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Bernie Sanders Just Applied a Religious Test to a Christian Nominee for Public Office

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The U.S. Constitution prohibits the use of a “religious test” for any office or public trust. But Bernie Sanders got very close to doing just on Wednesday. It was during the confirmation hearing for President Trump’s nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.

During Russell Vought’s confirmation hearing, Sanders took issue with an article Vought wrote for conservative website The Resurgent in January 2016, reported The Atlantic. In his article, Vought defended a Christian school that had fired a professor for expressing solidarity with Muslims. Sanders objected to Vought’s statement in the article: “Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.”

Sanders objected. “In my view, the statement made by Mr. Vought is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world,” Sanders told the committee at the hearing. “This country, since its inception, has struggled, sometimes with great pain, to overcome discrimination of all forms … we must not go backwards.”

Later Sanders asked Vought, “Do you believe that statement is Islamophobic?” “Absolutely not, Senator,” said Vought. “I’m a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith.”

Sanders continued to berate and interrupt Vought. “I don’t know how many Muslims there are in America, I really don’t know, probably a couple million. Are you suggesting that all of those people stand condemned? What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too?” Vought replied that he was a Christian, but Sanders quickly cut him off. “I understand you are a Christian. But this country is made up of people who are not just — I understand that Christianity is the majority religion. But there are other people who have different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?”

Vought tried to explain the concept of imago dei to Sanders. “As a Christian, I believe that all individuals are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect, regardless of their religious beliefs. I believe that as a Christian that’s how I should treat all individuals … .” Sanders cut him off again and asked Vought if his comments were respectful of other religions. Vought reminded Sanders that the article he wrote was as a Christian about a Christian university, which “has a statement of faith that speaks clearly with regard to the centrality of Jesus Christ in salvation.”

In response, Sanders told the committee: “I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, that this nominee is really not someone who is what this country is supposed to be about. I will vote no.”

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention responded to Sanders’ religious test in the hearing.

Senator Sanders’ comments are breathtakingly audacious and shockingly ignorant — both of the Constitution and of basic Christian doctrine. Even if one were to excuse Senator Sanders for not realizing that all Christians of every age have insisted that faith in Jesus Christ is the only pathway to salvation, it is inconceivable that Senator Sanders would cite religious beliefs as disqualifying an individual for public office in defiance of the United States Constitution. No religious test shall ever be required of those seeking public office. While no one expects Senator Sanders to be a theologian, we should expect far more from an elected official who has taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution.

(For more from the author of “Bernie Sanders Just Applied a Religious Test to a Christian Nominee for Public Office” please click HERE)

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Confirmed: FBI Is Conducting Even More Interviews Over Alleged Jane Sanders Bank Fraud

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Federal investigators are conducting interviews in Florida regarding accusations Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ wife, Jane Sanders, defrauded a bank while serving as president of the now-defunct Burlington College.

Allegations Jane Sanders falsified loan documents to expand the campus of Burlington College, which collapsed into bankruptcy in May 2016, have swirled more than a year. The Daily Caller News Foundation first broke the news of the allegations against Mrs. Sanders in March 2015. The Department of Justice and the FBI will not confirm the existence of an investigation, but recent interviews conducted by officials from the FBI and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), independently confirmed to TheDCNF, suggest an investigation is ongoing.

Sanders wrote on a 2010 loan application that 83-year-old Corinne Bove Maietta, the daughter of the founders of Bove Restaurants in Burlington, pledged $1 million to Burlington College over five years. Maietta, who has a property in West Palm Beach, says it was not a pledge but an unspecified bequest to be paid to the school upon her death. Maietta’s accountant confirmed to The Daily Caller News Foundation the FBI contacted him seeking an interview with Maietta.

“It was sometime back in March or April, during tax season,” Richard Moss, Maietta’s accountant, told TheDCNF. “It was in regards to Corine Maietta’s current address and where they could contact her for questions related to Burlington College. If she was in Vermont, the FBI was going to interview her, and if she was down in Florida, a person with the FDIC working with the FBI was going to interview her.”

