McConnell Wants to Ditch the Blue Slip for Judicial Nominees, and He’s Right

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., supports an important step toward fixing the backlog of judicial nominations that are piling up in the Senate.

McConnell told The Weekly Standard that blue slips—the practice of asking senators from a nominee’s home state for their opinion before the Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing—should no longer be used to bring a confirmation to a crashing halt.

Instead, they should be treated as “simply notification of how [a senator is] going to vote, not as an opportunity to blackball.”

Soon after, however, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, stated that ditching the blue slip is his call to make, not McConnell’s.

Grassley did not refuse to ultimately change the practice, but he wasn’t enthusiastic about McConnell’s plan. Grassley’s spokesperson indicated that, at this point, the chairman would respond to “abuses” of blue slips on a “case-by-case basis.”

Blue slips have a long history, dating back to 1917. As part of the process for evaluating a judicial nominee, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee would ask senators from the nominee’s home state to select “I approve” or “I object” on a blue slip of paper.

The rationale was that home state senators may be more familiar with a nominee and have better insights into his or her suitability for a judgeship.

Except for a brief period in the 1960s and ‘70s, blue slips were never used as a way to veto nominees. Unfortunately, some Democratic senators have recently refused to turn in their blue slips in an attempt to prevent or delay the confirmation of conservative judges.

McConnell’s proposed change would be welcome news for David Stras, Michael Brennan, and Ryan Bounds—three nominees to federal appeals courts who have been waylaid by Democrat senators seeking to block their confirmations.

While the blue slip tradition remains in limbo for now, it’s not the only problem judicial nominees face. Once they are voted out of committee, many nominees have languished without a vote by the full Senate.

Fortunately, McConnell also made clear that confirming judicial nominees will be a top priority going forward. He said, “I guarantee they will be dealt with … [r]egardless of what tactics are used by Democrats, the judges are going to be confirmed.”

Judicial nominees aren’t the only ones waiting for a vote, but McConnell further explained, “Priority between an assistant secretary of state and a conservative court judge—it’s not a hard choice to make.” Federal judgeships are, after all, lifetime positions.

To date, the Senate has confirmed only seven judges, including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Meanwhile, 53 nominations are still pending, and the president is sending more nominees to the Senate each month, working to fill more than 160 vacancies.

At bottom, the Senate needs to get to work holding hearings and confirming these roughly five dozen nominees.

Whether Grassley gets on board with McConnell’s plan or deals with the Democrats who are stonewalling nominees on a “case-by-case basis,” he needs to take steps to ensure the president’s highly qualified nominees are confirmed to the bench expeditiously.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Elizabeth Slattery

Elizabeth Slattery writes about the rule of law, the proper role of the courts, civil rights and equal protection, and the scope of constitutional provisions such as the Commerce Clause and the Recess Appointments Clause as a legal fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Read her research. Twitter: .

Portrait of Tiffany Bates

Tiffany Bates serves as legal policy analyst in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: 

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

RELATED ARTICLE: How to Stop Democrats From Stonewalling Judicial Nominees

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Colorado Baker Asked to Make ‘Birthday Cake’ for Satan

The Christian baker in Colorado who was sued for declining to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding reception received a strange request last month: Design and bake a cake celebrating Satan’s birthday.

“I would like to get a quote on a birthday cake, for a special event,” the email request to baker Jack Phillips, sent Sept. 30 and exclusively obtained by The Daily Signal, reads. It continues:

It is a cake that is religious in theme, and since religion is a protected class, I am hoping that you will gladly bake this cake. As you see, the birthday cake in question is to celebrate the birthday of Lucifer, or as they [sic] are also known Satan who was born as Satan when he was cast from heaven by God.

The request for Phillips to quote a price for the cake also asks for an “upside down cross, under the head of Lucifer.”

The incident exemplifies the complexity of government laws mandating that those in creative occupations violate their religious beliefs in serving clients or customers.

This is a danger that lawyers for Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, say they’re raising before the U.S. Supreme Court, which in June agreed to take the baker’s case.

Phillips gained nationwide attention after declining to make the wedding cake for the gay couple, and eventually being found guilty of discrimination by a Colorado state agency and the courts.

