House Overwhelmingly Passes Bill to End Obama Admin ‘Slush Fund’

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The House of Representatives passed legislation Wednesday which would block President Obama from funding favored political organizations through penalties levied against banks.

The final tally of votes for the “Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2016” (H.R. 5063) was 241-174, with five Democrats joining with all the Republicans present to approve the measure.

As reported by Western Journalism, the Obama administration once again appears to be employing extra-constitutional ways to get around Congress and fund many of its favorite organizations, some of which are engaged in political activities.

After forcing multi-billion settlements with most of the major banks in the country over mortgage practices, the Justice Department offered them the option of paying back some or all of the amounts owed on a better than a two-for-one dollar basis by “donating” to approved organizations, rather than remitting all the money to the U.S. Treasury.

For example, Bank of America donated “$1.15 million to the National Urban League, which counts as if it were $2.6 million against the bank’s settlement. Similarly, $1.5 million to La Raza takes $3.5 million off the total amount of ‘consumer relief’ owed by the bank,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

“Many of these groups engage in voter registration, community organizing and lobbying on liberal policy priorities at every level of government,” the Journal noted. “They also provide grants to other liberal groups not eligible for payouts under the settlements. Thanks to the Obama administration, and the fungibility of money, the settlements’ beneficiaries can now devote hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to these activities.”

House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., introduced the Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act in April, which prevents government officials from enforcing settlements that funnel money to third parties.

“Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, the Constitution is clear: Congress shall have the power to appropriate,” said Goodlatte in a House Judiciary Committee press release on Wednesday following the bill’s passage.

“The practices discovered within the DOJ must be stopped. The passage of this bill by the House ensures the recovered funds are used to benefit direct victims and not special interests, and brings accountability to the Executive Branch as a whole.”

According to the House Judiciary release, “the DOJ has used mandatory donations to direct as much as $880 million dollars to activist groups.”

In a related issue, the Obama administration announced earlier this year it will hand out over $7 billion to health insurance companies from fees collected through the Affordable Care Act as a means of mitigating the disastrous financial impact the legislation is having on them.

The only problem is the law authorizes a fixed share of those collected fees to be used for that purpose and the rest is to go Treasury’s general funds. The administration has handed over all the funds collected without obtaining authorization from Congress. (For more from the author of “House Overwhelmingly Passes Bill to End Obama Admin ‘Slush Fund'” please click HERE)

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Obama Cancels Meeting After Philippines President Curses Him

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The president of the Philippines, who was scheduled to face criticism Tuesday from President Barack Obama for his controversial “war on drugs” that has resulted in open season on suspected drug dealers, on Monday lashed out at Obama and called him a “son of a whore.”

Afterward, U.S. officials announced that Obama no longer had any plans to meet with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte took office June 30 and promised a war on drugs that would wipe out drug dealing in the island nation. As a result, more than 2,000 suspected drug dealers have been killed, often without any form of judicial process.

“Double your efforts. Triple them, if need be. We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier, and the last pusher have surrendered or put behind bars — or below the ground, if they so wish,” Duterte said in July.

His tactics have raised eyebrows, and were expected to be a subject of conversation on Tuesday between Duterte and Obama at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations conference, which both are attending.

However, before he left Manila for Laos, where the conference is held, Duterte became enraged when a reporter asked him how he planned to explain the killings to Obama.

“Who does he think he is? I am no American puppet. I am a president of a sovereign state, and we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody,” he said.

“You must be respectful. Do not just throw questions. Putang ina I will swear at you in that forum,” he said, using the Tagalog phrase translated literally as “son of a whore” and colloquially as “son of a b—-.”

Duterte, whose combative and abrasive style has seen him curse out other world leaders including Pope Francis, suggested Obama has no right to ask about internal Philippine affairs.

“Who is he to confront me?” Duterte said, adding that the Philippines had not received an apology for misdeeds committed during the U.S. colonization of the Philippines.

