RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2023/10/01/rfk-jr-as-independent-would-propel-trump-to-deliver-crushing-blow/

So it looks as if Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is just about to turn up the volume. It was bad enough for the Democratic establishment when he announced he was going to run for President on the Democratic ticket. Didn’t he know that The Committee already had its heir and a couple of spares, none of whom was named Kennedy? “Look at your poll numbers, Bro. Even against a senile and visibly failing puppet you are trailing by 50 or 60 points. Give it up now before you embarrass yourself further!”

No such luck. It seems that Kennedy is in for the duration. A couple of days ago rumors started circulating that he would soon announce that he was going to run as an independent. Several sources put the magic day as October 9.

As I have said elsewhere, I think Kennedy and Vivek Ramaswamy are—or at least were—the most interesting things to happen in the early stage of this campaign. Both are ferociously articulate. Both have lots of ideas. And neither is named “Trump,” the kiss of death among uniparty factota, Republican as well as Democratic.

According to my astrolabe, the glitter has dissipated somewhat from Ramaswamy. He is powerfully glib, has put forth many good policy ideas, but often seems like a reincarnation of the Energizer Bunny—if not, it pains me to say, that character in Humbolt’s Gift whom Saul Bellow described  as “smooth as a suppository.”

In any event, I suspect that Ramaswamy’s presidential prospects, certainly for 2024, are gibbous waning.

And Kennedy? It’s hard to say. I like his forthrightness. And the fact that Wikipedia, that reliably left-wing fount of approved ideas, castigates him as someone who is “known for advocating anti-vaccine misinformation and public health-related conspiracy theories” tends rather to endear him to me than otherwise. I disagree with Kennedy quite strenuously about many things—the second Amendment, for example, the climate, taxes, and some of what he has said about vaccination. But the fact that he has, as Wikipedia sniffs, “targeted prominent figures such as Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, and Joe Biden” I regard as a public service.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Like most Republicans, I watched Wednesday’s debate hoping for a Reagan-like figure to emerge. The venue was the library of a President who had vision, radiated confidence, optimism, humor, and compassion. Like many, I was disappointed. Haley exhibited confidence and vision but without compassion that endears politicians to voters. DeSantis had the confidence of a governor who has done well but appeared humorless. Scott exuded optimism and compassion, but without vision. 

Like today, in 1980 Americans did not believe in themselves. We were in a funk. A President had been assassinated seventeen years earlier; a second resigned ten years later. The Vietnam War, which bled and divided the country for ten years, ignobly ended in 1975; inflation was rampant, with high interest rates and falling real incomes. Culturally, the country was a mess. The optimism of the post-War years was gone. Early in his presidency, Reagan remarked: “What I’d really like to do is go down as the President who made Americans believe in themselves again.” That he did, and the Country, through three presidents, experienced almost twenty years of economic growth and prosperity.

We are living through another fallow period. The twenty-year War against Islamic Terrorism ended disastrously in Afghanistan two years ago. China is on the rise. Inflation is destroying incomes. Parents are excluded from decisions regarding their school-age children. Borders are non-existent. We are told we are a racist society, that our country was built on the backs of slaves. We are divided into oppressors and victims; and that it is okay, if one is a victim, to rampage through streets and destroy private property. Conservative speakers are not allowed on campuses. Public figures cannot define a woman, yet transwomen are allowed to compete against biological women in sports. In his farewell address to the nation, on January 11, 1989, President Reagan said, “All great change in America begins at the dinner table.” Now, the nuclear family is considered passé by many.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/what-if-we-excused-other-crimes-the-way-we-do-election-fraud/

The left and its comrades in the MSM and judiciary have been dismissing all evidence of significant election fraud, coming up with excuse after excuse to justify every single anomaly, even though there are hundreds of them. Despite the fact the anomalies in 2020 and 2022 all went against Republicans, favoring Democrats, which violates the law of large numbers, they still threw out all kinds of unbelievable excuses.

Let’s look at how these kinds of strange misnomers would be treated in other illegal and criminal activities. Can’t find tens of thousands of chain of custody records or delete the server logs? Let’s compare that to the medical industry, which is somewhat similar since medical records are treated very securely, like elections. If you lose or delete medical records, it’s considered medical negligence, and doctors have lost their licenses to practice medicine for doing so.

How about taxes? If the IRS audits you, tell them you have no receipts or records for the last few years, so agents need to believe you; you won’t be allowed to get away with it. Same with insurance claims; in order to collect reimbursement for a loss, you can’t just state you lost or damaged the item; you’re required to show evidence of it.

In the banking industry, employees are fired and can be prosecuted if the numbers merely seem off. As with cashiers at stores, a typical amount of money is expected to come in daily. If that number starts being low, security measures like cameras and keystroking devices are put in place to try and discover the theft.

