GOP Elite’s Ultimate Goal Is to Elect Democrats

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To the GOP elite, tactics are bad only if they’re used to damage the Democrats.

Last fall Rand Paul R-Ky. (A, 92%) predicted the end of Ted Cruz’s political career blaming Cruz’s “personal relationships or lack of personal relationships” in the Senate. Cruz, Paul explained, has no way of getting anything done because of his tactics: calling out leadership for its dishonesty and in doing so, violating the unofficial rules of the Senate.

When Ted Cruz R-Texas (A, 97%) demanded the defunding of Planned Parenthood, senators like John Cornyn R-Texas (F, 44%) and Kelly Ayotte R-N.H. (F, 32%) lambasted his tactics for daring to use must-pass budget legislation to accomplish his goal. Cruz pleaded with Republican senators to stand together and fight for principles, but they weren’t interested. National Senatorial Republican Committee Chairman, Roger Wicker R-Miss. (F, 30%) criticized Cruz’s approach saying, “I just don’t know if this is the ditch we need to die in.” In the end, Republican opposition to Cruz’s efforts left the abortion giant — caught butchering and selling baby parts for profit — alone and even stronger.

Sen. Bob Corker R-Tenn. (F, 45%) spoke disparagingly of Cruz after the infamous Obamacare defunding filibuster, saying that Cruz’s tactics amounted to grandstanding and prematurely drawing attention to what the Senate was doing. Heaven forbid.

Like many fellow Republicans who vigorously tried to tamp down the tea party, Steve LaTourette (may he rest in peace) equated Cruz’s tactics to lobbing bombs, and he wished Cruz would leave the Republican Party.

Members of the media, academia, and others often repeat what GOP critics say about Cruz. For example, one commenter for the news outlet, McClatchyDC made a familiar, sweeping argument against Cruz. Mark Jones of Rice University said, “Many in the GOP establishment resent his grandstanding and tactics which they believe have negatively affected govern-ability in the United States and adversely affected the Republican Party’s image among swing voters.”

Okay, we get it. It’s the tactics they don’t like. They won’t stand for principle because of tactics: unseemly tactics, scary tactics, unheard of tactics.

On Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier,” George Will said he has no intention of voting for Trump. Not only did Will publicly announce that he has left the Republican Party, but he also told the GOP to ensure Trump loses:

BRET BAIER: Hillary Clinton … seems to be going after disaffected Republicans in big ways, and is having some success according to the polls. Is it concerning for the Democratic Party on the progressive side, watching Hillary Clinton make those moves?

GEORGE WILL: Well they had to expect this, it’s a classic move that you move to the left in the primaries if you are a Democrat, and to the center to scoop up an enormous potential audience. Mitt Romney had 93 percent of Republicans voted for him, and Donald Trump has down around 60, maybe 70 at this point, that simply will not get him to the White House. I think they understand where her heart is, that she is probably more progressive instinctively than her husband was, and will understand this is tactics.

Will wants to reassure progressives who might be alarmed that Hillary is pursuing (and getting) Republican voters: Don’t be alarmed. It’s a tactic for Hillary to go after them, just as it’s a tactic that Republicans are willing to vote for her and raise money for her as well. After all, according to Will, we have to, “make sure Trump loses.” It’s an interesting list of people who feel similarly as Will.

Former GOP EPA chiefs are voting for Hillary, for they are obviously aligned with Obama’s coal-industry- crushing agenda and happy to help Hillary keep the boot on their (and our) necks.

Former Romney staffers are voting for Clinton.

GOP Congressman Richard Hanna R-N.Y. (F, 27%) is voting for Hillary. (Interestingly, he is the only Republican Planned Parenthood supports.)

Meg Whitman, who lost in the California gubernatorial race to the spectacularly bad Jerry Brown, is not only going to vote for Hillary, but she’s also going to fundraise on her behalf. Meg’s last job was to be part of Chris Christie’s finance team.

The Washington Post has compiled a list of nearly 50 beltway GOP who believe Hillary is vastly superior to Trump and plan to support and vote for her.

Just in case anyone was wondering who to blame if Trump loses, it’s these so-called Republicans who are coming out of the woodwork praising Hillary and shouting to the rooftops that they want to exercise their American privilege to vote for her.