He linked his current problems with American misdeeds dating back to the war fought at the turn of the 20th century against Moro insurgents on the southern Island of Mindanao.

“As a matter of fact, we inherited this problem from the United States,” he said. “Why? Because they invaded this country and made us their subjugated people. Everybody has a terrible record of extra-judicial killing. Why make an issue about fighting crime?”

He added: “Look at the human rights of America along that line. The way they treat the migrants there.”

Obama indicated during a news conference he was focused on whether any meeting would be productive.

“I always want to make sure if I’m having a meeting that it’s productive and we’re getting something done,” he said.

“If and when we have a meeting, this is something that is going to be brought up,” Obama said, referring to Duterte’s war on drug dealers. (For more from the author of “Obama Cancels Meeting After Philippines President Curses Him” please click HERE)

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CNN, Now the Censoring News Network

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For years now, CNN has been dubbed the Clinton News Network (a moniker disturbingly close to the truth) and even the Communist News Network (hyperbole, yes). But last week, CNN emerged as the Censoring News Network.

There are certainly some fine reporters at CNN who strive to be balanced and fair in their work, and when compared to Fox and MSNBC, there have been times when CNN appears to be less biased than their cable competitors. But as the presidential campaigns wear on, CNN’s pro-Hillary, anti-Trump reporting is becoming even more glaring, to the point of blatant censorship.

As an early endorser of Ted Cruz, I noticed CNN’s fairly obvious disdain for him during the Republican primaries, as a Trump or Hillary victory in one state would be described as very important or highly significant, while an even bigger Cruz victory in an equally important state would be reported flatly and without adjectives, as in, “Senator Cruz wins in Utah.”

But these were minor infractions and hardly amounted to censorship. Not even close.

Over at Fox, it has been impossible to miss the degree to which Sean Hannity and others have thrown themselves in with Trump, to the point that some shows resemble political infomercials rather than journalistic programming.

But again, this too does not amount to censorship.

But it is totally different when images are altered and words removed so as to withhold important information or give misleading impressions to the viewing audience. CNN was guilty of this twice in two days last week.

Blurring the Truth

On August 31, CNN’s Headline News (HLN) broadcast a report about Steven Eckel, a 53-year-old man who came to the rescue of a four-month-old girl whom he spotted left in a hot car in New Jersey. He smashed the window with a sledgehammer, probably saving the little girl’s life.

What could there be to censor?

Well this hero, who was being hailed for his actions by the media, was actually – hold your breath now – a supporter of Donald Trump. Worse still, he was wearing a t-shirt that said, “Trump 2016.”

How could a man like that do anything good and compassionate and praiseworthy? And how could CNN’s HLN feature a glowing report that made a Trump supporter look good?

When the report first aired on the 31st, the Trump 2016 logo was clearly seen.

“But,” the Daily Mail reports, “when it was shown again later the same day, producers decided to censor the front of his t-shirt,” blurring the words so they could not be seen.

How utterly outrageous.

A spokesman for HLN stated that the blurring was a mistake, explaining, “We blurred the logo and shouldn’t have; it was done in error.”

The obvious question is whose idea was it to blur the image?

Really now, what could possibly motivate someone to do such a thing other than extreme anti-Trump (and/or pro-Hillary) bias? On what grounds could anyone working in the HLN newsroom think that the “Trump 2016” logo should be obscured? Was it profane? Did it contain an offensive graphic? Was it giving out private information? No, no, and no.

And does any rational person think that if the hero had been wearing a “Hillary 2016” t-shirt that the pro-Hillary logo would have been blurred?

Crooked Reporting

Two days before that, on August 29th, CNN came under fire for omitting Trump’s trademark description of Hillary as “Crooked” when posting one of his tweets.

What they posted for their viewers was the actual image of a Trump tweet reading, “I think that both candidates, Hillary and myself, should release detailed medical records. I have no problem in doing so! Hillary?”

