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ELECTIONS

Showdown High noon in a CNN studio. Mark Tapson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/showdown/

On Thursday night, June 27, unpopular President Joe Biden faced off for a debate against challenger and former President Donald Trump, whose popularity is surging despite (or in many cases because of) him being labeled a “convicted felon.” The 90-minute showdown took place before heavily biased moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper in the Atlanta studios of CNN, the least trusted name in news.

To keep tight control over the debate process, Team Biden requested there be no live audience – because Trump knows how to work a crowd – and that Trump’s mic be muted when Biden is speaking and vice versa; this, according to the New York Times, is “intended to guard against Mr. Trump’s penchant for interrupting and speaking over debate opponents.”

In other words, Biden’s team and his media collaborators wanted to hamstring Trump’s successful pugilistic style. They couldn’t afford to allow him to fluster his senile opponent with the kind of devastating off-the-cuff remark like the one he used to skewer Hillary Clinton in their 2016 debate. Hillary had said it was a good thing “Trump is not in charge of the law in our country” and he shot back, “Because you would be in jail.” Disappointingly, the debate constraints left no room for that kind of spontaneous kill shot.

Biden’s handlers also refused to allow the aging President to be tested prior to the debate for performance-enhancing drugs, despite widespread speculation that he would need to be “jacked up,” as Trump put it, to maintain mental focus and to prevent Biden from reaching for nonexistent hands to shake or wandering offstage.

As it turned out, if Biden wasn’t on any performance-enhancing drugs for the debate, he should have been, because there was immediate widespread consensus among his fellow Democrat leaders and media supporters that the debate was a colossal failure for the aging President.

The debate kicked off with a question about the economy, a topic that recurred throughout as both candidates blamed each other for soaring inflation, high taxes, and the decimation of the middle class. Biden accused Trump and corporate greed of causing families to struggle with rising prices, and declared that the road to prosperity lies in taxing the rich. Trump blasted Biden for turning us into a third-world country by allowing illegal immigration to cripple the economy.

The Nation Finally Got To See The Real Biden — The One The Press Has Been Hiding All These Years

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/06/28/the-nation-finally-got-to-see-the-real-biden-the-one-the-press-has-been-hiding-all-these-years/

Many if not most Americans tuning into the debate Thursday night were probably shocked at President Joe Biden’s performance.

He was confused and tired. He mumbled and bumbled through his answers. He looked at times despondent. He had trouble keeping focused. His closing statement was perhaps the worst in the history of presidential debates. And this was after spending a week at Camp David resting and preparing.

Anyone who was surprised by his performance should be asking themselves Why? Why didn’t they know how bad a state Biden is in? How did the White House keep this under wraps for so long?

The president is, after all, the most public of public figures. His every move is scrutinized. It is true that the White House minimized Biden’s public appearances, and kept them short and carefully scripted.

But the media are always around him taking notes. Reporters are in constant contact with the people who work for the president. They’re always talking to others in the president’s party.

And for three and half years, the press has been telling the public that Biden is doing fine. That all the talk of his age and infirmity was misinformation. Just last week, the media tried to convince voters that Biden’s incredibly odd behavior at recent events was all “cheap fakes” by Republicans.

They said Donald Trump made verbal mistakes and was old, too.

But the contrast between the two men last night could not have been more striking. Was Trump’s performance great? No. But it was standard Trump. His closing statement was a huge missed opportunity to paint a bright picture of America’s future. Instead, he rambled about his record. But next to Biden, he looked like he was a young man at the top of his game.

Amazing New Feats in Shameless Hackery Noah Rothman

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/amazing-new-feats-in-shameless-hackery/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=third

We’ve reached the point in the electoral calendar when the “experts” join forces to provide Joe Biden with a dubious talking point timed for maximum political effect.

Last time around, the “experts” were some of the nation’s most distinguished intelligence officials who assured the voting public that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a fabrication cooked up as part of an unusually sophisticated Russian disinformation operation. Today, the “experts” are economists — indeed, Nobel Prize winners — all of whom insist that Donald Trump’s proposed economic policies risk exacerbating inflation. That wouldn’t be such a galling assertion if this brain trust hadn’t also assured Americans that Joe Biden’s economic-policy preferences are entirely unimpeachable.

An open letter signed by 16 accomplished economists begins with the authors confessing how “deeply concerned” they are by Trump’s economic prescriptions and the “vagaries of his actions” on the world stage. In particular, the letter’s signatories expressed their fear that Trump’s “irresponsible budgets” will “reignite” inflation.

It’s unclear what “irresponsible budgets” the authors are describing. If they’re referring to the statements of principle that presidents send to Congress under the guise that they are budgetary proposals, these economic mavens need not worry so much. Presidential budgets are political documents, not economic blueprints, and Congress tends to regard them as such.

If, however, these economists were referring implicitly to Trump’s reliance on tariffs as the answer to any and every economic challenge, these economists would be on surer footing. Some forecasters have gamed out the effect of Trump’s sweeping tariff proposals, and they anticipate that the higher cost of imports and the prospect of Chinese retaliation would boost consumer prices.

