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News & Politics

UK Terror Continues, SCOTUS To Draw the Lines, The Left is America’s ISIS?

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Rich McFadden of Radio America react to news of yet another terror attack in the UK which targeted British Muslims outside of a London mosque after their evening prayers for Ramadan. They also discuss the Supreme Court’s announcement that they will take up the partisan gerrymandering case in the state of Wisconsin to determine whether or not the act is unconstitutional. And they respond to Erick Erickson’s sensationalist comments as he refers to the left as “America’s ISIS” and advocates for state secession.

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Russia’s ISIS Claim, Troublesome Trump Tweets, Kelly Controversy Continues

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Rich McFadden of Radio America discuss the legitimacy of Russia’s claims that they killed top ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in late May. They also express frustration over more heated tweets from President Donald Trump today in which he angrily states that he is being investigated for obstruction of justice.  And they have a field day with the news that Alex Jones of Infowars released secret recordings from behind the scenes of his interview with Megyn Kelly, an interview which sparked major controversy and outrage across the nation.

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Play Ball!, New York Times Editorial Distorts Facts, Shooter’s Past Overlooked

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Rich McFadden of Radio America applaud Congress for their decision to not allow yesterday’s shooting to cancel the Congressional Baseball Game, a tradition held since 1909. They also express their overwhelming disgust at the New York Times editorial board for publishing an egregious article which falsely claims that political motives caused the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords. And they voice their disbelief at law enforcement officials who ignored the numerous warning signs that pointed towards the Alexandria shooter’s potential for future violence.

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Capitol Police Stop Shooter, Political Attack?, Polarized Media Reactions

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Rich McFadden of Radio America discuss the Capitol Police response to the shooting early Wednesday morning in Alexandria, VA where House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and others were injured during their practice for the 2017 Congressional Baseball Game. They also speculate about the possible motive of the 66-year old shooter from Illinois based on reports of his incendiary political views found on his social media account. And they react to the polarized responses on social media that are erupting across the political spectrum following the attack.

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‘You Said It’s What You’re Going to Do’

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Senate Republican leaders are not offering an specifics on their health care reform bill but reports of critical concessions in at least three major areas leave skeptical conservatives worried that years worth of Obamacare repeal promises are wilting before our eyes.

In recent weeks, reports have described the difficulty of Republicans in cobbling together 50 or 51 votes to advance an Obamacare overhaul.  As a result, leaders are reportedly considering a more generous approach to Medicare expansion, effectively adopting the Obamacare approach to people with pre-existing conditions and, most recently, allowing tax payer funding of Planned Parenthood to continue.

Former Virginia Attorney General and current Senate Conservatives Fund President Ken Cuccinelli says efforts to make everyone happy appear to have taken any meaningful teeth out of the legislation.

“I’m concerned anytime (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell is talking the way he is.  A deal to Mitch McConnell to you and me means capitulation,” said Cuccinelli, who was also the 2013 Republican nominee for Virginia governor.

He says if McConnell embraces a badly watered-down bill, he is breaking promises he clearly made while running for re-election in 2014.

“I remember, ‘Root and branch.  We’re going to pull it out root and branch,'” said Cuccinelli, mimicking McConnell’s 2014 declaration.  “[He ] paid for over 30,000 anti-Obamacare ads in October alone for his re-election in 2014.  He apparently had no intention of keeping those promises.”

But it wasn’t just McConnell.  Every Republican senator has campaigned on addressing Obamacare, with the vast majority vowing to repeal and replace the 2010 law.  What has changed now that the GOP is in a position to do something about it?

“A lot of them lie.  That’s the sad truth that is now being brought home to us,” said Cuccinelli, who also has no use for the argument that dealing with Obamacare is far more complex than a simple repeal vote.

“They love to tell us how complicated it is.  What that means is, ‘You’re stupid and I’m the smart senator.  You don’t know what you’re talking about so you should just adopt my soft, unprincipled position that, oh by the way, is not what I campaigned on,'” said Cuccinelli.