Again, the viewers saw what appeared to be an image of Trump’s tweet, which was then read on the air by the CNN anchor, Jim Sciutto. The actual tweet, however, in keeping with Trump’s custom, contained the “Crooked Hillary” moniker.

So, CNN not only had its host read the tweet sans the word “Crooked,” but they put an image on their screen sans “Crooked,” giving the misleading impression to the casual viewer that this was a copy of the tweet.

What kind of deceptive reporting is this? Is it anything less than censorship?

Personally, I’m not a fan of the “Crooked” epithet (although sadly, Mrs. Clinton seems to be knee-deep in corruption and lies), and if the CNN reporter chose to use a certain intonation to reflect his displeasure with it, that would be understandable.

But to alter the text, presumably because CNN deemed it offensive, and then to post a graphic with that altered text as if it were the original, is to engage in outright journalistic deception. This sounds like it could be taken right out of the pages of the old Communist Party playbook. North Korea would also be proud of reporting like this.

It is true that the following day, CNN reporters read the entire tweet, unedited, but that does not remove the offensive nature of what was done the day before.

So, from scrubbing a word to blurring a slogan, one being anti-Hillary and the other being pro-Trump, CNN is becoming the Censoring News Network.

To all people of influence and responsibility at CNN, I urge you to step higher, to report the news without censorship, and to do your best to become known for unbiased reporting. America desperately needs at least one station that will give it an honest shot. (For more from the author of “CNN, Now the Censoring News Network” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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‘Just a Charade’: House Conservatives Decry IRS Chief’s Capitol Hill Visit

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Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen made the rounds Wednesday on Capitol Hill to discuss his potential impeachment, meeting with two of the largest GOP House caucuses.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus were furious about Koskinen’s visits with lawmakers who belong to the moderate Tuesday Group or the conservative-leaning Republican Study Committee.

These conservatives have been calling for the top taxman’s impeachment since October.

One of the members who quarterbacked the impeachment effort, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., described the Koskinen tour as tantamount to allowing a defendant to chat up a jury “while the prosecuting attorney is away.”

“You’re going to give the most hated official in the Obama administration a free platform, without testifying under oath, to defend himself and his targeting of conservative groups?” Huelskamp told The Daily Signal. “This is just a charade.”

Conservatives have bickered for months over impeachment with GOP leadership, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. And pessimism was rank among members of the Freedom Caucus after word got out of the top IRS agent’s congressional visit.

“Life on Capitol Hill can’t get any more cynical,” Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., told The Daily Signal. He blamed centrist Republicans for “asking for testimony, not under oath, that allows someone with a proven track record of obfuscation and destruction of evidence to get a free pass in the media.”

The Freedom Caucus says the IRS commissioner has to go because he obstructed a congressional investigation into the agency’s unfair treatment of conservative groups. Conservatives have slammed leadership for being “too timid to go after corruption” in the past.

The Obama administration has been unwavering in its defense of the beleaguered tax chief. And for his part, Koskinen has described allegations of wrongdoing as “unwarranted” and the articles of impeachment lodged against him as “without merit.”

To force the impeachment issue, the Freedom Caucus employed a parliamentary mechanism known as a privileged resolution from the House floor in April. The tactic triggers a floor vote on impeachment and bypasses a laborious committee process.

Wednesday morning, Ryan said the House will hold a vote next week on whether to impeach Koskinen. But by afternoon, the tax chief was touring Capitol Hill in an effort to sway lawmakers to vote against his impeachment.

A leadership aide told The Daily Signal that Ryan didn’t play a hand in bringing Koskinen to the House, adding that the Republican conference will huddle Sept. 15 to discuss the party’s official position on impeachment.

The meeting will be an open-mic opportunity for conservatives to air their case against Koskinen and to bring other members, some of whom haven’t followed the controversy closely, up to speed.

Though the RSC meeting with Koskinen was cordial, Chairman Bill Flores, R-Texas, told reporters, it was hardly a meet-and-greet. Nearly 40 members met with the tax bureaucrat, grilling him with “pointed questions,” Flores said.