A Conservative Election Victory Puts Canada’s Post-Trudeau Era in Sight By Matthew X. Wilson

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-conservative-election-victory-puts-canadas-post-trudeau-era-in-sight/

In news that is sending shockwaves through Canadian politics, the opposition Conservatives claimed victory overnight in a closely watched by-election for a safely Liberal parliamentary constituency in downtown Toronto. The once Liberal “fortress,” known as Toronto-St. Paul’s, is one of the most Liberal-leaning electoral districts in all of Canada — the Liberal Party has carried the seat in the last ten Canadian federal elections, and the Liberal candidate has won by margins of greater than 20 percent in the last three. From an American perspective, this outcome is roughly analogous to Republicans winning a special election for a safely Democratic congressional seat in New York City.

The jolting result, besides an enormous momentum boost for the Conservatives, is a full-throated repudiation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, one of the most unpopular Canadian leaders in history, who is on track to lose the next Canadian election (which must be held no later than October 2025) by spectacular margins.

Canada’s Liberals find themselves in a similar place to Britain’s governing Conservative Party: technically still in government, but facing an extinction-level electoral wipeout when they finally go before voters. But unlike Britain, where the central question with just nine days until the country’s July 4 election is how badly the Conservatives will lose, the Trudeau-led Liberals have 15 months before voters’ verdict must be heard.

The Liberals have some hard decisions to make. The obvious last-ditch play to rescue their party’s fortunes ahead of the next election is to replace their leader, and that is no doubt a possibility that both Trudeau and his rank-and-file parliamentarians are currently weighing.

George Latimer ousts ‘Squad’ Rep. Jamaal Bowman in NY-16 District Democratic primary

https://nypost.com/2024/06/25/us-news/george-latimer-ousts-squad-rep-jamaal-bowman-in-16th-district-primary/

Head for the (fire) exit, Jamaal!

Westchester County Executive George Latimer sent Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) packing from Congress Tuesday night, defeating the far-left “Squad” member in the 16th District’s Democratic primary.

Latimer, 70, will be heavily favored to defeat Republican Madeline Brame in the Nov. 5 general election to represent the deep-blue Bronx and Westchester constituency.

“Tonight, we turn the page and we say that we believe in the inclusion of everybody,” Latimer told cheering supporters in White Plains.

“It doesn’t matter your age, religion, sexual identity, whether you’re a right-hander or left-hander, whether you’re a Met fan or a Yankee fan — our inclusiveness in Westchester County is how we govern the people,” he added. “You can’t destroy this country with your rhetoric and your arguments. We have to have unity.”

Will Voters Turn the World Upside-Down? By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/06/will_voters_turn_the_world_upside_down.html

So the Great Awakening continues apace.  All over the West, men and women who simply want to be left alone are concluding that their governments will not let them live in peace.  Woe to any Establishment hobgoblins who believe they can sabotage their home nations without paying a price.

After having failed to implement Brexit or curtail mass illegal immigration during their last decade and a half in power, Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives appear destined for extinction-level losses in the U.K.’s July 4 general election.  This regrettably means that Labor’s champagne socialists will seize Parliament’s suicidal reins and drive that once great nation deeper into the ground.  But in the background of Great Britain’s self-immolation is the resurgence of Brexit champion Nigel Farage, who enjoys unprecedented support for his Reform Party.  Because the U.K.’s Deep State has refused to honor the terms of Brexit, the British people are ready to overturn the whole system.  July 4 — what a lovely day for a revolution!

Emmanuel Macron, the Rothschild banker and diminutive king who married his grandmotherly schoolteacher, will likely suffer electoral humiliation of his own in France’s legislative elections over the next two weeks.  The Napoleon wannabe — who speaks snobbishly of European empire and prefers to be photographed while kitted out in the latest boxing fashion — called for snap elections in a stompy-foot hissy fit after the French people handed him heavy losses in the European Parliament vote earlier this month.  Just as Le Petit Fromage seems to believe that he can convey strength by staring menacingly at stationary punching bags, Macron thinks his political hubris can transform almost certain defeat into chance victory.  The French people, on the other hand, are fed up with mass illegal immigration, rising crime, and deteriorating standards of living (common complaints throughout the West) and are not particularly enthused about the growing prospect of a hot war with Russia.  It is difficult to persuade French citizens that they should rally around their tricolor flag and defend Ukraine’s borders when French aristocrats continue to lecture the peasants that national borders are so passé (another common complaint throughout the West).

Of course, the granddaddy of imminent political earthquakes is the (cross your fingers, throw a pinch of salt over your shoulder, turn around three times, and whisper, “MAGA-MAGA-MAGA”) likely return of President Trump to the White House.  Oh, I know the Democrat Deep State will continue to do everything it can to rig the election in November (even if it has to throw the MAGA Man in prison and wake up half the dead people in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Phoenix to “vote”), but political polling in the United States continues to show Iron Trump with substantial leads over Horse-Glue Biden.  If the United States didn’t have a third-world election system devoid of voter identification and rife with mail-in-ballot fraud, the propaganda press would already be grudgingly admitting that Biden’s re-election hopes are as dead as a doornail.  Since Dementia Joe is the president for dead voters, though, and because he managed to “win” fifteen million more votes than the progressive demigod Barack Obama did during his re-election campaign, the Fascist Bureau of Intimidation and the Department of (in)Justice are still telling everyone, “Don’t worry.  We’ve got this.”  As Hans Gruber would say, “You ask for a miracle?  I give you the FBI.” 