Phillips has told The Daily Signal and others that his Christian faith not only doesn’t allow him to design and make cakes celebrating same-sex unions, it prevents him from designing cakes that involve such elements as witchcraft or explicit sexuality.

“The request for Jack to make a cake celebrating Satan proves the danger of using these kinds of laws to force people in the artistic profession to create artwork that violates their beliefs,” Jeremy Tedesco, a senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

“The request from the Satanists is essentially the same as the request that Jack Phillips received from the same-sex couple to create a cake that violates his beliefs, because in both instances, the requester can say the law covers my request. For the Satanists, they’re going to say it’s religious discrimination for you to say no to a cake that I’m requesting because of my protected status.”

Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal organization, represents Phillips in his case.

Lawyers told The Daily Signal that Phillips received a second Satan-themed cake request by phone this month, this time asking that Satan be depicted smoking a joint.

The case dates to 2012, when the same-sex couple, David Mullins and Charlie Craig, got a marriage license in Massachusetts and asked Phillips to design and bake a cake for their reception back home in Colorado.

Lawyers for Mullins and Craig, who are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a complaint against Masterpiece Cakeshop with the state of Colorado, alleging Phillips’ refusal to make the cake violates the state’s public accommodation law.

Administrative Law Judge Robert N. Spencer ruled against Masterpiece Cakeshop on Dec. 6, 2013, concluding that Phillips discriminated against the couple “because of their sexual orientation.”

Phillips’ lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom have appealed the ruling through courts in Colorado and now to the Supreme Court.

Phillips received the email request for the Satanist cake, published in full below, on Sept. 30. His lawyers would not comment on how Phillips handled either request.

The individual emailing the request, whose name was redacted by Alliance Defending Freedom, appears to have targeted Phillips because of his Christian beliefs. The email reads:

I thought I would seek you out, to bake this cake since you appear to be a very moral person since you refused to bake a cake for same sex couples. And since religion is a protected class, I hope you will be willing to bake this cake, so my small group of religious friends can celebrate the birthday of Lucifer this coming November, just a few days after Halloween.

The request may end up helping Phillips’ cause, rather than hurting it.

“If we’re going to live in a world where these kinds of laws can be used to force people like Jack Phillips to create cakes that violate his beliefs about marriage, we’re also going to have to live in a world where people can be forced to create cakes celebrating Satan,” Tedesco said, adding:

It’s very easy to get caught up, and people do get caught up, in the idea that the case is just about a Christian cake artist who doesn’t want to create cakes supporting same-sex marriages, but the issue is much broader than that. If the government has the power to force Jack to create cakes and engage in artistic expression that violates his beliefs, it has that power over all of us. That’s why you can be for same-sex marriage, but you can also be for, and should be for, Jack Phillips to prevail in this case.

Oral arguments in the Supreme Court case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, are scheduled to take place Dec. 5, with a decision expected next year.

Credit: Alliance Defending Freedom.

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

Was Vegas Massacre a Federal Sting Operation Gone Bad, Like Fast and Furious?

Perhaps Stephen Paddock was a “lone wolf” who somehow “snapped.” But his arsenal, designed for a small terrorist army, and his “secret life” have led to speculation he was part of a gun-running and bomb-making operation similar to the federal ATF ‘Fast and Furious’ gun-walking scandal in the early Obama Administration. In this case, however, the targets were Islamists, not Mexican drug traffickers.

blue_logo
By Cliff Kincaid

Why is there no motive for the Vegas massacre? Why did Stephen Paddock have a secret life?

It is terrible to contemplate, but the possibility that Stephen Paddock was an undercover federal operative or informant cannot be ruled out. He may have been either set up or used by ISIS and/or a federal agency in a scheme that backfired.

The feds may have thought they were going to catch ISIS in the act of preparing a major terrorist attack. ISIS terrorists may have thought Paddock was one of them but realized at the last minute that it was a set-up. So, they claimed him as one of their own.

Perhaps he did convert to Islam after trying to get local Jihadists to buy his weapons. Or perhaps they thought he did, and he used his “conversion” to convince them he was one of them.

In short, Paddock may have approached potential terrorists with offers of weapons and bomb-making material. Or they may have approached him.

Those of us who have been around Washington D.C. for a while know that the FBI has been rocked by scandals of all kinds and a series of failures, ranging from Ruby Ridge to Waco to 9/11. Because these scandals involve death, stonewalling, and cover-up, the agencies cannot be trusted to investigate themselves.