The FBI also recently interviewed Ron Leavitt, an orthopedic surgeon who moved to Naples, Fla., after leaving Burlington. The agents asked him about a $30,000 donation he made, according to Seven Days, an alternative weekly publication covering local issues in Vermont. Former Burlington College board member Sara Adsit-McCuin confirmed to Seven Days April 28 that two FBI agents interviewed her in person “a couple of weeks ago” regarding the loans. (Read more from “Confirmed: FBI Is Conducting Even More Interviews Over Alleged Jane Sanders Bank Fraud” HERE)

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Steven Crowder Nails the Perfect 4-Letter Word for Bernie Sanders

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Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (F, 17%) said a lot of crazy things during Tuesday night’s CNN debate on Obamacare.

But the worst was when he essentially told a small business owner he doesn’t care about her business; he’s going to force her to pay for her employee’s health insurance even if she can’t afford it.

Here’s the highlight from Steven Crowder’s live stream (caution – profanity):

At least Sanders is honest about how he would screw small business to advance his ideology. Most progressives have to lie about that to get elected. (For more from the author of “Steven Crowder Nails the Perfect 4-Letter Word for Bernie Sanders” please click HERE)

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Rand Paul’s Smack down of Bernie Sanders’ Anti-American Rhetoric Is Frickin’ Fantastic

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In his questioning of Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga. (D, 62%) Wednesday at the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee confirmation hearing, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (F, 17%) asked the HHS nominee if he thought health care is a “right of all Americans whether they’re rich or they’re poor?”

“We’re a compassionate society,” Price began his reply before Sanders cut him off, stating, “No, we’re not a compassionate society in terms of our relationship to poor and working people. Our record is worse than virtually any other country on earth. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty than any other major country on earth and half of our senior, older workers have nothing set aside for retirement. So I don’t think compared to other countries we are particularly compassionate.”

When it was Sen. Rand Paul’s, R-Ky. (A, 92%) turn to question Rep. Price, a former practicing physician, he centered his comments on rebutting Sen. Sanders:

“It’s also been insinuated that America is this horrible, rotten place, and that we don’t have compassion. And by extension, the physicians don’t. As you worked as an emergency room physician or as you worked, did you always agree that as part of your engagement with a hospital to treat all, regardless of whether they had the ability to pay?” questioned Sen. Paul, a trained ophthalmologist who has completed medical missions since taking office.

Price answered that, “It’s one of the things we pride ourselves on, and that is anybody that showed up in need of care was provided that care. And that was true not only in our residency but in our private orthopedic practice as well.”

Paul continued: “It’s interesting that those who say we have no compassion, you know, extol the virtues of socialism. And you look at a country like Venezuela, with great resources and an utter disaster where people can’t eat, devolving into violence. I think it’s important that we do have a debate ultimately in our country between socialism and communism and America and capitalism.

“One of things that’s extraordinary about our country is that just two years ago, in 2014, we gave away $400 billion privately. Not the government — individually, through churches and charities. We’re an incredibly compassionate society and I think often this was misplaced in sort of the wonky numbers … within healthcare. How much we do help each other — not only do we help each other in our country, I bet you half of the physicians in my community in Bowling Green have gone on international trips and done international charity work.

“And all that is lost in saying that we’re this heartless, terrible country. I would just argue the opposite. I think the greatness of our country and the greatness of the compassion of our country, we give away most of the gross domestic product of most of these socialized countries around the world.”

Sen. Rand Paul’s smackdown of Sanders’ empty, predictable rhetoric on capitalism and America was an immediate hit on social media.

No word yet on how Bernie Sanders is nursing his wounds. (For more from the author of “Rand Paul’s Smack down of Bernie Sanders’ Anti-American Rhetoric Is Frickin’ Fantastic” please click HERE)

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HILLARY ON BERNIE SANDERS SUPPORTERS: They’re a Bunch of Losers “Living in Their Parents’s Basement”

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As far as message discipline goes, Donald Trump may not be the wild one among our two presidential candidates.