These are the same cowards who made sure that there was minimal opposition to Obama for the past eight long years. They condemn tactics meant to expose and create backlash against Democrats while praising tactics that would elect the worst Democratic candidate who could become president. These cowards — and those like them — are what the current leadership of the Republican Party and columnists friendly to their worldview really want as model members, precisely because they are what the Democrats want.

They support Hillary because they won’t be hurt by it. But we, the American people, will. (For more from the author of “GOP Elite’s Ultimate Goal Is to Elect Democrats” please click HERE)

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TRUMP FIRES BACK AT JIHAD: The ‘Ideology of Death Must Be Extinguished’

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Donald Trump delivered a major foreign policy speech Monday in Youngstown, Ohio, entitled “Understanding The Threat: Radical Islam And The Age Of Terror.” He lashed out strongly against the Obama-Clinton foreign policies that have led to turmoil in the Middle East, unleashed ISIS and allowed Iran to enhance its power in the region and globally. However, rather than dwell on the mistakes of the past, Trump also outlined his own forceful approach to defeating radical Islamic terrorist organizations once and for all, which includes, but is not limited to, just ISIS alone.

“We cannot let this evil continue,” Trump declared. He decried “the hateful ideology of Radical Islam – its oppression of women, gays, children, and nonbelievers” in a way that President Obama and Hillary Clinton have utterly failed to do. “Anyone who cannot name our enemy, is not fit to lead this country,” Trump said. “Anyone who cannot condemn the hatred, oppression and violence of Radical Islam lacks the moral clarity to serve as our President.”

While Trump’s words were measured, the moral clarity of his vision and strategies to achieve it were crystal clear. “We will defeat Radical Islamic Terrorism, just as we have defeated every threat we have faced in every age before,” he declared.

Trump offered a number of specific proposals to counter radical Islamic terrorism, which he said he would implement as president both abroad and at home. He said that the era of nation-building will be “brought to a swift and decisive end,” if he becomes president. All actions, he added, should be oriented around the goal of halting the spread of radical Islam.

Trump acknowledged the need for international cooperation in achieving this goal, and even called for an international conference with our allies in the fight against radical Islamists. His administration, he said, will “aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS.” (Read more from “TRUMP FIRES BACK AT JIHAD: The ‘Ideology of Death Must Be Extinguished'” HERE)

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It’s Telling the Left Targets Only This State Law on Public Restrooms

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Pop quiz: Which of the following sentences comes from North Carolina’s new law protecting privacy in public schools and government buildings?

1. “The provision of separate facilities or schedules for female and for male patrons, does not constitute a discriminatory practice when such separate facilities or schedules for female and for male patrons are bona fide requirements to protect personal rights of privacy.”

2. “Nothing contained in this chapter that refers to ‘sex’ shall be construed to mandate joint use of restrooms, bath houses, and dressing rooms by males and females.”

3. “Nothing in this subsection prohibits separate treatment of persons based on sex with regard to public toilets, showers, saunas and dressing rooms for persons of different sexes.”

If you guessed “none of the above,” you would be correct.

These three provisions are from statutes in Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, respectively

Now let’s compare the provisions with some of the actual language from the North Carolina law, known as HB2:

Designating multiple or single occupancy bathrooms or changing facilities according to biological sex … shall not be deemed to constitute discrimination.

These four state laws are nearly identical. The laws each allow a business or public accommodation to have separate locker rooms and restrooms for men and women, rather than requiring either to give people who identify as transgender access to the facility of their choice.

At least a dozen states have similar laws. And in the remaining states, common sense was allowed to rule, resulting in a society-wide consensus that businesses can (and should) maintain distinct restrooms for each of the sexes.

The same principles are enshrined in the plain language of Title IX, a federal law that opponents of these commonsense laws often cite. Actually, though, it recognizes that federally funded schools and colleges can maintain separate facilities on the basis of sex.

So why the uproar and contentious litigation over HB2, a law that does little more than follow what has been the norm across our nation (and our laws) for hundreds of years?

The same question can be asked over Mississippi’s recent conscience protection law, which ensures that individuals who work in the wedding industry cannot be compelled to create expression that violates their beliefs or personal convictions.

