RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/why-the-slow-collapse-of-harris-walz-wont-stop-before-election-day/ar-AA1rK1tZ

Ohio Sen. JD Vance, as anticipated, easily won the vice-presidential debate Tuesday, October 1, on demeanor, facts, and analysis. But in fairness to a sometimes herky-jerky and nervous Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, he had the harder task of defending the temporary pseudo-conservative make-over of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. 

His additional burdens were her co-culpability for the last three-and-a-half-years of the Biden disaster, and her unwillingness to implement her supposedly “change” agenda in the last months of her vice-presidential tenure. 

The CBS News moderators, Nora O’Donnell, and, especially, Margaret Brennan, also as expected, ganged up on Vance. They had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing from the last disastrous, and biased debate moderators.  

The two moderators shamelessly broke their own rules by fact-checking (wrongly and solely) Vance. They ignored questions of the administration’s tardy responses to Hurricane Helene, the Ukraine war, the recent Trump assassination attempts, or crime, while only briefly touching on Iran and a Middle East on the brink of total war. Instead, they concentrated, as also expected, on climate change, abortion, healthcare and childcare.  

All were issues they thought might more easily embarrass Vance. And, of course, as also expected, the two ended the debate pressing Vance on January 6. And yet Vance again parried easily and won decisively. In doing so, he dispelled the smear that he was somehow “mean,” when, in fact, he proved calm and magnanimous as he methodically dissected Walz.

The nation perhaps learned that a confident Trump selected him to articulate his MAGA positions, and perhaps in a manner superior to Trump’s own.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/10/liz-cheney-hurts-her-own-cause/

Her shift from arguing that Kamala Harris is a grave threat to our country to actively campaigning for Harris is the kind of thing that breeds cynicism.

As is invariably the case when a conservative of any stripe elects to publicly endorse a Democrat, Liz Cheney’s decision to actively campaign in support of Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy has yielded a host of emotional paeans, a crush of sycophantic encomia, and a flock of confident-if-hollow assertions that, because she has now been endorsed by a scattering of right-wingers, the Democrats have at long last responded to the threat of Donald Trump by engaging in “Republican outreach.” I must report, alas, that all of these reactions are unsound. Insofar as Cheney’s wholehearted recommendation is likely to have any material effect on our present predicament, it will be to increase the supply of distrust in the political class, and thus to make our underlying problems worse. This, as the kids these days like to say, ain’t it.

I do not begrudge Liz Cheney her decision to endorse Kamala Harris. I do not question her sincerity in doing so, either. If, as she claims, Cheney believes that Donald Trump has not merely disqualified himself from consideration but represents a tangible threat to the U.S. Constitution, then the course she has chosen is the rational one. My issue is with Cheney’s strategic judgment. In the past, Cheney has described Harris as a “radical liberal” who “sounds just like Karl Marx”; as an outré ideologue who wants to reserve “absentee ballots for al-Qaeda”; and as an extremist who “would raise taxes, take away guns & health insurance, and explode the size and power of the federal gov’t,” and “recreate America in the image of what’s happening on the streets of Portland & Seattle.” Logically, there is nothing that prevents Cheney from continuing to believe all of these things while voting for Harris nevertheless. Cheney has already said that, “because of the danger that Donald Trump poses,” she “will be voting for Kamala Harris,” and, while it is not my own, this position is wholly defensible. But, by actively campaigning with Harris, Cheney has both undercut her authority and hurt the very cause that she is trying to serve.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/cnn-say-a-whole-lot-of-scandals-happened-in-minnesota-government-under-tim-walz/

Today’s pleasant surprise for the Trump campaign and everyone who’s not a fan of Tim Walz: A bit more than a month before Election Day, CNN does a long, detailed, and damning report about the scandals in Minnesota’s state government while Tim Walz has been governor:

A CNN review of audits – and the responses they prompted – as well as interviews with statewide politicians and pundits, found that Walz has been a hands-off leader when it comes to seeking accountability for episodes of fraud and mismanagement on his watch. What’s more, some state agencies headed by his appointees have responded defensively in recent months to the audits – a dynamic that Randall, who has worked in the department for 26 years, has found surprising.