In contrast, we are seeing the opposite in elections. Runbeck Election Systems, the private contractor hired by Maricopa County to assist with processing ballots, is fighting tooth and nail in court to prevent its video surveillance of ballots being dropped off and sent back out from being released. During the motion to dismiss hearing last week, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer thought it was acceptable to argue with a straight face that it would take too many resources to fulfill public records requests like that. Runbeck lost a chain of custody records on tens of thousands of ballots, and 22,000 ballots that showed up at Runbeck cannot be accounted for.

The law of large numbers is violated when all the anomalies come down against Republicans. A team of experts put together a report on the large vote dumps in states suspected of election fraud that occurred the night of the 2020 election, batches of 25,000 or more net votes for Joe Biden. There were 26 dumps in 14 states. Pennsylvania had four. I’m no statistician, but this seems next to impossible odds.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/09/28/gop-debate-ii-deja-vu-all-under-again/

EXCERPT

Who, as it happens, was the second challenger regressing from a widely hailed performance. In these parleys, participants – particularly women – must take care not to cross the fine line between strong and strident, and assertive versus annoying. The not-so-gentlelady from the Palmetto State all but obliterated it, coming across as weirdly bellicose even in otherwise well-considered asseverations on key issues, and outright boorish in continuously interrupting and attempting to drown out fellow candidates. 

As for beleaguered erstwhile veep Mike Pence, two (admittedly borrowed) words suffice: “low energy.” 

Which brings us to the similar outcome referenced above: the night’s winner, and by a wider margin than in the initial wrangle, was again Florida’s Ron DeSantis. The Sunshine State’s chief executive succeeded in his campaign’s priority: turning every opportunity into paeans to his splendid record at home – even three questions, on health insurance, education curricula and abortion, intended by the mostly overmatched moderators to knock him on his heels. 

DeSantis made good use of a “veto pen” as a prop in promoting his fiscal record in Florida, and pointed out to applause that he would be the first president since 1988 to have served overseas. 

He played peacemaker in various fracases, and took the pressure off the field in turning back the initial question on who should be “voted off the island” as “disrespectful.” 

He boasted a pair of those dreamy “defining moments.” One was his triumphal – and all-too-true – pronouncement that his success in having “gotten into big fights and delivered big victories for the people of Florida” has left “the Democratic Party … in ruins” in his state. 

But the evening’s climax came in a flurry of world-class counterpunching in response to a planned knockout punch on abortion. Instead of cowering, the governor seized the opportunity to tout his blowout reelection victory due to leading “with purpose and conviction.” Rejected the premise that pro-lifers were responsible for mid-term losses. Offered a full-throated defense of the pro-life position that included a quote engraved on The Gipper’s grave. And suggested that Republicans should hold Democrats accountable for their “extremism” on late-term abortion.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/second-republican-debate-biggest-winner-biggest-loser

Expectations are everything in life, and they certainly were key to the outcome of the second Republican debate held at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.

The winner of the evening was Gov. Ron DeSantis, for whom expectations were low. The audience was reminded of his achievements and why the Florida governor is running second in the GOP primary polls. 

Nikki Haley, from whom much was expected, failed to live up to her performance in the first debate, but held her own. 

Vivek Ramaswamy was not as annoying as in the first debate, but he has yet to show he is ready to be president. 

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott was more combative, as expected, but probably did not move the needle on his chances.

As for everybody else – with respect, it is time for Mike Pence, Chris Christie (seriously), and Doug Burgum to drop out of the race. Fewer contestants would mean less fighting for air time and less bickering; that would be a relief.

DeSantis had a great deal at stake coming into the second GOP debate. His polls have been slipping, he has made some mistakes in his campaign and he is widely viewed as unable to connect with voters.  

Helped by low expectations, DeSantis had a good night. He may not bounce in the polls, but he should have stopped the bleeding.  He trained his fire on Joe Biden, blaming the president (rightly) for too much government spending and for inflation; he also criticized former President Donald Trump, who again declined to participate in the GOP forum. 

Throughout the evening DeSantis pointed to his accomplishments in Florida – in education, the state is ranked number one, and Florida is also enjoying a 50-year low in crime, for instance. 

The worst job in America on Wednesday was trying to moderate the second Republican debate. With seven candidates on stage struggling for airtime, moderators Dana Perino, Stuart Varney and Ilia Calderón did a creditable job under impossible conditions. They asked the right questions, but couldn’t stop the candidates from talking over each other, or returning to previous questions which they wanted to answer but hadn’t been asked. The moderators’ job was like being the referee with seven boxers in the ring. 

None of the fighters won, and none failed. They all put forward their best arguments in the sliver of time they had for each question. Unfortunately for voters trying to decide among them, that sliver wasn’t enough to say more than canned slogans. There were simply too many voices on stage to give each of them more time. With most polling in single digits, they knew this might be their last chance to make their case before being tossed out of the ring.  

Even the strongest candidates didn’t have time to flesh out important positions on major policy questions, to say much more than “I did it right in my home state” and “Joe Biden, bad.” 

