraw money from my bank, the bank is paying me. Last week he even called for more Congressional hearings, as though we don’t have enough of those from a do-nothing Congress that thinks their jobs is to investigate Democrats rather than pass laws:
“Congressional hearings are the only way for American ppl to know whether their tax $ went to Iranian terrorists.”
The Southern Illinoisan lambasted Kirk in 2015 for his “irresponsible drivel†on the Iran deal, calling him “the love child of Michele Bachmann and Ted Cruz, a man more concerned with making a name within his party’s fringe than representing his constituents.”
Apparently, nothing has changed.
Kirk was unable or unwilling to answer the question posed by CNN whether Trump or Clinton was the bigger risk as president, saying Colin Powell would be the best choice.
Needless to say, Kirk’s choice, Colin Powell favored Obama’s Iran deal last year, calling the deal Kirk hates so much “a good deal.” So is Kirk trying to tell us he’d have liked the deal if a Republican had negotiated it?
The slippery Kirk jettisoned Trump only in order to protect himself, yet he would not have endorsed Trump in the first place had he a lick of sense, not to say integrity. As his opponent, Tammy Duckworth said, “It’s hard not to feel like Kirk is trying to play both sides of the debate.”
Kirk, like Trump, is in it only for himself and will say what he thinks needs to be said that will get him votes, publicly distancing himself from Trump while continuing to sound just like him. An actual spine he has not, nor any actual personal integrity.
As one observer has noted, this is “NeverTrumper Kirk reasserting his street cred with GOP racists” in language they all understand.
Senator Kirk may have unendorsed Trump, calling him “too racist and bigoted for the party of Lincoln,” but the racist and bigoted Kirk resembles Trump in every way, as his racist angry old white guy attacks on the president demonstrate.
Photo: https://www.kirk.senate.gov/
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
