Posts Tagged ‘Elections’

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Bret Weinstein Calls The Democratic Party “An Existential Threat To The Republic”

Wednesday, August 28th, 2024

On Patrick Bet-David’s podcast, mugged liberal evolutionary psychologist Bret Weinstein calls the modern Democratic Party “an existential threat to the republic” and says the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. endorsement has him willing to vote for Trump.

  • It starts with a clip of RFK, Jr. denouncing the DNC and the mainstream media (“They [his relatives and old school Democrats] would be astonished to learn of a Democratic party Presidential nominee who like Vice President Harris has not appeared in a single interview or an unscripted encounter with voters for 35 days”) only to have CNN fade out the audio.
  • Patrick Bet-David: “The moment he’s about to criticize Kamala they do this.”
  • Bret Weinstein: “It was classic Robert F Kennedy, Jr. You know, he has encyclopedic knowledge on a wide range of subjects and he covered a great many of them.”
  • BW: “What he was effectively saying was that the presentation that we all receive is pure stagecraft, and he’s right. And then to have CNN cut away, not able to engage in their usual level of stagecraft, because they don’t know what he’s going to say, is incredible. They validated exactly what it was he was describing, which was a fake world that’s presented over our screens by these mega monolith corporations that decide what we get to know and when we get to know it.”
  • PBD: “At the RNC, the name Joe Biden was mentioned two times during the entire convention, but at the DNC, Trump was mentioned 400 times, not because of policies, just trashing him.”
  • BW: “I think [RFK, Jr’s endorsement of Trump] absolutely monumental, because I think there is we are in a novel moment in American political history, where many of us who hold different positions on the political spectrum have different priorities with respect to policy are finding that none of our differences matter in light of the jeopardy that the that the republic is in.”
  • BW:”[RFK, Jr] is emboldening a movement that is more widely recognizing that those differences have to be put aside until the main job is done.”
  • BW: “I was very interested in the way he navigated the idea this was not a simple endorsement of Trump, this was an endorsement of retaking the White House and using that position to restore the republic to its proper course.”
  • BW: “The DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for Vice President Harris based upon, oh, nothing no policies. No interviews, no debates, only smoke and mirrors and balloons in a highly produced Chicago circus.”
  • BW: [On whether RFK’s support makes him consider voting for Trump] “Oh, absolutely let me just be perfectly clear about that. I think the modern Democratic Party is an existential threat to the republic.”
  • BW: “Although I am a Democrat, I’ve been a Democrat my whole life, the party that I see in front of me today is literally the inverse of the party I signed up for. This is now the party of war, this is the party of racism, this is the party of censorship. I don’t recognize this party. There is no conceivable scenario in which I would vote for Kamla Harris.”
  • BW: “I am open to voting for Trump. I’m especially open to it if he is partnered with Bobby Kennedy, because what that tells me is that my values, which are a much closer match for Bobby’s, are represented in that Administration, and that’s really what I want.”
  • BW: “I want a coalition to redefine American politics, because, frankly, we have a long-standing problem with corruption, which has now turned into something else with with the modern Democratic Party.”
  • BW: “We need to rethink the way we govern ourselves, so that corruption is not the dominant force, and a coalition is the way we’re going to do that.”

    • The interview is interesting for several reasons:

  • Weinstein is dead on about the corruption and totalitarian tendencies of the modern Democratic Party. Indeed, if you removed the corruption and social justice from the Democratic Party, I doubt there’s anything left.
  • The appeal of RFK, Jr. continues to elude me, seeming a mishmash of ecowhackjobism, pre-social justice liberal nostrums and healthy serving of conspiracy theories who receives outsized media attention for a man who’s never held elected office. But Weinstein is hardly an unlearned rube dazzled by the faded ghost of Camelot. Clearly the cadres of disaffected old-school liberals and soft-left squishy independents who feel deeply alienated from the modern Democratic Party is bigger than I thought it was, and Kennedy and former Democratic representative Tulsi Gabbard seem to have become the totems for this group.
  • That both Kennedy and Gabbard have endorsed Trump may be more significant than I thought at first. In the wake of the Twitter files and other revelations about just how badly the Democratic Media Complex has deceived people on a wide range of issues, I think many in this group have come to the realization that their Trump Derangement Syndrome is a false worldview imposed on them by systemic preference falsification, and have gradually come to regard Trump as the lesser evil compared to the endemic corruption and disasterous policies of the modern Democratic Party. I think many in this group see the Kennedy and Gabbard endorsements as giving them permission to vote for Trump, a sort of Get Out of Liberal Guilt Free card. Clearly Kennedy isn’t doing it for the money. “If Bobby’s endorsed him, how bad can he be?”

    • Even if Kennedy only brings over 3% of voters, that could be a huge swing in November.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, video, Waste and Fraud | 8 Comments »

    Election Fraud Search Warrants Executed

    Thursday, August 22nd, 2024

    Remember how Donald Trump was ahead in several states election night only for tons of Biden ballots to be “found” at 4 AM? I hope all Republican officials in every state are working overtime to prevent similar occurrences this November.

    Texas Attorney Ken Paxton seems to be taking nothing for granted, as the Elections Integrity Unit just executed several warrants.

    Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced that his office had carried out search operations as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged election fraud.

    A statement from Paxton’s office reads, “On August 20, 2024, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Election Integrity Unit executed multiple search warrants in Frio, Atascosa, and Bexar Counties as part of an ongoing election integrity investigation.”

    Bexar County is the big one here, being home to San Antonio, whereas Atascosa and Frio are directly south and southwest of San Antonio. The geographic clustering suggests the warrants may all be part of the same election fraud case.

    These searches are the result of a 2022 referral by 81st Judicial District Attorney Audrey Louis, who flagged concerns about alleged voter fraud and ballot harvesting in the 2022 elections.

    Remember that Democratic politiqueras illegally harvesting votes has been a concern in previous elections.

    “Secure elections are the cornerstone of our republic,” Paxton said. “We were glad to assist when the District Attorney referred this case to my office for investigation. We are completely committed to protecting the security of the ballot box and the integrity of every legal vote. This means ensuring accountability for anyone committing election crimes.”

    Paxton’s involvement in this case is made possible only through the referral by the local District Attorney. This follows a December 2021 ruling by the Court of Criminal Appeals—Texas’ highest court on criminal matters—that declared a state law granting the attorney general unilateral authority to prosecute election cases unconstitutional. The court argued that the Texas Constitution does not expressly provide the attorney general with such authority.

    Democrats have made no secret of their desire to have as many illegal aliens as possible vote in this election, and Paxton is investigating attempts to register illegal aliens to vote.

    Following reports of organizations potentially working in Texas to register illegal aliens to vote, Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced his office is launching an investigation.

    According to a release from Paxton’s office:

    Investigators from the Texas Attorney General’s Election Integrity Unit recently conducted undercover operations to identify potential voter registration of noncitizens in Texas. The investigation has already confirmed that various nonprofit organizations have been located outside Texas Department of Public Safety Driver License offices, operating booths offering to assist in voter registration for persons doing business at the driver’s license offices. But all citizens have already been presented an opportunity to register to vote as part of the process of renewing or being issued an identification card or driver’s license, so there is no obvious need to assist citizens to register to vote outside DPS offices—calling into question the motives of the nonprofit groups.

    I wonder if these unnamed organizations had “justice” or “tides” in their name.

    Paxton said the possibility of this activity is deeply troubling to Texans.

    “If eligible citizens can legally register to vote when conducting their business at a DPS office, why would they need a second opportunity to register with a booth outside? My office is investigating every credible report we receive regarding potential criminal activity that could compromise the integrity of our elections,” said Paxton.

    “The Biden-Harris Administration has intentionally flooded our country with illegal aliens, and without proper safeguards, foreign nationals can illegally influence elections at the local, state, and national level. It is a crime to vote—or to register to vote—if you are not a United States Citizen. Any wrongdoing will be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” he added.

