Author, columnist, speaker
Force the Democrats to Filibuster the SAVE America Act
By Robert Knight
I rarely find myself disagreeing with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, which is reliably conservative most of the time.
So, I was surprised when the editorial board on Thursday pegged the SAVE America Act as a lost cause and advised Republicans to abandon it.
The bill, which would secure America’s elections, is wildly popular with the public.
It passed the House last month on a mostly party-line vote, with all 218 Republicans present voting yes, along with three Democrats.
It’s stalled in the Senate because Democrats, who hate hampering their free stuff army with voter ID laws and proof of U.S. citizenship for voting, have vowed to filibuster it.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he’ll bring the bill to the floor this coming week for a “show” vote but will keep it subject to the Senate’s 60-vote cloture threshold to end debate. Which means the Democrats can kill it.
Mr. Thune has resisted bringing it to the floor for a “talking filibuster” and calling the Democrats’ bluff. This is despite President Donald Trump’s insistence that the bill is vital for securing the nation’s elections before the November midterms.
The Journal calls the idea of forcing a real filibuster a “mirage.”
A Harvard/CAPS Harris Poll last month found that 81 percent favor requiring voter ID to vote, 75 percent want proof of citizenship, and 80 percent want non-citizens taken off voter rolls. The SAVE America Act would do all that.
The bill itself polled at 71 percent support, including 50 percent of Democrats, 91 percent of Republicans, and 69 percent of independents.
Other than a resolution honoring Mother’s Day or perhaps something even less controversial, I don’t recall any measures with this much support.
Democrats assume that Republicans will cave and not demand at least the “talking filibuster.” That made-up term describes an actual filibuster instead of the instant acceptance of one.
The instant filibuster is a bit like Major League Baseball’s change in the rules for intentional walks, with the batter not even bothering to stand at the plate to watch the pitcher throw four times beyond the strike zone. It does save time to just send the batter to first base, but do fans really want to pay to see the likes of Aaron Judge and Shohei Otani repeatedly denied a chance to hit instead of battling the pitcher?
Personally, I’d ban intentional walks, forcing the pitcher to throw the ball at least near the plate to provide drama, but that’s another column.
In the case of the filibuster, there are good reasons to at least force a 24/7 talkathon. First, it would show that Republicans can play hardball instead of caving to “our friends across the aisle” who are only too happy to punch them in the gut when no one’s looking. Don’t they get tired of seeing Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s “cat-that-ate-the-canary” grin?
It would show that Republicans are finally serious about guaranteeing a citizen’s right not to have his or her ballot canceled by a non-citizen or otherwise unqualified voter.
It would show how out of touch the Democrats are with the average American.
The Journal warns darkly that “the reality is that Democratic Senators could take turns giving interminable speeches. Cory Booker [New Jersey Democrat] last year went 25 hours all by himself.”
Bully for Mr. Booker, who persuaded no one about anything. And this is bad, how?
Go ahead, Democrats, rail against something that upwards of 80 percent of the public want. The Dems would, of course, count on the media gaslighting the public, but they don’t control X and Facebook.
Social media outrage prompted CNN to pull its item on the March 7 Islamist terrorist bomb attack in New York that had started this way:
“Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather. But their lives would drastically change….”
Yes, that happens when you throw bombs at people. This pixie dust reporting has to hurt the media’s credibility, which is already lower than that of the Clintons.
Another strategy that Republicans could use is the “nuclear option” of doing away with the filibuster altogether and passing the SAVE America Act with their Senate majority. They can change the current rule with a simple majority vote.
Opponents warn that if the GOP does this, the Democrats will do it to them. As the Journal puts it, “they’d certainly copy the maneuver next time to pass far more transformational bills than the SAVE America Act.”
The answer to that is: They’ll do it anyway. Democrats were stopped from doing it in January 2022 only because of two Democratic senators, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, neither of whom is in the Senate now.
What could be more transformational than securing America’s elections?
With millions of illegal aliens in America thanks to the Biden administration’s open border, requiring voter ID and proof of U.S. citizenship are crucial to restoring faith in fair elections.
If Republicans fail to protect voting, Democrats will use all their devious means to get back into power—and to make sure they never lose it again.
That would be transformational.
Illustration by Alexander Hunter / The Washington Times.
Beware of the Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
By Robert Knight
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear appears to be readying for a presidential run in 2028.
The telegenic Democrat was on a speaking tour last year in early primary state South Carolina. In September, he has a book coming out entitled, “Go and Do Likewise: How We Heal a Broken Country,” a reference to Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan.
