I will say this again: I don’t see how Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) doesn’t need endless amounts of bourbon to get through the nonsense he has to spew over the airwaves. On Sunday, Hillary Clinton’s running mate pretty much said that it’s okay to mock Catholics because people have opinions; this is America, and that is what makes our country great, or something. Oh, and Catholics also have a lot of opinions. So, no apologies were offered during his appearance on ABC’s This Week with guest host Martha Raddatz.
Tim Kaine’s waffled response to Raddatz’s question about whether an apology was in order stems from the Wikileaks document dumps, where it shows Clinton allies and aides mocking Catholics in a series of email chains (via WaPo):
Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri, who ran communications for the liberal think tank Center for American Progress that Podesta founded, responded to emails from think tank fellow John Halpin who noted a 2011 report in the New Yorker about News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch and Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson raising their children Catholic.“Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the [Supreme Court] and think tanks to the media and social groups,” Halpin wrote in the 2011 email, according to WikiLeaks. “It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.”
Palmieri responded that she believes Murdoch, Thomson and many other conservatives are Catholic because they think it’s “the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion.” “Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals,” she wrote. Podesta did not respond in the email thread.
[…]
Another email that was released appears to suggest that Clinton’s campaign set up Catholic groups to organize on issues such as contraception. Sandy Newman, president of Voices for Progress, wrote in an 2011 email to Podesta that there needs to be “a Catholic Spring,” referring to the “Arab Spring,” a wave of demonstrations and protests in the Arab world.
“There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic church,” Newman wrote.
Latest faux controversy out of @Wikileaks hack: Accusing Jen Palmieri, who is Catholic, of being anti-Catholic.
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 12, 2016
Oh yes, a rather ugly insight to how the Left views people of faith, especially the Catholic Church, which has endured a long history of discrimination in America that’s often under reported. The Clinton campaign tried to pivot by saying that Palmieri is Catholic. Right, but a Catholic who is pro-abortion isn’t really a Catholic. I was also brought up in the Catholic Church…and I haven’t been to mass in over ten years. So, you can see how saying, “Gee, well I’m a Catholic” really isn’t an effective tool to neutralize what conservatives have known for a while about Democrats/progressives and their attitudes towards religious people in this country: they hate them or view them with contempt.
But getting back to Kaine, he tried to blame the Russians—saying that we don’t know the accuracy of these emails. Yeah, we also don’t know for sure that these documents dumps were ordered by the Russians to influence the election, which is an equally outrageous claim. Kaine went a step further to say that the Russians doctored the emails. The Washington Free Beacon added that when Palmieri responded to inquires about this chain, she said she didn’t’ “recognize” the email. Oh, I’m sure you didn’t:
Raddatz asked again, point blank, if the campaign should issue an apology.“We all have opinions and I don’t think you need to apologize for your opinions,” Kaine said. “But, in fact, that’s a great thing about our country and even about being Catholic.”
The email caused backlash from Conservative Republicans. Gov. Mike Pence (R., Ind.), Donald Trump’s running mate, said that Clinton should disavow these comments.
“If only on behalf of her catholic running mate, Hillary Clinton should denounce those bigoted anti-Catholic, anti-evangelical remarks and her campaign staff should apologize to people of faith and do it now,” he said.
Palmieri said that she does not “recognize” this email.
I’m hoping Donald Trump brings this up during tomorrow’s debate. It’s his last chance to offer some last minute slugs against old, dirty, crooked Hillary Clinton.
Still, one of the most maddening trends from this election so far is that Clinton is doing phenomenal with Catholics. Folks, the Democrats can’t stand you, they want you to subsidize their abortion agenda, and force contraception mandates down the throats of Catholic institutions. That’s the party you’re backing.
