Revealed: We Now Know Who Lobbied Debate Commission for a ‘Mute’ Button, and It Tells Us Everything

 by Sister Toldjah

In this combination image of two photos showing both President Donald Trump, left, and former Vice President Joe Biden during the first presidential debate Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

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As we previously reported, Tuesday night’s presidential debate had barely gotten started before Democrats, the media, and Never Trumpers (but I repeat myself) began floating the idea of scrapping the next two debates, supposedly in the interests of sparing the American people from the horrors of having to watch two people duke it out for the highest office in the land.

Many of them took to social media to complain about how President Trump allegedly made a mockery of the “sacred tradition” of political debates and supposedly did a disservice to the American people, yada yada.

Not long after the debate was over a related idea took root in Democratic circles about how if the remaining debates weren’t canceled they should be set up to where the moderator(s) had access to a “mute” button to be able to better control the debate flow and to keep candidates in check.

Democrats didn’t even hide the motivations behind such calls. Confirming the goal was to shut Trump up, Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) said during a press conference Wednesday that “maybe we should give the moderator a mute button, given how President Trump just interrupts at will. And the bottom line is Donald Trump doesn’t follow the rules [and] the commission has got to get a lot tougher.”

But requests to the debate commission for rule changes can’t be made by random politicians. They have to come from either another member of the rules committee or from one of the campaigns directly involved in the debate itself.

The rules commission made clear the day after the debate that they were already considering implementing changes to the rules for the next two debates in order “to ensure that additional tools to maintain order are in place for the remaining debates.”

One of the rules they were reportedly considering was giving moderators the option to mute the candidates. But did the idea come from anyone on the debate commission?

No.

In a report Thursday that got much less attention than it should have, Fox News reported that the request for a mute button for the upcoming debates was made by … the Biden campaign:

Sources close to the negotiations between the commission and the campaigns told Fox News that the Biden campaign’s debate negotiator, Brady Williamson, specifically requested a “mute button” be allowed for the next presidential debates.

One source said that Williamson’s request was made Wednesday morning, just hours after the first showdown. The source said that the request was made in front of at least two dozen witnesses.

Not long after the request for the mute button was made, the commission released their statement noting they were considering making changes.

Brady Williamson has denied making a mute button request.

Sometime before or after the on-air meltdown he had yesterday over the criticism he faced for his conduct during the Thursday White House press briefing, Fox News’s John Roberts filed this report on the Biden campaign’s mute button request, noting his sources told him the button was a “Biden ask”:

As I noted earlier this week, there’s a reason Democrats are panicking. They were reminded all over again Tuesday of what Trump did in the 2016 debates. He bought up issues about his opponent that he knew moderators wouldn’t. He kept on talking and trying to fact check his opponent because he knew the moderator would otherwise give him a pass, as happened numerous times Tuesday night.

Also, people who believe their candidate “won” a debate don’t typically go around advocating that they no longer participate in future debates or for moderators to have the ability to cut their opponent’s mic.

People should not be fooled by what Democrats, Never Trumpers, and the media are trying to do here.

They aren’t talking about canceling debates or adding a mute button in the interests of “civility” and “new tone” and all that. They’re making these demands because they’re worried about those seeds of doubt about Biden’s character and ability to lead that Trump will continue to plant at the debates (assuming they still have them in light of his COVID diagnosis), which they fear will win over just enough people to help Trump win where it counts – in key states where the election will be close.

https://www.redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2020/10/02/revealed-we-now-know-who-lobbied-debate-commission-for-a-mute-button-and-it-tells-us-everything/

 

New Poll Says ‘Temporary Safety’ Is Kicking ‘Essential Liberty’s’ Butt

 by streiff

New York Gov, Andrew Cuomo holds his face mask while talking to the media at the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, March 26, 2020. Gov. Cuomo rang the opening bell as the trading floor partially reopened during the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

 
One thing the ongoing pandemic panic is showing us is just how incredibly fragile our liberties are when confronted by political players willing to use the color of science and pseudo-science to curtail our ability to exercise rights guaranteed to us by the US Constitution.