For someone with even elementary knowledge of government incompetence and corruption, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to consider the possibility that Paddock was a government informant or operative in a scheme that backfired.

We can anticipate there will be obligatory denials.

Reports indicate that the materials found in Paddock’s car included 1,600 rounds of ammunition, fertilizer that could be used to make explosives, and 50 pounds of the explosive substance Tannerite. He had 23 weapons in the hotel room and had reportedly bought 33 guns in the past year. This guy was the perfect operative to be used in undercover stings. He had everything they needed to carry out major terrorist acts.

Paddock was a one-stop-shop for terrorists. He had the guns and the bombs. He was a one-man Weather Underground.

Read Mr. Kincaid’s full column by clicking here.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the President of America’s Survival, a public policy organization and author of numerous books covering the United Nations and national security issues. He is also a contributor to SFPPR News & Analysis, of the conservative-online-journalism center at the Washington-based Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research.

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Department of Health and Human Services: ‘Life Begins at Conception’

In a stunning turn of events President Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has declared that life begins at conception.

The 2018-2022 DHHS draft strategic plan reads:

Mission Statement

The mission of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is to enhance the health and well-being of Americans, by providing for effective health and human services and by fostering sound, sustained advances in the sciences underlying medicine, public health, and social services.

Organizational Structure

HHS accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving and protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception.

Readers may share their thoughts on each part of the draft strategic plan.

Download the HHS DRAFT Strategic Plan FY 2018 – 2022 – PDF

The Federalist’s Harvest Prude reports:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) just released their 2018-2022 plan, which unequivocally states that life begins at conception and deserves protection. In the introduction it says,

“HHS accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving and protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception.”

The draft mentions conception five times total. The overwhelmingly pro-life stance in the draft is welcome news to many.

The debate over the personhood of unborn children has been a central issue of the abortion debate. Ever since Roe v. Wade in 1973, pro-life advocates have been trying to establish constitutionally protected rights for the unborn. In the ruling’s majority opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that Roe v. Wade would collapse if “the fetus is a person.”

In support of the HHS’s draft, author and bioethics expert Wesley J. Smith wrote, “life ‘beginning at conception’ … is a fact of basic biological science.”

Read more.

Watch what happened at Values Voter Summit 2017 today…

It’s time for Americans to seize the moment.

Opening day of the 2017 Values Voter Summit gave attendees a window into the opportunity before us to make America a place in which all human life is valued, families flourish, and religious liberty thrives. If you missed today’s sessions, you can watch all the action, including President Trump’s address, at the VVS website here.

Supreme Court throws out appeals court ruling that struck down Trump’s previous temporary travel ban

It’s still amazing that acting in the interests of national security would be remotely controversial. There are two choices: keep out some harmless people or let in some harmful people. For years, Democratic and Republican governments have opted for the latter and claimed that to make the other choice was racist, bigoted and “Islamophobic.” Trump has grasped the nettle and chosen it anyway, and is being duly smeared. Future free people, if there are any, will look at the battles he had to fight to protect the American people from jihad terror and marvel at the insanity of our age.

“Supreme Court tosses one of two travel ban challenges,” by Lawrence Hurley, Reuters, October 11, 2017:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out an appeals court ruling that struck down President Donald Trump’s previous temporary travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority nations countries that has now expired.

In a one-page order, the court acted in one of two cases pending before the nine justices over Trump’s travel ban, a case from Maryland brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued to stop the ban contained in a March executive order.

For now, the court did not act on a separate challenge brought by the state of Hawaii, which the court had also agreed to hear. That case also features a challenge to a separate 120-day refugee ban, which has not yet expired.

That case could yet be dismissed once the refugee ban expires on Oct. 24, meaning the court remains unlikely to issue a final ruling on whether the ban was lawful.

The justices were unanimous in deciding against ruling in the Maryland case, although one of the liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, noted that she would not have wiped out the appeals court ruling.

The justices had been scheduled to hear arguments in the case on Tuesday, but removed it from their calendar after Trump’s 90-day ban expired on Sept. 24 and was replaced with a reworked ban.