“It’s demeaning to the American people.  It’s patronizing.  It’s elitist and it’s a lie,” said Cuccinelli.

Rather than try to mollify every critic, Cuccinelli says there’s a much simpler way for lawmakers to proceed – do what they promised voters they would do.

“They didn’t say, ‘We’re going to undo parts of it.’  They didn’t say, ‘This is complicated and I’m going to simplify it.’  They said they were going to repeal it.  There was a good article by one of the Fox (News) contributors a little while ago about simply doing what you say you’re going to do.

“Will some people not like it?  Yeah, some people will not like it, but you said it’s what you were going to do,” said Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli points to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial effort to ease the grip of unions on state government as an example of honoring your word in a tough environment.

“We saw the largest protest in the state capital we have ever seen, 100,000 people.  They physically shut the place down with their obstruction.  Scott Walker and the Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature soldiered on and did what they said they would do,” said Cuccinelli.

He says the voters ultimately rewarded that consistency when opponents were able to put a recall election on the ballot.

“Guess what?  The people who had been largely silent, the people of Wisconsin, came back out and returned Scott Walker to office with essentially the same margin as his first election.  He got re-elected again three years after that,” said Cuccinelli.

“The moral of the story is even when people disagree with you, they respect it when you keep your word, even when it’s hard,” said Cuccinelli.

While the House has passed a bill, Cuccinelli says it also is not what voters were promised.  He says President Trump’s biggest mistake was to let GOP leaders lead the process.

“One of the mistakes…was for the White House to turn this over to (House Speaker) Paul Ryan.  What they got was a donor bill.  They did not get a repeal bill.  That’s what the House leadership does.  They caucus with donors,” said Cuccinelli.

Contending that repealing the burdensome regulations in Obamacare is of top priority, Cuccinelli points out that the House bill only address one and a half out of 24 key regulations in the law.

Cuccinelli was the first attorney general in the United States to challenge the Affordable Care Act in court after it was passed into law.  He doesn’t understand why Republicans in Washington don’t just vote on a full repeal.

“They ought to put a real repeal bill up and have a vote.  If you lose Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, that’s still 50 (votes).  And Rand Paul will vote for a real repeal.  He just won’t vote for the other junk.  Then the vice president can break that tie,” said Cuccinelli.

He also says it’s not out of the question for vulnerable Democrats up for re-election in red states next year to get on board.

Cuccinelli and other conservatives balked at the original version of the House’s American Health Care Act, or AHCA.  Most conservatives only got on board after amendments were added to ensure premiums would not increase, even in the short term.

Cuccinelli sees a lot of the same problems emerging in the Senate.

“If we get to an insurance situation instead of a mandate situation, then the bill may be OK.  But if you’re having community rating and forcing pre-existing conditions, it’s not insurance any longer.  It’s a welfare program, which is what Obamacare is right now.

“Until they move it from a welfare program to insurance, where risk is assessed and priced and the market can determine where people land, then it’s not going to be an acceptable bill,” said Cuccinelli.

And would these concessions impact costs to consumers?

“It isn’t going to lower premiums, critically.  All the while, Obamacare is crashing around their ears.  It’s amazing.  How destroyed does this concept have to be until they reject it.  This is classic government.  ‘If it’s broke, do more of what you did before,'” said Cuccinelli.

The reported consideration allowing taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood would be designed to assuage Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.  Cuccinelli says Murkowski’s stand on this component is particularly galling.

“Lisa Murkoswki has been against funding Planned Parenthood during her campaigns and has viciously fought for it after she’s elected.  This is not the first time for Sen. Murkowski to lie to Alaskans about this and to flip back to her pro-abortion position,” said Cuccinelli, asserting no one with that record should be a chairman in a GOP-run Senate.

 

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‘March Against Sharia’ Organizer Hails Results, Rips Critics

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Act for America‘s “March Against Sharia” unfolded in more than 20 American cities on Saturday, with the group’s chairman declaring great momentum from the events and blasting the groups behind the counter-protests in several locations.

