Month: October 2018

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) admitted on Sunday that she did not make the “smart political move” by voting against Supreme Court Justice then-nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Sen. Heitkamp admitted that her vote against the president’s nominee might create some political backlash against her.

“The smart political vote would have been to vote for Kavanaugh,” she said, suggesting her move against Kavanaugh would upset voters in a state that went for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election by 35 points. Sen. Heitkamp only won her last election in 2012 by 3,000 votes.

The North Dakota Democrat also suggested that she would rather focus on free trade and her opposition to the president’s tariffs on China, “not a Supreme Court nomination.”

Heitkamp added, “that’s the way it just goes.”

Lee Klein, a retired insurance executive, and North Dakota local, suggested that Sen. Heitkamp’s vote against Kavanaugh “is going to sink her.”

Joel Heitkamp, the senator’s brother and a local North Dakota radio host, said, “I can sit here and lie to you about it and say it’s not a big deal but it’s a big deal, it’s a really big deal.”

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who hopes to unseat Sen. Heitkamp in the November Senate race, asked in an interview in Bismarck, North Dakota, what would happen if the North Dakota Senate race would become a contest between the state’s Republican and Democrat, Cramer did not hesitate to say, “She’s toast.”
“But she’s done her best to try and make it not that,” Cramer added.

Heitkamp, however, recognizes the potential political backlash of voting against Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.

On Sunday, the day after the Kavanaugh confirmation vote, the North Dakota Democrat released a new ad that details her decision to vote against the president’s Supreme Court nominee.

Heitkamp said in the ad that Kavanaugh did not “tell the truth and even if he did, he showed himself to be too biased to be impartial.”

“I voted for Neil Gorsuch, so I know there are many conservative judges who can fill this job without tearing our country apart,” Heitkamp added.

Heitkamp’s latest ad arises as another ad touting her bipartisan credentials mysteriously disappeared from the Internet the same day after the senator announced her opposition to Kavanaugh.

Jake Wilkins, the North Dakota Republican Party communications director, told Breitbart News last week that Heitkamp has tried and failed to rewrite her liberal voting record.

“This is no surprise,” Wilkins told Breitbart News. “With just over a month left until the election, the Heitkamp campaign is desperately scrambling to rewrite her out-of-touch, liberal voting record; but it’s not working.”

Heitkamp’s decision to oppose Kavanaugh comes as a Fox News poll found that Cramer has a 12-point lead over Heitkamp. In the last Fox News poll, the Republican congressman only had a four-point lead.

The Fox News poll also found that if Heitkamp were to vote against Kavanaugh, 34 percent would be less likely to vote for her, whereas only 17 percent would be likely to vote for her.

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Heitkamp’s Republican challenger, slammed his opponent on Thursday, saying that she sided with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and the “extreme left” over North Dakotans.

Police in South Texas arrested a fired Starr County Democrat precinct worker on multiple voter fraud charges related to the upcoming 2018 midterm election.

Starr County District Attorney Omar Escobar, Jr., confirmed to the Monitor that, on Thursday, investigators with his office took into custody Modesta Vela, 60, and charged her with four felony counts of illegal voting, election fraud, and knowingly possessing a ballot or ballot envelope of another person with the intent to defraud, as well as a misdemeanor charge of unlawful assistance of a voter.

The Starr County DA’s office opened an investigation on Vela more than a week ago, according to the McAllen-based newspaper. Escobar said the charges followed a probe into a complaint filed at the elections administrator’s office. It alleged that Vela approached an elderly voter in the border city of Roma, took the voter’s mail-in ballot for the November 2018 election, filled it out herself, and mailed it. Vela allegedly voted differently than the voter intended. Subsequently, investigators with Escobar’s office stopped Vela while driving on Thursday evening and told her a warrant was issued for her arrest.

Vela was a longtime employee of Starr County’s Precinct 2, but was fired earlier this year. Escobar told the Monitor she assisted more than 200 people with their ballots by mail during Starr County’s March 2018 Democratic primary election.

In 2010, the Texas Rangers arrested Vela on misdemeanor charges alleging the Precinct 2 worker failed to sign between 10 to 20 mail-in ballots indicating she helped voters in the March Democratic primary, according to the Brownsville Herald. That year, Precinct 2 Commissioner Raul “Roy” Peña was convicted on voter fraud charges for violating election law during the Democratic primary.