Some members of the RSC, including Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, want to fire Koskinen.

Chaffetz told The Daily Signal on Tuesday that he would “certainly be supportive of” a privileged resolution to force a vote.

But the Utah representative, who first introduced articles of impeachment in October, said that first “we have to get the entirety of our team, aka the Republicans, moving in the right direction.”

Chaffetz’s office didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s inquiries about who was on the sidelines of the impeachment push or if the Koskinen tour hindered that effort.

The impeachment debate comes as conservatives and GOP leadership are in a standoff over spending levels.

One member of the Freedom Caucus suggested conservatives might be persuaded to soften their stance on Koskinen if the establishment would agree to keep any spending bills from taking flight during the lame-duck session.

”It might very well be that we back off of Koskinen until the first of [next] year,” the lawmaker told The Daily Signal on condition of anonymity, “if you [GOP leaders] do a continuing resolution through March.”

Other members of the Freedom Caucus remain intent on getting their political pound of flesh. The IRS targeting scandal has been a focal point for Republicans since the public first learned in 2013 that the agency put conservative groups under extra scrutiny.

The IRS started flagging and holding up applications for nonprofit status from conservative groups in 2010. Agents specifically targeted applications that included terms such as “tea party,” “patriot,” and “government spending.”

While multiple investigations were underway, President Barrack Obama told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Super Bowl Sunday in 2014 that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS.

Conservatives argue that no one at the IRS has been held accountable for the unfair targeting.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., said he wishes Koskinen would agree to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“It’d be interesting to see if the song and dance would be different under oath,” he told The Daily Signal. (For more from the author of “‘Just a Charade’: House Conservatives Decry IRS Chief’s Capitol Hill Visit” please click HERE)

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After Being Accused of Racist Policing, the NYPD Is Blasting This ‘Deeply Flawed’ IG Report

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The New York City Police Department launched a Twitterstorm Wednesday morning defending its “Broken Windows” community policing strategy. The social media rant came in conjunction with the release of the NYPD’s 46-page rebuttal to a June 22 report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) titled “An Analysis of Quality-of-Life Summonses, Quality-of-Life Misdemeanor Arrests, and Felony Crime in New York City, 2010 to 2015.”

“Broken Windows” policing, which focuses on targeting smaller offenses (a.k.a. “quality-of-life” policing) to mitigate bigger offenses down the line, was heavily criticized by the OIG, which claimed the policy was essentially racist as it unfairly targeted minorities. The NYPD’s epic rebuttal, titled “Broken Windows is Not Broken,” tears into “the unsupported assertions put forth in the OIG report.”

The NYPD describes the OIG report as “the culmination of a months-long analysis of the NYPD’s quality-of-life (QOL) summons and misdemeanor arrests from 2010-2015, and the impact of that enforcement on the reduction of felony crime.” It reportedly concludes that the NYPD’s QOL measures had “little-to-no temporal relationship with the decline in felony crime rates across New York City.”

It also claims to have found that QOL enforcement is “not evenly distributed across the city.” Cue the accusations of racial discrimination.

But the NYPD contests that the OIG selectively quoted its 2015 report titled “Broken Windows and Quality-of-Life Policing in New York City,” which aimed to dispel myths surrounding quality-of-life and Broken Windows policing. According to the NYPD, “the OIG report largely ignores most of its most pertinent information,” like the fact that “both city and state prison populations have fallen from previous highs, by 49 percent and 27 percent, respectively” in the 21 years since QOL policing was first introduced. Further, city leaders announced this week that 2016 was one of New York City’s safest summers ever.

From the press release:

Beyond the NYPD’s own comprehensive review and subsequent rejection of the OIG report, two independent eminent criminologists, Richard Rosenfeld and David Weisburd, have also roundly criticized the report, citing: problems with its research and statistical methodology; the lack of consideration for officer discretion; and the omission of the 16 years prior to 2010 — when misdemeanor arrests strongly correlated to the largest crime decline in New York City history. These criminologists have also determined the analysis contained in the report is not strong enough to support its conclusions.

