[. . .]The Alliance Defending Freedom, described the religious liberty protections in the bill as “meaningless,” adding: “This new provision does not ameliorate the bill’s adverse impact on religious exercise and freedom of conscience.”
Take a closer look at the three Republican senators included in the bipartisan group pushing to legalize same-sex marriage. Thom Tillis of North Carolina is Roman Catholic, but the Catholic Church is really clear about marriage being between a man and a woman. It’s hard to take an assurance of religious liberty protections from a man who defies the teaching of his own church. Susan Collins is one of the last of the Republicans who often supports liberal positions on social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, so no surprise there. Rob Portman is retiring from the Senate at the end of this lame-duck term, and that might explain his urgency. But there is more to this story.
[…]
We have already seen 47 Republicans defect to the same-sex marriage cause when the House voted. Right now, watch Republicans in the Senate. We are about to find out who is, and who is not, a conservative when it comes to conserving marriage and protecting religious freedom.
On Date November 16, 2022https://video.foxnews.com/v/video-embed.html?video_id=6315610665112&loc=realclearpolitics.com&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.realclearpolitics.com%2Fvideo%2F2022%2F11%2F16%2Fkellyanne_conway_republicans_need_to_be_ballot_harvesting_encouraging_early_voting.html&_xcf=
Former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Wednesday on FOX News that Republicans need to embrace early voting, vote-by-mail, and ballot harvesting in order to win elections in the future.
KELLYANNE CONWAY: The Democrats were unified last week on how to divide America and scare them into getting to the polls. We had a much better message, we respected the voters more, talking about their top concerns (inflation, crime, education, and the rest). And that reaped benefits in some places.
…
Unity means you don’t have these on-the-record sniping comments from consultants that represent Mitch McConnell or Rick Scott, all of whom I’m sure raked in millions this year and we’re not going to have control of the Senate.
You know what, guys? Pick up the phone. Walk across the street and talk to each other. Don’t let this spill out into public.
…
We also have to unify on tactics. I think the Democrats have just done a better job investing in what I call the non-sexy parts of politics. They’re ballot harvesting. They’re banking early votes.
Somehow, our voters still feel very shy about voting early. Some of them don’t trust the machines. Others say, “I’m a traditional voter, I go to the polls.” Whatever it is, we need to get smart, not just about voter engagement and candidate recruitment, but banking those ballots early. We’re taking a chance that grandpa can get out of the house on Election Day or any eventuality that can affect any of us. We need to start banking those votes early.
There was no escalator this time — but former president Donald Trump still announced his candidacy at one of his own properties. This time, it was at his Palm Beach, Florida, resort in Mar-a-Lago in a swanky ballroom. The room was adorned in gold and Trump had a row of American flags at his back as he said he would run for president for the third time, hoping to win the 2024 presidential nomination.
Trump earned some ire from the GOP base last week when he attacked Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, but this has not released his grip on the Republican Party. He opened his speech by promising, “America’s comeback starts now.” It’s “Make America Great Again,” but…again.
His 2016 announcement focused on the unfettered illegal immigration harming the American worker and the bad trade deals that offshored manufacturing, a message that allowed him to break the so-called “blue wall” in the Midwest. This time, the story was about how far the US has fallen since his presidency ended two years ago. Trump spoke about the economic greatness, energy independence and global power that he brought back to the country. Biden has overseen historic levels of inflation and illegal immigration, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Under our leadership, we were a great and glorious nation,” Trump said. “Most importantly, we were a free nation. But now we are a nation in decline.”
If you watched CNN ahead of the announcement, they reported that no one really wants Trump to run. Yet as usual, the reports of Trump’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Anyone who says the walls are closing in, or that they’ve finally got him, is short-sighted and, well, wrong. Dave Chappelle explained Trump during his Saturday Night Live monologue this past weekend. Trump, he said, is the most honest liar. He argued that Trump tells the truth about his own dishonesty. But Trump is really an “honest liar” because although he sometimes exaggerates the truth, he is always basically right. This is something that appeals to the average American, as it should, and seemingly cannot be replicated by any another politician.
There are conservatives who have good reasons to want to move on from Trump. Even I was frustrated after last Tuesday’s disappointment, and I am a big fan of DeSantis. Trump’s endorsements in toss-ups didn’t pan out as well as one would hope. He attacked some of the best people in his party. But there is an intangible quality to Trump when he hits the target. When Trump is focused, he can’t help but win.
“This is not a task… for a conventional candidate,” Trump said Tuesday night. “This is a task for a movement.”