    Gov. Greg Abbott expressed support for Paxton’s investigation on X.

    Fortunately, Texas has strong Voter ID laws that should prevent illegal aliens from voting in the 2024 election, but Paxton is obviously trying to close off all potential fraud vectors. Despite what your Facebook friends may post, Texas is in no danger of turning blue anytime soon, but voting could easily tip some down-ballot races. Best to nip it in the bud.

    Eternal vigilance is the price of free elections.

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Elections, Texas | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For August 16, 2024

    Friday, August 16th, 2024

    Real inflation is running about 20%, Kamala parties like it’s 1971, the New York Times is shocked, shocked to discover Hunter Biden asking for state favors for foreign cronies, gold hits new highs, laughing at an old SNL skit is now a thoughtcrime, and an update on Intel’s woes.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • How do Democrats plan to win in November? But working overtime to magically turn illegal aliens into citizens so they can vote for Democrats.

    The New York Times reports that the federal government is accelerating the naturalization of immigrants in America as part of a process of “reshaping the electorate, merely months before a pivotal election,” according to one observer quoted in the piece.

    “The federal government is processing citizenship requests at the fastest clip in a decade, moving rapidly through a backlog that built up during the Trump administration and the coronavirus pandemic,” reports the newspaper.

    One Honduran woman marveled at the fact that authorities were able to process and approve her application in as little as six months.

    The story highlights how many of these new citizens will immediately become eligible to vote in key battleground states, including Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

    The piece includes a very revealing quote from Xiao Wang, chief executive of Boundless, a data analysis company.

    “The surge in naturalization efficiency isn’t just about clearing backlogs; it’s potentially reshaping the electorate, merely months before a pivotal election,” said Wang.

    “Every citizenship application could be a vote that decides Senate seats or even the presidency,” he added.

    In other words, knowing that immigrants are far likelier to vote Democrat, the Biden administration is importing them at breakneck speed in order to tip the scales for Kamala Harris.

    3.3 million immigrants have become citizens during Biden’s time in office, with data showing that more will vote Democrat than Republican.

    This has partly driven the Trump campaign’s efforts to appeal more to “Jamal” and “Enrique,” and not so much “Karen,” although the strategy has caused division amongst Trump’s base.

    The legacy media has consistently denounced the idea of mass migration being a deliberate ploy to increase the voter base for Democrats as part of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, while simultaneously admitting it’s happening.

    Democrats have declared that they have no confidence in the electorate and must create a new one…

  • Restaurant owner says that the real inflation rate is closer to 20% over six months:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • How does Kamala Harris plan to combat inflation? By channeling Richard Nixon from 1971 and imposing wage and price controls.

    After the unoriginal Vice President Kamala Harris stole former President Trump’s proposed ‘no tax on tips’ policy, she’s at it again with yet another recycled idea. This time, she’s echoing President Biden’s actions and rhetoric to crack down on sky-high food prices by proposing the first-ever federal ban on “corporate price-gouging in the food and grocery industries”—a move that reeks of socialism.

    “There’s a big difference between fair pricing in competitive markets, and excessive prices unrelated to the costs of doing business,” the Harris campaign wrote in a statement, adding, “Americans can see that difference in their grocery bills.”

    The Harris campaign said the vice president will unveil the new federal proposed ban on Friday at a campaign rally in the battleground state of North Carolina as part of a broader economic policy platform. The proposal will ensure food companies can’t exploit consumers to increase profits, according to CBS News, citing Harris-Walz campaign officials.

    Harris’ policy speech will also call on the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys to examine corporations violating price-fixing rules. Her remarks are expected to echo Biden’s actions and rhetoric, especially with his war against meat processing companies that he alleges are responsible for higher burger prices at the supermarket.

    VP Harris’ campaign argues that lowering Americans’ costs is a function of socialist-style price controls. Yet this is the quickest way to understand that Harris’ economic team has no actual understanding of inflation.

    Heritage Foundation’s EJ Antoni explained, “Here’s your “price gouging” narrative: average costs paid by businesses have risen just as much as costs charged to consumers – if businesses are being “greedy,” they’re doing it all wrong…”

    Instead of curbing out-of-control government spending, which debt rises $1 trillion every 100 days, and understanding that monetary inflation driven by the Federal Reserve’s money creation is the root cause of inflation, Harris deflects the actual problem: The Fed. She instead goes after big corporations for ‘illegal price gouging.’

    Thus unable to understand the disasterous economic policies of the past are doomed to repeat it…

  • “Conversation Between Musk And Trump Generates Over A Billion Views.” You can see a transcript of the interview here.
  • Trump appears to be winning over Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

    In a post last month (“How The Democrats Los Silicon Valley”), I mentioned that top Silicon Valley venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz had endorsed Trump.

    Ben Horowitz, in particular, seemed like an unusual Trump supporter, coming from a liberal Jewish background. Now it looks like Trump has another, thanks to his X space with Elon Musk last night: Zynga founder Mark Pincus. During the first Trump administration, Pincus opposed Trump’s “Muslim ban”, but after the leftist celebrations following October 7th last year, he seemed to have some second thoughts about that.

  • Despite the fawning coverage, the Kamala Harris campaign must think it’s not fawning enough, as they’ve been using ads with altered media headlines.

    Despite corporate media’s unabashed u-turn to support Kamala Harris, her campaign has been busted creating made-up headlines next to the names of real news outlets to trick people into thinking they’ve stumbled upon the real thing, Axios reports.

    Upon hearing the news, The Guardian lost their shit, telling Axios: “While we understand why an organization might wish to align itself with the Guardian’s trusted brand, we need to ensure it is being used appropriately and with our permission. We’ll be reaching out to Google for more information about this practice.”

    The ads include links to real articles from the outlets, however the headlines and supporting text were altered.

  • “Democratic California State Lawmaker Switches To Republican Party…State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, who represents the state’s fourth Senate district, said she joined the Senate Republican Caucus and party after deep reflection and to help ‘in their fight to fix California.'”
  • “Hunter Biden Asked State Department To Aid Burisma Deal While Father Was VP.” Because of course he did.

    While Joe Biden was vice president, his son Hunter attempted to obtain State Department assistance in securing a deal for Ukrainian gas company Burisma, of which Hunter was a highly-compensated board member despite having no experience in its industry, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. The revelation of the 2016 episode underscores allegations that Hunter sought to enrich himself by trading on his father’s influence.

    The Times report draws on newly-released government records pertaining to Hunter’s pushing of a Burisma deal in Italy. The Biden White House had resisted releasing the files for years, only to relent soon after Biden was pressured into abandoning his reelection bid.

    One wonders how long the New York Times would have waited to report this if Biden were still seeking reelection? My guess is never.

  • More on that thought.

    Go figure. It’s amazing what some actual reporting — and a withdrawal from a presidential election — can shake loose, no?

    Just four short years ago, we were all assured by the Protection Racket Media that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, and that allegations of influence-peddling by the Bidens were just political dirty tricks, right? Right? Wrong. The New York Times’ Ken Vogel reports that Hunter’s efforts to sell influence within the administration were well known during Joe Biden’s term as Vice President. It’s even about Burisma, the company that we were told paid Hunter a lot of money for his energy-industry expertise.

    Oh, and the records of it got “withheld” by the Biden administration for “years,” too:

    Hunter Biden sought assistance from the U.S. government for a potentially lucrative energy project in Italy while his father was vice president, according to newly released records and interviews.

    The records, which the Biden administration had withheld for years, indicate that Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he was a board member.

    Well, we did have records in October 2020. Hunter Biden kept records of these dealings on his laptop, which he abandoned in a repair shop. When the New York Post reported on the contents of the laptop, including a number of emails that made clear he leveraged his fathers office to sell influence at Burisma and elsewhere, the media ignored it — even though one of Hunter’s partners (Tony Bobulinski) publicly authenticated the messages when asked.