The expired ban had targeted people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. The new open-ended ban, scheduled to take effect on Oct. 18, removed Sudan from the list while blocking people from Chad and North Korea and certain government officials from Venezuela from entering the United States….

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U.S. Mayor Assures Mexican Consul His ‘Sanctuary City’ Will Provide Safe Spaces for Illegal Aliens

Shortly after Donald Trump got elected president, a California mayor arranged a meeting with the Consul General of Mexico to assure the diplomat that his “sanctuary city” will continue providing safe spaces for illegal immigrants, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. The documents show that Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin’s top aide, Stefan Elgstrand, sent an electronic mail to the Mexican Consul General in San Francisco, Gemi Jose Gonzalez Lopez, stating the following: “The recent events around Trump’s executive order reminded me to reach out to you. We are a sanctuary city and will continue to be. I imagine you are very busy dealing with the concerns and fears of many residents in the Bay Area, and we want to assist in providing safe spaces for them.”

Judicial Watch obtained the files as part of a California Public Records Act request for information surrounding riots by the radical leftist Antifa movement against President Trump and conservative personalities scheduled to speak at the University of California Berkeley. Media reported that fires were set, fences and windows broken, firebombs launched and commercial-grade fireworks thrown at police. A renowned, San Francisco-based pop culture magazine wrote that the uprising raised some big questions about the future of the free speech movement. Judicial Watch requested the files to shed light into how city, police and university officials handled the lawlessness, which received global news coverage. The request asked for records of communications between officials in the Berkeley mayor’s office and the Berkeley Police Department as well as records of communications between the mayor’s office and officials at UC Berkeley, one of the nation’s top public research universities.

The documents show a coordinated effort between Democratic city officials nationwide to “build the movement to resist Trump.” The operation is being financed by leftwing billionaire philanthropist George Soros through one of his groups called Center of Popular Democracy. Earlier this year Judicial Watch uncovered a scandal in which the U.S. government quietly gave millions of taxpayer dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia by colluding with Soros’ Open Society Foundation. The U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia, Jess L. Baily, worked behind the scenes with Open Society Foundation to funnel large sums of American dollars for the cause, constituting an interference of the U.S. Ambassador in domestic political affairs in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The cash flowed through the State Department and the famously corrupt U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID) and Judicial Watch sued both agencies for records related to funding and political activities of the Open Society Foundation in Macedonia.

The Soros-backed, northern California movement includes a taxpayer-salaried physics professor at UC Berkeley who advises Mayor Arreguin on how to handle conservative protestors at a spring rally. The professor, James McFadden, tells the mayor in an electronic mail obtained by Judicial Watch to “create a corral” and ask the Trump supporters to “get in the corral.” He describes Trump supporters as “delusional and paranoid about the world around them” and says they’re “willing to use violence to impose that order on us, especially when they have the blessing of a narcissistic authoritarian president.” A professor at another California public university tells the Berkeley mayor that the arrest of Antifa leader/middle school teacher Yvette Felarca for assaulting a political opponent (captured on video) at a Sacramento rally, in which seven people were stabbed, was a “McCarthyist political persecution” and he condemned Felarca’s arrest and teaching suspension “in the strongest possible terms.”

Ironically, Berkeley’s official government website brags about being a bastion of the free speech movement. “In Alameda County alone, Berkeley is ranked fourth in population behind Oakland, Fremont, and Hayward,” the website states. “And yet, we are famous around the globe as a center for academic achievement, scientific exploration, free speech and the arts.” Indeed, Berkeley is renowned as the birthplace of the free speech movement in in the 1960s. An opinion piece in a California newspaper points out that the city’s free speech movement has gone full circle, however. “Nowadays, Berkeley is rapidly becoming famed as one of the least tolerant cities in the country — where any challenge to left-wing orthodoxy is met with terrorist threats and mob violence.”

The Supreme Falsehoods of HB 1523 Opponents

Why do some people recklessly repeat statements ad nauseam which are, in the end, simply not true? Because for many, the means justify the ends. Some people will believe anything if it is repeated enough, allowing proponents of claims such as those made about Mississippi’s HB 1523 to see them increasingly accepted as true. Unfortunately, this does not help our increasingly fractured society get along, but only cements intolerance toward many well-meaning Christians — who themselves would never act in such bad faith toward those who disagree with biblical truth.Since HB 1523’s challengers lost before the 5thCircuit after they were not able to show how the law injured them, they have now appealed to the Supreme Court — and have recklessly mischaracterized the circumstances surrounding this law in doing so.

