Senator John Cornyn--AINO

The Weekly American In Name Only Report

It pains me to write this week’s American In Name Only (AINO) article; not because I was ever a rabid fan of this week’s nominee, but because my state is stuck with him as its Senator.

Enter John Cornyn, the senior Senator from the State of Texas. Cornyn has been in and around politics since 1991 when he served for six years on the Texas Supreme Court. He then made the jump to Attorney General in 1999, holding that office until he was elected to the US Senate in 2002, where he has been ever since.

I’m not sure what happened to Cornyn along the way while he’s been in the Senate. In 2007, he got into a shouting match with Arizona Senator John McCain, questioning McCain’s push for multiple judicial appeals for illegals to receive approval to stay in the US. He pushed hard against certifying the 2008 Minnesota Senate election results that saw Democrat Al Franken challenge Republican Norm Coleman, even threatening that the GOP would bring about “World War III” if the Senate attempted to seat Franken before the appeals process was complete. Cornyn voted to confirm Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito to their positions on the Supreme Court and voted against Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. During Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, Cornyn even handed out Bingo cards to reporters in the gallery, encouraging them to stamp their cards every time one of the Democratic Senators on the Judicial Committee used words like “far right” or “extremist.” He seemed to be legitimately conservative and a decent supporter of Texas’ conservatives’ attitudes.

But something changed. Over the last year or so, he’s been making some very non-conservative moves in the Senate.

I wrote about Cornyn in June of last year when he declared his support for “Biden” trying to push Critical Race Theory on US schools. Cornyn was one of the co-sponsors of the bill, known as the Civics Secures Democracy Act, that would have seen billions of dollars go to schools around the country in exchange for adding CRT to their required curriculum. Fortunately, the bill never made it to the Senate floor for a vote, but advocating for what amounts to educational racism doesn’t’ really fly with GOP voters in Texas, or America for that matter.

Last year, around the same time, Cornyn, along with fourteen other Senators, jumped on the gun control bandwagon after the Uvalde shooting, and attempted to push through another gun control law to go with the umpteen thousand we already have on the books. I get it; the memory of Uvalde was still fresh in a lot of peoples’ minds, and they felt something needed to be done (or at least the impression of something needed to be done). This ended up being another one of DC’s favorite carrot and stick approaches to the problem, offering money to states if they’d enact “red flag laws.” Unfortunately, it was short on details when it came to “red flags,” leaving far too many gray areas of who constituted a threat and needed to have their firearms taken away. And as we all know, “Biden’s” Department of (In)Justice just loves gray areas when it comes to enforcement of the law.

Cornyn’s most recent incident that calls his bona fides into question came after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as House Speaker. Cornyn popped off with his opinion of Representative Matt Gaetz and the other GOP reps who sided with Democrats to eject McCarthy from his role in the House, calling them “terrorists.”

Cornyn on Twitter: “We saw a similar thing happen to Boehner, Ryan, and now McCarthy. I’m sure the next speaker is going to be subjected to the same terrorist attacks. A handful [of] House members just want to blow up the institution and themselves in the process. Sad.”

Huh. Terrorist attack, you say. Vocabulary.com defines a terrorist attack as “a surprise attack involving the deliberate use of violence against civilians in the hope of attaining political or religious aims.” Was there violence directed at McCarthy? Maybe I missed it. I recall a vote happening; I don’t remember Matt Gaetz charging the Speaker’s podium, pointing a gun at McCarthy and ordering him to vacate. Agree with the motion and vote or not, it really doesn’t rise to the level of terrorism, Senator.

Cornyn has also come out in opposition to the House’s efforts to investigate the “legal” witch hunts being carried out against President Trump and has supported Mitch McConnell’s stance that we should be writing an endless stream of blank checks to Ukraine.

I don’t know what’s happened to Cornyn. Has he always been a proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing when it comes to his stance on conservative issues, or did his last two decades in DC finally turn him into just another Swamp creature? The company he keeps might be a clue, as he often pops up on camera next to Milquetoast Mitch McConnell. Cornyn seems to have become very comfortable with being McConnell’s buddy. Maybe he’s just ingratiating himself up to Mitch, so when The Turtle finally has one last big brain freeze on camera, Cornyn will be ready to step in and lead Senate Republicans into further mediocrity. What an inspiring guy he is.

Read the room, Senator. Americans see the persecution of President Trump for what it is, and almost no one in the Senate seems to be showing the slightest interest in speaking out against it. Americans are tired of watching our nation’s diminishing wealth being shipped off to Biden’s best buddy Zelensky. Americans see CRT for what it is. So, congratulations, Senator. Your stances on issues important to Americans have earned you this week’s prize.

Senator John Cornyn—AINO.

Thanks for reading.