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Vice President Mike Pence is recording a robocall for the Republican nominee in Tuesday's special House election in Kansas, a clear sign of concern that the Democrats could flip this solid GOP seat.

Sources told the Washington Examiner on Friday that Pence would record a call urging Republicans in Kansas' Wichita-area 4th district to get out and vote for state Treasurer Ron Estes, who is locked in a tight battle with Democrat James Thompson.

The White House political office, led by political director Bill Stepien, has joined what has become a party-wide effort to save a seat that President Trump won by nearly 30 points in November. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Ron's run a horrible campaign. Hasn't raised much money, his ads are abysmal no energy," a Kansas Republican operative said, on condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly. "It's a low turnout special and weird things happen."

Most political insiders have been focused on an upcoming special House election in Georgia, where Democrat Jon Ossoff is polling well against a crowded field of Republicans running in the Atlanta-area 6th district. Except, that's a seat where Trump only defeated Hillary Clinton in November by 1 point.

As in the Georgia race, Democratic energy and enthusiasm are way up in Kansas' 4th district, and Republicans are worried enough that they have started pouring resources into the race in the last week.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas will be in the district Monday to campaign for Estes, BuzzFeed reported Friday. On Thursday, Politico reported that the National Republican Congressional Committee was going on television with an advertising buy.

"We're happy to help out in this small way and show our support for Ron Estes. We look forward to Ron coming to Congress and standing up for Kansas values," NRCC spokesman Matt Gorman said.

Kansas 4th district was previously held by Mike Pompeo, who was confirmed as Trump's CIA director in January.

Also from the Washington Examiner

President Obama's former deputy national security adviser indicated Saturday that he isn't very happy with President Trump's decision to hit a Syrian air base with missiles.

Trump's missile strike, which was retaliation for Syria's use of chemical weapons, drew instant comparisons to Obama, who warned the U.S. would act if Syria used chemical weapons.

Obama did nothing after Syria crossed that "red line" of Obama's, and many said Trump was the one to finally enforce Obama's ultimatum years later.

But in an early Saturday morning tweet, Rhodes suggested that Trump's strike was only aimed at boosting his press coverage, and seemed to warn reporters against helping him achieve this.

04/08/17 4:04 PM

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Pence joins effort to save 'safe' GOP seat from the Democrats - Washington Examiner

Jonah Goldberg 9:38 a.m. ET April 8, 2017

Hillary Clinton at Georgetown University on March 31, 2017.(Photo: Susan Walsh, AP)

As fate would have it, Hillary Clinton spoke at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Awards for Advancing Women in Peace and Security, where she emphasized the importance of peace, of women and of women in peace. When women participate in peacekeeping peacemaking we are all safer and more secure and boasted of evidence-based research that backs up this claim.

And shes right. Including women in the peacemaking process is often a valuable way of securing peace in war torn countries.

But she also got in what was seen as a partisan shot at the Trump administration. At one point she began a sentence by saying, Studies show and then interrupted herself: here I go again talking about research, evidenceand facts."

The crowd laughed, cheered and loudly applauded for a while, proving that theres nothing like working out your best material with a friendly audience. Clinton laughed at her supposedly very funny joke, too.

She also said, "Before anybody jumps toany conclusions, I will state clearly: Women are not inherently more peaceful than men. That is a stereotype. That belongs in the alternative reality."

Again, if you dont get the joke, the reference to alternative reality is apparently a jab at Kellyanne Conway, who once said something silly about alternative facts.

But heres what I think is funny. Clintons wrong. Shes the one peddling an alternative reality.

Don't panic about 'alternative facts': Column

The right can't defend Trump's behavior: Jonah Goldberg

Yeah, theres a stereotype that women are inherently more peaceful than men but, as a generalization (which is what stereotypes are) its true.

This is an evidence-based conclusion backed by a great many studies.

In 2015, according to the FBI, 7,549 men were arrested for murder and non-negligent manslaughter. Only 984 women were. Men were four times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes and ten times more likely to be arrested for illegal possession of a weapon.

Its not just in America. Disproportionate male aggression is a human universal, appearing all over the world and across thousands of years. In almost every society men are the ones who are overwhelmingly involved in wars, in all kinds of intergroup aggressions and intragroup homicide, writes Dorian Fortuna at Psychology Today.Men mobilize themselves in armies of violent fans, incriminalgangs, in bands of thugs, etc. These observations are as old as the world and have allowed us to create a clear distinction between male and female sexes regarding their predisposition to violence.

Throughout history, reports The Economist magazine men have killed men roughly 97 times more often than women have killed women.

The male inclination for violence has a lot to do with testosterone, which is most plentiful in young men who, in their natural habitat, fought other males to impress women (you can head down to Fort Lauderdale during Spring Break to document this phenomenon yourself).