    Nearly four years later, the NYT gets around to the truth. And if you’re questioning the timing, you have good company, because Vogel appears to be somewhat curious about it as well:

    The department’s release of documents to The New York Times came shortly after President Biden dropped out of the presidential race, and as his son prepares to stand trial next month on charges of evading taxes on millions of dollars in income from Burisma and other foreign businesses.

    Go figure again! It’s as if the cover-up extended as long as Joe Biden had electoral interests to protect. Now that Biden has pulled out of the race, there’s no need to keep covering up for Biden Inc.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • “California Sheriff Blasts Harris For Using His Image In “Misleading” Campaign Ad, Says He Supports Trump.” “In light of a recent political ad put out by Kamala Harris featuring Sheriff [Mike] Boudreaux, as well as other local law enforcement, the Sheriff wants to make it abundantly clear that his image is being used without his permission, and he does NOT endorse Harris for President or any other political office.”
  • The same Jew-haters who drove Columbia University’s president Minouche Shafik off are now coming for Kamala Harris.

    Only a short week ago, Harris was heckled by pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters, like those who has spilled out from college campuses after October 7. Protesters screamed out at her as she stood on stage repeating her stump speech. As they yelled, Harris tried to shame them. “I’m speaking,” she said, hearkening back to her VP debate against Mike Pence in 2020. “I’m speaking” in context means several things, including an attempt to grab control based on her identity factors: black, female. By identitarian logic, the vice president is oppressed, and by the logic of progressive discourse, that means that she gets to speak first, and that what she has to say carries all that much more weight. An event simply in favor of her candidacy was crashed in New York City on Wednesday night where agitators set off smoke bombs and held up signs saying “No Votes for Bombala’s Genocide.” 14 of them were arrested.

    The agitators wanted some kind of response, some kind of indication of what Harris’ policy on Israel and Gaza might be if she gets voted into the White House. And they haven’t gotten it. Meanwhile, there are clearly massive anti-Israel events planned for the Democratic National Convention next week. While Kamala is trying to keep the euphoria going, attempting to dance and sing her way into the White House, her base will be out in the street demanding answers. Will she be lenient like Magill? Bend over backwards like Gay? Or call in a bigger force, like Shafik, because she doesn’t know how to handle it on her own?

    The far left of Harris’ party hates Israel. They love Palestinians not for their culture or policies–which include anti-LGBTQ and anti-female regulations as in other strict, Muslim countries–but simply because they are “oppressed.” And Harris can’t handle them. Even at her speech, rarefied identity wasn’t enough to keep them in their place. The campus riots will likely start up again. As soon as the college-bound finish their orientations, they’ll be picking up their marching orders and protest signs to join their comrades on the quad.

    There is already noise that Harris would like to throw Israel under the bus, to eradicate funding and arms shipments. The same woman that waved the flag of Ukraine in Congress as she promised to send him endless weapons and aid, may think the aid packages and arms sales to Israel go too far. Harris may sympathize with the protesters.

  • “Ten Things to Know About Tim Walz and His Ties to Communist China.”

    before his honeymoon [in Communist China in 1994], Walz launched a company called Educational Travel Adventures, which specialized in bringing American students to China. An article in the local Chinese media reported that he and his bride brought 50 students from America. The company continued to send students to China until 2003. It is important to note that operating a business in China requires all kinds of permits—both official and unofficial—from Chinese authorities at the local, provincial, and central levels. These permits were typically obtained either by paying bribes or by securing endorsements, whether tacit or open, from government officials.

  • As Ukraine continues to take more Russian territory, they just destroyed the Glushkovo bridge in Kursk oblast.
  • “Democratic Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg Backs Cruz in Senate Race.” The redpilling of Kin Ogg would make an interesting long-form essay, especially if she’s willing to tell what George Soros and his minions were asking for the first time they backed her…
  • How Houston-area HEBs keeps the lights during power outages. They contract a network of backup power generators fed by natural gas.
  • Followup: The EU is now saying that Thierry Breton got out over his skies when he demanded Elon Musk police Donald Trump for #Wrongthink. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • U.S. district judge Reed O’Connor bars the Biden Administration from trying to impose their tranny-pandering Title IX rewrite on school districts.
  • Army Sgt. Korbein Schultz just pled guilty to selling military secrets to China.
  • Gold breaks the $2,500 per ounce barrier.
  • Disney trying to get lawsuit filed by widow of man who died from allergy at Disney restaurant on the basis that he agreed to binding arbitration on all disputes when he signed up for Disney+.
  • Nothing says “protecting the taxpayers money” like California’s Democratic governor Governor Gavin Newsom hiring a state photographer to follow him around for $200,000.
  • Professional atheist Richard Dawkins posts that men and women are different and male boxers shouldn’t be competing with female boxers. Result: Facebook nuked his account.
  • So what do you do when your software problem brings a customers operations down hard? Well, if you’re Crowdstrike and the customer is Delta airlines, then you slam Delta for not recovering fast enough.
  • Python Development Foundation suspends developer for enjoying old “Jane, you ignorant slut” skit. I can only imagine the snowflake reactions to the Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor word association skit…
  • Flock of self-driving Waymo cars in San Francisco honk all night in their parking lot. As you might be able to guess, nearby residents are just thrilled at this development…
  • Speaking of electric cars, there’s concerning over letting them park in parking garages because of the possibility of them catching fire and the difficulty of extinguishing same.
  • Remember how Intel said the problem with their chips was microcode? Yeah. That may not be the case (or at least not the whole case), and it may actually be a process problem involving oxidation of vias (i.e., the connection between two metal layers).
  • My pants, my pants, my pants are on fire. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Also via Dwight: Fraud charges dropped against AISD Chief Financial Officer Eduardo Ramos. The charges were unrelated to his AISD work.
  • Chinese car has cryptographicly locked headlights so no one but the company can replace them..
  • Wow, Greenspoint Mall in Houston just shut down, but parts of it look like it’s been shut down for decades.
  • Interesting video essay on how changing street light technology informed the looks of several iconic films.
  • “Kamala Harris Suggests Americans Struggling To Make Ends Meet Just Try Sleeping With Their Boss.”
  • “Kamala Announces Plan To Hang ‘Joy’ Sign Above Bread Lines.”
  • “In Latest Bond Film, 007 Tasked With Taking Down 83-Year-Old British Grandma Who Shared Inaccurate Meme.”
  • Ambition:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • Still between jobs, so hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 11 Comments »

    Harris County Democratic Election Official Charged With Corruption

    Wednesday, August 14th, 2024

    Another indictment handed down for another Harris County Democratic official, this one for the election official who helped screw up the 2022 election.

    Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced Tuesday that a data analyst with the now-defunct county Elections Administration Office (EAO) has been charged with six felonies in relation to the 2022 general election.

    Hired by the EAO in April 2021, Darryl Blackburn oversaw allocation of resources — including the number of paper ballots provided to polling sites — but investigators say he took another full-time job in the oil and gas industry in October 2021. While submitting time sheets to the county claiming he was working from home, Blackburn was working at his other job during an overlap period of about 15 months.

    Blackburn has been charged with five counts of tampering with a government document, and one charge of theft by a public official. According to Michael Levine, Chief Assistant District Attorney of Public Corruption, Blackburn earned $43 per hour for a total of $90,000 from the county while drawing a salary of more than $250,000 at his other job.

    I know the Biden Recession has been tough on a lot of people, but if you’re making $250,000 a year, you hardly need to be double-dipping to make ends meet.

    On Election Day 2022, Blackburn reported working 18 hours for Harris County but also claimed to work 8 hours for his other employer.

    His bond has been set at $65,000.

    The charges stem from the county’s fraught November 2022 elections that drew not only multiple election contests but also criminal complaints. While the county’s election problems included delayed openings, malfunctioning equipment, and missing staff, a Texas Secretary of State audit listed a ballot paper shortage as the reason voting came to a halt at multiple polling locations on Election Day.