In the past year especially, local law enforcement have been the target of public and private criticism. Wednesday, the NYPD sent a clear message: If you’re going to attack us, at least get your facts straight.

“Going back as far as 1978, in the streets of the Fenway, I have seen community complaints about quality of life conditions dominate conversations between the community and the police,” Police Commissioner William J. Bratton — set to retire this month — said in a statement:

“The NYPD’s Neighborhood Coordination Officer Program re-affirms what I learned all those years ago, that neighborhood residents expect action on the part of the police regarding lesser crimes and signs of disorder. Enforcement targeting these conditions has become known as ‘quality-of-life’ policing, and it has been frequently disparaged as a vehicle of oppression that creates racially disparate outcomes. That could not be further from the truth. This type of policing is an essential tool of community engagement and trust building, most often in direct response to community concerns. Quality of life policing will remain a key strategy for the NYPD.” (For more from the author of “After Being Accused of Racist Policing, the NYPD Is Blasting This ‘Deeply Flawed’ IG Report” please click HERE)

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Radio Host Levin Reverses Course: ‘I’m Gonna Vote for Donald Trump’

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After once declaring he could never support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, Mark Levin changed his mind with a big announcement on his radio program Tuesday.

“I’m gonna vote for Donald Trump. I’m gonna wind up voting for Donald Trump on Election Day,” the talk radio host said after reiterating his perspective that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was a far better choice for conservatives.

“I take no responsibility for the dumb things he says or the dumb things his surrogates say,” he added of the GOP nominee and his campaign.

Levin’s endorsement comes five months after unequivocally stating, “I am not voting for Donald Trump. Period.”

The 58-year-old syndicated radio host also noted that Trump has an uphill climb to win the White House, despite some recent national polls showing him tied or in the lead. (Read more from “Radio Host Levin Reverses Course: ‘I’m Gonna Vote for Donald Trump'” HERE)

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Hillary Cuts off Reporter After Being Asked About Clinton Foundation Conflicts

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Hillary Clinton seemed visibly agitated on Tuesday after a reporter asked if her daughter’s continuing involvement on the Clinton Foundation board would present a conflict of interest if Clinton is elected president.

The reporter asked the Democratic nominee, “If Chelsea Clinton does stay on the foundation’s board — which the foundation has said very definitively that she will, or that that’s the plan currently — do you believe that could raise legitimate conflict questions, and does that mean –“

“No, I do not,” Clinton snapped. “I’ve said over and over again, doesn’t matter how many times you ask me, and how you ask me. These issues will be decided after the election, and we will decide the appropriate way forward.”

Clinton defended her family charity by insisting that every donor was disclosed, but she acknowledged that a lot of the work will have to be “spun off” because of support from foreign governments.

“We’re going to do what is right and proper to make sure that there is not even a question,” she said. “Let’s not pretend there will be conflicts, because there were not.”

During an ABC News interview with David Muir, the former secretary of state said that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, should not have to step down from his position before the election is over.

“I don’t think there are conflicts of interest,” she said. “I know that that’s what has been alleged and never proven. But nevertheless, I take it seriously.”

While Bill Clinton announced his plans to depart the Clinton Foundation board and stop raising money for the foundation if his wife becomes president as a means of addressing the “legitimate concerns about potential conflicts of interest,” Chelsea Clinton said she would not follow suit.

“As recently as this summer, the foundation was discussing with some allies plans for Chelsea Clinton to leave the board, along with former President Bill Clinton, if Mrs. Clinton should win,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “But on Wednesday [Aug. 24], foundation spokesman Craig Minassian said Chelsea Clinton plans to stay on the board.”

An Associated Press report late last month revealed that during Clinton’s term as secretary of state, more that half of those she met with outside the government had given money to the Clinton Foundation.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has called the Clinton Foundation “the most corrupt enterprise in political history.”