After first tarring half of Mr. Trump’s supporters as racist bigots and other “deplorables”, her royal heinous has now gone after Bernie Sanders’ passionate backers.

Apparently, according to the one who wears custom-fitted tarpaulins, those who supported Sanders all work in Starbucks and live in their parents’ basement.

Which does raise a good point:

And they talk about Trump being off message? (For more from the author of “HILLARY ON BERNIE SANDERS SUPPORTERS: They’re a Bunch of Losers “Living in Their Parents’s Basement” please click HERE)

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AfterBern: Trump’s Socialist Policies Aren’t Working on the ‘Bernie or Bust’ Crowd

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It’s been a few months since Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic party nomination, and it might be high time for the Trump campaign to realize that trying to siphon off her former intraparty opponent’s supporters might be a fruitless endeavor to say the least.

On Thursday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump once again attempted to court socialists on the campaign trail, saying that his economic policies should appeal to supporters of former Democrat candidate and unabashed ‘democratic’ socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (F, 16%), making the latest in months-long string of appeals to bring the disaffected aboard the Trump train.

Trump has been trying to win over the ‘after Berners,’ disaffected Sanders supporters, for a few months now, but his approach recently has shifted from personality to policy.

Trump’s initial line of appeal to former Sanders supporters was based primarily off similarities on trade and their respective anti-establishment narratives.

In an April interview with Fortune magazine, Trump pointed to a short list of areas on which he and the socialist senator overlapped: “One thing we have in common is trade. We both know the US is getting ripped off by trade,” he said. “The difference is I can do something about it and he can’t.”

“We’re talking about free markets but the problem is, we’re open, but the rest of the world isn’t open,” he continued, further outlining the two’s similarities on issues of keeping corporations in the U.S. and their views of currency manipulation.

“The only way you’re going to get jobs back into this country is, number one, [China and Mexico] cannot devalue their currencies, which they’re killing us with. Number two—and very importantly—we’re going to have to use the threat of taxation in order to keep jobs here and also in order to get jobs back.”

In June, Trump said that he and his camp would welcome “Bernie or bust” voters who had “been left out in the cold” after Clinton’s primary victory “with open arms.”

The use of this common narrative of a “rigged system” common to supporters of both candidates would be bolstered a month later by foul play allegations at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, which was punctuated by the DNC email hack.

The thousands of leaked emails revealed a conspiratorial effort among party officials to sabotage Sanders’ underdog campaign during the primary, leading to the resignation of then-party chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, R-Fla. (F, 8%) and giving Trump another avenue to make his case to the former Sanders camp.

“The system’s rigged and [Wasserman Schultz] was rigging the system for Hillary,” said Trump at a rally in North Carolina, in the wake of the developments. He also made note of his and Sanders’ similar protectionist agendas on trade policy.

“[Sanders] and I are similar in trade,” he told the supporters. “The difference is I can do something about it. I’m going to bring jobs back to North Carolina … The trade agreements we have are one-sided agreements for other countries, and it’s disgraceful.”

In fact, for all of the first presidential debate’s bluster and personality squabbling, government-funded child care was one of the multiple policy points upon which Trump and Democrat Party nominee Hillary Clinton publicly agreed on stage.

Trump also made his case to Sanders’ supporters based on the Clinton campaign’s choice of Tim Kaine as running mate, due to the Virginia senator’s support for NAFTA and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership.

And Trump does have some of the shared policies to make the case. In addition to his anti-free-market stances on the minimum wage and international trade, Trump has also added Big Government child care to his portfolio of promises.

A few weeks ago, ostensibly at his daughter Ivanka’s behest, Trump rolled out a policy proposal that, among its other provisions, includes a socialist, taxpayer-funded maternity leave program.

Unfortunately for the Trump campaign, the months-long effort isn’t working at all. As it turns out, running to the left on economic policies isn’t buy the candidate the socialist defectors that they’d hoped for. Rather, what it actually appears to be doing is turning Republicans away from the free market.

According to August data analysis at FiveThirtyEight, most of those Bernie supporters ended up falling along the Democratic Party line. But, even if the remaining holdouts could all find their way to become nose-holders, they don’t have the numbers to do much for Trump anyway.