Their petition opens by absurdly arguing that the religious exemptions in HB 1523 “demean” and “stigmatize” same-sex couples and deny them equal treatment under the law (ostensibly, because such exemptions allow some to withhold their approval of such conduct). In the petitioners’ view, “[t]hat is precisely the harm that Obergefell sought to rectify.”

This line of reasoning misleadingly implies that HB 1523 somehow was designed to undercut Obergefell. It wasn’t. The law simply provides exemptions for those whose consciences are implicated by Obergefell — which can be followed consistent with HB 1523; same-sex marriages are still fully treated the same by the state of Mississippi as other marriages. Just as objections to military service and abortion have long been protected in law despite fitting the petitioners’ notion of a “particular” religion (notably, the petition never really addresses these areas), the law can provide conscience exemptions in other areas too.

Nevertheless, the petitioners continue to try to condition the reader to the “goodness” of Obergefell and the nefarious nature of any religious objections to it (notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s own recognition to the contrary) — the warm sounding yet nebulous “promise” of Obergefell is discussed, HB 1523 is alleged to “repudiate central aspects of petitioners’ lives, families, and identities,” and the law is an “attempt[] to use religious exemptions to undermine rights to equality and dignity of LGBT people.” Even the Masterpiece case is subtly equated with “state attempts to limit Obergefell by creating unprecedented religious exemptions.”

Christians are trying to live with Obergefell, and just protect their own conscience by not being forced under penalty of law to celebrate something that is clearly contrary to scripture. Yet instead of trying to find a reasonable middle ground, opponents of HB 1523 are forging ahead and asking the Supreme Court to take this case with the help of none other than former Obama Solicitor General Donald Verilli — who famously admitted at oral argument in Obergefell that religious institutions that disagree with same-sex marriage could lose their tax-exempt status.

Those supporting HB 1523 and similar legislation might disagree with Obergefell, but they are not trying to change the ruling — they are just trying to protect themselves in the face of it. If only those who support Obergefell and disagree with HB 1523 would do the same.


Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.


Also in the October 11 Washington Update:

Kellyanne Conway to Address VVS

The NFL Needs to Stop Kneeling on The Taxpayer’s Dime

The Left’s attacks are getting personal: Conservative journalist the latest victim

By John Smith

We have been treated to a year of rioting and violence over the mere hint that a conservative may speak at some college. The intolerant, fascistic, violent Left seems determined to demonstrate just how vicious and despotic its instincts are.

And the Left has apparently upped its game even further now. Well-known blogger and investigative journalist Warner Todd Huston woke up in the middle of the night this weekend to discover his car on fire. There is no reason to mistake this as some kind of accident and every reason to assume the worst. Over the past year, his house has been pelted with eggs and hate graffiti, his flags have been desecrated and destroyed, and now this. (Huston wrote his own account of what happened.)

According to Warner, in the first incident, a flag was removed from a flag staff on his house and left shredded on the front lawn. He replaced the flag, but within weeks it was gone. He put up another flag, this time of the U.S. Army seal. Shortly thereafter a corner of the flag was burned and above it was scribbled “Die Dogs.”

DEFACED FLAG WITH CLOSEUP

Charming.

Warner had already had his garage door egged. With the flag burned and the threatening message, he decided to file a report with the police. Then his garage door was again egged, this time with the message “racist” written on it.

HUSTON’S GARAGE DOOR

Warner doesn’t hide who he is or what he does. He writes about immigration and the issues with Islam, along with many other issues of interest to real Americans. In the Left’s vernacular that means “racist!” But now their vandalism and destruction of property is no longer limited to statues and other symbols in public parks. Now it is getting personal, at least in Warner’s neighborhood.

After this second incident with the eggs and graffiti, he filed another police report. Finally, Warner awoke in the middle of the night Saturday at about 1 a.m. to notice a glowing outside his window. Going out to investigate he found his car in flames.