Regarding the current charges, Escobar said he did not know if Vela worked for any of the candidates on the ballot. He said his office has been “in communication” with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office regarding this case, noting that Starr County officials have received “guidance from them.”

In January, Escobar vowed to crack down on voter fraud after allegations surfaced over questionable voter rolls, illegal voting by nonresidents and noncitizens, and mail-in ballot voter fraud. He requested assistance from Paxton, who pledged his office would assist with the county’s voter fraud prosecutions. This resulted in seven arrests, to date.

Recently, Breitbart Texas reported Starr County agreed to clean up its voter rolls as part of a federal lawsuit settlement. This agreement followed a legal battle that began in 2016 when a civil lawsuit filed by the Public Interest Legal Foundation on behalf of the American Civil Rights Union alleged the County failed to use reasonable efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls, a violation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, also called the “Motor Voter” law.

In addition to Starr County, Breitbart Texas has reported on alleged mail-in ballot fraud and other irregularities in Bexar, Harris, Hidalgo, Gregg, Dallas, Nueces, and Tarrant counties. Last year, state lawmakers passed Senate Bill 5 during a special legislative session. It stiffened penalties for mail-in ballot voter fraud.

Absentee ballots are used by voters age 65 and older, the disabled, people out of the country, and incarcerated individuals who remain eligible to vote. Escobar said he considered voting by mail the most insecure way to cast a ballot. He emphasized that, according to Texas law, if a voter receives an absentee ballot and is physically able to receive and send mail, they must be the person to mail in the ballot.

On Friday, Escobar told KRGV: “You can avoid all this if you’re a voter. You can say to yourself, you know what? I don’t want to go through this. I don’t want to be called to the courts. I don’t want to be harassed at my house. I’m going to cancel my application for ballot by mail and I’m going to vote in person.”

A Starr County Sheriff’s Office spokesman said Vela was released from jail Thursday evening on $145,000 bond.

Follow Merrill Hope, a member of the original Breitbart Texas team, on Twitter.

Good luck with that argument, Scott Sundby. After Brett Kavanaugh unloaded on Senate Democrats in an angry response to being accused of running a gang-rape ring, the University of Miami law professor writes at The Hill, the newest Associate Justice has no choice but to recuse himself from all “politically charged cases” that come before the court. “No one should fall for the myth that he will be free of the very human emotions he put on full display at his hearing,” Sundby warns, with broad recusal the only option for the credibility of the Supreme Court:

In a Trump-like tirade that would have led to a lawyer being cited for contempt of court if spoken to a judge, Kavanaugh not only aggressively attacked the Democrats on the committee by claiming that Ford’s allegations were “revenge on behalf of the Clintons,” but he darkly promised that “what goes around comes around.”

Now that Kavanaugh has been confirmed, how does the court go forward with a justice who has openly and angrily revealed himself to bear a partisan vendetta? …

The only possible answer is that Kavanaugh must recuse himself from all future cases where the court is deciding an issue with ramifications for the electoral system or the executive branch’s power. Canon 2 of the Code of Conduct for United States judges requires a judge to avoid “the appearance of impropriety,” commanding: “A judge should respect and comply with the law and should act all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” There simply is no way after watching Kavanaugh’s belligerent outbursts that a significant portion of the country will have an iota of public confidence that his vote will not be influenced by his allegiance to President Trump who ridiculed his accuser or by his antagonism towards the Democrats who he declared were on a “search and destroy” mission.

Nor when it comes to recusal is it any defense whether, as some have argued including Kavanaugh in his op-ed, his rage was justified in defending his name and reputation. Justified or not, no one could watch him volcanically brimming over with partisan rancor and resentment without harboring deep doubts that he could now miraculously wipe the slate clean and be fair-minded.

Hmmm. By that measure, shouldn’t Ruth Bader Ginsburg already be recusing herself from the same cases? In July 2016, Notorious RBG told the New York Times’ Adam Liptak that it might be time for her to move to New Zealand if Donald Trump got elected.

“I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president,” she said. “For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.”

The very next day, Ginsburg blasted Trump as a “faker” in an interview with CNN:

“He is a faker,” she said of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, going point by point, as if presenting a legal brief. “He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. … How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that.”…

“At first I thought it was funny,” she said of Trump’s early candidacy. “To think that there’s a possibility that he could be president… ” Her voice trailed off gloomily.