His publisher summarizes it this way: “By regrounding faith in compassion and kindness, he believes we can start to heal as a country.”
Compassion and kindness are God-given, but I thought we were in the midst of healing from the nightmare of the Biden years, with its promotion of atheism, illegal immigration, sexual anarchy, and attacks on Catholics and pro-lifers.
Mr. Beshear, like Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, identifies as a Christian and a moderate and gets priceless media cover while supporting the Democratic Party’s radical social and economic agenda.
In 2023, for instance, he tried to block a state bill protecting minors from “gender affirming care.”
The law prohibits doctors from subjecting gender-confused teens to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible, disfiguring surgeries.
The law also bans males from competing on girls’ sports teams. Most people think this makes sense.
Beshear insisted that such a law “would hurt kids and their families” and violate “parental rights.”
He claimed there was no evidence of widespread harm. To which I would say one butchered child is too many and that evidence of harm is voluminous, including the growing number of suicides and trans-related violence.
On the same day of Mr. Beshear’s veto, both houses of Kentucky’s Republican-controlled legislature overrode it. Naturally, a federal judge, Rebecca Grady Jennings, issued an immediate injunction halting enforcement. The case is still in litigation.
A year earlier, Ms. Jennings, one of President Donald Trump’s few clunker appointees, struck down a Kentucky law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks and requiring medical oversight for abortion pills.
Gov. Beshear also vetoed that bill, and the legislature overrode him.
In South Carolina, which went for Mr. Trump by 30 points, Mr. Beshear emphasized his Christian faith while boasting that he was “a proud, pro-LGBTQ+ governor.”
This is a stance that ignores Jesus Christ’s clear restating of God’s creation of male and female and God’s marriage-based sexual morality from Genesis.
According to the Washington Post, Mr. Beshear said, “My faith teaches me that all children are children of God, and I didn’t want people picking on those kids.” How about protecting them from quacks who sterilize them and turn them into lifetime medical cases?
By the way, politicians love to haul out the term “children of God” like a magic amulet. The Bible says we’re all created in the image of God, but that we’re not children of God unless we believe in Him and submit to God’s authority. Until then, we’re on the other team, and I don’t mean the New Jersey Devils.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name,” John 1:12 says. If we’re automatically children of God, we wouldn’t need to be, as Jesus said, born again.
Anyway, Mr. Beshear is not the only wolf in sheep’s clothing. Democrats have become quite adept at using Christianese and buzzwords to fool people. President Barack Obama often gave biblical scholars heartburn over his misappropriating Jesus’s words to justify sexual sin and confiscatory redistribution of wealth.
In Texas, state Rep. James Talarico is battling hard-left U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator. Like Mr. Beshear, Mr. Talarico touts his Christian faith while cleaving to a radical agenda.
“He delivers left-wing orthodoxy in centrist packaging and fights Christian nationalism with Scripture,” the Wall Street Journal explains.
If you’re a patriotic Christian, he’s talking about you and your family as a threat to America.
Much of his rhetoric revolves around Marxist class envy, such as, “Make billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.”
During remarks opposing a bill protecting kids from transgender treatments, he said, “Jesus never once condemned transgender people.”
Well, Jesus didn’t need to, and He welcomed all repentant sinners. The Hebrew Scriptures are crystal clear on sexual morality. Sexual confusion is the province of paganism, which historically often involved child sacrifice as well.
Any comparison to the pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ Democratic Party inferred by readers at this juncture may not be coincidental.
In a 2024 interview with MSNBC, Mr. Talarico said, “Christian nationalism is dangerous. … When politicians use the Bible to push division and hate, they’re not following Jesus; they’re using His name for their own agenda.”
This is classic projection, accusing your opponents of exactly what you’re doing.
At the University of Texas on Feb. 6, Mr. Talarico said, “I’m a Christian progressive. I believe the Gospel is inherently radical—it challenges the powerful, lifts up the poor, and calls for justice in every sphere of life.”
When progressives talk about “justice” they mean “social justice.” This is envy, disguised as compassion and politicized to enable governments to redistribute income and rewrite society’s moral code.
In the first six weeks of 2026, Mr. Talarico raised $7.5 million to Ms. Crockett’s $2 million, even though she still has a lead in polls. He has raised $20 million since September.
Will Texas, like Mr. Beshear’s Kentucky, fall for a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) in Frankfort, Ky. on June 8, 2025. (AP photo in The Washington Times.