Existing laws provide conscience protections in other contexts, such as ensuring that a medical professional is not forced to participate in abortions.

Or consider a recently enacted law in Tennessee that allows counselors to refer a client if the client is pursuing goals that conflict with the counselor’s beliefs.

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission recognized that a baker or cake artist could not be compelled to produce a cake with a message opposing same-sex marriage, while at the same time refusing to extend the same protection to Jack Phillips, who declined to create a cake celebrating a same-sex marriage.

Mississippi’s law was a necessary response to efforts to punish those who hold the time-honored view of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. It sought to guarantee that a person’s personal convictions are not trampled in the stampede to impose same-sex marriage on our nation.

While opponents of the North Carolina and Mississippi laws aim to portray them as radical new types of laws, the truth is that both laws are modeled on similar legislation that is decades old. Yet rather than take a wait-and-see approach to see how the two laws would operate in practice, opponents rushed to court.

Why? Because that is their modus operandi. When they can’t win through the normal legislative process, they rush to court seeking a judge who would strike down the law that they were unable to defeat through the representatives of the people.

Despite no evidence of discrimination under either law, and despite no documented instances in either state of someone being denied goods or services based upon their sexual orientation or gender identity, opponents of the laws reject the will of the people and, via judicial fiat, seek to impose their own will on everyone.

We all should be troubled by what this portends for democracy. Laws with solid legal foundations and decades of precedent in other states are challenged immediately by activists as unconstitutional—a word that has been redefined to mean “a law that they disagree with.”

Indeed, the fact that activists are challenging these two laws, and not the dozens of other, similarly worded laws in both red and blue states, reveals their true colors.

These activists are not concerned with what is or is not constitutional. They are not concerned about the rule of law. They are focused on defeating their enemies, those with whom they disagree, by any means necessary.

We should all hope and pray that the courts on which these activists so heavily bank their hopes will see through the façade and rule in accordance with the law and in favor of common sense. (For more from the author of “It’s Telling the Left Targets Only This State Law on Public Restrooms” please click HERE)

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America NEVER Voted for This Type of Refugee Program

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How is it that nearly 50 percent of our refugee intake this year, and for most of the past decade, is Muslim when most of the people being persecuted are other religious minorities at the hands of Islamic factions? And how is it that so many Muslim refugees are being settled in an overwhelmingly Christian country when the wealthy Muslim countries of the Persian Gulf have declined to take in a single refugee?

This is especially salient given the fact that it costs 12 times as much to resettle refugees in America as it does to resettle them in neighboring Middle Eastern countries. Put another way, we can save 12 times the number of people caught in the Syrian civil war by paying to resettle them in Saudi Arabia and Qatar than in America.

According to a Pew analysis released today, 46 percent of all refugees admitted to this country for FY 2016 are Muslim. Using data from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center, Pew found that 28,957 Muslims were admitted as refugees for the first ten months of this fiscal year, slightly more than the 27,556 Christians.

religion Refugees

Here is the breakdown of Muslim refugees by country of origin:

Syria – 8,511

Burma – 2,554

Somalia – 7,234

Afghanistan – 1,948

Iraq – 6,071

Other countries – 2,639

These numbers do not include other categories that are similar to refugee status, such as Special Immigrant Visas (SIV). Several thousand SIV’s are admitted from Afghanistan and Iraq each year, and Congress is in the process of approving another 4,000 from Afghanistan in the upcoming defense authorization bill. While it is hard to ascertain the exact number of Muslim immigrants overall, given that other categories are not tracked by religion, Pew cites its own 2013 survey which pegs the number at roughly 100,000 per year. Several months ago, I cited Census data that indicates the number has likely grown to 150,000 per year.

As Europe has taught us, numbers matter when it comes to Middle Easter immigration, cultural assimilation, and security risks. Why would we repeat their mistakes? When did the American people ever vote for such radical social transformation? So many small towns and counties are being seeded with refugees from radically divergent cultures with values that are often hostile to our constitutional republican political values and enlightened views on human rights.

religion Refugees origin

It is quite evident that if the American people ever had a chance to vote on these policies — if Congress had to renew refugee resettlement policies every year —
this fundamental transformation would be rejected.

Moreover, the entire prevailing practice of bringing in predominantly Muslim refugees from the Middle East violates the spirit of the refugee statutes.