“I think he has gotten so much free publicity,” she added, drawing a contrast between what she believes is tougher media treatment of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and returning to an overriding complaint: “Every other presidential candidate has turned over tax returns.”

This goes much farther into the political realm straight into electioneering in the middle of a campaign. It amounted to a de facto endorsement of Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. As Allahpundit pointed out at the time, this explicitly violated Canon 5 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, which expressly forbids judges to “publicly endorse or oppose a candidate for public office,” emphasis mine. Ginsburg did so twice, only apologizing later for having made the comments publicly rather than expressing regret over the comments themselves — as Kavanaugh did last week in his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

And yet no one has seriously demanded that Ginsburg recuse herself from “politically charged cases to maintain the integrity and impartiality of the court,” as Sundby does on the platform The Hill provides for it. It doesn’t take much thought to understand why Academia wouldn’t apply the same standard to the liberal wing of the court.

This is nothing more than a dog-in-the-manger ploy, an attempt to pre-emptively delegitimize Kavanaugh’s work over the next few years by painting it as partisan. Instead, it exposes its advocates as hypocrites when it comes to politicization.

By the way, expect recusal fever to peak in the next couple of days:

Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s first vote as a member of the Supreme Court could come as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday on a Trump administration request testing how much power courts should wield over top executive branch officials.

The administration has already made one unsuccessful run at the high court on the issue: It asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week to step in to block depositions of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Justice Department civil rights chief John Gore in lawsuits challenging Ross’ decision to put a question about citizenship on the 2020 U.S. Census. …

Justice Department lawyers argue the depositions of Ross and Gore ordered by a federal judge in New York City constitute an unwarranted intrusion into executive authority and could prove distracting to senior officials with important duties.

It’s the kind of argument that could appeal to Kavanaugh, who has advocated broad interpretations of executive power. However, deferring to the Trump administration within days of joining the court could appear to confirm many of Kavanaugh’s critics’ claims that he’s likely to be a rubber stamp for Trump and his agenda.

Best guess: That’ll worry Kavanaugh as much as it worries Ginsburg, which is to say not at all. He’s there to do his job, just as she’s there to do hers. There’s only one Supreme Court and only nine members on its panel, which is why recusals are very rare, and occur as a result of real and personal conflicts of interest or previous work on cases that come before the court. Elena Kagan recused herself from a few such cases when it involved work she did as Solicitor General; various justices have felt it proper to recuse on rare occasions when their investments involved one of the parties. Otherwise, activists can demand recusals as much as they want, as long as they’re prepared to look like fools, shrieking about bias while exposing their own.

Facebook has announced a new smart speaker and camera product in an attempt to compete with Amazon’s Alexa device and Google Home in observing its owner’s every move.

CNBC reports that shortly after Facebook’s latest user data leak, the company wants consumers to install a Facebook-manufactured camera into their homes. The new Facebook product comes in two versions, the Portal and the Portal+ and focuses mainly on Messenger video chats. The device functions as a smart speaker similar to Amazon and Google’s own smart home devices, but the Portal includes a camera amongst its features. This marks Facebook’s first physical product aside from the Oculus virtual reality headset which Facebook acquired in 2014.

The device is controlled via voice commands, users can start a video call with a Facebook friend by saying “Hey Portal, call …” followed by the name of the Facebook contact they wish to talk to. The Portal’s smart camera detects a users face and frames them within the shot throughout the video call. Dave Kaufman, the marketing lead for Facebook’s Portal division, commented on the device stating: “Portal+ and Portal really live up to that idea of helping you feel closer and allowing you to spend more quality time with people, even if they live thousands of miles away from you.”

The device can also stream music from Spotify, Pandora and Amazon Music and video from Facebook Watch. Interestingly, Facebook has included Amazon Alexa software in their device, allowing users to ask questions such as”What’s the weather?” or “How are my teams doing?” The inclusion of Amazon’s software is an odd choice given that this appears to be a direct competitor to the Amazon Alexa line of devices.

Jonathan Collins, director at tech advisory firm ABI Research, stated: “The inclusion of Alexa is certainly an interesting move. It enables the Facebook devices to piggy-back on the back of Alexa success.”

Facebook is currently accepting pre-orders for the new devices and will be shipping them next month. The Portal, which features a smaller 10-inch screen, costs $199 while the Portal+, which has a larger 15.6-inch screen, costs $349.