Across the nation, we’ve seen governors and mayors enact arbitrary rules and regulations controlling the circumstances under which you can leave your home, how many visitors you can have, requiring you to sit on the sand rather than a chair, etc., etc., all under the shabby pretense of protecting us from the dreaded Wuhan virus, or China virus in the terminology of President Trump. These rules and regulations have all been promulgated by people who a) are not elected, b) not accountable, and c) who seemingly don’t know their ass from a hot rock.

More troubling is we’ve seen police forces arrest parents in front of their children for being on an empty playground, we’ve seen a mother tased for not wearing a face diaper and a high school sports event by a police officer who was not wearing one but who didn’t tase himself, we’ve seen high ranking public officials move their own parent out of a nursing home as they were signing an order requiring nursing homes to accept Wuhan virus patients, and we’ve even seen the Supreme Court agree that a governor can close churches while keeping casinos open.

The question, for me, comes back always to “how long will Americans put up with the tyranny of fearmongers? The answer appears to be “quite some time.” This from the Washington Post: New survey: Yes, Americans will give up liberties to fight the coronavirus:

Our Web-based survey was distributed by Qualtrics nationwide from Aug. 7 to Sept. 7. Quotas based on race, gender, age and census statistical division, matched to 2018 Census estimates, were put in place to ensure a demographically and geographically representative sample. Respondents were presented with either/or policy choices that explicitly emphasized public health and civil rights trade-offs, giving us a window into public opinion about what sacrifices are appropriate.

Specifically, we asked whether the government should be able to:

· Require people to wear masks in public — or not, out of respect for personal freedom

· Close nonessential businesses — or not, out of respect for economic freedom

· Require people to cooperate with contact tracers — or not, out of respect for the right to privacy

· Require people to stay at home — or not, out of respect for freedom of movement

· Restrict religious gatherings — or not, because of religious freedom

· Restrict public demonstrations — or not, because of freedom of speech and assembly

· Suspend asylum and refugee admissions — or not, protecting human rights

· Use cellphone data to track the movement of people who test positive for the coronavirus — or not, given a right to privacy.

Respondents overwhelmingly and consistently agreed the government should be able to place restrictions and requirements on businesses and people to protect public health.

I’m going to quote more text that I ordinarily would but the absence of any link to an actual document prevents it. The survey asked about support for eight specific policies: mandatory mask-wearing; shut down businesses; mandate cooperation with contact tracers; mandatory stay-at-home; curtail religious services; restrict demonstrations; restrict asylum, and give the government access to cell phone data.

As you can see in the figure below, 69.4 percent to 78.3 percent of our respondents support the government’s right to implement six of the eight proposed policies. Only 60 percent support policies designed to restrict asylum and refugee programs. The majority (58.3 percent) rejected only one proposed policy: using cellphone data to track infected people, a method primarily deployed in other countries.

There was also a link to Trump:

Not surprisingly, individuals’ party affiliations affect which policies they support. On average, Democrats support 74.2 percent of the listed policies; Republicans support 61.5 percent; Libertarians support 52.1 percent; independents, 68 percent; and those affiliated with other parties, 61.3 percent. However, as you can see in the figure below, whether respondents approve of President Trump’s job performance moderates the effect of party affiliation for Republicans, Democrats, independents, and libertarians. Across party lines, those critical of the president are more likely to favor limits on rights and freedoms to protect public health. Accordingly, Republicans critical of Trump are more supportive of restrictive policies than Democrats who approve of his performance. In other words, Trump support trumps partisanship.

On the one hand, the poll appears to be largely crap. The fact that they don’t mention the number of surveys sent out, response rate, etc. is a hint that they don’t want their work too closely examined.