According to existing law, a “refugee” means “any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality … and who is unable or unwilling to return to … that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of … race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion …[.] [Section 1101(a)(42)(A) of Title 8, U.S. Code]. Refugee laws were designed to protect persecuted religious and ethnic minorities, such as Iranian Jews or pro-democracy dissidents in the former Soviet Union.

In Syria and other places in the Middle East, on the other hand, it is Muslims who are doing the persecuting. The laws were not designed to invite in any person caught in a sectarian civil war. Take Somalia, for example. It is almost exclusively a Muslim country. Much like Syria, it is a miserable place to live and is marred in endless civil wars. However, most of the people coming from these countries do not qualify as refugees since they are not personally being persecuted because of their religion, ethnicity, or political views.

What is really going on? Democrats are pushing a Muslim resettlement program on America in order to repeat the mistakes of Europe for their own political gain. It makes no sense from a security or cultural standpoint, or from a humanitarian standpoint to do so, especially when no pressure it being placed on Muslim countries to take in people with similar backgrounds. Rather, this social transformation is being perpetrated on our society without the proper input of the people and their elected representatives, as I note in chapter 8 of Stolen Sovereignty. Much of this is being done at the behest of private taxpayer-funded resettlement groups who have everything to benefit from illegally expanding the definition of a refugee. Given that there aren’t enough Christian or Jewish refugees to pay their salaries (because most have already been driven out of these countries), these groups felt compelled to transform refugee resettlement into a Muslim resettlement program — a program for persecuted minorities into a wholesale population transfer of countries engulfed in civil war.

As I write in Stolen Sovereignty:

[G]iven that the policies are all set by the private refugee resettlement agencies, which see their taxpayer-subsidized salaries and revenue grow commensurate to the number of refugees admitted to the United States their goals will always be to bring in as many refugees as possible – no matter the cost, security risk, the underlying need, or the prudence of settling them here rather than in their regions.

How does the scheme work? More from page 175 of my book:

As far back as 2000, David M. Robinson, a former acting director of the refugee bureau in the State Department, described the insidious power of the contractors as follows: The agencies form a single body [that] wields enormous influence over the Administration’s refugee admissions policy. It lobbies the hill effectively to increase the number of refugees admitted for permanent resettlement each year and at the same time provides overseas processing for admissions under contract to the State department. In fact, the federal government provides about ninety percent of its collective budget. If there is a conflict of interest, it is never mentioned.

If Republicans ever win back the White House, they must reform the Refugee Act of 1980 so that it expires every other fiscal year. As a result, our nation;s default position would be such that no refugees are resettled unless the people’s representatives pass a new law. Local governments also need to be empowered to veto any resettlement within their respective jurisdictions. For now, Republicans at least hold the power of the purse and when they return in September, they must cut off funding, at a minimum, for Syrian and Somali refugees. Obama already unilaterally expanded the refugee cap by 15,000 for the current fiscal year and is planning to increase it by another 15,000 — to at least 100,000 total in FY 2017. Congress can and must refuse to fund it.

It’s time vulnerable GOP senators get off the mat, uncurl from their fetal position, and hang this unpopular transformation around the necks of their opponents. If Democrats really want to shut the government down in order to follow in the footsteps of Germany, that is an election fight Republicans should embrace. (For more from the author of “America NEVER Voted for This Type of Refugee Program” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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PHOTOS: Hillary Unable to Walk Without Having to Grab Furniture, People and Other Objects

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Kyle Olson at The American Mirror has the video and I’ve captured some key screen-caps for ease of viewing.

While visiting Joe Biden’s childhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Hillary was physically unable to walk without supporting herself using any object in close reach.

Hillary Clinton sought out the stability of just about anything during a visit to Joe Biden’s Scranton, Pennsylvania boyhood home… Video from Clinton’s appearance showed her grasping for a railing, a chair and the kitchen table on Monday.

160816-hillary-unsteady

As Olson also notes, Hillary stumbled earlier in the day simply trying to maneuver away from a podium at a rally with Biden.