    Remember that the lack of ballots was a big issue, with some charging that it was Republican precincts that got slighted.

    “We know there are some people in Harris County who did not get to vote. We know this was a failure in terms of an election that the government has a responsibility to run effectively, ethically, and most importantly, accurately,” said Ogg.

    Don’t forget that the last election coordinator before Blackburn, Isabel Longoria, screwed up so badly she had to resign. More:

    Harris County Commissioners Court created the EAO in July 2020, but the first appointed administrator Isabel Longoria was forced to resign after several botched elections. The second administrator Clifford Tatum presided over the 2022 election, but was ousted by a new state law returning elections to elected officials last year.

    “The Harris County Commissioners Court are the ones who placed themselves … in supervisory control because they created the Office of Elections Administration,” said Ogg. “So, they had control. The Elections Administrators Isabel Longoria and Clifford Tatum did not report to the public.”

    “It’s unclear to us whether they ever reported to anybody other than the statements that they made in commissioners court,” said Ogg, who noted that Tatum had come from out of state. “We see a lot of people from other places appointed here in this county.”

    While Ogg has been lambasted by her own Democratic Party for pursuing the investigation, she said that on receipt of two or more complaints the Harris County District Attorney’s Office (HCDAO) is required by law to investigate. In late 2022, the HCDAO turned the complaints over to the Texas Rangers.

    “It is extremely important to look at these crimes in a non-partisan way and go based on the evidence by applying the law, which is our oath in Texas as prosecutors,” said Ogg.

    Corruption and incompetence under the management of Democratic Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo (including felony indictments for her aides) seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 5 Comments »

    Waltzes With Wokeness

    Tuesday, August 6th, 2024

    Anointed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has selected (or had selected for her) woke leftist Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.

    ice President Kamala Harris selected progressive Minnesota governor Tim Walz on Tuesday to be her running mate for her 2024 presidential campaign, a move meant to placate the far-left faction of her party and appeal to the midwesterners Harris needs to win in November.

    “I am proud to announce that I’ve asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate,” Harris said on X, with a link to donate to the Harris-Walz campaign.

    “As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his,” she added.

    “It’s great to have him on the team.”

    Snip.

    A military veteran and former teacher, Walz began his political career with a narrow victory over a Republican incumbent in a 2006 congressional race. He won reelection five times and became a reliably liberal Democratic member.

    In 2018, Walz won the Minnesota gubernatorial election, and four years later comfortably held the seat after presiding over the race riots sparked by the death of George Floyd. Minnesota Democrats secured a legislative trifecta in 2022, and Walz subsequently signed progressive legislation on issues ranging from abortion and guns to school lunches and noncompete agreements.

    Republicans will likely highlight Walz’s progressive record and the fraud scandals the Minnesota government has suffered under his watch. They will also point out that, as Minnesota governor, Walz failed to stop the 2020 riots, allowing widespread looting and property damage, including the ransacking of a police precinct.

    “It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate – Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.

    “From proposing his own carbon-free agenda, to suggesting stricter emission standards for gas-powered cars, and embracing policies to allow convicted felons to vote, Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide.”

    By selecting Walz over Shapiro, Harris is hoping the progressive wing of the Democratic party will continue backing her candidacy as she quietly walks back the radical stances she took four years ago, when she lurched to the left for a short-lived presidential run.

    Shapiro, a Jew, would have received major backlash from progressives for his support for Israel’s war against Hamas. While his position on the war itself is mainstream among establishment Democrats, he did condemn antisemitic protests on college campuses and volunteered for a non-combat role with the IDF when he was in college.

    Walz, by contrast, has spoken sympathetically about the left-wing anti-Israel protests that have become a fixture across America since Hamas slaughtered 1,200 civilians and took 25o hostages on October 7th.

    My reading of the tea leaves led me to believe that Josh Shapiro would be the pick, but it seems that in the 24 years since Al Gore picked Joseph Lieberman as his running mate, the increasing pro-Jihad radicalization of the Democratic Party base has made it impossible to pick a Jewish running mate.

    Using old-fashioned “first to 270 wins” reasoning, picking Walz over Shapiro doesn’t make much sense. Nailing down Pennsylvania (which the Shapiro pick wouldn’t guarantee, but which would at least give the Democrats a better chance at) would be a big help in getting to 270. Democrats also need Minnesota to win, but if they actually need Walz to secure blue-leaning Minnesota, the last midwestern “blue wall” state still standing in 2016, then the ticket has already lost.

    No, the Walz pick indicates that the powers behind the throne in the Democratic Party are all-in on wokeness and social justice, even if it means losing the 2024 election to Trump. Because Walz has relentlessly pursued a woke agenda as governor.

    For starters, Walz is all in on stealing children from parents who refuse to allow them to be mutilated.

    Vice President Kamala Harris’ newly announced running mate — Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — signed a bill in April of 2023 allowing the state to make custody determinations if a child is denied access to sex-change procedures.

    The “Trans Refuge Bill” allows for “temporary emergency jurisdiction” if a parent denies their child sex-change procedures, according to the bill’s text. The bill defines the interventions, which include sex-changes, hormone replacement and cosmetic surgeries, as “medically necessary” so long as it “respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined” by the child.

    Snip.

    The bill amends “child custody and child welfare provisions” pertaining to out-of-state laws that would interfere with Minnesota’s “gender-affirming health care” laws.

    Minnesota’s bill provided a loophole allowing individuals, including children, from other states to receive transgender treatments and asserted that out-of-state provisions “interfering” with access to these procedures “must not be enforced or applied within the state.” At the same time, Minnesota law gives the state “temporary emergency jurisdiction” to make a custody determination if the child “has been unable to obtain” these transgender treatments.

    The bill defined transgender treatments for children as “medically necessary” physical health care or mental health care that “respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined by the patient.” This includes interventions that “suppress” the development of their biological sex like hormone therapy, procedures that “align” the patient’s physical body with their “gender identity” through cosmetic surgeries and sex-change surgeries.

    Via Ed Driscoll at Instapundit comes news that the Trump campaign has already unleashed a video targeting Walz’s pro-child-mutilation stance:

    Walz is also all in on flooding the country with illegal aliens and laying the groundwork for a mass amnesty.

    President Biden’s “border czar,” Veep Kamala Harris, has chosen a fellow soft-on-illegal-immigration politician as her running mate.

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, 60, who was named Harris’ vice-presidential pick Tuesday, has supported efforts to turn his home state into a sanctuary state while also backing other stances that cater to undocumented migrants.

    “My position on Minnesota becoming a sanctuary state boils down to who has the responsibility for enforcing immigration laws,” Walz told CBS News in 2018.

    “Here’s what I believe: Congress has given federal agencies the authority to enforce immigration laws in Minnesota, and I support their doing so,” he said. “Congress has not given local law enforcement that same authority. The role of law enforcement is to enforce state and local laws, not federal immigration laws, and I strongly believe that they should not do so.”

    Translation: Democrats love illegal aliens a whole lot more than natives, and want to keep as many here as possible.

    “Sanctuary state” is an unofficial term that refers to states that limit or deny local law-enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

    As governor, Walz also has signed several pieces of legislation to provide state-funded health care, driver’s licenses and free college tuition to illegal migrants.

    “Ensuring drivers in our state are licensed and carry insurance makes the roads safer for all Minnesotans,” Walz said in 2023 after signing the bill to allow thousands of illegal migrants in his state with driver’s licenses.

    Walz is also all in on supressing the speech of his political enemies.

    The plan for what some have deemed a “bias registry” was first hatched in January, in the 2024-25 budget request by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. Department leaders requested $395,000 in fiscal 2024 and $250,000 every year after to add two full-time staffers and to upgrade the department’s “data tracking capabilities.”

    There is “currently a void,” they wrote, “with respect to tracking and reporting on both criminal and non-criminal discrimination and hate incidents in Minnesota.” They believed it was critical to collect more information about allegations of hate that weren’t technically criminal or likely to be investigated by law enforcement — someone in a car yelling a derogatory comment at a passerby was one hypothetical example cited by supporters of the plan.