Having said that, outside of a few flashes of independence, as a nation we’ve been totally supine as our liberties have been stripped away in the service of defeating a virus that is highly survivable:

On the eve of the French and Indian War, Benjamin Franklin gave a speech in the Pennsylvania legislature that has become famous. “Those,” he said, “who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” In this case, Franklin was telling Scots Irish settlers on the frontier to suck it up and deal with Indian raids because the political skirmish he was having with the Penn proprietors was the real important issue.

Our dilemma is much worse. We are sacrificing essential liberties, like assembly, and worship, and the ability to go to your father’s funeral without ending up jailed, for nothing. Not. A. Single. Thing. If we accept that, we deserve whatever the multi-degreed sociopaths in lab coats dole out to us.

https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/10/01/932503/

 

CA’s New Microstamping Law Is A Slow-Motion Gun Ban

 by Cam Edwards

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Californians could see the number of handguns available for sale in the state dwindle even further, thanks to an anti-gun overhaul of the state’s microstamping law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday. AB 2847 makes some major changes to the existing microstamping law, which has been on the books since 2012 and has already blocked sales of new models of handguns for years.

The original version of the microstamping law required handgun manufacturers to design their handguns to imprint a unique identifying code on each ammunition cartridge as it was fired. In fact, gun companies had to ensure that there were actually two microstamps on each round of ammunition, which was virtually impossible for manufacturers to comply with.

As a result, not only have new handgun models not been approved for sale in the state since 2012, but about half of the handguns that were on the state’s roster of approved handguns have been removed in the years since. Every time a manufacturer made a small design tweak to an existing model, California’s Department of Justice claimed it was an entirely new model subject to the microstamping provisions, and removed the handgun from the state’s roster.

The slow-motion handgun ban will continue, and likely speed up a bit with the new microstamping language. Now manufacturers only need to imprint the microstamp on each fired round in one location, which the state says is feasible. For every new microstamped model that becomes available for sale in California, however, several older models of handguns will disappear from the roster of approved guns.

The new law seeks to speed up micro-stamping of guns by instructing the attorney general to remove three models from the state list of handguns certified as safe for sale for each new compliant handgun model that is introduced.

The law is opposed by groups including the National Rifle Assn. and the California Rifle and Pistol Assn.

Removing three firearm models certified by the state as safe from the list of allowable guns for every new one added is “nonsensical and a blatant effort to curtail law-abiding citizens’ choice to determine the right firearm for the defense of themselves and their loved ones,” Daniel Reid, western regional director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

With anti-gun lawmakers and law-enforcement officers like California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and San Francisco D.A. Chesa Boudin embracing the move, you know it’s not likely to benefit gun owners or firearms manufacturers. Unfortunately, the new law isn’t likely to benefit law enforcement either. The only way to imprint that unique microstamp on every spent round is to use the firing pin of each handgun to stamp the cartridge case, but the technology is easily defeated, either by defacing the firing pin with an abrasive material like a metal file or by simply swapping out the firing pin with another.

In fact, the law makes no mention of what happens if a legal gun owner needs to replace the firing pin in a microstamped handgun. Firing pins can wear out and break through repeated use, but the law has no provision for replacing the gun part. If a gun owner swaps out a microstamped firing pin with an unmicrostamped pin, are they breaking the law? Has their handgun suddenly become “unsafe”?

Rather than a valuable crime fighting tool, microstamping is simply another way to reduce the numbers and types of handguns available to California gun owners. The only silver lining with the new law is that it will likely lead to a new legal challenge. A lawsuit filed against the state over the original microstamping law was one of nearly a dozen Second Amendment-related cases rejected by the Supreme Court earlier this year, but the makeup of the Court will have changed by the time a challenge to the new law reaches SCOTUS, which should give gun owners some hope that justices will be more amenable to grant cert to a microstamping challenge the next time around.

https://bearingarms.com/cam-e/2020/10/01/microstamping-slo-mo-gun-ban/

Inside Democrats’ Playbook To Destroy Republican Judicial Nominees

 Inside Democrats’ Playbook To Destroy Republican Judicial Nominees

The leftist attacks on the faith, family, and character of Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett are — sadly — neither surprising nor new.