“The growth out of this movement has been phenomenal.  We have added 250,000 followers to Act for America,” said Act for America Founder and Chairman Brigitte Gabriel.  “A quarter of a million patriotic Americans stepped up and said, ‘We are joining you.’  We are excited.  This is the movement we have been waiting for.”

She says many Americans are realizing that if they don’t stand up to Sharia law now, they may not have the chance years from now.

“We need to come together to save America because it’s the last man standing.  Europe is gone.  Nobody else in the world can stand up to Islamofacism the way we can.  We need every American who loves this country involved,” said Gabriel.

Gabriel says thousands of Americans turned out for the marches across the nation and many more supported the effort on line, some because they had to work and others because they feared for their safety.  She says the absence of injuries ought to convince many more people to get involved.

“The most important thing that this rally showed to every conservative out there is that you can get out and nobody’s going to kill you.  Nobody’s going to harm you.  The worst they can say to you is you are an Islamophobe,” said Gabriel.

Sharia is the Islamic law that is increasingly seeping into western courtrooms.  Even in the United States, Gabriel says 143 cases in 22 states have allowed Sharia law as a defense.  She says issues like female genital mutilation and honor killings are very real issues in American culture.

Gabriel says Americans may be shocked to know just how many girls have suffered as a result of Sharia’s endorsement of female genital mutilation as a means of supposedly tamping down “hypersexuality.”

“[The Centers for Disease Control] came out and said over a half a million girls – 513,000 girls – in the United States today in 2017 are at risk of female genital mutilation or have already been victims of female genital mutilation.  That’s over half a million American girls,” said Gabriel.

“Who would have thought that in America today we were going to be discussing or sealing with such a barbaric practice that people think is only practiced in the backwoods of Africa and the Middle East,” said Gabriel.

Gabriel says honor killings also continue in our own communities.

“These are girls and women who are killed by a male in their family for simple things such as asking for a divorce, wanting to wear make-up, wanting to go out on a date, or wanting to go out to a cafe with male and female friends,” said Gabriel.

When critics accuse the March against Sharia of being anti-Muslim, Gabriel points to these issues to stress the movement is explicitly anti-Sharia.

“We welcome people to our country from all over the place, from different backgrounds, different religions, different sexual orientations, whatever it is.  I am an immigrant to America.  But we want people who come to the United States to abide by our rules, obey our Constitution. adopt our culture and become part of the American fabric and live in a way that is compatible with our western democracy and respect for human rights,” said Gabriel.

She says that is clearly not happening.

“We do not want people coming here genitally mutilating young American girls, killing American girls in the name of honor or teaching the hatred and encouraging the killing of gays and lesbians, etc.,” said Gabriel.

Gabriel says the active involvement of many Muslims in the March Against Sharia is also evidence of what its focus truly is.

“Our rally included a former imam who helped us organize the rally, four practicing Muslims speaking at our rallies.  The Muslim that organized our Atlanta rally was named Mohammed and he’s the one who pulled it all together.  We had acid attack survivors who spoke at our rallies.  We had Miriam Ibrahim speak at our rally in Virginia Beach,” said Gabriel.

Ibrahim was the woman sentenced to death in Sudan for converting to Christianity and forced to give birth while shackled in prison.  Fierce international pressure eventually led to her release.

Despite those testimonials, Gabriel says the Muslim groups and their liberal allies had no intention of listening.

“Their voices were drowned and that is such a shame because the left is not listening to those voices crying for help and standing up for America’s liberty and security and our western values.  They don’t understand what we’re dealing with and they are being used as useful idiots,” said Gabriel.

She also says the anti-Muslim label is an example of “intentional confusion.”

“Because they could not argue with the facts that we were presenting, they had to change the conversation and make us look like we are Islamophobes and this is anti-Islam,” said Gabriel.

Gabriel says the nexus of groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and far left groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter are joining forces to “drown the voices of patriotic Americans.”

Act for America is looking to build on its momentum at an October conference in Washington, D.C.