Randall told a local media outlet this summer that the responses of some agencies to her audits have had a “shoot the messenger” feel of late. CNN reviewed more than a dozen reports from her office that held specific agencies responsible for allowing fraud, waste or mismanagement on their watch during the Walz administration. 

Some addressed high-profile scandals such as the pandemic fraud allegations and a troubled light-rail project – whose genesis predates Walz but is currently monitored by 17 Walz appointees – that has suffered from more than $1.5 billion in cost overruns. Randall’s office faulted that agency last year for a lack of transparency about rising costs and failure to ensure contractors’ ballooning price tags were justified. Others found holes in safeguards to waste or raised more targeted conflict-of-interest concerns, such as a state Department of Public Safety employee who received payments from the recipient of a grant that the employee oversees.

Randall told CNN that she knows of no personnel changes linked to any audit by her office since 2019, when Walz was sworn in.

Critics say that is on Walz, now the Democratic candidate for vice president.

CNN notes that not only have these scandals occurred on Walz’s watch, there’s little to no sign that Walz and his administration took much action to discipline those responsible:

Willie Jett, a member of Walz’s cabinet, seemed to feed into this perception when being grilled by state lawmakers this summer on the alleged meals-for-needy-kids scam, which revolved around a now-defunct nonprofit called Feeding Our Future.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/a-confident-j-d-vance-keeps-tim-walz-on-his-heels-in-first-and-only-vice-presidential-debate/

Ohio Senator J. D. Vance turned in a confident and controlled debate performance Tuesday night, seemingly making a stronger case for the reelection of his running mate, former president Donald Trump, than Trump himself has in either of his two debates this year.

Vance kept Democrat Tim Walz on his heels for most of the night, arguing that the country was safer, and more prosperous during Trump’s first term in office than it’s been under nearly four years with Kamala Harris as vice president. He swatted away Walz’s contention that Harris has plans to fix the border crisis and strengthen the economy, saying that as vice president she “ought to do them now.”

Walz, who has mostly avoided the media spotlight since he was tapped by Harris, appeared nervous when the bout began, stumbling over his words and taking long pauses to collect himself. Vance, by contrast, seemed poised after sitting for near daily interviews with adversarial journalists.

Defying the media’s arch-conservative caricature, Vance was compassionate to women who are facing unplanned pregnancies, and suggested that his Republican Party needs “to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back” on the issue of abortion.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/kamalas-fear-of-the-media/

Fear. If you are afraid to engage the media, how can you be expected to engage with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Jinping Xi, Iran’s leaders, or North Korea’s Kim Jong Un?

Vice President Kamala Harris has been reluctant and has refused to hold a news conference in more than 66 days or give any one-on-one interviews with members of the national press, even before becoming the Democratic nominee for president.

President Joe Biden is Harris’s role model. He is another person who did not fully engage the media. Biden held the fewest news conferences than any modern-day president; facetiously, he ran his campaign in 2020 from his basement allegedly due to COVID.

So, why change? It has worked thus far. The liberal media is “OK” with that, apparently.

You can count on one hand in four years (and have fingers left over) the times Biden has had one-on-one meetings with Putin, Xi, Kim or any other American adversary. And how has that worked out? The world is in chaos.

In contrast, former President John F. Kennedy went eyeball to eyeball with Russia’s President Nikita Khrushchev over 60 years ago. Kennedy had news conferences and interviews with the press regularly. He forced Russia to remove its missiles from Cuba. Former Presidents Ronald Reagan and H.W. Bush met with Russian leaders and won the Cold War. Peace through strength.

