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President Donald Trump on Monday criticized Democrats for already discussing the idea of impeaching newly-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, calling allegations of teenage sexual predation a Democrat-led “hoax.”

President Trump on talks of Kavanaugh impeachment: “I think it’s an insult to the American public, and I think you’re going to see a lot of things happen on November 6 that would not have happened before” pic.twitter.com/MINAGYJTJx

— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 8, 2018

“I’ve been hearing that now they’re thinking about impeaching a brilliant jurist, a man that did nothing wrong, a man that was caught up in a hoax set up by the Democrats, using the Democrats’ lawyers. Now they want to impeach him,” President Trump told reporters on the White House grounds. “I’ve heard this from many people. I think it’s an insult to the American public, and I think you’re going to see a lot of things happen on November 6 that would not have happened before.”

Last week, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) vowed to probe teenage sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh. “It is not something we are eager to do,” Nadler told the New York Times last week. “But the Senate having failed to do its proper constitutionally mandated job of advise and consent, we are going to have to do something to provide a check and balance, to protect the rule of law and to protect the legitimacy of one of our most important institutions.”

However, not all Democrats are on board — yet.

In an interview with Yahoo News, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) refused to dismiss discussions of removing Kavanaugh if Democrats retake a majority in Congress next month. “I think that after the dust settles on the night of the 6th, I think that’s where we start to evaluate … what is the best thing for us to be focusing on in terms of what’s best for America and the American people,” the 2020 hopeful said.

The Senate on Saturday confirmed Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court 50-48 and was promptly sworn in as the 114th justice by Chief Justice John Roberts and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Some of pop superstar Taylor Swift’s most loyal fans were angered by her far-left rant on Sunday evening, where she attacked Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, describing herself as “appalled” and “terrified” by the lawmaker’s policies.

In a long Instagram post, the “Shake it Off” singer said that recent events in her life had led her to take a stand against Blackburn, who she implied would discriminate against women, black people, and homosexuals.

“I’m writing this post about the upcoming midterm elections on November 6th, in which I’ll be voting in the state of Tennessee,” Taylor Swift wrote. “In the past, I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now.”

“Blackburn’s voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me,” she continued. “She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values.”

While some of Swift’s fans praised her for joining the leftist agenda, many of her followers were left less than impressed by her apparent virtue signaling.

@taylorswift13: Marsha Blackburn believes principles that have blessed this country for over 200 years. She believes in principles given to us by God. You now align yourself with Hollywood which is a cauldron of godlessness. I once liked and respected you so much.

— Lori Perkins (@RightLadyNC) October 8, 2018

I am very disappointed in @taylorswift13‘s recent comments about great candidate for US Senate @MarshaBlackburn. Does every pop star/actor have to voice their political opinions to the world? Newsflash: we don’t care. Never have, never will. #VoteMarsha

— Aaron Farris (@AaronFarrisMN) October 8, 2018

@taylorswift13 Respectfully, be quiet and sing! I guess you’re more pop than country now anyway. You’re country fans are gonna be disappointed. Now you’re on the level of Katie Perry.

— janice (@theemporersnew) October 8, 2018

@taylorswift13 I love ya but u r wrong about ms Blackburn please check her records on votes compared to all sex scandal the former governor had

— Michael Morrow (@koch41955) October 8, 2018

Taylor Swift can use her popularity to sway voters to vote Democrat. It’s sad she must-lead the public due to her lack of knowledge of Blackburn. She lied. She lost my family and friends support. Only support she has now is from the Socialist. She’s tied her wagon to baby killers

— Mike (@Mortimer1952) October 8, 2018

@taylorswift13 the one reason why I liked Taylor Swift as an artist was because I believed that she did not need to voice her political opinions. I am very disappointed as a black man whose daughter idolizes you. Why does everyone feel a need to voice their political opinion?