By Chip Roy

The initial battle plan by establishment leftists to attack the faith, family, and character of Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett is neither surprising nor new. As a counsel on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for more than five years, I gained a clear inside look at the tactics used by Senate Democrats to personally attack GOP judicial nominees.

In 2003, I was working on the committee for Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, when Judge Janice Rogers Brown and Judge Priscilla Owen received their respective nominations to the D.C. and 5th Circuit courts of appeals.

That year, for the first time in our nation’s history, Senate Democrats launched a filibuster attack on numerous Bush circuit court nominees. Two of their victims were Brown and Owen, of whom I can attest to their character and congeniality. What were their great crimes? They were conservative women — in the case of Judge Brown, she was a minority conservative woman.

For two years, Democrats continued the unprecedented filibustering and constant attacks. Brown and Owen were 2 of 10 circuit court nominees Democrats delayed or stopped during President George W. Bush’s first term. Brown and Owen were eventually confirmed, but not without cost.

Prior to Brown’s confirmation vote, Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., then chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, quipped Brown’s only qualification for the job was that she could be a person Republicans could put on the court whose “face is black.” Prior to her nomination, Brown was a California state Supreme Court judge with an outstanding record of achievement in both the public and private sectors. Yet Watt also accused her, a black woman, of being against the wants and needs of black Americans.

As for Owen, The New York Times editorial board argued Senate Democrats should once again filibuster her nomination to stop “extreme conservatives” from “hijacking the federal judiciary.” Owen is now the chief judge on the 5th Circuit.

While Brown and Owen made it through, the same cannot be said of Miguel Estrada, whose nomination Senate Democrats stopped. What was his crime? He was young, incredibly intelligent, capable, and — most importantly — Hispanic. That is a known truth in Washington, D.C., that nobody talks about openly, but the very Democrats I worked with on the other side of the aisle on the Judiciary Committee put that in writing.

A Nov. 7, 2001 memo to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., from Democratic staffers on the committee explained they must stop Estrada’s nomination “because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment.”

After a brutal 28 months of filibustering, Senate Democrats, fueled by underlying racist rhetoric, made Estrada the first appeals court nominee in history to be successfully stopped by filibuster. Just over a year after he withdrew his nomination after unprecedented attacks on him personally, Estrada lost his wife in unfortunate circumstances. But the Democrats had their scalp: the destruction of Estrada, a conservative who could potentially have become the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.

Unfortunately, it did not stop there. I remember the 2005 confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Ask Justice Alito’s lovely wife, Martha Ann, who broke into tears after Democrats cast baseless allegations at her husband in an attempt to undermine his moral character before the American people.

And we needn’t replay the complete circus of vitriolic attacks on now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh. It was again, right out of the playbook — this time a page from the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas. Senate Democrats, led by Joe Biden, embarked on perhaps the most disgusting assault on a person’s character we’ve ever witnessed in a hearing.

Justice Thomas explained in his hearing:

From my standpoint as a black American, as far as I’m concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree.

Whenever I re-watch that response from Thomas, which he jams back down the throats of the Judiciary Committee senators, it is important to remember why he did so. It wasn’t for the Supreme Court. It was to defend his good name. Remember that.

Remember that Amy Coney Barrett is a human being. She is a mom, a wife, a friend, and a sitting judge who has a name and a reputation.

Remember that it was President Donald Trump who nominated her in the face of vitriol and hatred for doing so — despite the fact every president has done the same thing. Remember that the Senate’s job is to reject or confirm and that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not embark on an effort to destroy Judge Merrick Garland’s reputation or sully his character, but simply exercised the rights of the majority not to confirm.

When Democrats see the futility of personal attacks against Barrett, and switch gears to an attack on judicial rulings and outcomes on votes on certain abortion laws or health-care laws, remember that it is her job is to interpret the law and the Constitution, not to make the law or re-write the Constitution.