There was no attack on DeSantis, or mention of Kari Lake’s election being stolen in the Arizona gubernatorial election, or serious backtracking on 2020. Instead, Trump talked about his hope for the nation’s future and the many accomplishments during his first term.
“The Washington establishment wants to silence us,” Trump said, as CNN conveniently cut away from the speech and allowed its so-called analysts to weigh in.
The reality is that even though there was anger and skepticism over another Trump term, his base heard his speech Tuesday night and looked on with the same optimism they had in 2016. He said what even the Republican Party would not say with vigor ahead of what should have been a sweep in the 2022 midterm elections. They tried to coast into victory, but Trump still wants to fight.
“This campaign will be about issues, vision, and success,” Trump said.
The biggest question is if Trump will be able to take on the losers in his own party. It will matter in a general election in 2024. McCarthy, McConnell and McDaniel blew the 2022 midterms. They likely aren’t going anywhere; Trump has endorsed two of them. When Trump first ran in 2016, he talked about the swamp and the institutional rot in the GOP and how it handicapped good people. If he is going to capture that outsider magic once again, he has to demand that better people be put in charge of the Republican Party machine.
Trump’s biggest asset, arguably, is that he was the father of the GOP’s realignment. He became a hero of the working class and championed policies that put blue-collar Americans and the country as a whole above the elite class. If he can recapture that energy and leave behind the petty spats in favor of success stories, he will perform well in 2024.
“We will again put America first,” he said. “This won’t be my campaign. This will be our campaign.”
Amber Athey is The Spectator’s Washington editor and a senior fellow at the Steamboat Institute. Amber was previously White House correspondent for the Daily Caller and a co-host of O’Connor & Company on WMAL.
An outlet called Decision Desk HQ has called two races bringing the GOP total in the House of Representatives to 219. Who is Decision Desk HQ and why are they calling these races?
RedState’s Mr. Bonchie (Republican Kevin Kiley in California’s Third CD) and Hot Air’s John Sexton (Republican Mike Garcia in California’s Twenty-Seventh CD) have followed DDHQ on these calls. Kiley’s putative victory would take the GOP to a majority of 218 in the House. Garcia’s would bring the majority to 219.
As of this moment, however, DDHQ is alone in its calls. The AP remains stuck at 217. Facts are better than dreams. I strive to adhere to the reality principle. Only 56 percent of the ballots have been counted in Kiley’s race. By contrast, some 72 percent of the votes have been counted in Garcia’s race and his opponent seems to think she has lost.
John McCormack takes my approach — the conservative approach — in looking at the outstanding races in this post at NRO’s Corner. After accounting for the races above and a few others, McCormack concludes (links omitted):
Republicans appear likely to hold at least 220 seats. “Right now, Republicans would be on track to win 221 seats if the latest trends continued, though several of these races remain so close that they could easily go the other way,” Nate Cohn reports at the New York Times. After the 2020 election, Democrats held a 222-seat majority — the narrowest majority since the 2000 election when Republicans controlled 221 seats.
The first headache is the lack of clarity regarding the outcome of the 2022 election a week after what we used to think of as election day. The headaches to come will follow from the narrow majority with which Republicans would have to work in the next Congress.
Anti-Semitism has always been part of the Jewish experience. As familiar as I am with the topic, I have forever had one question on my mind: “How do they know that I am Jewish?” What role does positive or negative stereotyping play in being identified as a member of a particular group?
My last name is Pollard, but the original name was Polazcek. Both of my parents were born in Poland, and my father changed his family name to Pollard when they came to the USA in the late 1930s. Pollard is not recognized as a typical Jewish name. (The only others Pollards I have heard of were Michael J. Pollard, an actor of Polish heritage, and Jonathan Pollard, an intelligence analyst and a spy, who happened to be Jewish.) Except for my children and grandchildren, I have no relatives with the name Pollard. Pollards here in the South are often African-American.
I have several vignettes to recount in which people knew that I was Jewish even though I had never told them so. Four were positive, but one was an uncomfortable experience.
The most memorable episode involved my service in the U.S. Navy as a physician when I came aboard a naval ship during the Vietnam War as a young lieutenant on his way to Vietnam. I reported to the captain and first mate upon entering the ship. The first mate called the senior corpsman to show me to the sick bay (medical quarters) on board. As I walked away from the captain and first mate, I heard the first mate say to the captain, “We are in good shape now, captain, as we have a Jewish doctor on board.” I had no idea how he knew I was Jewish because I was hand-carrying my naval record, and it did not state my religion.