Steven Pinker writes in The Better Angels of Our Nature, his sweeping history of violence, that to the extent that the problem of violence is a problem of young, unmarried, lawless men competing for dominance, whether directly or on behalf of a leader, then violence really is a problem of there being too much testosterone in the world.

POLICING THE USA:Alook atrace, justice, media

We're scaring off future Einsteins: USD president

Interestingly, one of the things that is most likely to make men less violent is getting married, proving thatClinton is right when she says that women have a pacifying effect. What public policies should flow from all this is a topic for another day.

Whats annoying aboutClintons cheap partisan preening isnt simply that shes wrong (and I suspect she knows it). Its that she is perpetuating an infuriating tendency of liberals today to claim science is always on their side.

Theres a decidedly undemocratic flavor to this kind of argument. Patrick Moynihan famously said that everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts. Liberals want to turn that on its head and claim that their opinions are facts and anyone who disagrees isnt merely voicing a bad opinion but it somehow living in alternative reality or denying science. Its the secular version of claiming that God is on your side.

Clinton is peddling stale, corporate feminismas settled science in part because shes pandering to a friendly audience, but also because shes too lazy to shed her own alternate reality.

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Democrats aren't the party of science: Jonah Goldberg - USA TODAY

31st March 2017

Yesterday Republicans in the United States Senate thanks to a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence votedto give states the authority to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood.

Today Connecticut Democrats are standing up and promising to defend Planned Parenthood funding from constant GOP attacks.

For so many women, Planned Parenthood is their only resource for mammograms;clinical breast, pap,and pelvic exams;and other lifesaving health services, said State Senator Marilyn Moore (D-Bridgeport).Generally, a visit to Planned Parenthood is the only time that women especially young women may use any type of health screenings that may identify other reproductive health issues that could be treated at a preventative stage.

The Republicans vote in the United States Senate to deny funding for Planned Parenthood will put womens lives at risk, Sen. Moorecontinued.Democrats in Connecticut will hold true to our values and fight back against this malicious assault on womens health care.

The Republican-led assault on womens health and Planned Parenthood will fail in Connecticut, if we have anything to say about it, said Rep. Cathy Abercrombie (D-Meriden), the House chair of the legislatures Human Services Committee. Governor Malloy has already vowed to make sure that Connecticut makes up the difference in funding if Congress defunds Planned Parenthood, and I am also fighting to preserve critical funding for womens health and welfare.

Connecticut Democrats have a long history of supporting Planned Parenthood and womens health services. Meanwhile, Connecticut Republicans have remained silent, refusing to stand up to President Trump or the congressional GOP majorities.

On issue after issue from stripping health care from 24 million people, to eliminating heating assistance for low-income Connecticut residents, to yet another attempt to dismantle womens health services Connecticut Republicans have failed to stand up for the people of this state, said Connecticut Democratic Party Vice Chairwoman Dita Bhargava.State and local governments are the last line of defense against the Trump administrations backwards agenda. Thats why were working so hard to elect Democrats to defend Connecticuts values.

This is not just Democrats talking.Editorial boards agreethat Connecticut Republicans need to grow a backbone and stand up to the Trump agenda.

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Connecticut Democratic Party

They just don't care.

"The filibuster is such a silly, non-intuitive tactic that most people don't even believe it exists," Markos Moulitsas, founder of the liberal blog DailyKos.com, told CNN in an email.

Inside the Senate, some red-state Democrats and longtime institutionalists have fretted that mounting an all-out battle to stop Gorsuch will hurt the party's chances of winning future fights and further degrade the more deliberative chamber of Congress. The 'nuclear option' would lower the bar from 60 senators needed to break a filibuster to 51, and Republicans currently control the chamber with a 52-48 margin.

But off Capitol Hill, Democrats -- from Washington insiders to progressive activists across the country -- are sick of hearing about those precautions.

Fueled by the base's anti-Trump energy, Democrats across the spectrum don't want to hand Trump any easy victories. They are insisting on showing Republicans that blocking Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination in President Barack Obama's final year won't go without retaliation.

And they see the filibuster -- which McConnell could erase at any point -- as a gun with no ammunition.

"The filibuster is effectively gone. If you don't filibuster Gorsuch, McConnell will just get rid of it next time," said Adam Jentleson, a former Harry Reid aide who's now a senior strategic adviser for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Many Democrats were frustrated by senators' initial openness to supporting Gorsuch, but the nominee bungled the opportunity to win many of them over with what Democratic senators viewed as dismissive answers to questions during his confirmation hearing and to written follow-ups, Jentleson said.

Contrary to some institutionalists' hopes, McConnell would be even more likely to invoke the nuclear option to get the next Supreme Court nominee confirmed, he argued.