“We are going to descend on Washington, D.C., put pressure on elected officials and remind them that America’s national security is the number one concern for the country.  We will not follow the path of Europe,” said Gabriel.

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Feinstein Faults Lynch, Dems Flip Trump Narrative, Democrats Are Sore Losers

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s CNN interview, in which she states that the Senate Judiciary Committee should investigate former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for potentially politicizing the Hillary Clinton investigation. They also react as Feinstein goes on to change the Democratic Party narrative from collusion with Russia to President Trump’s obstruction of justice. And they express little sympathy for Wisconsin Democrats accusing Republicans of partisan redistricting and Jim unloads on liberals who consistently claim an act is unconstitutional if it does not fit with their agenda.

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Sessions Kills Obama-Era ‘Slush Fund’

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions is pulling the plug on a Justice Department policy instituted during the Obama years that effectively forced corporations to settle lawsuits by, in part, donating to leftist political organizations, a practice many critics considered a liberal slush fund.

“When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people—not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power,” said Sessions in a statement.

Former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky is now with the Heritage Foundation.  He is also co-author of “Obama’s Enforcer:  Eric Holder’s Justice Department.”  He calls the former policy nothing more than the government stealing from the American people.

“It’s pretty clear the Obama administration figured out a way to rob the public and help their political allies,” said von Spakovsky, who adds that we’re talking about a lot of money going to Obama’s political friends.

“We’re not talking about chump change here.  My understanding is in the last 30 months before the new administration came in, the Justice Department had funneled about a billion dollars to outside third party groups,” said von Spakovsky.

And who exactly received the money?

“Environmental groups, civil rights groups, ACORN-type groups, that’s who was getting this money,” said von Spakovsky.

He then explained how the process worked.

“When the Justice Department sued defendants such as Volkswagen or the Bank of America claiming they had violated federal law, they entered into settlement agreements with those defendants, in which the defendants agreed to pay a large sum of money to end the litigation,” said von Spakovsky.

“The Obama Justice Department would come in and say, ‘We want you to give a portion of this money to such-and-such organization.’  These were not organizations that had anything to do with the lawsuit.  They weren’t parties to the lawsuit.  They didn’t have members who were injured by whatever the misbehavior was of the company,” said von Spakovsky.

“These are simply third-party, mostly advocacy organizations who were big political allies of the administration.  That, frankly, is really stealing money that is due to the American taxpayer and funneling it to political friends of the government,” added von Spakovsky.

He says this wasn’t just unethical but illegal.

“I actually think it was illegal.  There is a federal law called the Miscellaneous Receipts Act, which requires DOJ lawyers to deposit settlement checks into the U.S. Treasury Department.  That was not happening, so I think it was illegal.  Thanks goodness Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said this is not going to happen anymore,” said von Spakovsky.

However, Sessions appears content to end the program.  Von Spakovsky suspects there will be no legal danger for anyone who created or operated this program.

“It sounds like he’s just going to end the practice and move on.  There doesn’t appear to be an effort by the Justice Department to apply this [retroactively], in other words to go backwards and go to some of these settlements of lawsuits, open them, and try to get the money back.  I don’t think they’re going to do that,” said von Spakovsky.

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Comey Pounds Press, Tory Gamble Gone Wrong, Bernie’s Anti-Christian Bias

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America point out former FBI director James Comey’s evaluation of how untrustworthy much of the media was when reporting on Russia and the 2016 elections. They also discuss the major political disaster that befell British conservatives in the snap election Thursday, badly weakening the party and strengthening the position of the Labour Party’s far-left leader. And they decry Bernie Sanders’ blatant disregard for the 6th Amendment when questioning President Trump’s nominee for deputy budget director about his Christian beliefs.

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‘Trump Had a Good Day,’ Political Troubles Persist

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Thursday’s highly anticipated testimony of former FBI Director James Comey delivered devastating blows to the legal accusations against President Trump, but a former federal prosecutor says the political damage inflicted by Comey and the overall investigation could end up being a major wound.