    Snip.

    No longer would the human-rights department be tasked to “solicit, receive, and compile” information about allegations of discrimination or bias. The new language said the human-rights department would instead:

    Analyze civil rights trends pursuant to this chapter, including information compiled from community organizations that work directly with historically marginalized communities, and prepare a report each biennium that recommends policy and system changes to reduce and prevent further civil rights incidents across Minnesota.

    Translation: We’re going to give social justice warriors a way to use the power of the state to suppress conservative speech.

    And of course, Walz notoriously let his state burn rather than confront #BlackLivesMatter/Antifa rioters in 2020:

    It was 6:29 p.m. on the last Wednesday in May 2020, when Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey phoned Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Riots had erupted the day before over the police killing of George Floyd, and the city was overwhelmed.

    Frey pleaded with Walz to call in the National Guard.

    Less than three hours later, the city made a written request to Walz’s office for 600 guardsmen to help quell the chaos that was engulfing the Twin Cities.

    Rioters were burning buildings. They were shooting at police officers and attacking them with Molotov cocktails, fireworks, bricks, and bottles filled with cement. At least three people died during the riots.

    Faced with one of the most serious public emergencies in Minnesota history, Walz froze.

    “He did not say yes,” Frey said of his request to Walz. “He said he would consider it.”

    The far-left governor did not agree to call in the Guard until late the next day, according to a blistering postmortem, the Review of Lawlessness and Government Responses to Minnesota’s 2020 Riots, released in October 2020 by the Minnesota senate.

    Instead of sending in the 600 guardsmen that Minneapolis had requested, Walz sent in only 100 late that Thursday. The Guard wasn’t fully mobilized until Saturday, four days after the first building burned, according to the senate review.

    Walz claims that he thought the riots would “die down organically,” but I think that’s a lie. The same far left social justice cabal that’s trying to foist Harris and Walz off on America without a primary is the same one that helped pay for, plan and execute those riots for their own purposes.

    But Jim Geraghty would like you to remember that Walz isn’t just woke, he’s also manifestly incompetent, with many vast fraud schemes occurring on his watch.

    The dirty, not-so-little not-so-secret about Walz is that he’s not a good manager. On his watch, the Minnesota government has endured one embarrassing scandal after another entailing mismanagement, fraud, waste, and abuse….

    Let’s start with the state’s handing hundreds of millions of dollars to Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future, the largest Covid-aid fraud scheme in the country.

    The Feeding Our Future fraud scandal. Announcing the federal fraud indictment against the Feeding Our Future nonprofit, FBI director Christopher Wray called it “an egregious plot to steal public funds meant to care for children in need in what amounts to the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme yet. The defendants went to great lengths to exploit a program designed to feed underserved children in Minnesota amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, fraudulently diverting millions of dollars designated for the program for their own personal gain.” The nonprofit reportedly used a quarter of a billion dollars in federal funds to purchase luxury cars, houses, jewelry, and coastal resort property abroad.

    What does this have to do with Governor Tim Walz, you ask? Well, a state legislative audit concluded that the Minnesota Department of Education was asleep at the wheel and for years had ignored red flags concerning the nonprofit.

    From those noted right-wingers at, er, the local CBS News affiliate:

    The report from the legislative auditor found that the Minnesota Department of Education’s last review of Feeding Our Future was in 2018, and while it found serious issues with the nonprofit’s operations — including that it did not collect enrollment information from sites — it failed to follow up. . . .

    Over the course of several reviews, the department found that Feeding Our Future lacked financial resources and dedicated accounting staff, and noted that staff salaries were above average.

    Still, the report said that by 2019, the nonprofit managed more than six times the number of sites than the average multi-site sponsor participating in the program. The department’s payments to Feeding Our Future also increased by 2,800% between 2020 and 2021.

    “Time and time again over the four years it participated in the federal nutrition programs, MDE missed opportunities to hold Feeding Our Future accountable,” Legislative Auditor Judy Randall told the Legislative Audit Commission Thursday.

    Between June 2018 and December 2021, the department received more than 30 complaints about the organization — ranging from unethical practices to demanding kickbacks from vendors — which must be investigated by law.

    But the department’s investigation procedures were “of limited usefulness” in the context of alleged fraud, the auditor found. At one point, the education department asked Feeding Our Future to investigate complaints about itself.

    Some of the complaints weren’t looked into at all, “despite their frequency and seriousness.”

    Every state government deals with waste, fraud, and abuse. But no other state has ever gotten taken to the cleaners to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars.

    But we’re just getting started.

    “Hero pay” wasted on dead people. In 2022, Walz signed into law a plan to pay Minnesota’s frontline workers “hero pay” for their hard work during the pandemic. The state’s initial estimate was that roughly 667,000 people were eligible for hero pay, meaning they would receive $750 each. But within a few months, the state announced that more than a million Minnesotans had qualified, reducing the payment to $487.45.

    If an estimate that’s off by roughly 333,000 people raises your eyebrow, you have good instincts.

    Not only were a significant portion of recipients ineligible, some of them didn’t have a pulse.

    Alas, the “Department of Labor and Industry, the agency tasked with overseeing and implementing the Minnesota Frontline Worker Pay Program, did not comply with requirements for the program,” according to a state auditor. The auditor’s report concluded that less than 60 percent of recipients of the bonuses were eligible, the eligibility of 32 percent of recipients could not be verified, and 9 percent were definitely ineligible, including some who were deceased.

    The full report can be read here. Notable detail: “Based on our initial data analysis, one individual was deceased for more than two years prior to the application submission date.”

    Look at the bright side. Tim Walz isn’t going to let Minnesota’s hardworking frontline zombies go unrewarded.

    “Didn’t follow procedures for avoiding conflicts of interest.” The same pattern is evident in the Minnesota state government’s handing out of grants for arts and behavioral health:

    Minnesota Department of Human Services Behavioral Health Division did not comply with certain grants management policies, matching similar findings of a 2021 audit.

    The audit, released Thursday, found the agency didn’t follow procedures for avoiding conflicts of interest and gauging whether nonprofits were financially stable enough before awarding grants. . . .

    The audit found the DHS Behavioral Health Division failed to complete financial assessments for more than 40 percent of grants reviewed. The grants ranged from $49,000 to nearly $1 million, and totaled $11.5 million. A 2021 audit had a similar finding.

    Wait, there’s more.

    State agencies have not resolved inaccurate retroactive payments for 30 percent of employees tested by the Office of the Legislative Auditor. The Minnesota Board of Firefighter Training and Education and the Department of Public Safety didn’t retain documentation for overtime paid during Covid-19 leave and didn’t comply with state policy for using state-issued credit cards or reimbursing employee expenses.

    Back in 2019, Minnesota’s Department of Human Services admitted that it paid $29 million over a period of five years for opioid treatments that were never administered. The payments involved federal money that the state agency distributed.

    In another oddity, Walz’s text messages mysteriously disappeared despite public-records laws, his appointed state cannabis director was selling products that violated state law, and one of his appointments to the gubernatorial Task Force on Broadband stepped down after allegations of domestic abuse came to light.

    Walz is terrible. And we haven’t even gotten to his ideology, which has pushed the state’s policies hard to the left.

    It’s not just that he’s a leftist. He’s an incompetent leftist.

    Of course one man’s incompetence is a Democrat’s “tasty trough of graft.” From Pigford on, Democrats have demonstrated that they’re happy for ineligible people to feed at the trough as long as they check the right social justice boxes.

    Together, Harris and Walz represent the worst of the modern Democratic Party’s radical far left agenda and endemic corruption.

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    Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Social Justice Warriors | 11 Comments »

    Did Amazon Try To Ban A 2020 Book Critical Of Kamala Harris?