His running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, has said the foundation should be “immediately shut down.” (For more from the author of “Hillary Cuts off Reporter After Being Asked About Clinton Foundation Conflicts” please click HERE)

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Polling Average Shows Trump-Clinton Race Tightening

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The 2016 presidential election has proven frustrating for many Republicans. The GOP nominee, a businessman with no political resume, has alienated key demographics, insulted prominent members of the press, and divided leading voices in the party. But despite all this, a recent average of national polls suggests he has closed the gap with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

One new CNN poll has Trump ahead by 1 point in a head-to-head match-up, while the RealClearPolitics’ (RCP) average of recent polls has Clinton up by a modest 3.3 points — a lead far smaller than the nearly seven-point lead she had in late August. And while a recent Washington Post-SurveyMonkey poll shows Hillary maintaining a comfortable lead, two poll experts cautioned a measure of skepticism about that polls’ methodology.

“Mark Blumenthal and Jon Cohen are two of the best pollsters in the business,” RCP Senior Elections Analyst Sean Trende told The Stream about the Post‘s online poll. “They do not put out a junk product. That said, it is a new methodology, and even the best methodology can’t fix sampling error.”

Robert Morris University (RMU) professor Philip Harold, Ph.D., was cautious about the poll results. “They surveyed a lot of people, and included all 50 states, but that does not mean it is an accurate poll,” he explained in an e-mail. “There is really no way in this poll to get the opinions of people who are less willing to share their views, which opens it up to significant non-response bias.”

According to Harold, the poll “assumes, in other words, that there is no significant difference between the populations of supporters for the candidates, and their willingness to share their opinion. That is a significant assumption, and one which is belied by the recent history of polling for Trump support, which finds his supporters more reticent to share their opinion (e.g. throughout the primary season he consistently gained 2% more support than the polls predicted).”

“The medium of an online poll may also very well favor Clinton supporters — people who are in front of computers all day and who take online surveys are not the downscale, working class voters who are enthusiastic about Trump,” Harold said. “The Texas results of this poll show that something might be off — it shows a dead heat between Trump and Clinton, which no one really thinks is true.”

Do Third-Party Candidates Matter?

One way of measuring the race is how Trump and Clinton match up when Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein are included in the polls. RCP’s average in a four-way race found that Clinton’s lead slips to 2.4 points over Trump, indicating that the secondary candidates are taking more from Clinton’s support than Trump’s.

It’s “hard to say” whether Johnson and Stein will factor into November’s elections, said Trende. “Third parties tend to fade down the stretch, except when they don’t (e.g. [Ross] Perot [in 1992]). Given the sky-high unfavorable for both candidates, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if things didn’t fade this year.”

Harold, however, said, “I tend to think that as people’s minds are focused in the months, days and weeks leading up to election day, Stein and Johnson’s numbers will drop. They will be factors and will pick up votes, definitely. But more of a factor will be who votes.”

“Clinton’s challenge is motivating voters who traditionally have had lower turnout, but who voted in much greater numbers the past couple elections for Obama — that is difficult to do,” Harold continued. “Trump’s task is to bring those who have not voted to the polls — that is also very difficult to do.”

“Getting supporters to the polls is what keeps the Clinton campaign up at night,” he said. “They have lots of money and technology, but they do not have an inspiring candidate. The key state in the electoral college is Pennsylvania. Trump needs to win there, and he should win there, given the kind of campaign he’s running. The nice 6-to-9-point gap there Clinton has opened up keeps the Trump campaign up at night.”

Conclusions

In 2012, many conservatives assumed that pollsters were overstating President Barack Obama’s excitement among voters. As Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey told The Stream, “The reason we were doing this so-called unskewing of the polls, which turned out to be a huge mistake, was that we were convinced the electoral model had changed from 2008 to 2010.”

“We were wrong in our assumptions because we were making assumptions,” said Morrissey. Obama ended up beating GOP nominee Mitt Romney by the same margin as the polls predicted. But in its recent poll showing Trump with a three-point lead over Clinton, The Los Angeles Times indicated that what conservatives got wrong in 2012 could end up being correct in 2016.