One of the most polarizing topics in all of modern American life involves abortions.

It’s a religious, political and societal battleground rife with passion and neither side willing to give an inch.

For many on the right, it’s a matter of life and death. It’s an unwavering desire to protect the most innocent and defenseless of lives.

For those on the left, it’s a claim of wanting to protect and preserve women’s rights.

Unsurprisingly, the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade has become a flashpoint in the debate over abortion. Many on the left have been fearing that the newest Supreme Court justice, Brett Kavanaugh, will try to reverse Roe v. Wade.

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Contrary to popular leftist beliefs, a reversal of Roe v. Wade wouldn’t abolish abortion. It would simply put the decision on the constitutionality of abortion back to the states.

That little nugget of truth hasn’t exactly stopped the far left from freaking out about all of the reasons why so-called “progressives” think abortion should be fully allowed everywhere.

One of the biggest defenses of abortion that the far left likes to peddle involves rape pregnancies. Liberals claim abortion should be readily available for any women impregnated during rape. The far left likes to paint any and all victims of rape as women who desperately need abortion.

Only, that might not be the case, at least according to a 2012 Life News story about rape victims.

Yes, this is an older article, but it seems strangely appropriate considering all of the hand-wringing over Roe v. Wade in the wake of Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation.

As Life News’ title notes, some rape victims want the far left to “quit assuming we want an abortion.”

Members of the Ad Hoc Committee of Women Pregnant by Sexual Assault (WPSA) wrote a column decrying the over-generalization of all rape victims in regards to abortion rights.

“Many people have strong opinions about abortion in cases of pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. However, the real experiences and needs of women who have actually experienced pregnancies from sexual assault are often ignored, even though our experiences are frequently used to promote abortion on demand,” the column, penned by several WPSA members, declared.

“On one side are those who argue that pregnancies resulting from rape and incest occur so rarely that we shouldn’t let it impact public policy on abortion. This is hurtful to women who do become pregnant from rape or incest and who need support. It can also lead to questioning as to whether a woman or girl is telling the truth about being raped,” the column continues.

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The WPSA piece then takes a blistering turn taking aim at leftists who claim that every rape victim needs abortion.

“On the other side are those who perpetuate the myth that women and girls who become pregnant from sexual assault overwhelmingly want, need and benefit from having abortions. This also hurts women and fans the flames of prejudice toward those who do not want to have an abortion, even leading some to question whether a woman or girl who wishes not to abort has ‘really’ been raped. And it can lead to strong pressure to abort by those who think the woman or girl does not know what is really best for her.”

The WPSA also blows the far-left narrative out of the water with some cold, hard facts.

“Despite the belief that most women in such circumstances would want an abortion, a national study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that only half of those who became pregnant from rape had an abortion. Another survey of pregnant sexual assault victims found that only 30 percent had abortions,” the column reads.

The WPSA notes how that final figure is still irrelevant to the point they’re trying to make.

“Whether the true number is closer to 30 or 50 percent doesn’t matter. What matters is that women and girls who become pregnant from rape or incest need real support and resources that meet their needs. In many cases, however, these needs are not met because most people assume that abortion will solve the problem.”

The far left — and its allies in the mainstream media — have never let something like facts or written testimonies get in the way of a political stance.

Based on the WPSA’s powerful testimony regarding rape victims and abortion, perhaps they should re-think their ways.

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So apparently liberals are allergic to that wonderful construct called reality. As it became increasingly clear that Brett Kavanaugh was going to be our next Supreme Court justice, the protests against him became increasingly febrile — and futile.

You don’t need to go far on social media to find something to laugh your head off at — but for my money, James Woods just passed along to his 1.77 million Twitter followers what might be the best example we’ve seen thus far.

This one happened on Capitol Hill, where plenty of protesters have been apparently moving to and fro without all that much interference if the news is any indication. There are certain places they can’t go, however — and one of them is the Supreme Court, when it’s not open.

Still, protesters thronged up the Supreme Court steps on Saturday, according to NBC. You can’t blame them for trying. Trying in the most fruitless of ways, mind you. But still trying, which is what counts.

Always good to watch comedy before falling asleep, and Lordy, these nitwits are good for a laugh… pic.twitter.com/pJVR06kVQN

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 8, 2018

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“Always good to watch comedy before falling asleep, and Lordy, these nitwits are good for a laugh…” Woods wrote in a tweet.