    Tuesday, July 30th, 2024

    It seems you can add “Amazon” to the list of companies censoring information critical of anointed Democrats.

    Caleb Maupin published a book in September of 2020: Kamala Harris & The Future of America – An Essay in 3 Parts. It sold some copies and then dropped back into that vast long tail of Amazon backstock.

    Until Kamala Harris was selected as the Democratic presidential candidate. Then suddenly, Amazon banned the book for spurious reasons and refused to let it be sold.

  • It originally sold a few hundred copies.
  • Last Monday Maupin got an email from Amazon. “They said there was something with the cover that was not correct, and they said I had multiple options, one of which was to just change the cover. And so I thought, well, jeez, I don’t want to miss this moment where everyone’s talking about Kamala. So I adjusted the cover put a completely generic Bland cover and re-uploaded to Amazon. Denied. Tried it again. Denied. Tried it again. Denied.”
  • “It’s pretty clear this has been removed from Amazon. It is not allowed to be on amazon.com, despite being on there for four years. And so it appears that my book is not permitted to be on the world’s largest bookseller.”
  • “It just happens to come on the day Kamala Harris is named the presumptive nominee, and it looks like censorship to the world.”
  • When you went to the Amazon page for it, you got not the usual “out of stock” page, but a “Sorry we can’t find anything” page.
  • It covers some of Harris’ attitudes and activities as California Attorney General that are now verbotten in the Democratic Party, like building more prisons, keeping prisoners past their release date so California could enjoy using their near-slave labor, how she knew about the drug lab scandal and continued to cover it up, etc. “Over about a thousand cases are thrown out people are released from jail because Kamala Harris was caught concealing false positive drug test results.”
  • “The fact that she’s tried to reinvent herself as Miss Black Lives Matter, the spokesperson for the downtrodden and all of this, it is the most phony thing. She rose up the ranks of California’s criminal justice system in the late 1990s, early 2000s, when they were locking up people at astronomical rates.”
  • Jimmy Dore says that #BlackLivesMatter’s just came out against anointing Harris the nominee, which appears to be the case, saying the process was undemocratic. Broken clock, twice a day.

    • When leftists self-righteously denounces censorship, they only mean censorship against the left. The Twitter Files prove that the left is happy to censor dissenting voices when it suits their ends, and this is just the latest example.

    The book can be found here in digital form and here in trade paperback.

    Just before I hit publish, I checked to see what message Amazon now gives you for the book…and it appears to be available again, at least for now. So it appears they just reversed course after having gotten caught…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Social Justice Warriors, video | 1 Comment »

    Has Josh Shapiro Already Been Anointed Kamala’s Veep Pick?

    Tuesday, July 23rd, 2024

    It’s obvious that someone is scripting the Democratic Party’s dance steps through this eventful two weeks, from Biden stepping down to Kamala’s ascension to the party dutifully falling in line behind her. I wonder if those same powers behind the throne have already anointed Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate.

    This has been a suspicion since his name first appeared among the likes of Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer (and 2020 retreads like Elizabeth Warren) as a possible replacement for Slow Joe at the convention. After all, male, pale and Jewish hardly fits the profile of the intersectionality-obsessed and Hamas-besotted cadres of the Party’s rank and file, and he’s only been governor since 2023. I also noticed a whole lot of media outlets had “Is Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro going to be Kamala’s running mate” pieces cued up and ready to go within an hour of the “Biden’s out” announcement.

    But look at this Google trending chart I constructed.

    Since it was announced that Biden was dropping out of 2024 Presidential campaign, it looks like Shapiro has been the most searched name among veep possibilities. Certainly being governor of a must-win swing state for Democrats must have something to do with it. Maybe they feel that Shapiro can keep the race close enough in Pennsylvania that the 3 AM drops of ballot fraud won’t seem so obvious.

    Also, it appears that Democratic megadonor Alex Soros is a fan of Shapiro’s.

    If Shapiro is the party’s pick, it will only add fuel to the theory that the Soros clan is the one actually pulling the Democratic Party’s strings…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch | 9 Comments »

    Presidential Election Update for July 22, 2024

    Monday, July 22nd, 2024

    The aftershocks of Biden’s withdrawal from the race are still rumbling around the politisphere, so let’s dig in.

  • Now the Biden has been pushed out, a whole lot of big money Democratic donors are suddenly back in.

    ActBlue, the Democrats’ online fundraising platform, announced on Sunday that small-dollar donors had donated nearly $50 million in just several hours after Vice President Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign.

    “As of 9 p.m. ET, grassroots supporters have raised $46.7 million through ActBlue following Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign launch,” ActBlue said in a statement. “This has been the biggest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle. Small-dollar donors are fired up and ready to take on this election.”

    Harris launched her campaign after President Joe Biden announced that he was ending his reelection campaign and was endorsing Harris following weeks of intense pressure from the media and members of his party to quit.

    While Biden endorsed Harris, many top Democrats did not, including former President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

  • Not raising money for Harris: Florida attorney and Democratic megadonor John Morgan, who says “Joe Biden’s endorsement of Kamala is his fuck you to all who pushed him out.”
  • A whole bunch of would-be pretenders to the throne seem to be lining up behind Harris.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) will not seek his party’s nomination for president. Another potential rival to Harris, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.), endorsed Harris on Sunday. Both Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) and Gov. Phil Murphy (D-N.J.) threw their support behind Harris. Former Democrat (but still senator) Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) briefly considered making a run but dropped that hot potato almost instantly.

    “When President Biden picked Kamala Harris to be his Vice President he unleashed incredible excitement for a new generation of political leadership,” Hochul said in a statement. “That same energy will carry us to November 5 with Vice President Harris leading our ticket.”

    “I’m very enthusiastic about Kamala Harris,” Newsom said during a Sunday interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “I think the American people could not do better.”

    Snip.

    Nobody wants to run against Trump. He has a couple of weaknesses, his relatively high disapproval rating being one of them. But if he were truly weak, power-hungry sharks like Newsom and Whitmer would be gathering in the bloody waters to finish off Harris before trying to make a meal out of Trump.

    But Trump can serve only one term. The sharks have four years to let the chaos in their party die down, build up their organizations, and make a real run for the White House in 2028. Assuming, of course, that Harris loses.

    Privately, Hochul, Newsom, et al. must be fuming. If Biden had dropped out last summer, as the semi-invalid should have, there could have been a real primary. Instead, the Cabal rigged the game for Biden, and now they’re stuck with Harris.

  • The Harris campaign certainly know how to reach out to swing state America: the campaign’s new deputy press secretary is a drag queen. “Eric Lipka, who recently worked for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has been appointed as the Biden-Harris campaign’s deputy press secretary for Pennsylvania. According to Lipka’s social media profiles, he is a traveling ‘drag queen’ on the weekends. In an X post on July 17, Lipka revealed, ‘Thrilled to share I’ve joined the Biden-Harris campaign as deputy press secretary for Pennsylvania!'”
  • Jim Geraghty points out the obvious.

    Joe Biden’s in much, much rougher shape — physically and mentally — than anyone at the White House has been willing to admit. The evidence pointing towards this isn’t just the terrible debate — you know, the historically early debate that he and his team proposed. (“Make my day, pal!”)

    And it’s not just that we didn’t see a genuinely, indisputably good performance from Biden after the debate, either, just variations of “marginally less bad.” He told George Stephanopoulos he didn’t think he watched the debate, claimed Trump was shouting during his answers, and falsely claimed he “did ten major events in a row, including until 2:00 in the morning after the debate.” In his NATO summit press conference, Biden claimed he was doing “not bad” in fundraising since the debate when actually his fundraising numbers had dropped like a stone, mixed up Trump and Harris, and insisted that no poll suggested he had no shot at beating Trump.

    The self-pitying irritability displayed in the Lester Holt interview, his inability to remember the name of his own secretary of defense in his interview with BET — it all reaffirmed that there was no better, sharper, less doddering version of Joe Biden waiting to emerge from behind the curtain.