I was awakened by a noise outside my home. I can’t really say what the noise was as it woke me from a deep sleep … I looked at my window and saw what struck me as a strange light outside. So, I went to the front door …

The police came to investigate but claimed they couldn’t classify it as arson because there was no evidence. Warner, however, found a melted plastic bottle sitting on the seat where the fire started. He said the bottle cap was on the floor of the car and it smelled like gasoline. The bottle and cap will appear in the official firefighters’ photos, which were taken that night. We can only hope the police will find that evidence compelling.

Warner maintains his own website, Publius’ Forum. He began blogging in 2001, making a name for himself in the “blogosphere” early on. He got in on the ground floor at the urging of the late Andrew Breitbart when Andrew began his now-famous website in 2008. Warner has continued to write for Breitbart since then, in addition to many other publications that carry his work.

Huston’s son has set up a GoFundMe page in hopes of raising enough funds to replace his car. Huston says it was an old car, only covered by liability insurance. For most in this business, writing does not make one rich, or even comfortable. It is a labor of love and commitment to our beloved country – a nation now threatened by the forces of anarchy.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on BombThrowers.com and is republished with permission of the author. All photos are by Warner Todd Huston.

VIDEO: America Under Siege — Antifa

Antifa protest.

Dangerous Documentaries has produced a video on the communist movement known as Antifa (short for Anti-Fascist Action) has sparked violence across the nation. In the wake of their battling despicable white supremacist in Charlottesville, Antifa has begun to gain mainstream popularity.

But unbeknownst to much of the public, the vast majority of Antifa violence isn’t targeted at genuine fascists, but mainstream conservatives and civilians.

With help from those who have encountered Antifa, including Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, Lauren Southern, Jack Posobiec, and Steve Deace, conservative author Trevor Loudon guides us through the history and ideas behind the Antifa movement, starting with Leon Trotsky and going all the way through the events in Berkeley, CA and Charlottesville, VA. “Antifa” is the third episode in the “America Under Siege” documentary web-series from Dangerous Documentaries (a project of the Capital Research Center) and Cohesion Films.

Each episode profiles the influence of radical Marxists on various segments of American society.

VIDEO: Facts That Point to Jihad in Vegas. Why ISIS’ claim of responsibility is deadly serious.

This new special edition of The Glazov Gang features John Guandolo, a former FBI agent, combat veteran Marine, and now the president of Understanding the Threat.

John focused on Facts That Point to Jihad in Vegas, unveiling why ISIS’ claim of responsibility is deadly serious.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Las Vegas Massacre and the Many Unanswered Questions

Google, Facebook and Twitter sued for aiding and abetting ISIS

Good. I hope they win a massive settlement and drive them all out of business. Each one has been cutting off its platform to foes of jihad terror. In February, referrals from Facebook and Twitter to Jihad Watch dropped by 90% and have never recovered. Google has changed its search results so that when one searches for topics related to Islam and jihad, only results whitewashing Islam’s links to terrorism come up. Meanwhile jihad terrorists, as is clear from this case, have free rein. These monopolies need to be broken up, and the sooner the better, as they are actively working against the freedom of speech.

“Daughters of California man killed in Barcelona terror attack sue Google, Facebook and Twitter ‘for aiding, abetting and knowingly providing support and resources’ to ISIS,” by Julian Robinson, MailOnline, October 6, 2017:

The family of a California man killed in the terror attack in Barcelona is suing Facebook, Twitter and Google for their part in ‘aiding, abetting and knowingly providing support and resources’ to ISIS, it has emerged

Jared Tucker, from Walnut Creek, was one of 13 people who died when a van mowed down pedestrians on the Spanish city’s packed La Rambla on August 17.

The three daughters of the 42-year-old, who was celebrating his one year anniversary with wife Heidi Nunes-Tucker in Barcelona when he was killed, have now filed a lawsuit against the tech giants.

According to the New York Post, the complaint claims the firms have ‘for years knowingly and recklessly provided the terrorist group ISIS with accounts to use its social networks as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits.’…

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Eyewitness of Barcelona jihad attack: No priest came to comfort wounded, but Cardinal declared all religions peaceful

VIDEO: The Hillary Emails — Fact vs. Fiction

Below, is the latest edition of “Inside Judicial Watch,” with Attorney Michael Bekesha on Monday, October 2, 2017, where Michael discussed Hillary Clinton’s email scandal in the context of the former Secretary of State’s latest book, “What Happened.” You won’t find another page-by-page breakdown like this from any other organization besides Judicial Watch, who tirelessly fought in court to bring the Clinton email scandal to light.

