Chris Wallace Must Be Getting Heat For His Debate Performance

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about an interview on ” Fox News Sunday.” Chris Wallace, who hosts the show, was conducting an interview of Democratic Delaware Sen. Chris Coons.

The article reports:

Wallace specifically asked Coons to weigh in on the idea of adding justices to the Supreme Court, and the Delaware Senator pivoted to argue that the Trump administration’s focus on filling judicial vacancies amounted to court packing.

For once, Chris Wallace got it right. The article notes:

“Let me just say — I’m just going to say, that’s a different issue than packing the court,” Wallace concluded. “If that’s the question, whether or not the court should — the Senate should vote to confirm Barrett, that’s different than changing the number of justices on the court. Senator Coons, I got to leave it there, thank you.”

For the record, packing the court means adding more justices to the Supreme Court in order to impact the balance of liberal and conservative judges. Filling judicial vacancies is one of the responsibilities of the President. Because of the increasing rancor in the Senate, a large number of the nominees of President Obama were not confirmed, and there were a lot of judicial vacancies when President Trump took office. He promptly began to fill these vacancies. Getting judicial nominees passed is much easier when the President and the Senate are held by the same party. Our Founding Fathers did not intend for that to be the case (they disliked the idea of political parties), but that is where we are today.

I give credit to Chris Wallace for at least correcting Senator Coons on his talking point.

Facts vs. Lies

There were some very misleading lies told in the Presidential Debate last night. I would like to highlight a few of them. Unfortunately, many of those lies were told by the moderator Chris Wallace. It is also true that those lies painted a negative picture of President Trump. I do not believe that Chris Wallace was a neutral moderator. These lies are not necessarily in any particular order. This is the link to the transcript.

Lie number one:

Chris Wallace: (19:34)
You talk about the economy booming. It turns out that in Obama’s final three years as president more jobs were created, a million and a half more jobs, than in the first three years of your presidency.

The facts:

When President Obama took office in January 2009, the workforce participation rate was 65.7. When President Obama left office in January 2017, the labor participation rate was 62.8. That was the rate when President Trump took office. The labor participation rate before the coronavirus was 63.4 (February 2020). With the lockdown, the rate dropped to 60.2. At the end of August it was 61.7.

Lie number two:

Chris Wallace: (25:43)
No, less than you have. Let’s please continue on. The issue of rice(sic). Vice-President Biden, you say that President Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville three years ago, when he talked about very fine people on both sides, was what directly led you to launch this run for president.

This is a Democrat talking point. The quote is taking totally out of context. This is the exact quote:

You know what? It’s fine, you’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people – and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats – you had a lot of bad people in the other group too.

Lie number three:

Chris Wallace: (32:21)
This month, your administration directed federal agencies to end racial sensitivity training that addresses white privilege or critical race theory. Why did you decide to do that, to end racial sensitivity training? And do you believe that there is systemic racism in this country, sir?

Breitbart notes:

Trump banned a specific kind of racial insensitivity training, which involves “Critical Race Theory.”

…Critical Race Theory is the idea that the major institutions of the United States are tainted by slavery and racism because they were founded when slavery was still legal in parts of the country. According to the late Derrick Bell, who founded Critical Race Theory, the very institution of private property is tainted by racism because of slavery. Even the Civil Rights movement was regrettable to some extent, Bell believed, because it created an illusion of racial equality. Only a massive redistribution of wealth, driven by the creation of socioeconomic rights, can cure American society of its systemic racism, the theory holds.

On a practical level, Critical Race Theory teaches that social interactions are guided by “white supremacy,” and that society is corrupted by “systemic racism,” according to which black Americans must always be victims — even if unconsciously so. Critical Race Theory is the ideology animating the Black Lives Matter movement that has brought unrest to America’s cities.

These are just some of the issues. One of the other things that really bothered me was the comparison between the Trump children and Joe Biden’s son Hunter. There has never been any evidence that the Trump children are guilty of anything. There is significant evidence that Hunter Biden has continually been involved in questionable business dealings.

 

Ignoring The Backbone Of The American Economy

The Democrat party used to be the party of the working man. I am not sure they ever represented the American entrepreneur, but some recent statements by Marie Harf suggest that the small businessmen in America have been willingly thrown under the bus by today’s Democrat party.

BizPac Review posted an article yesterday about some recent comments by Marie Harf on Fox News Sunday.