Hillary Clinton’s appearance, behavior, and physical infirmities require that she release all of her medical records. (For more from the author of “PHOTOS: Hillary Unable to Walk Without Having to Grab Furniture, People and Other Objects” please click HERE)

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A Soros Plan, a Marginalized Israel

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After the election of Barack Obama in 2009, the George Soros organization saw an opportunity to weaken the pro-Israel lobby’s influence in Washington. So his Open Society Foundations began an ambitious project in 2009 to persuade Europe and the U.S. to “hold Israel accountable” for violations of international law.

This plan was outlined in two internal papers from the Open Society Foundations that were published online this month. They disclose how a web of grants to Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups were part of a larger strategy to influence Congress, reporters and government officials.

It started with so much hope after Obama won the 2008 election. “The right-wing so called ‘pro-Israel’ lobby has lost some credibility by being closely associated with Bush Administration Middle East policies,” a 2013 summary of the foundation’s “Palestine/Israel International Advocacy Portfolio” said. “As the Obama Administration distances itself from these somehow discredited policies, space for reasonable, unbiased discussions in the policy deliberations, including criticism of Israeli policies, is opening.”

There was, however, a catch. Soros’s organization, then known as the Open Society Institute, did not want to be open about its advocacy. A 2009 paper on the project says the organization must “maintain a low public profile regarding OSI sponsorship of this initiative.”

The 2013 document describes the “toxic atmosphere” in 2000 and 2001 when the foundation began its work in the Middle East, and how this environment could lead to “politically motivated investigations” from either the Bush administration or what it calls “pro-Israel entities.” Soros himself was worried about George W. Bush. In 2006, he said the president’s communications strategy reminded him of Nazi and Communist propaganda. Hence his foundations took a “cautious approach.” (Read more from “A Soros Plan, a Marginalized Israel” HERE)

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Serbs Greet Biden With Chants of ‘Vote for Trump!’

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Serbian protesters greeted Vice President Joseph R. Biden Tuesday with derisive chants of “Vote for Trump!”

Hundreds of demonstrators in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, chanted for the U.S. Republican presidential nominee upon Mr. Biden’s arrival, Reuters reported.

The demonstrators were Serbian ultranationalists protesting Mr. Biden’s one-day stop in Belgrade before his visit to Kosovo. They also wore shirts displaying an image of Mr. Trump.

“Trump is the alternative to globalization,” Vojislav Seselj, head of Serbia’s ultra-nationalist Radical Party, told Reuters when asked about supporting Mr. Trump. “He will destroy old centers of power in the United States and he is a supporter of Russia.” (Read more from “Serbs Greet Biden With Chants of ‘Vote for Trump!'” HERE)

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Father of Murdered DNC Staffer Speaks on Late Son’s Political Plans

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The father of the murdered DNC staffer, Joel Rich, is speaking out, urging those with information about his son’s death to step forward.

27-year-old Seth Conrad Rich, a Democratic National Committee analyst, was walking home near his Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Bloomingdale on July 10 when he was shot twice in the back. Police officers responded quickly to reports of gunshots, but Rich died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

“We want to get this solved, that’s the number one thing,” his father said in an interview with Daily Mail.

Initial reports from police suggested the incident may have been an attempted burglary in which Rich died during the struggle. D.C. police have offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

“We can’t bring Seth back but we can try to make the city safer and take away the person who wanted to go after someone just for a cellphone,” Rich continued.

Rich told Daily Mail that Seth had been active in various levels of politics in House and Senate campaigns, and had always wanted to work on a presidential campaign.

“He had just been asked to join the Clinton campaign — four days before he was murdered,” Rich said. “He was really excited about that.”

Although burglary was initially speculated as the reason for Rich’s death, there has been ongoing Internet rumors surmising that the DNC staffer’s death may have been related to the recent WikiLeaks DNC email hack.

Some have been “suggesting he had handed WikiLeaks the 20,000 emails that embarrassed the DNC and forced the ouster of its chairwoman,” wrote the Washington Post. “Others suggested he was helping the FBI expose wrongdoing in the presidential election, and that made him a target.”

Adding fuel to those rumors, WikiLeaks announced on Twitter Tuesday that it will offer a $20,000 reward for any information regarding Rich’s murder.

Rich’s father said that while he is pleased with any additional reward that could help bring the perpetrator to justice, he believes the rumors circulating about his son’s possible involvement with WikiLeaks are “bizarre.”