Remember Democrats do not share this view and therefore justify the tearing down of fine public servants to achieve an end. The nation deserves better. Good for Judge Barrett for putting on the armor of God and taking the nomination of this president and standing up for America.

Chip Roy is the Republican representative for the 21st congressional district in Texas.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/01/inside-democrats-playbook-to-destroy-republican-judicial-nominees/

Foreign policy expert Walid Phares says 'militant' U.S. media have become 'opposition'

Foreign policy expert Walid Phares says 'militant' U.S. media have become 'opposition'

Phares drew a parallel to media in some Middle Eastern nations or the former Soviet Union.

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Walid Phares in 2017

(Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

By Alex Nitzberg

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Foreign policy expert Walid Phares says American media have abandoned their neutrality and now act like some outlets in the Middle East or former Soviet Union.

"It's a militant media. It's the opposition media. Mainstream media is gone, it's dead," Phares said Wednesday on the John Solomon Reports podcast.

Phares, the author of the book "The Choice: Trump vs. Obama-Biden in U.S. Foreign Policy," said that those working in the media industry emerge from institutions of higher education that have been infected by leftist ideology and foreign funding that has perverted the academic field of international relations. 

Phares said that the college classroom "has been corrupted for decades now either because of the far-left, I call them the neo-Bolsheviks, who wants to repeat the experience of the early 20th century which has failed and that is militant Communism, or, since the at least late 70's, early 80's a huge influx of petrodollars coming from the Middle East and other spots in the world ... that corrupted the study of international relations."

He said that foreign lobbies have "a direct impact" on U.S. media, noting that "the Qatar lobby has engaged with the New York Times in one year, 2018, more than 70 times. It is public information."

https://justthenews.com/accountability/media/foreign-policy-expert-walid-phares-describes-media-militant

MORE ON TRUMP’S TAXES...TRUMP CONFESSES TO THE NY TIMES TAX STORY

 MORE ON TRUMP’S TAXES

BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN DONALD TRUMP, MEDIA BIAS

Steve beat me to this, I see, but here are a few additional comments on the New York Times’s felony du jour. Well, to be fair, they just aided and abetted the felony. Maybe someday that will be illegal.

First, I doubt whether anyone cares. Donald Trump has been president for four years, and if you think he has done a good job (as I do), you are hardly going to be deterred from voting for him by the fact that he hires good accountants. The people who are excited about the Times felony/scoop weren’t going to vote for him anyway.

Second, on its face the Times “expose” falls flat. I understand that someone at the IRS feloniously leaked Trump’s tax returns for more than 20 years, and it is true, as Trump has said, that he has been subject to one or more audits also extending over a period of years. So apparently the IRS has been unable to find anything wrong with Trump’s tax returns. Case closed.

Third, this retired tax accountant supplies a knowledgeable perspective, as opposed to anything you might read in the co-conspirator Times:

[S]ure enough, this morning my feed is filled with people who don’t know shit about taxes retweeting the stupid opinions of other morons who also don’t know shit about taxes. This is just as annoying as last week when these same idiots all suddenly became Constitutional Scholars. Or the month before that when they were all experts on use of force laws and police tactics. Or the month before that when they suddenly got their epidemiology degrees from the University of Internet and turned into infectious disease experts.
***
Which brings us to today, with people freaking out about how Trump allegedly didn’t pay taxes for 10 out of 15 years and how that’s UNFAIR. Assuming that the anonymous tip isn’t total bullshit—and this is the New York Times we’re talking about and they love to just make shit up—and that the information is accurate (which means that whoever leaked it committed a felony, but that’s a whole different discussion)… my answer is so?