"Next time, the balance of the court would be at stake, so the motivation to go nuclear is even stronger. It goes both ways," he said. "It's false to say Democrats don't care. But I think it's just not their choice."

"Reid put up with years and years of incredible amounts of obstruction, and pressure from his base, before he finally went nuclear," Jentleson said. "McConnell, by sort of signaling he's going to do it beforehand -- literally the very first opportunity to go nuclear, he's pulling the trigger."

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, was the 41st Democrat to pledge to oppose Gorsuch, guaranteeing a filibuster. He told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that he is open to negotiating with Republicans to find an agreement on avoiding the nuclear option -- so long as the GOP doesn't invoke it on the next confirmation battle.

"I said, 'I will vote against closure unless the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate can somehow find an agreement that is trustworthy and reliable, where on the next Supreme Court nominee they won't change the rules and we will have input, and a more confirmable, consensus nominee will be put in front of the Senate,'" Coons said. "I'm not saying that I'm insisting that we force the Republican majority to break the rules. That's a choice they're going to have to make."

Like Coons, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, publicly agonized over his decision. But on Monday, he said he would filibuster Gorsuch, saying he "cannot vote solely to protect an institution."

Campaigning Friday in New Jersey, Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez and deputy chair Keith Ellison, a Minnesota congressman, both called for a filibuster of Gorsuch, knowing it would likely lead McConnell to invoke the nuclear option.

"If you do not have enough support, we should not change the rules for you," Ellison told Democrats in Asbury Park. "We should change the nominee."

Perez made the point again in a statement Monday, after it became clear Democrats would filibuster Gorsuch.

"It's plain and simple: Gorsuch has not earned the votes in the Senate to join the Supreme Court," he said. "Republicans can't fix Gorsuch by changing the rules. They need to change the nominee."

Other Democrats directly called for the filibuster's elimination, taking the long view that it could help the party if and when it regains Senate control.

Moulitsas mocked the hand-wringing about the loss of the 60-vote threshold, saying "it's mostly been a tool used by conservatives" and noting that the Heritage Foundation and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas had talked about keeping an eight-seat Supreme Court through the entire tenure of a President Hillary Clinton before the election.

"Majority rule means accountability to the voters," he said. "It also means that elections really do matter, since the losers can't hide behind parliamentary maneuvers. So if McConnell really has the votes to kill it, good riddance."

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Why Democrats aren't worried about the 'nuclear option ...

Senate Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday will continue a floor debate on President Trumps Supreme Court pick to replace the conservative Antonin Scalia.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.,took the floor of the Senate on Tuesday nightand started a marathon session to protest the Republican blockade of President Obamas nominee for the seat, Merrick Garland.

"Make no mistake: this is a stolen seat & if this theft is completed, it will undermine the integrity of the court for decades," Merkley tweeted as he began.

Merkley's speech wasn't expected to delay Wednesday's debate on President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch or Thursday's votes.

The Senate voted on Tuesday afternoon to formally start debate, leading up to the expected vote later in the week.

Senate Democrats have secured enough votes to filibuster Gorsuch. Forty-two Democrats have said they will vote to block his nomination. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., one of Gorsuch's most vocal critics, said the nominee did little to win support during his confirmation hearings.

The facts in this case are simple:Gorsuch counts 55 supporters in the Senate: the 52 Republicans, along with three moderate Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana.

As long as Republicans enact a rule changefamously called the nuclear optionit would lower the threshold to confirm Gorsuch from 60 to a simple majority. Republicans would have the votes and Gorsuch would be confirmed.

The divide on Gorsuch's nomination is deep. Senate Republicans see him as a fair jurist, while Democrats see him as in the pockets of big companies.

Gorsuch, 49, is a 10-year veteran of a federal appeals court in Denver, where he's compiled a highly conservative record.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News The First 100 Days Monday that Gorsuch is going to be on the Supreme Court by midnight Friday night. I can assure you that. One way or the other, hes going to get the necessary votes to get there."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday said Democrats have hit a new low in their obstruction. He still has said that he would employ the nuclear option and has filed a motion for cloture-- the first step in invoking the nuclear option.

He reportedly said he would not end the 60-vote threshold on legislation while majority leader.The Senate will vote to invoke cloture on Thursday. Sixty votes are needed to invoke cloture, and McConnell will likely come up short.

Senate Democrats have continued to hit the Trump pick.

Theres a reason they call it the nuclear option, and that is that theres fallout. And this fallout will be dangerously and perhaps disastrously radioactive for the Senate in years to come, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told The Washington Post.

Edmund DeMarche is a news editor for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @EDeMarche.

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Senate Republicans, Democrats set for floor debate on ...