The article reports:

In response to a statement from host Chris Wallace that, while 66,000 people have died from coronavirus tens of millions have lost their jobs, Harf appeared to suggest that reopening small businesses wasn’t going to produce much in terms of bolstering the economy.

“We are about to embark on a situation where we’ll see if people can, on their own, social distance, if people independent of government regulations or stay-at-home orders, can act responsibly,” she began.

“And if they can’t, and if we see spikes in some of these places, will these governors be willing to change course in midstream? That’s something we will all see together in real-time,” Harf continued.

In fact, some experts have predicted there will be “spikes” on coronavirus infections because they maintain that keeping Americans at home prevented the formation of “herd immunity” that is necessary to prevent recurrences of the outbreak.

In any event, Harf continued with Left-wing talking points, claiming the country needs “more testing” and “contact tracing” of people who are infected, — the latter of which is code for ‘invading privacy’ with a government-mandated tracking app.

“So, the economy, even if we open nail salons, hair salons Chris, the economy isn’t really going to get going again until we can travel, until we can move around the country,” she claimed. “It will not get going in a really meaningful way by opening small businesses in certain places, and so we have to get all of those things I just mentioned to eventually get to a place where the economy really can open back up.

“That is not happening anytime soon,” Harf said.

Just for the record, Inc. posted an article that illustrates how many Americans are employed by small businesses.

The article reports:

As of the 2010 Census, there were 27.9 million small businesses registered in the United States, compared to just 18,500 companies of 500 employees or more. Included in that total figure are sole proprietorships (73.2 percent), corporations (19.5 percent), and franchises (2 percent). 52 percent of small businesses are home-based. The most important thing to note? 99.7 percent of U.S. employer firms are small businesses.

I am not convinced that anyone in the Democrat party has studied either economics or the American economy.

This Is Simply Sad

CNS News reported today on another serious gaffe by Joe Biden. It is really sad to see former Vice-President Biden publicly lose a step or two while running for President.

The article reports:

Former Vice President Joe Biden accidentally called “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace “Chuck” at the end of his interview, thinking he was talking to NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd.

The article includes the transcript of the interview. This is a portion of that transscript:

Wallace: Mr. Vice President. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Please come back in less than 13 years, sir.

Biden: Alright, Chuck. Thank you very much

Wallace: Alright, It’s Chris, but anyway.

Biden: Chris, I just did Chris. No, no, I just did Chuck. I tell you what, man. These are back-to-back. Anyway, I don’t know how you do it early in the morning too. Thank you Chris.

All of us make mistakes when we are tired, but I feel as if the mistakes being made by the former Vice-President are an indication of a deeper medical problem. It is time for the former Vice-President’s family to take a good look at the continuing mental slip-ups and encourage him to end his campaign.

Do Liars Ever Apologize?

Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article today about what we now know about conflicting memos by Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff regarding FISA warrants.

The article reports:

When then House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes released his memo asserting that the FBI had improperly taken out FISA warrants on Carter Page, Ranking Member Adam Schiff responded with a memo of his own disputing it. The Nunes memo is accessible here and elsewhere; the Schiff memo is accessible here and elsewhere.

Both Nunes and Schiff had access to the same classified information for their memos, but Nunes was interested in disseminating the truth while Schiff sought to lie about it in the service of the Russia hoax. As has become all too clear, Schiff lies with the sangfroid of a pathological liar.

After the Department of Justice Inspector General report on FISA abuse that was released last week, we now know to a certainty that Nunes was right and Schiff was wrong. We know that Schiff was lying.

Schiff is lying now about about his lying then. It’s a postmodern world after all. In an interview with Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday (beginning at about 5:30 below), Schiff allowed that there were indeed “serious abuses of FISA” — “serious abuses that I was unaware of.” He explained: “Had I known of them, Chris, yes, I would’ve called out the FBI at the same time,” Schiff said. “But I think it’s only fair to judge what we knew at the time.”

The article includes the memos. Scott Johnson reminds us that both men had the same access to the same information. Adam Schiff’s claim that he was unaware of the abuses is simply false. He is lying. And he continues to lie.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is discouraging to see a Representative who lies so easily and so frequently.