Harold also says pollster accuracy is a legitimate question in 2016. “Trump won the Republican primaries by bringing in new voters to the ballot box. That makes it very, very difficult for pollsters, who are relying on the statistics from previous elections, to filter out those who do not plan to vote and to weigh their samples.”

According to Trende, however, “Different pollsters have different methodologies. So while the averages are good, there is always a chance that some particular pollster ‘figured things out.’ It might be the LA Times. But it might also be SurveyMonkey (which has HRC +6), so over time you’ll be *closest* to the correct result using averages.”

And what if the popular vote in November comes down to the wire? “If you look closely, in [the RCP] averages, in 538’s averages, and in the SurveyMonkey polls, electoral vote #270 actually falls a touch on the Trump side of the popular vote. In a tied popular vote race, Trump probably has an edge.” (For more from the author of “Polling Average Shows Trump-Clinton Race Tightening” please click HERE)

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The Incredible Leadership of Phyllis Schlafly

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With the death of Phyllis Schlafly, America has lost an authentic heroine.

Schlafly was an American patriot, a true renaissance woman, an exceptional leader, and a wonderful human being.

At the age of 92, Phyllis was one day from releasing her latest book. While she wrote many, no one can forget the one that started it all: “A Choice Not an Echo.” That little book issued in paperback helped to spur the modern conservative movement.

I have one of those original books and it helped me to know what I believed and why I believed it. And for younger conservatives who are seeking the truth, that little book was re-released as a 50th anniversary addition, updated and expanded.

Schlafly’s Political Leadership

Phyllis will be remembered by most Americans as the lady who defeated the so-called Equal Rights Amendment. And she did, though she would be the first to tell you that it was the women across America, roused and incensed by learning the truth of how this amendment would demean their status and roles in the name of equality who took to the hallways of state capitols to stop ratification of this amendment to the United States Constitution.

Her leadership, however, was historic. She organized women (and more than a few men as well) under the banner of Eagle Forum to take their facts, their unique brand of lobbying, their winning smiles, and their messages of unintended consequences to scores of state legislators.

Phyllis was ever present at the state capitols but also on the television programs where her debating style, facts, and a smile disarmed many a host and frustrated the most fervent of her opponents. She never resorted to ad hominem attacks as her opponents often did because she had the truth and the facts on her side.

But, Phyllis Schlafly was a leader on so many other fronts that matter today. She loved the U.S. Constitution and believed it to be inspired. One of her greatest joys was being appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. I worked for Reagan as his deputy for presidential appointments at the time and I don’t really know who was happier about this appointment—Reagan for being able to appoint Phyllis or Phyllis for receiving this appointment from Reagan.

She, of course, served with distinction alongside former Chief Justice Warren Burger in bringing the Constitution and its limits on federal government to millions of Americans.

National defense, anti-communism, American leadership, freedom around the world, limited government, parental choice in education, the strength of the traditional family, life, national security, the strategic defense initiative, national sovereignty, immigration reform—well, this is just a short list of the many major policy areas on which Phyllis spoke through her books, her Phyllis Schlafly Report, her conferences, and her public appearances. She was brilliant and a great communicator, a woman well-grounded in moral truths.

It is also an interesting note that she went to law school after raising her family, though she would have been admitted to Harvard Law after graduating from college. Phyllis certainly did not need a law degree, but found that liberals like Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana sought to disdain her legal knowledge and debating skills because she did not have one. So she just decided to remove that little argument by getting that law degree, and so she did, graduating near the top of her Washington University Law School class.

Schlafly’s Legacy in the Conservative Movement

And Phyllis was a wonderful mentor to many. I first met her at a conference shortly after I came to Washington, D.C., as a 20-something young conservative. It was a meeting of the top conservative leaders in the country and I was the junior staff person giving out the registration materials.