“The Sanders holdouts aren’t that large a group. If they were forced to choose only between Clinton and Trump, the vast majority would choose Clinton and yet they would add only about 1 percentage point to her overall margin over Trump, according to [August] polls,” explains FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten. “That could matter in a close election, but the election isn’t looking all that close at the moment.”

Some factors, however, have changed. Thanks to pneumonia-gate, ongoing email releases, and a list of other things working against Clinton, the polls have tightened, and — at the time of this writing — the RealClearPolitics spread has Clinton up a mere 2.9 points.

But still, it doesn’t look like Bernie holdouts are going to line up behind the New York billionaire anytime soon. If it hasn’t happened by this point, it’s probably not going to happen.

Meanwhile, the GOP candidate’s protectionist rhetoric and departure from free trade seems to brought an alarming number of Republicans along for the ride. A recent Politico-Harvard poll found that 85 percent of GOP voters believe that free trade policies have cost more jobs than they have created … contrasted against a mere 54 percent of Democrats.

But, who knows? This could really be the start of something. After all, if Donald Trump’s efforts could turn such a significant swath of the former free market, small government party against the concept of free trade, who knows what a majority of Republican voters will think about socialist maternity leave in a few weeks? (For more from the author of “AfterBern: Trump’s Socialist Policies Aren’t Working on the ‘Bernie or Bust’ Crowd” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Bernie Sanders Leaves the Democratic Party

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The nomination was barely sealed up at the Democratic National Convention before Bernie Sanders, who had campaigned against Hillary Clinton for the party’s nod, went back to being an Independent.

Sanders, who considers himself, officially, an Independent in Congress because his views lean further left than the Democratic party’s platform, caucuses with Democrats. But until declaring an intention to run for the presidency in 2015, he had rarely, if ever, identified as a member of the Democratic Party (he’s been in politics since 1979).

And now, despite pleading with his base to support Hillary, even though they’re concerned that she’s too moderate, Sanders will return to Vermont and to his seat in the Senate, and he’ll do it with no official party affiliation.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was forced to resign as Chairwoman of the DNC after leaked emails revealed she’d tried to keep Sanders from challenging Clinton for the party’s nomination, might even be vindicated—sort of.

Sanders has struggled all along with whether to call himself a Democrat, even ducking the question of his party affiliation, raised by local Vermont media, just days after he declared. He later tried to reinforce that he was, indeed, a Democrat. But Sanders certainly wasn’t a party player—and that’s exactly the concern Wasserman Schultz voiced in the Wikileaks document dump. (Read more from “Bernie Sanders Leaves the Democratic Party” HERE)

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Trump and Bernie: Where have the ‘outsiders’ gone?

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After Monday night the outsider narratives pushed by the Sanders and Trump campaigns during the primaries have finally both fizzled out into establishment coziness.

After months of railing against their respective party establishments, both populists have now started working together with those same establishments in order to forge something resembling party unity going into the election.

After thanking the bare minority of his supporters in attendance, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-V.T.), made it very clear that it’s time for everyone to get in line behind the presumptive Democrat nominee.

“Let me be as clear as I can be. This election is not about, and has never been about, Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders or any of the other candidates who sought the presidency,” the former Democratic candidate at the party’s national convention in Philadelphia Monday night.

“This election is about which candidate understands the real problems facing this country and has offered real solutions … By these measures, any objective observer will conclude that – based on her ideas and her leadership – Hillary Clinton must become the next president of the United States.”

At a convention that already looks more divided than the RNC could have ever appeared on national television, the Democrat elite are already running around with their hair on fire in order to keep calm among a still-tremendously fractured base.

The protests are already bigger in Philadelphia than in Cleveland, and a few days after her cheeky tweet to RNC Chair Reince Priebus, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was booted from party leadership position after a slew of emails from inside the DNC revealed, among several other things, an internal plot to sink the Sanders campaign, despite the façade of neutrality that the party tried to put up for months.

