Author, columnist, speaker
Kaine's Mutiny Is in Line With Democrats' Defeatism
By Robert Knight
At the dawn of the American republic, the newly formed United States was forced to pay tribute to Muslim fiefdoms that seized merchant ships off North Africa and enslaved hundreds of American sailors.
This went on for about 15 years until President Thomas Jefferson sent over the newly commissioned U.S. Navy and U.S. Marines. By 1805, the Barbary Pirates were defeated.
Jefferson didn’t seek congressional approval before sending the Marines into Tripoli. He acted under his Commander-in-Chief authority, treating the Islamist pirates’ actions as a state of war. A year later, Congress retroactively approved the mission.
Fast forward to 2026. Like Mr. Jefferson, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine hails from Virginia. Known as the cradle of presidents, the Old Dominion is also famous for its military footprint, particularly U.S. Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval base.
Unlike Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Kaine doesn’t like the U.S. taking on predatory regimes and doing things like killing Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At least not without congressional say-so.
On March 4, 2026, Mr. Kaine, a Democrat who ran for vice president on the Hillary Clinton ticket in 2016, sponsored a War Powers resolution aimed at blocking President Donald Trump’s attack on Iran’s military infrastructure.
In January, Mr. Kaine had also sponsored a War Powers resolution to curb Mr. Trump’s actions after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
Both of Mr. Kaine’s measures were defeated largely along party lines.
Pretty much all major Democrats have condemned the raids on both rogue nations.
On March 2, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, told CNN that the president had “failed to provide any justification" for the Iran action.
How about this: Iran’s government issued a declaration of war on the United States in 1979 and has never rescinded it. The regime just slaughtered 30,000 protesters. Iran has targeted American bases and killed American soldiers and has sponsored Islamist terrorists in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and around the world, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
Mr. Hakeem says the Iran action is “going to end in failure." Well, let’s hope and pray that Mr. Hakeem is “on the wrong side of history,” as Democrats like to say.
After the January vote on Venezuela, Sen. Adam Schiff, California Democrat, told reporters that Congress should have voted on authorizing military force when Trump blockaded sanctioned oil tankers from Venezuela last December and when Trump nabbed Mr. Maduro on Jan. 3.
While Democrats whine and moan, the world’s bad actors are facing changes once thought impossible.
The Venezuela raid has stopped cold the socialist government’s sabotage of other South American nations. Venezuelans, of whom 7 million had fled to other countries, now have the hope of seeing all political prisoners freed and electing a legitimate government.
The action has also put a plug in Venezuela’s subsidizing Cuba’s communist dictatorship with cheap Venezuelan oil. It could mean the end of the communist regime that has ruled the Caribbean island nation with an iron fist since 1959.
As for Iran, the biggest losers are Russia and China. Iran has been sending thousands of drones to Russian forces for their war on Ukraine.
More geopolitically important, Iran has been supplying 1.4 million barrels of oil a day to China, accounting for more than 13 percent of China’s imported oil. Venezuela has provided about 10 percent of China’s oil imports.
The sharp decline in supply thanks to Mr. Trump’s raids weakens China’s hand and may fend off its monstrous plan to invade Taiwan.
Given the potential global impact of a Chinese invasion, many nations should be thanking Mr. Trump right now. Taiwan produces 60 percent of the world’s semiconductor chips and more than 90 percent of the most advanced chips.
Because of Mr. Trump’s bold actions in taking out two dictators, nearly all members of the current “axis of evil” are on their heels. Even North Korea, whose leaders’ bellicosity has long threatened the peace in Asia, may take notice that the world has changed.
Getting back to Virginia, the picture wouldn’t be complete without mentioning a profound contrast involving Sen. Kaine.
In 2024, Mr. Kaine ran successfully for re-election, defeating Republican candidate Hung Cao, a decorated, 25-year Navy veteran, in the Virginia Senate race.
Mr. Cao, who was born in Vietnam, came to America with his family in 1981 after the North Vietnamese took over and executed his father, a South Vietnamese army officer.
Last fall, President Trump nominated Mr. Cao as undersecretary of the Navy. He was confirmed on a mostly party-line 52-45 vote, with only one Republican, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, voting no.
Mr. Kaine voted against Mr. Cao’s nomination, as did his fellow Virginia Democrat, Mark Warner.
In a debate with Mr. Kaine on Oct. 3, 2024, at Norfolk State University, Mr. Cao said on the issue of illegal immigration, “Don’t come to this country and ask for the American Dream if you’re not willing to obey the American laws and embrace the American culture.”
As undersecretary of the Navy, Mr. Cao is undoubtedly busy right now helping to ensure that the combined American and Israeli forces defeat Iran.
Virginia’s voters, who preferred Mr. Kaine over Mr. Cao and just elected the radical (and fake moderate) Abigail Spanberger as governor, might someday wonder what in blazes they were thinking.
Photo: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) at a Capitol Hill hearing on Jan. 28, 2026. (AP photo in 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.