Biden's List, The Left's Extremism, Religious Liberty Wins

by Gary Bauer: Biden's List
The Biden/Putin summit was a disaster. Foreign policy experts, national defense professionals and many Americans were scratching their heads yesterday when President Biden said he gave Vladimir Putin a list of 16 critical infrastructure entities that Putin cannot hack.

Biden told reporters that he looked at Putin and said, "How would you feel if ransomware took on the pipelines from your oil fields?"

I'm glad Biden is in touch with his feelings, but I don't think that holds much weight with Vladimir Putin, a former KGB colonel. This isn't kindergarten!

What immediately came to mind was a quote by that famous philosopher, Forrest Gump, "Stupid is as stupid does."

Does anyone think that Putin is confused about whether it was okay to hack our food industry or our energy industry?

If we heard that Biden gave Putin a list of 16 cities he better not nuke, would anyone in any of the cities not on the list sleep comfortably tonight?

And the very idea of a list of things that are off limits immediately suggests that some things are okay to hack. It's like saying to a robber, "If you break into my house, you can take the couch but not the TV."

Of course, the mind runs wild with slightly humorous possibilities. Maybe these were some of things on Biden's list:

• Don't hack the DNC. (The RNC is okay.)
• Don't hack Hunter's laptop. (Whoops, too late.)
• You can hack MAGA, but don't hack BLM.
• And whatever you do, DO NOT find Hillary's emails!

If I were at Mar-a-Lago, I'd be putting extra security on all the computers now.

Biden Loses It
After Biden finished his opening statement at his press conference yesterday and got ready to take questions, he looked at the reporters and said, "As usual, folks, they gave me a list of the people I'm going to call on." And he then proceeded to take questions from the approved reporters on the list that his staff had given him.

As he was leaving, a reporter yelled an unexpected question, and Biden lost it. He stomped back and yelled at her. In that moment it became apparent why the White House refused to allow Biden to do a joint press conference with Vladimir Putin.

At a joint press conference both leaders would have taken turns calling on a reporter, and the reporter gets to pose a question to both leaders. In other words, they couldn't control which reporters Putin would call on, meaning they couldn't guarantee generally easy questions for Biden from loyal Democrats in the press corps.

So, were Biden's handlers worried that Putin would have eaten Biden alive? Of course. But they were also concerned that Biden would have been "in the water without his floaties." And as we saw yesterday, he can't handle it.

In my view, it is obvious that Biden is past his prime, past his ability to handle the presidency. And it is becoming increasingly obvious to more and more Americans.

Perhaps that's why in the middle of the economic recovery and the decline of COVID that his approval ratings are dropping. According to Rasmussen's daily tracking poll, Biden's approval rating is down five points since the end of May. A new poll from Monmouth University finds Biden's approval rating down six points, to 48%, since April.

Speaking of COVID, Biden refused to answer yesterday when asked if he would press Chinese President Xi Jinping on the origins of the virus.

The Left's Extremism
Marxist critical race theory (CRT) is one of the most dangerous and shocking ideas spreading throughout our educational system. The good news is that America still has antibodies against this sickness.

All over the country, Americans of all races are rising up and rushing to school board meetings telling officials, "How dare you do this to my children. Stop it now!"

A new YouGov/Economist poll is cause for optimism and deep concern. A significant percentage of the country (46%) don't know what CRT is. Of those who do, they oppose it by a 20-point margin -- 58% to 38%.

But the breakdown by party affiliation is amazing: 86% of self-identified Democrats have a favorable view of Marxist critical race theory, compared to just 6% of Republicans.

Conservatives often say that the Democrat Party has gone off the rails. Well, you can't come up with better evidence than those numbers!

Now here's the hopeful part: Among Independents, those swing voters we're told Republicans must attract in order to win elections, only 20% have a favorable view of Marxist CRT, while 76% have an unfavorable view.

I guarantee that those figures among Independents are better than anything on the GOP's economic or foreign policy agenda. Yes, values issues do matter!

Religious Liberty Wins
Today was a good day for religious liberty!

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the left-wing bureaucrats and politicians in Philadelphia violated the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom when they demanded that Catholic Social Services violate core tenets of the church's teachings and place adoptive children with same-sex couples.

Three justices – Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch – wanted the court to go further than it did. Justice Alito warned that today's relatively narrow decision may be "short-lived," forcing the court to revisit similar disputes in the near future. He's absolutely right.

In spite of his 2018 Supreme Court "win," Colorado baker Jack Phillips is once again facing persecution from intolerant activists and state bureaucrats.

Nevertheless, the left is not celebrating today's decision, and court observers were stunned that the result was 9-to-0. The entire left thought that it had a reasonable chance to win this case. But all nine justices, even the three liberals, voted with us. That just goes to show how extreme the political left has become when even liberal justices refuse to accept the left's intolerance of faith.

It's worth noting that the Supreme Court has issued a number of unanimous rulings lately, which some see as a warning to Joe Biden and the left that packing the court won't necessarily guarantee the results they are demanding.

Another Dodge
The high court also issued a decision in a case challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare. Unfortunately, the court dodged the central issues on a technicality. In a 7-to-2 ruling, the justices declared the case was moot for lack of standing.

The case sought to overturn Obamacare on the premise that President Trump's tax reform law repealed the individual mandate. And without the individual mandate tax, the only way Chief Justice Roberts initially upheld Obamacare, the whole law should fall. But that argument was always a longshot because of the doctrine of severability.

The court, however, didn't even evaluate those questions. It declared that because the tax had been repealed, there was no injury involved, and without an injury there is no standing to sue.

While today's Obamacare decision will undoubtedly frustrate many conservatives, there are two main points to keep in mind.

First, the Democrats' smear campaign that Amy Coney Barrett was "guaranteed" to overturn Obamacare (here, here and here) turned out be just another liberal lie.

Second, the political reality is that healthcare consistently ranks at or near the top of voter concerns. But the public overwhelmingly thinks that Republicans don't care about healthcare and don't have any ideas about healthcare.

After repeated GOP attempts to repeal Obamacare, preserving protections for people with pre-existing conditions was THE ISSUE during the 2018 congressional races. Exit polls showed voters sided with the Democrats over the GOP on healthcare by a 22-point margin. Of course, healthcare (COVID) was a major issue in 2020 as well.

Had the Supreme Court declared Obamacare unconstitutional today, healthcare would automatically become THE ISSUE of 2022, handing a huge political gift to the left, and our chances of retaking Congress would likely evaporate.
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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