But it doesn’t look like the Clinton Sanders rift is going to heal up that quickly, at least on the convention floor, as Sanders’ endorsement seemed to be the first mention of the former Secretary of State that didn’t draw an audible mix of boos and cheers.

At several points during the night, the mention of the presumptive nominee and her selected running mate drew loud, sustained boos from Sanders supporters throughout the program. During Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) speech, Bernie supporters chanted “war hawk, and they also shouted “we trusted you” and eventually erupted into long, sustained boos at Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) after she endorsed Clinton onstage.

Bernie even tried to quell his still-devout followers on Monday afternoon. Against the chants of protestors saying “we want Bernie,” the senator raised his hand in the air and said to the crowd, “brothers and sisters, this is, this is the real world that we live in.”

“Trump is a danger for the future of our country and must be defeated … And I intend to do everything that I can to see that he is defeated.”

On the GOP side, unity seems more of a demand than an appeal. The past two weeks in Cleveland put Donald Trump’s current collusion with the Republican establishment on full display as well. As evidenced by everything from the combined whipping efforts on the rules committee that eventually ensured that there would be no roll call vote and that the RNC would retain its current level of authority over the grassroots, or having whips tell delegates to boo Ted Cruz onstage, the New York real estate developer’s outsider narrative from the Republican party now seems like a distant memory from the primary election.

In this context, Ted Cruz is the only “outsider” candidate from the primary season who can still claim a scrap of street cred at this point in the cycle. By refusing to endorse Donald Trump in Cleveland last week and encouraging voters to vote their conscience, the Texas Senator managed to earn the respect of grassroots conservatives and those conscionably incapable of supporting the Republican nominee, as well as the seemingly unforgiving ire of those demanding party unity solely for the sake of beating Hillary Clinton.

And the backlash for the Texas Senator is still rolling out days after his Wednesday speech. In addition to short term damage to his image in the polls among Republicans, he’s now having to deal with allegations against his father on an even grander scale than before.

Donald Trump doubled and tripled down on his comments about the Senator’s father two days after the conscience speech, and even the RNC Chair Priebus and DNC communications director Luis Miranda have gotten in on the fun, both, in some way, defending Trump’s speculation on the subject.

And now even some of Cruz’s donors are distancing themselves in light of the convention speech.

The establishment strikes back, hard; stay in line, or else.

But this is the realm of party politics, where yesterday’s outsider is tomorrow’s company man, yesterday’s insurgency is tomorrow’s game of “rally ‘round the candidate,” and the establishment duopoly still reigns supreme. (For more from the author of “Trump and Bernie: Where have the ‘outsiders’ gone?” please click HERE)

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Sanders Wins Liberal Influence Over Democratic Platform

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Bernie Sanders may have lost out on the Democratic nomination, but he won significant influence over the party’s official policy positions, getting a draft document that largely reflected his liberal views.

A marathon meeting in Orlando on Friday and Saturday marked the final deliberation of the Democratic Party’s platform before the convention later this month. A group of 187 delegates, including supporters of both Democratic candidates, crammed into a steamy hotel ballroom to pore over a draft document and offer amendments.

After a frequently combative negotiating session, all sides agreed the final product was the most liberal set of policies on record. Some of the positions in the non-binding document go beyond Clinton’s past policy statements. The platform, which serves as a guidepost for the party, will be voted on at the convention. (Read more from “Sanders Wins Liberal Influence Over Democratic Platform” HERE)

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Sanders Considering Endorsing Clinton

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The Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns are discussing a potential event next week in New Hampshire, during which the Vermont senator would endorse Clinton’s White House bid.

A Democrat familiar with the plans said Wednesday if the two sides continue to make progress, Clinton and Sanders would appear at the joint event Tuesday in New Hampshire. The Democrat spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the plans . . .

Sanders has withheld his endorsement of Clinton since the end of the Democratic primaries in mid-June, pressing for policy commitments from the campaign and party leaders developing the platform that will be considered at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. But he has shown signs of coming around. (Read more from “Sanders Considering Endorsing Clinton” HERE)

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