After thirteen months overseas, I returned home and took my wife to New York City for her first time. It was Friday night, which is the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbos), and we were walking the streets of Manhattan near 69th and York, where I had spent a summer working at Cornell Medical School. An elderly man waved at me and said, “Kom sa her,” which is Yiddish for “come here.” He said to me, “Is by chance you are Jewish? Because I think you are.” I answered with a resounding yes.
He told me that they had 11 men in their small shule (synagogue), which worked well for a minyan — a quorum of ten men over the age of 13, required for saying Kaddish, a prayer for the dead. Joey had gotten sick. He told me that Abe had taken Joey to the hospital, and now they had only nine. If I could stay for only twenty minutes, Abe would be back, and I could leave after they had said Kaddish. I made the tenth man for a minyan.
He took my wife upstairs to the mechitzah (a partition separating men and women during prayer in an orthodox synagogue). I sat downstairs. Twenty minutes later, Abe returned, and the gentleman told me that I was welcome to leave the shule.
When I first came to Atlanta in 1974, I started a clinic one half-day a week in the Fulton County Health Center. This was a pediatric ophthalmology clinic, where any child in the city could get free eye care by me. The city purchased the ophthalmology equipment, and I provided the exams and care. One day, the chief janitor came up to me and said, “You know, Dr. Pollard, that article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper today by Holocaust-deniers was not correct. I was in the army group that liberated several camps in Germany. I saw firsthand what they had done to your people.” I was touched that he had taken the time to recount this experience to me. I had gone to that clinic for one half-day each week for three years. I talked to only the nurse who worked there, and after each clinic, I left. I never had even talked to another person in three years at the clinic except the nurse.
One Christmas Eve, I was operating at one of our hospitals here in Atlanta, and an African-American orderly with whom I had worked for many years brought my last patient down from the floor to the operating room. I wished John a merry Christmas for him and his family. He responded, “And Dr. Pollard, I hope you and your family have a wonderful Chanukah.” Totally bewildered, I asked John how he knew I was Jewish. I was not wearing a Kippah or yarmulke (a skullcap worn in public by some observant Jewish men). I was not wearing a tsitzit (a garment with strings attached, also worn by observant Jewish men). I did not have Peyes (sidelocks) hanging over my ears. He told me that he was originally from New York City and not Atlanta, and that people from New York know who is Jewish, Italian, and even Catholic versus Protestant.
The last tale is not a very pretty one. I had just finished a three-month rotation on a cardiology ward as a senior medical student. It was the last day of the rotation, and the chief of cardiology invited me into his office. He told me that I had been one of the best students he had ever had the privilege of teaching, and he proceeded to offer me a residency in internal medicine to be followed by a fellowship in cardiology. I was floored by the offer, but, being upfront, I told him I had wanted all of my life to do something surgical. He looked at me with disdain and said, “All of you Jewish boys just want to make money!”
Being only 24 years old, I did not have the courage or the wherewithal to even answer him.
As a Jew, I have so much to be proud of. Also as a Jew, I am sensitive about stereotyping others, whether it be positive or negative. Over the years, there may have been many who didn’t know I was Jewish, but I can only share that some people did. I still don’t know how they knew, but they did. The bottom line is that one who is Jewish needs to be proud of being Jewish, because even if he does not admit to being Jewish, the world seems to know.
An outlet called Decision Desk HQ has called two races bringing the GOP total in the House of Representatives to 219. Who is Decision Desk HQ and why are they calling these races?
RedState’s Mr. Bonchie (Republican Kevin Kiley in California’s Third CD) and Hot Air’s John Sexton (Republican Mike Garcia in California’s Twenty-Seventh CD) have followed DDHQ on these calls. Kiley’s putative victory would take the GOP to a majority of 218 in the House. Garcia’s would bring the majority to 219.
As of this moment, however, DDHQ is alone in its calls. The AP remains stuck at 217. Facts are better than dreams. I strive to adhere to the reality principle. Only 56 percent of the ballots have been counted in Kiley’s race. By contrast, some 72 percent of the votes have been counted in Garcia’s race and his opponent seems to think she has lost.
John McCormack takes my approach — the conservative approach — in looking at the outstanding races in this post at NRO’s Corner. After accounting for the races above and a few others, McCormack concludes (links omitted):
Republicans appear likely to hold at least 220 seats. “Right now, Republicans would be on track to win 221 seats if the latest trends continued, though several of these races remain so close that they could easily go the other way,” Nate Cohn reports at the New York Times. After the 2020 election, Democrats held a 222-seat majority — the narrowest majority since the 2000 election when Republicans controlled 221 seats.