    And most of these appearances were taped between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. — i.e., Biden in his best hours. What we were seeing was the good Joe Biden. Imagine what he’s like when he’s groggy in the morning or tired in the evenings.

    But one final factor really makes me think that Biden is in a condition where his staff believes he must not be seen by the American public. It’s that he made an announcement that ranks among the most important and consequential statements from a president in history in a letter posted on Twitter/X.

    He didn’t do it on camera. We didn’t hear his voice. We didn’t see him at all on Sunday. As of this writing, Biden hasn’t been seen Monday, and is not scheduled to make any appearances today. Biden’s last public event was a radio interview with Univision at 12:15 local time in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

  • Indeed, the suddenness of Biden’s pullout-via-tweet is pretty mysterious.

  • The Democrats just overthrew their own election.

    It actually happened. Joe Biden has succumbed to the pressure campaign from within his own party apparatus and has endorsed Kamala Harris. Assuming the Democrat convention moves forward with her coronation…er, I mean election…expect her campaign to center on three issues: abortion, abortion, and abortion. As of this writing, Biden had won 3904 delegates, whereas 5, 3, and zero had gone to Democratic challengers Jason Palmer, Dean Phillips, and Marianne Williamson, respectively. There were no delegates for Kamala Harris, or for Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, or any of the other possible replacements. Biden had won in all 50 states and had won over 87% of the popular primary vote. This wasn’t last year or last election, this was a couple months ago.

    Snip.

    The Pelosi/Obama junta differs little from Thomas Crooks only in their methodology. Crooks used a gun, and Pelosi/Obama used a behind-the-scenes coup. But the goal is the same, as are the implications beneath. They, not you, decide who gets to be president and who gets dispatched to either a humiliating forced retirement or an early grave. Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter, and neither does your vote. Democrat voters would be wise to see that this is just as much a threat to their voting rights as it is to ours.

    But they won’t. That’s fine. Par for the course. If this, like the assassination attempt, doesn’t open their eyes to the raw fact that the Left will hold on to power at all costs whatsoever, then nothing will. But from this point on, they have no authority whatsoever to preach about election interference. To the extent that they sincerely felt they held the moral high ground, they just unconditionally surrendered it for the entire world to see.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • What happens if Michelle Obama jumps in? According this electoral vote analysis, it’s much closer…but Trump still wins.
  • “Jill Biden Drops Out Of Presidential Race.”

    • A theory occurs to me. I’m not sure how to weigh the possibility that it’s true.

    Some commenters have theorized that the inter-Democratic-Party warfare we’ve seen over forcing Biden to quit the race is a fight between the Obama and Clinton factions of the party. I think this is wrong, because the Clintons no longer have any significant influence in the party, thanks to Hillary’s 2016 defeat.

    Obama had unusually high party backing because he was a unity candidate between the insane (Marxist-infected social justice, etc.) and corrupt (via Chicago machine politics) wings of the party. Both Clintons were part of the corrupt wing, but were not central players in it until Bill’s ascension to the White House.

    I think the recent events we’re seeing may not just be panic over polls, but the corrupt wing of the party (Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer) vetoing letting the insane Obama wing have a fourth term. Former Obama staffers have been the ones calling the shots in all policy positions in the Obama White House, and no doubt the social justice sorts have been sucking up a disproportionate share of the plum sinecures and flows of graft as well.

    The Biden Administration playing footsie with Hamas may have been the last straw by wrecking Democrats’ ability to raise funds from their traditionally vital and generous Jewish donor base. This quick falling in line behind Harris may be a sign they’re no longer willing to let Obama call the shots, and are trying to prevent installation of Michelle Obama (no matter how popular she is with the rank and file) as the presidential nominee at the DNC.

    Old line Democrats may feel (possibly correctly) that they can better survive Trump’s second administration than Obama’s fourth.

    Update: Pelosi backs Harris.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Social Justice Warriors | 8 Comments »

    Breaking: Biden Drops Out

    Sunday, July 21st, 2024

    The Democratic Media Complex that gaslighted us for four years about Biden’s cognitive decline has now forced him out of the race.

    President Joe Biden announced that he will be dropping out of the 2024 presidential race after intense public pressure from Democratic lawmakers and liberal commentators following his disastrous presidential-debate performance last month, a dramatic shake-up to the electoral landscape with only months to go until votes are cast.

    Biden posted a statement on X, declaring his intention to drop out of the presidential race after seemingly having decided that he is not the Democratic Party’s best candidate to defeat former president Donald Trump this November. He did not endorse a replacement to top the presidential ticket.

    Now a lame-duck president, Biden, 81, will serve the remaining months of his single presidential term. His political career, which has spanned five decades, will likely be defined by his decision to bow out of the presidential reelection contest.

    Before stepping aside, Biden and his aides vigorously defended his mental acuity but failed to convince the public. Poll after poll found that most Americans believed Biden’s age presented a serious concern, and his decline became increasingly noticeable with each public appearance.

    In February, special counsel Robert Hur observed Biden’s memory issues in his final report on the investigation into whether Biden had mishandled classified documents as a private citizen. Although Hur concluded that Biden “willfully” mishandled classified materials, he did not recommend criminal charges, in large part because he did not believe Biden was fit to stand trial.

    When Hur’s report came out, Democrats leaped to his defense and claimed that Hur was a right-wing partisan who unnecessarily editorialized throughout the final report. Only after Biden’s horrendous debate showing last month did Democrats finally begin discussing publicly the problem posed by Biden’s advanced age.

    Throughout the presidential debate, Biden coughed, stumbled over his words, lost his train of thought, whispered into the microphone, appeared outright confused, and rambled incoherently. Immediately, Democrats and their media allies began discussing the possibility of removing Biden from the presidential ticket.

    So now the party that swore up and down that you had to vote for them to “save democracy” is now going to throw the only candidate to receive primary delegates this year (after keeping Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. off the ballot) out of the race so unelected party insiders can pick a new candidate.

    His letter says he’s going to serve out his term, so they’re trying to maintain the fiction that he’s fit to govern:

    Are they going with Kamala Harris, or was the plan to install Gavin Newsom at the top of the ticket all along?

    Man, it has been a crazy eight days.

    This is a breaking story, so there may be more revelations coming down the pike.

    Update: Biden (or whoever controls his Twitter account) endorses Kamala Harris:

    The only question now is whether the people pulling Biden’s strings have decided on Harris. And remember, Harris is both a horrible campaigner and a horrible human being.

    Update 2: It occurs to me that the people actually running the Democratic Party may have decided they’re not beating Trump this year, and have settled on Harris as the sacrificial victim to toss to the tigers while they keep running things behind the scenes.

    Update 3: It seems like a whole lot of media outlets had “Is Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro going to be Kamala’s running mate” pieces cued up and ready to go…

    Update 4: And the first electoral map polling video since the announcement. Spoiler: Trump 340, Harris 198.

    “Democrats have basically already lost this election.”

    Don’t get cocky.

    Update 5: Obama is not endorsing Kamala Harris. Hmmmm.

    Update 6:

    Update 7: Did White House staff not know about Biden’s decision until they read it on Twitter?

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, video | 19 Comments »

    Trump Assassination/Election Roundup for July 18, 2024

    Thursday, July 18th, 2024

    There’s so much Trump news this week that I need to do a separate roundup or the LinkSwarm will end being bigger than Hunter’s coke habit.

  • A whole lot of things about how would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks came so close to succeeding don’t seem to be adding up. Like cops knowing about Crooks nearly half an hour before he tried to assassinate President Trump.

    A team of snipers were inside the building where Donald Trump’s would-be assassin climbed onto the roof and opened fire after being spotted 26 minutes earlier, bombshell new reports claim.

    Cops at the scene noticed Crooks, 20, clambering into place in plain sight just 130 yards away from the rally stage and took two photos of him because he was acting suspiciously, sources told WPXI.