The stringent time limits helped the most vapid among them, Vivek Ramaswamy, who could toss out unworkable ideas like confetti, knowing other candidates wouldn’t have time to expose their emptiness and the moderators wouldn’t have time to press for details. He’s slick enough to convince some voters and outrageous enough to convince others. But he shouldn’t be on the same stage as serious candidates with a genuine understanding of difficult policy issues and the background to actually implement solutions. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-presidential-debate-reagan-library-donald-trump-ac835016?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The Republican Presidential candidates not named Donald Trump squared off for the second time on Wednesday, and they put on a good show that gave voters an insight into how they think and what they believe. But their main oversight continues to be that with rare exceptions they are giving Mr. Trump a pass.

The candidates are all fighting to become the alternative to Mr. Trump, who is leading in the polls by 30 or more points over his nearest challenger. They are looking to stand out from the pack, and that means promoting their records and making a contrast with the others on the stage. The debate over Ukraine was especially sharp and revealing, and we’ll have more to say about that in coming days.

But all of them also court irrelevance if they can’t cut into Mr. Trump’s commanding lead. And no one is going to become a credible alternative fighting about curtains at the United Nations. Sooner or later the candidates have to persuade voters that they would be better as the Republican nominee than Mr. Trump, with a better chance of winning and then governing for four years more effectively than the chaotic former President.

Yet there was precious little contrast with Mr. Trump on stage Wednesday night at the Reagan presidential library. The main exceptions were Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis, who hit Mr. Trump for not showing up to debate. Mr. Christie was effective on the point that Mr. Trump’s absence shows disrespect for voters, while Mr. DeSantis scored by noting that the former President doesn’t want to appear and have to defend his recent comments criticizing the Florida Governor for signing the state’s ban on abortion after six weeks.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/09/27/28-of-americans-not-confident-that-2024-vote-will-be-fair-and-accurate-ii-tipp-poll/

Will the 2024 election be fair, or marred by systematic cheating? Based on how Americans feel about recent elections and the coming presidential contest, most are confident the election will be fair. But there’s a huge political gap on the issue between Democrats on one side, and Republicans and independents on the other, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

First, the good news: 65% of the 1,223 registered voters queried in the national online I&I/TIPP Poll, which was taken from Aug. 30-Sept. 1, called themselves either “very confident” (42%) or “somewhat confident” (23%) that the 2024 election “will be conducted fairly and accurately.”

The bad news: 28% of Americans expressed being either “not very confident” (17%) or “not at all confident” (11%). So more than a quarter of the electorate harbors doubts about the legitimacy of the coming presidential election. The poll has a 2.9 percentage-point margin of error.

Further muddying the picture, the major parties and political affiliations appear far apart when it comes to questions of election fairness.

Among Democrats, 89% believe the 2024 elections will be fair and above board. That compares to just 42% of Republicans and 58% of independents. Conversely, a mere 7% of Democrats thought the elections would have fairness issues, compared to 51% of Republicans and 32% of independents.

By party, the responses have a margin of error of +/-4.1 percentage points for Democrats, +/-4.4 percentage points for Republicans, and +/-5.9 percentage points for independents.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-desperate-new-beginning-2024-election-voter-sentiment-polls-gop-primary-biden-trump-3fde70cd?mod=opinion_featst_pos2

We don’t need polls to tell us that confidence in our political institutions is at a low ebb, but they do help clarify what Americans are feeling.

In a recent poll from the Pew Research Center, 10% of Americans reported that thinking about U.S. politics made them feel hopeful, and 4% were excited. By contrast, 55% said they were angry, and 65% were exhausted.

This isn’t the first poll to note a pervasive sense of exhaustion, and I suspect it won’t be the last. Americans are tired of partisan quarrels that rarely reach a resolution. Issues like immigration reform linger for decades, and the Supreme Court has brought new ones such as abortion back into the arena.

Joe Biden was elected, in part, to calm this turbulence. Historians will debate whether he could have done so had he pursued a different agenda, but clearly his administration hasn’t reduced division, whether over economics, culture or foreign policy.

Americans blame both parties about equally for this situation. According to Pew, 60% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, and 61% have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party.

A recent CBSpoll found that 54% of respondents regard the Republican Party as “extreme,” one of the favorite epithets of Democrats describing the GOP. But the same percentage also regards the Democrats as extreme, and only minorities think that either political party is “reasonable.”

Tulsi Gabbard is a former representative for the state of Hawaii. She ran for president as a Democrat in 2020–and faced strong backlash from the liberal establishment. Recently, she announced her departure from the Democratic Party. She has not announced a new party affiliation.

Tulsi Gabbard @TulsiGabbard

The political prosecution of Trump is an obvious attempt by Biden/Dem elite to drain Trump’s attention and resources. Their actions expose their utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law—and makes laughable all of their verbiage about “protecting democracies around the world.”