Bill Rusher from National Review, Tom Winter and Allen Ryskind from Human Events, Stan Evans and Congressman John Ashbrook of the American Conservative Union, Frank Donatelli and Ron Docksai of the Young Americans for Freedom, Morton Blackwell, and the few other top leaders were there. When Phyllis Schlafly approached, I stood up and said, “Hello, Mrs. Schlafly,” to which she replied, I’m Phyllis, tell me your name.

We became friends and allies from that day forward.

She hosted me in her home on one of my earliest trips as political director of the American Conservative Union on whose board she served. We had a wonderful visit and I benefitted from her wisdom on the political and policy battles of the day. Eleven o’clock approached and she said that she always watched the news … it was the time that she did her 100 sit-ups every day. Phyllis was a disciplined woman, too.

Phyllis and Fred raised six children, but there are literally thousands of us around the country who feel a kinship to this extraordinary woman.

During my time as a member of the senior management at The Heritage Foundation, there have been numerous occasions for us to work together and she has always been one of Heritage’s treasured allies. Her student conferences were often held in our auditorium and Heritage staff would often slip in the back of the auditorium when Phyllis was about to speak. You could not be part of the conservative movement and not know of the enormous contribution Phyllis Schlafly has made to assure that we and future generations know the blessings of liberty and the battle we must wage to keep them.

Phyllis showed us how to live, to learn, to stand for our principles and values. She lived as the Prophet Micah wrote that the Lord requires of us: to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. We have been blessed with her friendship, her leadership, and her love. Her Lord has welcomed her home with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Phyllis Schlafly, we will miss you. (For more from the author of “The Incredible Leadership of Phyllis Schlafly” please click HERE)

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Top 10 Findings From the FBI’s Hillary Labor Day Document Dump

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Over at the Washington Examiner, Ashe Schow boils down the FBI’s Labor Day weekend document dump to the bare essentials.

The top 10 revelations related to Hillary’s interview with the FBI?

10. Hillary Clinton is incompetent (part I): she claimed she didn’t know that a (C) marking on official government documents meant that it was classified as “Confidential”.

9. Hillary Clinton is incompetent (part II): she also claimed she didn’t know how document classification worked; say, that Top Secret, Secret and Confidential are the three basic levels of classified documents.

8. Hillary Clinton couldn’t recognize what documents should be protected: like emails regarding specific drone strikes, for instance. Hillary was fine with sending those over her unprotected, illegal, and bathroom-dwelling email server.

7. Hillary Clinton hid at least 18,000 work-related emails: far from turning over “all work-related emails”, she hid tens of thousands of government-related communications, because they were all about yoga lessons and Clinton Foundation bribes, but mostly bribes.

6. Hillary Clinton used more than a dozen mobile email devices for State Department business: so much for the using “one device for convenience” lie.

5. Hillary Clinton repeatedly lost her mobile devices: but there were just a bunch of state secrets on them, so what’s the big deal?

4. Hillary Clinton ignored government warnings not to use mobile devices for official business: “Clinton and her immediate staff were notified of foreign travel risks and were warned that digital threats began immediately upon landing in a foreign country, since connection of a mobile device to a local network provides opportunities for foreign adversaries to intercept voice and email transmissions…” — and Clinton and her immediate staff, of course, ignored such warnings.

3. Hillary Clinton was never authorized to conduct State Department business on her private server: she was required to solicit and gain approval from the government in order to conduct official business on her home-brew, bathroom email server. She failed to do so. She ignored all official guidance.

2. Hillary Clinton was terrified she’d been hacked: she had received a variety of phishing emails, including porn solicitations. No word on what category said porn fell into.

1. Clinton mass-deleted emails just after The New York Times revealed the private server: only three weeks after the Times revealed Clinton’s private email server, the “oh sh**” moment occurred, according to the FBI. Electronic shredding was the result.

(For more from the author of “Top 10 Findings From the FBI’s Hillary Document Dump” please click HERE)

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