    Meanwhile a counter-sniper team was inside the building that was being used as a ‘watch post’ during the event when Crooks pulled the trigger, The New York Post reported.

    It’s not clear if he had the AR-style rifle on him when he was first seen scaling the AGR International Inc. factory or if he stayed on the roof for the whole time.

    The shocking new allegations surfaced as authorities and the U.S. Secret Service face mounting questions over how Crooks was able to shoot the former president and kill a member of the rally crowd.

    A horrifying video shows witnesses pointing at the roof and shouting at officers trying to warn them. MAGA fans also say they alerted law enforcement to Crooks as he crawled to his shooting position, but he was still able to shoot.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • During that time, Crooks evidently used a rangefinder and came back with a backpack before he started to climb the building, and somehow this didn’t set off giant, flashing alarms with the Secret Service?

  • Here’s ABC’s timeline:

    5:10 p.m. Crooks was first identified as a person of interest
    5:30 p.m. Crooks was spotted with a rangefinder
    5:52 p.m. Crooks was spotted on the roof by Secret Service
    6:02 p.m. Trump takes the stage
    6:12 p.m. Crooks fires first shots

    From the time Crooks fired his first shot to the gunman being killed was just 26 seconds, according to law enforcement officials. Eleven seconds after the first shot, Secret Service counter snipers acquired their target — and 15 seconds after that, Crooks was shot dead.

    So the early summaries were wrong, and the Secret Service response was orders of magnitude worse than we initially believed. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • An officer even alerted people on a blanket tactical channel. Did the Secret Service have access to it? Were they just not listening?
  • A bold assertion: “Biden’s Team Deliberately Kneecapped Trump’s Security To Allow An Assassination Attempt.”

    Nobody wants to hear this because of the implications, but oh well, because it needs to be said: Joe Biden’s security regime deliberately and with malice aforethought created the conditions that led to an attempted assassin shooting Donald Trump in the head. It is by the grace of God that he lived and our nation is not currently in the midst of a violent civil war.

    They deliberately starved Trump’s security team of the resources it needed. And they did it repeatedly, over many weeks and months.

    With Trump’s security detail understaffed, under-resourced, and stretched to its limits, Biden’s security regime reportedly diverted even more resources to a hastily planned Jill Biden event that just happened to be in the area.

    Biden’s security regime then ordered the most obvious assassination perch in the entire area to remain outside the main security perimeter.

    Furthermore, Biden’s Secret Service director ordered law enforcement and counter-snipers OFF the roof the assassin used.

    If that weren’t enough, Biden’s security regime also refused to block the line of sight from the assassin’s perch to Trump’s location. When law enforcement radioed in a suspicious person using a laser range finder at the building and even took photos of him, nothing was done to detain the assassin.

    The assassin was so obviously a threat that bystanders at the event begged law enforcement to stop him, but nothing happened. And even as snipers on the roof near Trump saw a gunman on the other roof, Biden’s security regime refused to have agents immediately surround Trump or remove him from the stage to protect him from being shot.

    Given the lies and nonsense from both Biden’s Department of Homeland Security secretary and his Secret Service director, it’s increasingly difficult to believe this was just a series of independent mistakes (Secret Service director Kim Cheatle at one point this week claimed snipers couldn’t be on the roof because it was sloped and they might fall and hurt themselves). In contrast, when you look at the entire picture, what you see better resembles a deliberate plan to make Trump vulnerable but to appear at first glance to be just a couple of innocent mistakes.

    And when you add in how little information we’ve been given about the shooter — apparently the only person on Earth not on the internet — you begin to wonder if maybe a group of people at a different three-letter agency might have been working on a parallel track to find and encourage people to take action against Trump at the very same time he was kept vulnerable by Biden’s regime.

    We know this happens because the FBI did it with Gretchen Whitmer: It recruited and urged disturbed individuals to buy weapons and put together a plan to kidnap her. In that case, the FBI wanted a story it could use to slime right-wingers. So it created the story itself.

    What happens when an agency like that, or maybe even another three-letter agency, decides instead that it’s had enough of Trump? Some former FBI employees might even call it an “insurance policy.”

    Did the Biden Administration want Trump assassinated? That may be a bridge too far, but I think it’s fair to say that the Biden Administration didn’t go out of their way to ensure Trump’s safety. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Incompetence or malice?

    (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • An everything we know about the shooter piece that’s a few days old.
  • Sometimes the obvious answer is the answer: Evidently the shooter hated Trump.

    A former classmate of the man who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump recounted a heated political discussion with the shooter, according to Fox News.

    Vincent Taormina told Fox News Digital in an interview posted Wednesday that the shooter, Thomas Michael Crooks, considered him “stupid” for supporting Trump. Trump was slightly wounded Saturday during the attempted assassination at a Butler County, Pennsylvania, rally, which left former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore dead and two other attendees wounded. (RELATED: Liberal Media Outlets Claim Trump Contributed To ‘Violent Rhetoric’ After Assassination Attempt)

    “I brought up the fact that I’m Hispanic and, you know, I’m for Trump. And he said, ‘Well, you’re Hispanic, so shouldn’t you hate Trump?,’” Taormina recounted. “No. He’s great. He was a great president. He called me stupid – or insinuated that I was stupid.”

    “He said, ‘Well, that’s kind of stupid.’ He was a know-it-all,” Taormina continued. “So, like, once again, if he was passionate about something, he would just talk, talk, talk and acted like he knew everything, especially politics-related. He would say it in a tone that was, like, ‘I’m better than you,’ in a type of way, and meanwhile, it’s like, dude, we’re in the same classes.”

    So he was the living embodiment of those WE BELIEVE IN SCIENCE signs…with a gun.

  • Never forget that the Trump assassination attempt followed years of media incitement and liberals calls for violence against Trump.
  • “The mostly peaceful types are upset that Trump survived that assassination attempt, because of course they are.”

  • After years and years of uncivilized behavior, celebrating the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate is finally far enough over the line that leftists are finally getting pink slips. More good work by Libs of TikTok.
  • Biden Halts ‘Trump Is Hitler’ Ads After Assassination Attempt.” Then went back to calling him a threat to democracy the next day…
  • Anti-Trumper Bill Maher had an interesting start to his show following the assassination attempt:

    • He “unequivocally” denounced the attempt. “Not funny.”
    • “Whoever did this has done so much damage to the left.”
    • “They lost a lot of moral high ground in the ‘You’re the violent people.'” (The left hasn’t had that “high ground” for quite some time, as Steve Scalise and Rand Paul can attest.)
    • “I’ve got to say this: Trump is the luckiest motherfucker ever to walk the face of the earth.”
    • “Biden can’t get through a debate and a bullet can’t stop Trump.”
  • “MSNBC Yanks ‘Morning Joe’ Reportedly On Fears Of Inappropriate Trump Shooting Commentary.”

    Joe Scarborough reportedly threatened to quit if MSNBC pull the show again.

  • Just for the historical record: Donald Trump officially nominated as Republican candidate for President.
  • Here’s one of those electoral map YouTubers who says the J.D. Vance veep pick will help ensure a Trump lanslide. I’d like to believe that, but I don’t see enough evidence for the proposition yet.
  • “Trump Classified Docs Case Dismissed, Judge Finds Special Counsel Appointment Unconstitutional.”

    US District Court Judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed Donald Trump’s classified documents case, ruling that the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional.

    “The Special Counsel’s position effectively usurps that important legislative authority, transferring it to a Head of Department, and in the process threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers,” Cannon wrote in her decision. “He can be appointed and confirmed through the default method prescribed in the Appointments Clause, as Congress has directed for United States Attorneys throughout American history.”

    “Dismissal of this action is the only appropriate solution for the Appointments Clause violation.”

    The Democratic Media Complex’s push to derail Trump by any means necessary has all but ensured his election.

    • I’ve barely touched on the Republican National Convention going on now, but this roundup is already pretty lengthy…

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