N.C. man told police he was armed to save children and left Comet Ping Pong when he didn’t find any there

The man who stormed into a D.C. restaurant with an assault rifle Sunday afternoon told police he was searching for child sex slaves whom he believed to be hidden there, that he was armed to help rescue them, and that he surrendered after he found no evidence of child sex trafficking, according to court records.

Edgar Maddison Welch surrendered peacefully after 45 minutes of searching inside Comet Ping Pong, which had become the site of a viral conspiracy theory tied to Hillary Clinton’s campaign that falsely suggested that the restaurant’s owner and powerful political allies were hiding a child sex trafficking ring. Welch told police he had read about the claims online.

.. “Whatever was going through his mind at the time, I’m sure it had to do with saving lives of children,” Holtorf said. “He most likely really believes the conspiracy theory. Knowing Maddison and knowing the good man that he is, I would say he believed he was doing something right.”
She added, “He told people to get out. . . . He probably saw himself as more on a hero mission to save children than anything else.”

A Blueprint for Repealing and Replacing Obamacare with Bipartisan Support

It was hubristic of President Obama to think that after enacting a monumental law, without any bipartisan buy-in, opponents would simply fall in line. As history played out, Republicans had no problem undermining a law they had no part in enacting and felt no attachment to. Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee that drafted the health-care bill, “fret[ted]” about the ACA’s origin. “It is my belief,” he said in December 2013, “that for major legislation to be durable, sustainable, it has to be bipartisan.

.. “The partial repeal bill does not get rid of Obamacare’s tens of thousands of pages of insurance regulations,” Roy explains, as well as “the regulations that are responsible for the law’s drastic premium hikes.”

.. If Republicans choose the reconciliation path, as some members are already considering, we would be stuck with Obamacare’s hollow shell. Gutting the subsidies, without eliminating the regulations that make insurance expensive, would be counterproductive: Premiums would continue to increase

.. In 2014, Senate Majority Leader Reid invoked the so-called “nuclear option” to remove the 60-vote threshold for confirming judges and other executive-branch appointments, with the exception of Supreme Court nominees. I fully expect Majority Leader McConnell to use the same parliamentary procedure to confirm President Trump’s first nominee to the high court — it is simply the next step in the downward spiral of our confirmation process.

.. In 2014, Senate Majority Leader Reid invoked the so-called “nuclear option” to remove the 60-vote threshold for confirming judges and other executive-branch appointments, with the exception of Supreme Court nominees. I fully expect Majority Leader McConnell to use the same parliamentary procedure to confirm President Trump’s first nominee to the high court — it is simply the next step in the downward spiral of our confirmation process.

.. In this game of mutually assured destruction, Republicans may be tempted to move first. And if there was ever a single goal that would unify Republicans to take this extreme step, it would be the elimination of Obamacare.

.. In this game of mutually assured destruction, Republicans may be tempted to move first. And if there was ever a single goal that would unify Republicans to take this extreme step, it would be the elimination of Obamacare.

.. There were rumors that House and Senate staffers would resign if they were forced to pay full fare for their insurance. It is beyond ironic that employees who labored to pass Obamacare threatened to leave government if they had to actually use it.

A Coup Against the Supreme Court

People don’t usually remember it this way, but on Dec. 13, 2000, Vice President Al Gore gave one of the most important speeches in American history. Mr. Gore had contested the initial results of the Florida vote count and prevailed in the Florida state courts, but the Supreme Court had voted, 5-to-4, the day before to end the recount and effectively hand the presidency to George W. Bush.

“Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken,” Mr. Gore said. “Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it.” The frenzied battle over a few hundred votes had spawned intense anger across the country — but it had been resolved “as it must be resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy.”

Mr. Gore’s concession that night still stands as the most powerful reaffirmation in modern times of the Supreme Court’s unique and fragile role in the American system of government

.. Millions of people were furious at the justices’ decision in Bush v. Gore — many believed it was the result not of legal reasoning but of rank partisanship — and yet virtually everyone followed Mr. Gore’s selfless lead, accepted the court as the final arbiter of the dispute, and moved on. There were no riots in the streets, no attempted coups, no “Second Amendment solutions.” There was, instead, a peaceful transfer of power: the hallmark of a civil society operating under the rule of law.

.. Even Senator John McCain, who once joined with Democrats in an effort to depoliticize the judicial nomination process, recently told a radio show, “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up.”

.. Step back for a moment and consider the radical absurdity of this position. Senate Republicans first justified their refusal to hold hearings or a vote on Mr. Obama’s nominee before the presidential election because “the people’s voice” needed to be heard. That was always a transparent lie. Now, apparently believing their candidate, Donald Trump, will lose, they are acting as though the Supreme Court is the property of the Republican Party.

.. it takes open aim at the court’s legitimacy as the sole unelected branch of government. Because the court “has no influence over either the sword or the purse,” as Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, its legitimacy and authority depend entirely on the shared public acceptance of its verdicts.

.. the court has had a majority of Republican-appointed justices for nearly half a century

.. Republicans want to maintain that majority, even if that means tossing out all political norms

Heritage calling for Supreme Court blockade if Clinton wins

The conservative group Heritage Action is pushing Republican senators to keep the Supreme Court at eight justices if Democrat Hillary Clinton is elected president.

In a Thursday morning briefing at the Heritage Foundation’s Washington headquarters on Capitol Hill, the group said Republicans should embrace the idea of leaving the Supreme Court without its ninth justice, perhaps for as long as five years.

.. Republicans who are more willing to compromise, including Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, believe the party should hurry to nominate Garland in the lame-duck session of Congress if Clinton wins on Nov. 8. The Flake argument is that Clinton would likely nominate a younger and more left-wing justice than Garland, so if Trump loses, Republicans are better off confirming Obama’s nominee.

The Heritage Foundation, a group that enjoys significant sway on the right, wholly rejects such thinking. They want Republicans to get comfortable making the case that the court can function just fine with eight justices.

.. If Democrats win control over the Senate, the likely new majority leader, Charles Schumer(N.Y.), could deploy the so-called nuclear option for a Supreme Court nomination. That would mean changing Senate rules to allow nominees to be confirmed with a simple majority of 51 votes instead of the 60 required to break a Republican filibuster. It’s an extreme move, but not unimaginable given the stakes.

If Republicans hang on to the Senate, however, they can cause huge headaches for Clinton if enough of them buy into the Cruz-Heritage approach.

.. Many predicted that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) would suffer electorally because, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he didn’t give Garland a hearing. Grassley has already proven those pundits wrong and looks like he’ll easily win his race