“I hope the additional money helps find out who did this,” But, he said, “I don’t want to play WikiLeaks’ game.” (For more from the author of “Father of Murdered DNC Staffer Speaks on Late Son’s Political Plans” please click HERE)

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What Would Happen If Milwaukee Protesters Had Their Way?

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The 2015-2016 academic year will likely be remembered by historians as “The Year of College Tantrums.” We saw conservative speakers banned or uninvited from campuses. Words written in chalk caused hysterical students to seek counseling and safe spaces. Far-left radical Mizzou Professor Melissa “I Need Some Muscle Over Here” Click forcefully stopped journalists from news gathering (Irony alert: She was a communications professor).

As the year progressed, we started seeing groups of students nationwide “occupying” various university administrators’ offices. They would present a list of demands, and promise to stay until their demands were met. Some school officials collapsed like a house of cards and gave in to the demands. Other officials had the fortitude to ignore the occupying groups, and had them removed from their no-longer safe spaces.

Once common and disturbing demand targeted university police departments. Headlines declared:

UC Irvine Black Student Union Demands End to Campus Police Department

Washington College Students Demand Power To Fire Police Who Microaggress Them

Portland State students stage ‘die-in,’ block traffic to demand unarmed police

Occidental Students Demand ‘No Bulletproof Vests’ for Safety Officers

This hatred and scorn of police by college students has been building for years. From President Obama, to Hillary Clinton, to the Justice Department, to big-city Mayors, to Black Lives Matter, police everywhere have been endangered by the volatile and caustic words and actions of the Left.

This is also, by no means, limited to college campuses. At most marches by Black Lives Matter and other aligned groups, you will see various signs to disband, defund, and/or disarm police departments. Earlier this month, The Village Voice reported that Protesters Say They Will Occupy City Hall Park Until the NYPD Is No More. Soon after, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton resigned. This seems only like a partial victory for the protesters, as the NYPD is still fighting crime in the five boroughs.

It is obviously a ridiculous concept that police departments take off their bulletproof vests, stop using guns, or disband altogether. But for argument’s sake, let’s give the special snowflakes on campus their fantasy of a police-free America.

Since history at many universities has been replaced by classes like “In Defense of Looting,” you might forgive college students for not knowing about the destruction that occurred in cities like Ferguson and Baltimore in the aftermath of the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. Students might have missed the videos of looting and arson of small businesses in their communities. The destruction would have been much more wide-spread were it not for law enforcement risking their lives to protect the very people that hate them.

Since it is summer, and students are not in class, you might also forgive them for not following the events in Milwaukee. The riots, looting, arson, and general violence seem to have taken a more sinister turn. There are videos all over the web of groups of people rampaging through sections of Milwaukee, like scenes from “The Purge” or any movie about dystopian anarchy. We are seeing cop cars getting pelted with bricks, and cops themselves being hit and knocked out by rocks and bottles.

Most disturbingly, there are many videos online of people specifically targeting whites, and yelling on camera about attacking them, some chanting “F**k white people!” A man named Tim Pool, known for live-streaming protests nationwide tweeted that “Due to escalating racial tensions I am pulling out of #Milwaukee and will no longer be covering it.”

I can’t imagine how the Milwaukee Police Department is working under such life-threatening conditions. I also cannot imagine a Milwaukee without a Milwaukee Police Department. What do those who want police departments to just vanish actually expect to happen? Somehow, magically, crime will stop and criminals will take up macramé?

It’s one thing to criticize and demand change if you sincerely believe that police are committing misdeeds. It’s complete madness to demand a world without police. The United States is a civil society and a nation of laws, regardless of what some moronic 19-year old working towards a degree in Intersectional Cis-Womyn Studies thinks. (For more from the author of “What Would Happen If Milwaukee Protesters Had Their Way?” please click HERE)

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Texas Judge Victorious Over Atheist Group in Prayer Dispute

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Judge Wayne Mack, a justice of the peace in Montgomery County, Texas, recalls several people telling him they were initially worried about coming before his court, but after the chaplain’s prayer opened the proceedings, they felt better.