Security guard wounded in first ISIS attack in U.S. sues FBI, charges cover-up

Good for Bruce Joiner. There are many, many unanswered questions about what happened at Garland, and about the FBI was doing there. 60 Minutes ran a feature last March about the FBI curious role in the May 2015 Garland, Texas jihad attack at a free speech event co-organized by Pamela Geller and me. It was, predictably enough, viciously biased, sloppy, and incomplete, but it was nonetheless illuminating in raising a hard and unanswerable question: did the FBI want Pamela Geller and me dead?

Despite the fact that the jihad attack took place at our event, neither Geller nor I appear, except in one still photo, in the 60 Minutes piece. All they say is that “a self-described free speech advocate named Pamela Geller was holding a provocative contest.”

Despite all the predictable politically correct whitewashing and appeasement, CBS did a good job of highlighting a curious and still unexplained aspect of the attack: the FBI clearly knew the attack was coming (although it didn’t bother to inform us or our security team), as the FBI agent was right there, following behind the jihadis, whom he had encouraged to “tear up Texas.” But even though they knew the attack was coming, they didn’t have a team in place to stop the jihadis. They had one man there, and one man only. The jihadis were not stopped by FBI agents, but by our own security team. If the jihadis had gotten through our team, they would have killed Pamela Geller and me, and many others. (They would no doubt have loved to kill Geert Wilders, but he left before they arrived.)

The Daily Beast wrote in August 2016 about how this undercover FBI agent encouraged the jihadis. The Beast’s Katie Zavadski wrote: “Days before an ISIS sympathizer attacked a cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, he received a text from an undercover FBI agent. ‘Tear up Texas,’ the agent messaged Elton Simpson days before he opened fire at the Draw Muhammad event, according to an affidavit (pdf) filed in federal court Thursday.”

What was the FBI’s game in telling them to “tear up Texas”? Why didn’t they have a phalanx of agents in place, ready to stop the attack? Or did they want the attack to succeed, so that Barack Obama’s vow that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” would be vividly illustrated, and intimidate any other Americans who might be contemplating defending the freedom of speech into silence?

We twice asked the FBI for an investigation into this matter. They ignored us. Of course. After all, it isn’t as if this happened to someone important, like Linda Sarsour.

Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, soldiers of ISIS.

“Victim of ‘Draw Muhammad’ ISIS-inspired terror attack sues FBI, accuses James Comey of cover-up,” by Todd Shepherd, Washington Examiner, October 2, 2017 (thanks to Marc):

The security guard wounded in a 2015 ISIS-inspired terrorist attack at the “Draw Muhammad” event in Garland, Texas, is suing the FBI, and argues the bureau is liable for his damages because an agent “solicited, encouraged, directed and aided members of ISIS in planning and carrying out the May 3 attack,” according to court documents filed Monday.

If the plaintiff, Bruce Joiner, doesn’t settle with the bureau, the case could shake loose hundreds of documents from both local and federal officials about what happened that day, and could answer the question of why an FBI agent was in a car directly behind the attackers and did nothing as the events unfolded.

In May of 2015, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi drove from their home in Phoenix to the Curtis Culwell center in Garland where the “Draw Muhammad” contest was being held, in a car loaded with three rifles, three handguns, and about 1,500 rounds of ammunition.

The two never made it inside, as guards, including Joiner, stopped them outside at a perimeter checkpoint, at which time Simpson and Soofi opened fire. Because the event was heavily guarded, the two were quickly shot and killed and barely made past the checkpoint where they opened fire.

Joiner was the only victim that day. He took a bullet to the left leg, and ISIS would later claim credit for orchestrating the attack, making it the first ISIS-backed terror event on U.S. soil.

Joiner’s lawsuit is seeking just over $8 million in damages, and argues that the FBI essentially allowed the attack to happen.

“The FBI helped the terrorists obtain a weapon that was used in the attack by lifting a hold during a background check, incited the terrorist to attack the Garland event, and even sent an agent to accompany the terrorists as they carried out the attack,” the court filing said.

The filing also alleged that former FBI Director Jim Comey lied in a “post-attack cover-up” about the bureau’s knowledge of how the attack unfolded and what Comey and the bureau knew about what was likely to transpire.