Is it plausible that a billionaire paid no taxes for a period of several years? Yep. Totally. See all that stuff I wrote above about the complicated tax code and how it is an accountant’s sacred duty to take advantage of all the stupid laws congress has passed to save their client’s money? Pretty much that. It has happened many times before, and it will happen many times again.
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I recall a similar freak out several years ago when it came out that some giant mega-corp (I think it was GE, but I don’t remember) didn’t pay any taxes due to some Obama green energy tax breaks. Only that time the freak out was coming from the right (who hate Obama) and the Bernie Bros (who hate all business). It’s the same kind of thing though. If the laws are on the books, of course companies (and individuals) are going to take advantage of those laws. THAT IS WHY CONGRESS PUT THEM THERE.

Much more at the link. I believe it was Donald Trump who once said that the two places where you don’t try to save money are helicopter pilots and accountants. That is especially true if you are a real estate developer.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/09/more-on-trumps-taxes.php

TRUMP CONFESSES TO THE NY TIMES TAX STORY

BY STEVEN HAYWARD IN 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, DONALD TRUMP, TAXES

Have you heard—Donald Trump admits that he takes advantage of the tax code to minimize his taxes! And he’s even admitted it to the New York Times! Here’s the scoop:

Donald Trump Acknowledges Not Paying Federal Income Taxes for Years

Donald J. Trump explicitly acknowledged for the first time during Sunday’s debate that he used a $916 million loss that he reported on his 1995 income tax returns to avoid paying personal federal income taxes for years.

Mr. Trump’s response — “Of course I do. Of course I do” — was the fullest the wealthy developer had provided since The New York Times reported that he had declared the loss, and that the tax deduction could have been large enough to allow him to avoid federal income taxes for up to 18 years.

Previously he had declined to comment on the documents, issuing a statement that neither challenged nor confirmed the $916 million loss.

The date of this scoop: October 10, 2016.

So what, exactly, is the “news” in the current New York Times story on Trump’s taxes that has everyone doing backflips? Aside, that is, from the fact that someone at the IRS violated federal law in disclosing Trump’s tax returns to the Times.

Contrast Trump, by the way, with Mitt Romney, who went out of his way to increase his income tax liability precisely to conform to liberal demands that rich people must be punished.

I expect this issue may come up in the debate tomorrow night, and I hope that Trump will challenge Biden to give an answer as to why Biden apparently made no effort to reform the tax code during his 35 years in the Senate, and why the Obama-Biden administration did nothing about it when they had supermajorities in Congress 10 years ago.

Funny the Times runs this story just now, isn’t it?

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/09/trump-confesses-to-the-ny-times-tax-story.php

McConnell Bulldozes Democrat Attacks on Judge Barrett

 McConnell Bulldozes Democrat Attacks on Judge Barrett

Katie Pavlich

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 @KatiePavlich

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Source: (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Speaking from the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ripped Democrats for their refusal to meet with Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and for their egregious personal attacks against her. 

“As I predicted last week, the far left is rushing to make this nomination about anything but Judge Barrett’s qualifications. The instant she was announced, they started with the same unhinged attacks they have recycled for every Supreme Court nomination by every Republican president since the 1970s," McConnell said. "Remember, the far left said Justice Stevens opposed ‘women’s rights.’ That Justice Kennedy would be ‘a disaster for women.’ That Justice Souter would put the ‘health and lives’ of Americans at risk."

“Well, Saturday went like clockwork. The political left took one look at Judge Barrett’s qualifications, gave up on debating the merits, and headed right for the old scare tactics. Our colleague the Democratic Leader informed Americans that this 48-year-old working mother was going to ‘turn back the clock on women’s rights.’ The junior Senator for California said the nominee would ‘harm millions of Americans.’ The junior Senator for Connecticut said, quote, ‘Amy Coney Barrett would create a humanitarian catastrophe.’ Here we go again," he continued. "One of the pre-selected scare tactics is that Judge Barrett is out to steal Americans’ healthcare coverage. That’s the claim: This mother of seven, including multiple children who were born or adopted facing pre-existing medical challenges, is just itching to block families like hers from accessing medical care. What a joke."