In the hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey confirmed that Trump is not and never was personally under investigation by the FBI as part of the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and, critically, that there is no evidence of collusion between Trump and his team and Russia.

He also said Trump never directly ordered him to cease any probe and that media reports suggesting extensive communications between the Trump campaign and the Russian government were almost entirely false.

However, Comey also said he took Trump’s overtures on behalf of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as a directive.  He also indicated that he started keeping memos only when Trump was elected to protect himself if there were any future dust-ups.

In his opening statement, Comey also slammed Trump for changing his public explanation for firing him, initially indicating that it was about the handling of the Hillary Clinton case before admitting it was about the Russia probe.  Comey then called Trump a liar for publicly suggesting that FBI personnel had lost confidence in him.

Between the media hype and the Democratic talking points leading into Thursday, Trump critics were preparing for an event that would be the tipping point towards his legal or political downfall.  They didn’t get it.

“If you just look clinically at the legal facts that came out, Trump had a good day as far as the allegations we’ve been looking at over the last six months,” said former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, who led the prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and planning to attack other landmarks.

“The testimony undermines the case for obstruction of justice, which I’ve been trying to argue was not strong at all to begin with.  There’s still no evidence of collusion and they acknowledged Trump was not the subject of an investigation,” said McCarthy.

He says the definitive remarks on collusion may well be the biggest stories of the day.

“Today probably puts to bed the notion that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Putin regime.  So Comey, who would have had every motivation to suggest such collusion if there had been any, really was very clear on the fact there was no evidence of that,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy says the intense politicization of Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 elections has distracted officials from focusing on the actual, ongoing threat.

“What I’ve been concerned about is that our consideration of Russia has become so hyper-politicized that a lot people have a motivation to downplay it.  To me it’s very serious, so I hope we can put the politics part of that aside and start to focus on the Putin regime, which is a real problem for the United States,” said McCarthy.

But while Trump’s legal concerns ought to be greatly eased, McCarthy warns Comey’s blistering attack on Trump’s character may do lasting damage.

“Even in not formally or informally accusing Trump of not committing a crime, Comey paints a very unflattering portrait of the president as somebody who is conniving, dishonest, and a real operator in a sense,” said McCarthy.

“I’m not smart enough to know how this is going to play itself out, but I wonder if people will care more about the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of criminal wrongdoing or even deeply inappropriate behavior that straddles the line of the law versus how unflattering the portrait of the president painted by Comey is,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy notes Hillary Clinton never faced any charges over her private server or for mishandling top secret classified information, but the revelation of her conduct ended up carrying immense political consequences.

Shortly after Comey finished his public testimony, Trump’s personal attorney Marc Kasowitz, publicly highlighted what he sees as Comey’s exoneration of Trump while simultaneously disputing Comey’s assertion that Trump demanded a loyalty pledge or asked for the Flynn probe to be dropped.

McCarthy says it makes sense for Kasowitz to point out the testimony that boosts Trump’s legal standing, but he says accusing Comey of not telling the truth in other areas was not smart.

“I wouldn’t be asking for a credibility contest between Trump and Comey.  Trump has a long, long history of not having at 7 p.m. the position he took at 7 a.m. and he may have changed it two or three times in between.  Whereas, Comey has contemporaneous notes and is pretty solid as he moves from event to event to event even when he tells the same story multiple times,” said McCarthy.

“Trump’s going to lose a credibility contest with Comey and there’s no reason for his lawyer to get him into one,” said McCarthy.

Another key revelation from Comey centers on former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  Comey confirmed he went public with his summary on the Clinton case and his recommendation not to prosecute because of Lynch’s clandestine meeting with Bill Clinton on an Arizona tarmac.  He also revealed that Lynch pressured him not to publicly describe the Clinton probe as an “investigation” but rather as a “matter.”

Nonetheless, McCarthy says Lynch is not in any legal danger.

“I don’t think she’s in any legal trouble.  I think Comey’s point, and it was a good one, is that it’s not one side that tries to massage and politicize law enforcement,” said McCarthy.

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