— Karl Haynes (@karlhaynes) October 8, 2018

@taylorswift13 So disappointed that you decided to play politics:(. I thought you were brilliant when you said, I am not going to tell people who to vote for, but I will encourage them to vote. With all the divide in this country, you were only place where politics didn’t matter.

— beatio (@beatio) October 8, 2018

@taylorswift13 ssssshhhhhhhh. Don’t start the political stuff sweetie. Please keep your views to yourself. Lots and lots of parents and grandparents will make sure money won’t be spent on you. Super disappointed in you.

— Jami (@Merrtell) October 8, 2018

Swift’s political outburst was particularly surprising to some people who believed she was secretly a Republican or of conservative and libertarian leanings. However, she has recently voiced support for progressive issues such as the LGBT agenda and even donated to the gun control campaign “March for Our Lives.”

The 28-year-old singer was the source of controversy around the 2016 presidential election after she repeatedly refused to denounce Donald Trump while not revealing who she would vote for.

Last year, an editorial by The Guardian even described her as “an envoy for Trump’s values,” arguing that her music “[echoed] Trump’s obsession with petty score-settling in their repeated references to her celebrity feuds” while also reflecting in “painstaking detail on her failed romantic relationships.”

Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.

Don’t count your chickens.

Via Daily Wire:

As Real Clear Politics shifts yet more Senate seats to the “safe” column for Republicans, multiple pollsters have begun to warn Democrats that even their “blue wave” in the House is losing momentum.

According to RCP’s latest average of polls, Republicans now safely have 49 seats in the Senate, which means the Democrats need to win all 7 of the seats that are considered true “toss-ups” to gain the majority in November.

That’s certainly not welcome news to Democrats, who once hoped for a “blue wave” in both chambers. To make matters worse, pollsters have begun sounding the alarm over what once seemed to be the inevitable Democrat takeover of the House.

Among the most influential of the pollsters is Nate Silver, who warned Democrats that even with a generic ballot lead of +7, Democrats could end up failing to take the House.

Keep reading…

Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel on Sunday told Fox News Channel host Chris Wallace that Republican voters are “completely energized” after a successfully hard-fought battle to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

A partial transcript is as follows:

WALLACE: The fight over the Kavanaugh confirmation seems to have energized Republican voters. I want to take a look at a poll. In a poll in July, 78 percent of Democrats said that the November elections are ‘very important’ compared to 68 percent of Republicans. In a new poll, a ten point enthusiasm gap has now shrunk to two points. 82 percent for Democrats, 80 percent for Republicans. What is it about the Kavanaugh confirmation process that you think has mobilized your voters?

MCDANIEL: I think it’s been a culmination of things. The Democrats have doubled down ‘resist and obstruct’ the past two years. This [the Kavanaugh confirmation process] has brought all of this to the forefront — the protests, the interruptions during the hearings and now with this smear campaign of Judge Kavanaugh, holding these allegations to the eleventh hour. I think Republicans have woken up and said ‘Listen, it’s a very clear choice, do we won’t resist, obstruct, delay, dysfunction in Washington?’ They are also seeing the results, 3.7 percent unemployment, four million new jobs in this country. It’s a pretty clear choice which party’s delivering and which party is obstructing.

WALLACE: Some analysts say that this new energy, what Senator McConnell called a political gift of the Kavanaugh case, will help you more in Senate races, in state-wide races, than it will House races, particularly in suburban districts. A recent Quinnipiac Poll, when voters were asked the generic ballot question ‘who do you back in your House district?’ 49 percent said the Democratic candidate, while 42 percent said the Republicans. So, it’s still plus seven for the Democrats. Is the Kavanaugh bump, if there is any, playing differently in House and Senate races?

MCDANIEL: It’s not. It’s helping across the board. The generic ballot has narrowed from double digits. Now it’s at seven. I’m looking at every race across the country. We have about 30 that are in the margin of error, certainly in districts where Hillary Clinton won where we have Republican incumbents. Our job is to turn out our base first. Our base is completely energized right now. The Kavanaugh hearings have just highlighted how important this election is for them.

 

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.