“In the aftermath of the attack, former FBI Director James Comey lied to the American people by claiming that Simpson was a needle in a haystack’ that was ‘invisible to us,’” the filing alleged. “Even after it had come to light that an undercover FBI agent had been communicating extensively with the terrorists during the week prior to the event and had accompanied them as they carried out the attack, the FBI continued to assert that “[t]here was no advance knowledge of a plot to attack the cartoon drawing contest.”

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

Since the attack, a separate court case and a “60 Minutes” report in March revealed that an undercover FBI agent was in the car directly behind Simpson and Soofi when they opened fire, and was even taking pictures of the car about 30 seconds before the first shots were fired. That case even revealed that the agent had texted Simpson just weeks before with the message, “Tear up Texas.”

Shortly after the first shots were fired, the agent fled, and was briefly detained by Garland Police, as seen in a video still from WFAA TV in Dallas.

Because of a separate court case tangentially related to Simpson and Soofi, it’s known that the FBI had been monitoring Simpson for years, and that the FBI agent was undercover in the Phoenix ISIS cell had direct contact with them routinely in the months leading up to the attack.

Joiner’s attorney, Trenton Roberts told the Washington Examiner this year that he now believes the FBI might have been willing to let the attack unfold to even greater lengths.

“It seems like it had to have been one or the other,” Roberts told the Washington Examiner in April. “Just a complete botched operation where they [the FBI] don’t want the attack to actually take place, or, it’s something where they need the attack to take place in order for this guy [the agent] to advance in the world of ISIS.”

“And that’s really what I think. I think that they thought, ‘he’s undercover and in order to advance, he needed to get pictures or video of this attack,’ and then that would bolster his street cred within ISIS,” Roberts said….

RELATED ARTICLE: Paris: Five Muslims arrested for jihad bomb plot in apartment building in “chic” Paris neighborhood

VIDEO: President Trump’s full comments on the Las Vegas mass shooting

TRANSCRIPT:

My fellow Americans, we are joined together today in sadness, shock, and grief. Last night, a gunman opened fire on a large crowd at a country music concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. He brutally murdered more than 50 people, and wounded hundreds more. It was an act of pure evil.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are working closely with local authorities to assist with the investigation, and they will provide updates as to the investigation and how it develops.

I want to thank the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and all of the first responders for their courageous efforts, and for helping to save the lives of so many. The speed with which they acted is miraculous, and prevented further loss of life. To have found the shooter so quickly after the first shots were fired is something for which we will always be thankful and grateful. It shows what true professionalism is all about.

Hundreds of our fellow citizens are now mourning the sudden loss of a loved one — a parent, a child, a brother or sister. We cannot fathom their pain. We cannot imagine their loss. To the families of the victims: We are praying for you and we are here for you, and we ask God to help see you through this very dark period.

Scripture teaches us, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” We seek comfort in those words, for we know that God lives in the hearts of those who grieve. To the wounded who are now recovering in hospitals, we are praying for your full and speedy recovery, and pledge to you our support from this day forward.

In memory of the fallen, I have directed that our great flag be flown at half-staff.

I will be visiting Las Vegas on Wednesday to meet with law enforcement, first responders, and the families of the victims.

In moments of tragedy and horror, America comes together as one — and it always has. We call upon the bonds that unite us — our faith, our family, and our shared values. We call upon the bonds of citizenship, the ties of community, and the comfort of our common humanity.

Our unity cannot be shattered by evil. Our bonds cannot be broken by violence. And though we feel such great anger at the senseless murder of our fellow citizens, it is our love that defines us today — and always will, forever.

In times such as these, I know we are searching for some kind of meaning in the chaos, some kind of light in the darkness. The answers do not come easy. But we can take solace knowing that even the darkest space can be brightened by a single light, and even the most terrible despair can be illuminated by a single ray of hope.

Melania and I are praying for every American who has been hurt, wounded, or lost the ones they love so dearly in this terrible, terrible attack. We pray for the entire nation to find unity and peace. And we pray for the day when evil is banished, and the innocent are safe from hatred and from fear.

May God bless the souls of the lives that are lost. May God give us the grace of healing. And may God provide the grieving families with strength to carry on.

Thank you. God bless America. Thank you.

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