Biden-Harris? Well, no. Either they do not like being challenged by adversaries (even the press), or they cannot respond to questions with their true feelings. Former President Donald Trump has never had that problem.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/30/department-of-justice-sues-alabama-to-keep-illegal-aliens-on-voter-rolls/

The Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a lawsuit against the state of Alabama over its recent purging of illegal aliens from its voter rolls, demanding that non-citizens be put back on the rolls and allowed to vote in November.

According to Fox News, the lawsuit stems from Secretary of State Wes Allen’s (R-Ala.) decision to remove 3,251 people from the state’s voter rolls who have been issued non-citizen identification numbers, meaning that they are recognized by the federal government and still have to pay taxes despite being non-citizens. These numbers are issued by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and also serve to provide illegals with the means of getting driver’s licenses and providing proof of residence in the country.

“I have been clear that I will not tolerate the participation of noncitizens in our elections,” said Allen in a previous statement. “I have even gone so far as to testify before a United States Senate Committee regarding the importance of this issue. We have examined the current voter file in an attempt to identify anyone who appears on that list that has been issued a noncitizen identification number.”

The DOJ is now arguing that Allen is in violation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, which demands that any state that makes changes to its voter registration lists must do so at least 90 days before a federal election. Allen announced his changes with 84 days left before the election.

“The right to vote is one of the most sacred rights in our democracy,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, in her own statement. “As Election Day approaches, it is critical that Alabama redress voter confusion resulting from its list maintenance mailings sent in violation of federal law.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/three-iranian-nationals-charged-for-hacking-operation-targeting-trump-campaign/

Three Iranian nationals are facing criminal charges for allegedly hacking the Trump campaign and leaking stolen materials to the media to interfere with the 2024 presidential election and advance the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s agenda.

Masoud Jalili, 36, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, 34, and Yaser Balaghi, 37, are being charged with allegedly participating in a yearslong hacking operation that targeted dozens of current and former U.S. officials, members of the press, nongovernmental organizations, and campaign officials, the Justice Department announced Friday.

The unsealed indictment against the IRGC-linked operatives includes charges of wire fraud, material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and aggravated identity theft for the cyber attacks. Each one of the defendants would face a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.

“In August, the Intelligence Community reported an ongoing effort by Iran to compromise former President Trump’s campaign and to influence the U.S. election process,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in remarks delivered Friday afternoon.

“The Intelligence Community further reported that Iranian malicious cyber actors have continued their efforts since June to send stolen, non-public material associated with former President Trump’s campaign to U.S. media organizations,” he added.

The Iranian hackers sent unsolicited emails containing the Trump campaign’s materials to the Biden-Harris campaign around late June after beginning to target the Trump campaign the month before, according to the indictment. Biden-Harris campaign officials did not reply to the emails. Beginning in July, the hackers circulated to members of the media internal campaign materials on the Trump campaign’s potential vice presidential selection.

In carrying out the scheme, Iranian hackers impersonated numerous public figures such as current and former U.S. officials to trick victims into opening spear-phishing emails holding malware. They used multiple techniques to hide their identities such as virtual private networks, fake email accounts, and the accounts of compromised victims to advance the hacking scheme.

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/30/survey-says-independents-are-way-more-conservative-than-theyre-willing-to-admit/

If conservatives want to win elections, they don’t need to rile up the base, they need to convince independents to say in public what they believe in private – that they agree with conservatives on most issues and that Democrats are the wildly out-of-touch extremists.

That, at least, is one way to read a fascinating new survey from Populace, a non-partisan think tank in Massachusetts, which figured out a way to discern what 20,000 Americans think privately and compare that to what they are willing to say publicly.

It turns out that there are often wide gaps between the two, which Populace calls the “Social Pressure Index.” People tend to avoid stating their views if they think they’re in the minority.

But here’s the really interesting finding: On a host of bellwether issues, independents are, in private, far more conservative than they will admit to pollsters.

The survey asked questions about democracy, individual rights, the economy, culture, racism, etc.