“It was clear it would be a solemn event and they knew I would be fair,” Mack told The Daily Signal in a phone interview a day after the Texas attorney general’s opinion held that opening court with a chaplain’s prayer and the voluntary chaplain program Mack established were constitutional.

Mack started a voluntary chaplaincy program that has more than 60 clergymen participating, including Christians, Jews, Hindus, and people of other faiths. It openly invites, “all religious leaders of any faith in to participate.”

As a justice of the peace, Mack also serves as the coroner for the Montgomery County. It was in this duty that he first implemented the voluntary chaplain program, after finding himself not always able to console people when he had to be first on the scene for deaths.

In a six-page opinion issued Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton noted the 2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway, which determined that initiating local government meetings with prayer did not violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The Establishment Clause of the Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … ”

Paxton compared Mack’s courtroom with the Town of Greece, New York, writing, “In both instances, religious leaders of any faith are invited to deliver a prayer at the beginning of proceedings.”

“A court would likely conclude that a justice of the peace’s practice of opening daily court proceedings with a prayer by a volunteer chaplain as you describe is sufficiently similar to the facts in Galloway such that the practice does not violate the Establishment Clause,” the opinion reads.

He added, “A court would likely conclude that the volunteer chaplain program you describe, which allows religious leaders to provide counseling to individuals in distress upon request, does not violate the Establishment Clause.”

The Paxton opinion cited lower court rulings on chaplain programs.

“Courts in other jurisdictions have likewise upheld the hiring of chaplains by a county hospital, prisons, and military establishments in order to provide counseling and guidance to individuals who request it,” the opinion said.

It added, “In each of these cases, the chaplains were paid by public funds, creating more significant Establishment Clause concerns than exist here, where the chaplains serve on a voluntary basis without cost to the taxpayer and only upon request of those who wish to receive the chaplain’s assistance.”

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation isn’t happy with the opinion, but asserts that the matter is likely over because two individuals who regularly appear before the court felt “fearful” about how Mack would judge their case and are not willing to file a suit.

“We are confident that if we could bring this [case] before a federal judge, we could prove this far exceeds precedent, but we can’t do that without a plaintiff willing to challenge Judge Mack,” said Sam Grover, staff attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, in a phone interview with The Daily Signal.

There was never an intent to offend anyone, and whether someone participated in the courtroom prayer would have no affect on the ruling, Mack said.

“I would never use the bench as a pulpit,” he said. “Both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court open with prayers.”

The Texas attorney general’s opinion marks a decisive victory for Mack, after getting a mixed victory before the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, based on the Freedom From Religion Foundation complaint from 2014. The judicial commission dismissed the complaint, but “strongly cautioned” against the chaplain program and prayer.

But the commission ruling that offered neither discipline nor a mandate to stop, led Mack and First Liberty Institute, a religious freedom advocacy group that represents the judge, to seek more clarity. In February, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked Paxton to issue a clarifying opinion on the constitutionality of the case.

“The attorney general’s opinion is clear and sound constitutionally,” Mack said. “It emboldens believers of any faith to stand up for the First Amendment because it’s the First Amendment for a reason. The tyranny of political correctness is causing people to step away from their values. They should stand up and be counted.”

The attorney general opinion offers a clear victory, said Kelly Shackelford, president of First Liberty Institute.

“This is a total victory for Judge Mack and for the citizens of Texas,” Shackelford said in a statement. “If the Supreme Courts of the United States and Texas can open with prayer, clearly, the law allows for Judge Mack’s court to open with an invocation by a volunteer chaplain. We are grateful Attorney General Paxton has brought clarity to this important issue, reaffirming the constitutionality of prayer in the public arena.”

However, Grover of the Freedom From Religion Foundation contends that Paxton did not address the group’s main points from a letter sent in April.

“None of the points we raised were addressed. The opinion barely scratches the surface,” Grover said. “This far exceeds the ceremonial acknowledgment of a deity to open of the the Supreme Court or the Texas Supreme Court.”

Grover said merely allowing multiple faiths to participate in the chaplain program doesn’t mean it’s not exclusionary to nonbelievers.

“It makes the violation less severe, but a prayer in any setting, any prayer of any religion leaves out a large segment of nonreligious people,” Grover said. (For more from the author of “Texas Judge Victorious Over Atheist Group in Prayer Dispute” please click HERE)

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