In addition, McConnell defended Judge Barrett against attacks on her faith, which were also made during her confirmation hearing for the U.S. Circuit Court. 

“Three years ago, Senate Democrats’ bizarre attacks on Judge Barrett’s religious faith became a national embarrassment for their side of the aisle. The senior Senator for Illinois asked now-Judge Barrett ‘Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?’ This was during a United States Senate hearing. The senior Senator for California told her that ‘the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern,’" McConnell said. “This was not an isolated incident. Over the past few years, multiple Senate Democrats, on multiple different occasions, have openly suggested that certain kinds of religious beliefs might disqualify citizens from public service."

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"But every time they try to use the nominee’s personal faith as a political weapon, they will only be reminding millions of Americans why it is so essential to have judges just like Judge Barrett on the bench," he continued. “In this country, our country, citizens have religious liberty. In this country, our country, there is no religious test for public office. And in this country, our country, we have the right to seek the protection of the courts when our free exercise of religion is threatened. That is why we need judges like Judge Barrett, who understand our laws and Constitution and will uphold our freedoms accordingly."

Watch his full speech below: 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2020/09/29/mcconnell-bulldozes-democrat-attacks-on-judge-barrett-n2577167

The Devil and Joe Biden

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The Devil and Joe Biden By: Bill O'Reilly

A front page article in the Wall Street Journal reminded me that a Roman Catholic priest in South Carolina denied Joe Biden communion just about one year ago.  Reverend Robert Morey blessed Mr. Biden but refused him the host, later saying the former Vice-President’s liberal position on abortion defies church teaching.   As with many Catholic politicians, Mr. Biden fell back on the rationalization that he could not impose his “private” beliefs on other Americans.  But in Biden’s case, that rings very hollow.   For decades then Senator Joe Biden supported the Hyde Amendment, which disallows federal money for the abortion procedure because that violates the religious rights of Catholics and other religious people.  There are exceptions for rape, incest, and serious medical danger to the mother.   The Hyde Amendment was fair because pro-choice Americans can easily donate money to fund Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers thereby assuring legal abortions can be made available to all.   There is no need for the federal government to force religious Americans to fund a life-ending procedure they reject on moral grounds.   But the new, progressive Joe Biden now repudiates the Hyde Amendment in a stunning reversal of conscience.  He also selected Kamala Harris, an aggressive pro-choice advocate, as his running mate.  Some describe the Biden-Harris ticket as the most pro-abortion political duo in history.   The Democratic platform is very clear: there should be no restrictions on abortion whatsoever.  A number of states have rebelled against that using “science” to justify regulations.  It is a medical fact that a baby is viable in the womb long before birth. Many legislators believe destroying a fetus after viability is a violation of human rights.   Joe Biden has not responded to that point-of-view and that’s his problem with the Catholic Church.  His political posture enables abortion at any time, for any reason. Just this week, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Vigano, warned Catholic voters that killing babies is “demonic.”   With almost 70 million Catholics registered to vote, Biden’s flip-flop on the Hyde Amendment and his political embrace of Senator Harris, could be a problem for him on Election Day.   However, the former Vice President is counting on the Catholic clergy remaining largely silent.  The church is frightened, intimidated, and under financial siege due to the clerical abuse of children.  Few American priests will speak out on anything.   After Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the nation’s most powerful Catholic voice, said the opening prayer at the Republican National Convention, he was brutally attacked on social and traditional media.  Some wealthy Catholic donors even resigned from church boards.  The message was heard loud and clear by Catholic clergy in America.   So Mr. Biden may well believe he has little to fear from the Church.   As for Joe’s faithfulness to the faith, who really knows?  In 1936, Stephen Vincent Benet wrote a short story entitled “The Devil and Daniel Webster.”  In it, a good man sells his soul for prosperity.  In real life, it would be unfair to suggest that any politician would ever do that.   Wouldn’t it? https://www.billoreilly.com/b/The-Devil-and-Joe-Biden/127562914646122014.html