The video Woods picked up had been posted earlier by Benny Johnson (formerly of BuzzFeed, now of The Daily Caller).

Hysterical Left-Wing protesters storming the 13 ton solid bronze doors of the Supreme Court and attempting to claw them open with their bare hands would be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen – if it was not simultaneously the scariest.

Imagine if conservatives behaved like this? pic.twitter.com/0T2lasZn9E

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) October 7, 2018

In other Twitter posts, Johnson noted what Kavanaugh had been subjected to.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh had the *perfect* temperament for a man who:

✅ Was falsely accused of sexual assault
✅ Was falsely accused of indecent exposure
✅ Was falsely accused of gang rape
✅ Was falsely accused of drugging women
✅ Was falsely accused of rampant sexism

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) October 8, 2018

✅Watched our American media run all of these uncorroborated, unsubstantiated allegations as if they were proven fact
✅Will never be able to coach girls basketball again
✅Had to witness his wife & daughters become crude punchlines in political cartoons and late night comedy

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) October 8, 2018

✅Was accused of not telling the truth by Senators who practice stolen valor
✅Had to explain fart jokes to sitting Senators
✅ Will never be able to live a normal life again (no matter the outcome of his nomination)
✅Likes beer🍺
✅Will own the Libs for life 🍻

God bless.

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) October 8, 2018

Yes, owning the libs was, in this case, pretty satisfying. This wasn’t the only craziness going on in Washington or around the country, mind you.

Social media was chock-a-block of this sort of thing after Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Here’s one of the tweets we can feel comfortable embedding. It’s from Jerry Saltz, senior art critic for New York Magazine:

Come gather round people wherever you roam & shun any republican family member you have. Until this president is gone. You don’t need to tell that family member that you are shunning them. Just stand up for your country very close to home. Make it hurt for both of you. Rise. Rise

— Jerry Saltz (@jerrysaltz) October 7, 2018

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Rise, rise. Pry open the Senate door with your bare hands. Fail, fail. Bang on it. Don’t get let in, don’t get let in. Get internet famous on a livestream that gets retweeted by James Woods. Ouch, ouch.

Of course, this is all fun and games until the left gets it in their mind to try something with a bit more juice.

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Enough can never be said about the incredible work that our military does for this country, and the good that comes from it.

They protect us. They protect this country. They protect our freedoms. In short, they fight the good fight so we can all pursue our own American dreams.

Unsurprisingly, even in retirement they feel compelled to protect us.

That was evident when an Army veteran protected students at a high school homecoming football game from an active shooter, according to USA Today.

Veteran Patrick Shields helped stop a 16-year-old shooter Friday night during a Haywood High School football game in Tennessee, thanks to the vet’s quick thinking and courage.

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Shields, who was in attendance to watch his son play football for Haywood, graduated from the school in 1996.   He went on to serve in the Army for 22 years, including a trio of deployments. Currently, Shields is serving in the National Guard.

Haywood beat rival Crockett County on Friday night, but the real story is what happened after the game.

“My brother and I were cleaning up, and we heard a bunch of kids hollering and yelling across the street at Walgreen’s, but we didn’t know what was going on,” Shields told USA Today. “Then we heard sounds like fireworks … like ‘pow pow pow.’”

Shields then went on to describe first seeing the gun.

“And I looked over there and saw the flame coming out of a pistol, and a bunch of the kids were running toward us.”

It didn’t take long for Shields to spring into action once he identified the shooter.

“It looked like he was aiming for one person, but I don’t know who,” Shields said. “They were all running toward us, but he wasn’t shooting in our direction.”

Shields believed that he only had a few seconds to react. Fortunately for all those in attendance, he didn’t hesitate.

“I grabbed him by the arm that was holding the gun and pulled him toward me and threw him up against the fence,” Shields said. “Then I grabbed him by the back of the shirt and got him on the ground.”

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Shields was able to subdue the shooter as local law enforcement approached the scene.

Two victims, Demetrius Harper and Cameshia Murphy, were shot. Harper was hit twice in the back and Murphy was hit in the foot. Both were treated and ultimately released from the hospital. But without Shields’ bravery, it could’ve been a lot worse.

Brownsville Police Chief Barry Diebold praised Shields for actions.

“Mr. Shields’ quick thinking saved many lives,” Diebold said.

I would expect nothing less of an Army veteran.

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