Slowly Getting To The Truth

Fox News posted an article today about a recent comment by James Comey. In an interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, James Comey stated that the recently released Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the launch of the FBI’s Russia investigation and their use of the surveillance process showed that he was “overconfident” when he defended his former agency’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). I don’t mean to be difficult, but I think you could fertilize your garden with that statement. Remember, it was James Comey who leaked information to his friend to leak to The New York Times in order to promote the idea that a Special Prosecutor was needed. It was James Comey who listed all the crimes committed by Hillary Clinton and then said they weren’t really crimes because she didn’t mean to commit them. It was James Comey who briefed the President on the Steele Dossier so that it could be leaked to the press. It was James Comey who paved the way for the entire phony Russia investigation that cost taxpayers millions and prevented Congress from actually accomplishing anything for the good of the country. Keep that in mind as he proclaims he had no idea what was going on.

The article notes:

“He’s right, I was wrong,” Comey said about how the FBI used the FISA process, adding, “I was overconfident as director in our procedures,” and that what happened “was not acceptable.”

Horowitz did make it clear that he believes the FBI’s investigation of Russian election interference and possible connections with the Trump campaign was properly initiated, but he did note that this is based on a “low threshold.” He also concluded that there was no testimonial or documentary evidence to show that the investigation started due to any political bias, but said the issue of bias “gets murkier” when it comes to the various issues with the FISA process.

That process included the reliance on information gathered by former British spy Christopher Steele as part of opposition research conducted by Fusion GPS for the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign. Horowitz’s report stated that government attorneys were hesitant to approve a FISA warrant application until they relied on unverified information from Steele. That information also was used in subsequent renewals for the FISA warrant.

Comey downplayed the role of Steele’s information in obtaining the FISA warrant against Page, claiming Sunday that it was “not a huge part of the presentation to the court,” just part of the information included in the warrant application.

It will be interesting to see if James Comey is included when indictments are handed out. My bet is that he will be. He should at least be held accountable for leaking information.

I Wish The Media Would Get The Facts Right

I just watched Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. I was a bit disappointed. Chris Wallace is generally a fairly even-handed newsman, but today he was not. He interviewed a Newt Gingrich about Donald Trump’s campaign and then a campaign spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The interviews were not at all even-handed. First of all, I like Newt Gingrich, and I respect him, but I have watched the mainstream media tear him down long enough to know that he may not be the best spokesman for Donald Trump–Newt Gingrich is a brilliant man, but his image needs repairing. Just the choice of Newt Gingrich to be interviewed to speak for Donald Trump is questionable. I am sure there were other choices. It was obvious that the Clinton spokesperson had not properly rehearsed his lines. He stumbled quite a few times when answering basic questions about Hillary’s honesty and other issues. Chris Wallace let most of those things slide, but when it came to questioning Newt Gingrich, Chris Wallace claimed that the statement that Hillary Clinton went to bed during the Benghazi attack was false. The record shows otherwise.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about Chris Wallace’s interviews on Fox News Sunday.

The article reports:

FOX News Sunday host Chris Wallace defended Hillary Clinton today like the rest of the liberal media from Donald Trump’s attacks this week.

Wallace said Hillary did not go home and sleep during the Benghazi attack – parroting what the rest of the media has been reporting this week.

The fact is Hillary Clinton DID GO HOME AND SLEEP during the Benghazi attacks and there are records to prove it.

According to official watch logs on September 11, 2012 during the Benghazi attack on the US consulate the first note of the attacks (not protest, another Hillary lie) was posted after 4 PM on that Tuesday afternoon. And Hillary Clinton was home by 10:30 PM as US forces continued to come under attack at the CIA complex in Benghazi.

…There were no official records of any activity by Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama after 10:30 that night. No calls to the Defense Department, no calls to the State Department, no calls to officials in Libya. Hillary was at home and in bed.

Before she went home though she plotted with Obama to blame the attack on a YouTube video – while the annex was still under attack!

The next morning Hillary and Barack blamed a YouTube video for the attack when she knew it was a terrorist attack.

This is what Donald Trump is up against. If voters are paying attention to facts, he will probably win this election. If voters are depending on the mainstream media for their information, Hillary Clinton will be President. That will not be good for the country.

 

When The Spin Just Keeps Coming

Scott Johnson posted an article at Power Line today about President Obama’s interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday yesterday. The explanations regarding the problems with Hillary Clinton’s email server just seem to be getting stranger.

The article reports:

In his interview with Chris Wallace broadcast on FOX News Sunday yesterday, Obama explained that the classified information on her server wasn’t really classified and that the Top Secret information on the email server was not “really top secret top secret.”

FOX News has posted the transcript of the interview here; I quote the relevant passage here. I have embedded a video of the interview below (about 16 minutes). Obama is asked about Clinton’s email setup at 8:35 of the video.