The first headache is the lack of clarity regarding the outcome of the 2022 election a week after what we used to think of as election day. The headaches to come will follow from the narrow majority with which Republicans would have to work in the next Congress.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
AP Photo/Chris Seward
The wringing of the hands is furious. With another election less than a month away the anxiety is fierce. And the barbs are already flying.
I’m not talking about the distraction of Trump vs. DeSantis—the phony schoolyard fight.
I’m referring to the election of the next Senate leader for the GOP now that “Cocaine” Mitch McConnell has lost the Senate for the second cycle in a row. Elections bring about accountability. It’s time to make a change and that change should be an advocate for America First.
With the media peddling the idea of the red “trickle” most haven’t looked at the amazing accomplishments of this election.
Specifically, President Trump endorsed (America First) candidates went 219-16 among the races where President Trump worked, endorsed, rallied, and sacrificed. McConnell threw a record amount of money raised, in mostly only four Senate races, and discovered that just writing a check doesn’t do the same thing.
Honestly, this race accomplished many amazing things! Progressive home of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez will send 11 of 26 congressional representatives to DC as Republicans. California will most likely deliver the final votes for the majority, but the GOP couldn’t have done it without Zeldin campaigning his heart out in NY and getting them over the finish line.
This mid-term also turned the entire Iowa slate red. The first in the nation caucuses had been going lavender for cycles, but America First got the job done. This election also swept in not one, not a dozen but nearly 50 school boards across the country that kicked out progressive weirdos and installed America First parents who don’t want their children being told: “they’re racist, parents aren’t an actual proper authority in their lives, and drag shows are acceptable.”
This election also retired names from our lexicon. Words like “Beto,” “Stacey Abrams,” “Speaker Pelosi,” “who is Evan McMullin,” “Charlie Crist,” and possibly “Minority Leader McConnell” we may never be forced to hear again!
He has it coming. McConnell that is.
He abandoned his party on the big lie that January 6th was a Trump-orchestrated protest. He bailed on several items from big pharma, to a green new deal. Worst of all he lacked a strategy and methodology to win/defend the seats needed to win the Senate. He raised a lot of cash, but winning requires more than cash. I thank him for ushering through Trump’s 300 judicial nominees. But like Hawley, Cruz, and Rubio are all publicly calling for—it’s time for new leadership.
Not surprisingly McConnell is ignoring the Georgia run-off and insisting the leadership election go forward before the race for Senator from Georgia is decided. It’s selfish. It’s a bad strategy when Walker needs a united party behind him, and it wreaks desperation.
Win or lose in Georgia, McConnell lost the Senate. Pelosi will likely be retired if she fails to hold the house. McConnell deserves the same scrutiny—it’s what his job as leader demands.
Finally, if the rumors are true that McConnell may have been distracted from his job because he’s been part of an elite crew attempting to recruit either Gov. DeSantis or Gov. Youngkin to create a primary fight with President Trump then he should be shown the door.
The governors are both talented and either of them might make a truly powerful case for being Trump’s running mate and future face of America First. But now is not their time.
Donald J. Trump, the incumbent leader of the GOP, not only garnered more votes cast for himself than any incumbent President in history but then worked so hard that he turned out 6 million more votes for the GOP in this midterm than his opponents—that guy—gets to decide for himself if he wishes to run or not. (Pssst… he’s running.)
The very last thing, the growing GOP ranks need at present is some sort of ugly back-alley catfight distracting from the failures of present-day Washington.
All fire must be trained on the pain the Democrats are inflicting on the American people, their pocketbooks, and their children.
McConnell’s attempts to prevent such simply because he doesn’t like getting called out on his shortcomings is inexcusable.
The last dying vestiges of “never Trump” will not be allowed back into leadership in the minds of the voters and the GOP in the US Senate should move to adopt America First as not just a mindset but as their unwavering policy focus.
Ron DeSantis had a great night on Tuesday. Flipping two blue counties is incredible. (Though Trump has been attracting Hispanics and Blacks to GOP ranks for years.) DeSantis should feel good about fighting for his state in the tumultuous Biden anarchy. He believes in America First and would be a natural successor to Trump on many levels.
What he should not do is believe that McConnell has this figured out further than Trump. Neither should the still largely unproven Youngkin.
The real battle is with the progressive Marxists attempting to destroy America.
We likely are taking the House from them, we retired many of them, and kicked them out of school boards from sea to shining sea.
But there is still work to do!
And we must have leadership that is focused on that!
MN Prager Discussion Group 
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