The media coverage of Clinton’s email scandal has been pathetic. Perhaps it is too much to expect any member of the press at the White House daily press briefing today the logical follow-up questions, but I offer a few in the spirit of constructive criticism.

Will Obama now see to the immediate release of the 22 emails withheld in their entirety by the State Department from its production of Clinton’s official email? Obama has told us that the documents are not “really top secret top secret.”

If the emails are not classified, will they be released? I doubt it. What about the emails that contained information labeled “Special Access Programs” (SAP), a level above Top Secret. Are they no longer considered classified?

The article concludes:

If one remains detached from the seriousness of the issues, Obama’s comments are laughable. Taking them at face value, Obama’s comments undermine laws that his administration has otherwise enforced against journalists and government officials. Insofar as Obama is duty bound to enforce the laws of the United States, his comments are, to say the least, not really presidential. They constitute the apologetics of a pathetic hack.

The media has not covered the Clinton email story very well, but if you have a friend who has ever handled classified material, talk to them about it. The story you will hear about the seriousness of having classified material on an unsecured server is very different than the story Hillary Clinton and President Obama are telling.

Our Representatives Have Forgotten Who They Represent

One of the problems with ObamaCare is the number of exemptions that have been carved out for President Obama’s chosen few. Congress and Congressional staffers will receive massive subsidies from the government to ensure that they are not negatively impacted by the increased premiums in ObamaCare. Therefore, Congressmen–establishment Republicans and Democrats have no incentive to repeal a really bad law. The Tea Party candidates who were elected to end ObamaCare are really the only people in Washington fighting this battle. Ted Cruz is leading the charge. Thus, what you are about to read below is not really a surprise.

The Blaze reported today that Chris Wallace told the Fox News Sunday audience this morning:

“This has been one of the strangest weeks I’ve ever had in Washington,” Wallace said. “As soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our featured guest this week, I got unsolicited research and questions, not from Democrats but from top Republicans, to hammer Cruz.”

This is the clip:

Unfortunately Congress no longer represents the wishes of the American people. Both Republicans and Democrats have become the problem. The only people fighting for the rest of us are the Tea Party candidates. Please remember that next November.

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Sometimes Honesty Overrules Political Affiliation

There are still some honest politicians left. Yes, you read that right. Evidently, Dennis Kucinich is one of them. It truly scares me that I am in agreement with Dennis Kucinich, but he was right on target on Fox News Sunday yesterday. Below are two videos of his statements on Benghazi and on the targeting of conservative political groups by the Internal Revenue Service:

It scares me that I am in agreement with a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, but in this case, Dennis Kucinich is absolutely right!

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An Interesting Twist In The Budget Saga

Today’s Washington Examiner is reporting that Harry Reid has blocked a vote in the Senate on President Obama’s budget proposal.

The article quotes Senator Reid:

“There is no Geithner proposal,” Reid said. “This is all made up.” Reid’s comment might come as a surprise to Geithner and the reporters who interviewed him over the weekend.

“We laid out a very detailed, carefully designed set of spending, savings and tax changes that help put us on a path offiscal responsibility,” Geithner told Fox NewsChris Wallace on Sunday.

The article concludes:

Tweaking the Democrats from the Senate floor, the Republican leader (Mitch McConnell) said wasn’t surprised they refused to vote on the president’s proposal.

“As I just indicated, it includes a $2 trillion tax increase over 10 years — the biggest real dollar tax increase in U.S. history,” he said. It increases taxes on nearly one million small businesses — in the middle of a jobs crisis.  According to Ernst and Young, this type of rate hike would cause more than 700,000 Americans to lose their jobs. It raises taxes on investment income, harming economic growth even more. It includes tens of billions of dollars in more Washington spending — in a deal to cut the deficit.”

If it was a serious offer, why won’t the Democrats vote on it?

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Hard Questions And Weasel Words

I apologize for the length of this post, but I think the information here is important.

I watched Chris Wallace interview Jack Lew this morning on Fox News Sunday. I am posting a few quotes from the transcript. Questions were never answered directly, there was nothing but talking points, but please note where Mr. Lew says the government gets the authority to tell a company what they must sell and a consumer what he must buy. There is no way that can be constitutional. Here are some quotes:

WALLACE: Before we get to the president’s new budget and I promise we will, I want to clear up some lingering question about the president’s revised policy about providing health insurance coverage for birth control to the employees of religious institutions. The president now says that Catholic institutions don’t have to provide the coverage but the insurance companies do.

The question — where does the president get the power to tell a private company they have to offer a product and offer it for free?

LEW: Well, Chris, just to be clear — the president has the authority under the Affordable Care Act to have these kinds of rules take affect. And the issue with this being for free is quite an interesting one. If you look at the cost of providing health insurance, it actually doesn’t cost more to provide a plan with contraceptive coverage than it does without.

The discussion then continued as Mr. Wallace asked how the insurance companies could offer the coverage for free. What is not said directly is that it is cheaper to prevent a child from being born than to provide healthcare for that child. Have we reached the point as a society where that is a consideration?

The discussion continued:

WALLACE: But here’s my point and here’s the concern that some religious institutions have. The reason that you’re going to get these, quote, “savings” is because of avoided pregnancies from artificial birth control, which is the practice that these religious institutions find objectionable and, in fact, sinful in the first place.

LEW: But let’s just be clear: every woman has a right to access all forms of preventive health, including contraception. Religious institutions, churches, are not covered by this. So, they don’t have to provide.

Note that he is saying that every woman has a right to contraception. He is requiring church charities to allow their employees to take part in something that is against their doctrine and saying it is okay since they are not paying for it.

The discussion continued:

WALLACE: You say it’s consistent. The Catholic bishops are clearly not satisfied with it — if I may, sir. They have issued a statement that says that they view the decision by the president, the revision, with grave moral concern.

Let’s put up their statement on the screen.

“Today’s proposal involves needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion — government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions.”

And, sir, they call on Congress to block the president’s policy.

LEW: No, I think the president’s policy does not do that. It does not force an institution that has religious principle to offer or may for benefits they find objectionable. But it guarantees a woman’s right to access. We think that’s the right solution.

There are others who opposed women’s access to contraception. They have different views than we do. I’m not going to speak to the motives of any of the parties. But it’s quite significant that a range of Catholic organizations has embraced this.

We didn’t expect to get universal support of the bishops or all Catholics. I think that what we have here is a policy that reflects bringing together two very important principles in a way that’s true to the American tradition. And that’s what the president is trying to do.

There are others who want to have a clash over it. We want to bring these two principles together

He is admitting that the Obama Administration did not expect the Bishops to go along with the supposed compromise. The birth control controversy is a small taste of surprises to come from the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Based on Mr. Lew’s statement, the act pretty much allows the government to do anything it wants to in regard to providing healthcare to Americans–whether it is constitutional or not!

 
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Defending The Indefensible

Fox News Sunday

Image via Wikipedia

One of the challenges for voters in any election cycle is to sort out the truth from the ‘spin.’ Since we seem to be in a never-ending election cycle right now, that is becoming a full-time job. I like Fox News. That’s probably not a surprise to anyone who reads this website regularly, but I occasionally have my problems with their reporting as well as everyone else’s. However, yesterday morning I was cheering Chris Wallace for the questions he asked David Plouffe. The transcript of the interview can be found at the Fox News Sunday website

The discussion was about President Obama’s deficit reduction plan.

In the interview David Plouffe stated:

...But absent tax reform, the president believe the right way to get our fiscal house in order is ask the wealthy to pay their fair share. But he is going to continue, as he has throughout his presidency, push to cut taxes for the middle class folks so that they obviously can weather this economy turn better, but also allows them to help the economy by being able to consume more.

 Chris Wallace replied:

 But, Mr. Plouffe, what you are talking about $200 billion in tax cuts that end in the next 15 months. You’re talking about $2 trillion in tax increases that will go on for next decade. Between his jobs plan — and I want to break this down because it’s important — between his jobs plan and cutting the deficit, the president wants $1.5 trillion in new taxes over the next decade.

Let’s put it up on the screen — letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, $866 billion; limiting the deductions for families making $250,000 a year, $410 billion; closing loopholes and tax breaks, $300 billion. And on top of that — on top of that, $1.5 trillion, another $500 billion in new taxes to pay for Obamacare, for a total of $2 trillion.

These are the facts that need to be repeated as the President claims that he is planning to raise taxes ONLY on the ‘rich.’

Chris Wallace also pointed out in the interview:

…$1 trillion of the $1 trillion in deficit reduction the president calls for in his plan is for not continuing to fight the wars in Iran and Afghanistan. The president is cutting money that wasn’t going to be spent anyway, instead of cutting of money that was.

The President’s jobs bill is all smoke and mirrors. It needs to be soundly defeated in Congress.

 

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