The Media’s Gaslighting on Biden’s Decline Is This Election’s Laptop Cover-Up By Becket Adams

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/06/the-medias-gaslighting-on-bidens-decline-is-this-elections-laptop-cover-up/

Don’t believe the evidence right in front of you, they say. Sound familiar?

Major media are aiming to repeat their performance from the 2020 presidential election, back when they endeavored to deny, dismiss, and denounce a story that could have damaged the Democratic presidential nominee.

In that election cycle, the press reflexively rallied behind a theory that the contents of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop were “Russian disinformation,” a Kremlin plot to throw the election in the GOP’s favor. Some went as far as to suggest that the laptop itself was fake (or stolen or didn’t belong to Hunter). Under the flimsy pretense of combating Russian interference, major media engaged in an industry-wide conspiracy to censor and reject the story.

The laptop is real. It appeared as evidence against Hunter Biden in his gun-felony case.

There was never a legitimate reason for members of the press to have dismissed the laptop story out of hand, especially considering the fact that those who pushed the “Russian disinformation” theory never bothered to provide evidence beyond “Trust me, bro.” Major newsrooms merely insisted that you, the voter, disregard the story as well as what the laptop’s contents suggested regarding a possible globe-spanning influence-peddling operation involving Ukrainian business interests, Chinese nationals, and the Biden family.

Voters Skeptical Of CNN, Anchors Tapper And Bash, Heading Into Trump/Biden Debate: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/06/24/voters-skeptical-of-cnn-anchors-tapper-and-bash-heading-into-trump-biden-debate-ii-tipp-poll/

The first 2024 presidential debate is on the way, but already controversy has emerged over the television network that will conduct the presidential face-off and those selected to ask the questions. Some Americans, it turns out, aren’t exactly thrilled about CNN anchors serving as moderators for the debate, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

The national online poll, taken from May 29-31, included 1,675 registered voters who were asked the following: “CNN will host the first general election presidential debate on June 27, 2024, moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. What is your opinion of the debate moderators and the host?”

The possible answers, given for CNN, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, were “very favorable,” “somewhat favorable,” “not very favorable,” “not at all favorable,” and “not sure.” The poll has a +/-2.5 percentage-point margin of error.

First, CNN. It was viewed favorably by a small plurality of voters, at 45% favorable versus 36% not favorable. Another 20% were “not sure.” So a total of 56% either didn’t approve of CNN or were unsure.

“Greenlash” is Here:Ruy Teixeira

https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/greenlash-is-here

The results from the recent European parliament elections were quite something. Right populists did very well indeed while the European Greens took big losses. They lost 18 of their 72 seats in the European parliament and their performance was particularly bad in the E.U.’s two largest states, Germany and France. In Germany, the core country of the European green movement, support for the Greens plunged from 20.5 percent in 2019 to 12 percent. Shockingly, among voters under 25, the German Greens actually did worse than the hard right Alternative for Germany (AfD). That contrasts with the 2019 elections, when the Greens did seven times better than the AfD among these young voters.

And in France, Green support crashed from 13.5 percent to 5.5 percent. The latter figure is barely above the required threshold for party representation in the French delegation.

The Greens’ overall poor performance means they are now behind not only the traditionally largest party groupings—the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the social-democratic Socialists and Democrats group and the liberal Renew Europe group, but also both right-populist groupings—the European Conservatives and Reformists (which includes Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy) and the Identity and Democracy group (which includes Marine LePen’s National Rally group)—and even the non-affiliated group (which includes Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Hungary’s Fidesz party).

There’s a reason for this. While there’s no doubt that concerns about immigration were key to the right populist surge in these elections, the role of backlash against green policies (call it “greenlash”) should not be underestimated. And the fattest target for this greenlash was naturally the Greens, the most fervent proponents of the European “Green Deal” and associated policies. The implications of this are huge. As Adam Tooze, himself a strong supporter of green policies, admits:

The elections have tilted the European political balance against the green agenda which has served as an important reference point for politics in Brussels for the last five years….Even if Ursula von der Leyen succeeds in her bid for a second term as Commission President, she will not be pursuing the full-throated green-forward policy that launched the Green Deal in 2019 and Next Gen EU in 2020….There is a groundswell of opinion in Europe that is preoccupied with the cost of living, wants to keep its internal combustion-engined cars and sympathizes with farmers in their opposition to green regulation.

The Affordability Crisis Is Shaping Up as a Key Issue in the Election — and Trump Has the Advantage Not enough has been written about this from a political standpoint. Only it sure should come up in the debate next week.Lawrence Kudlow

https://www.nysun.com/article/the-affordability-crisis-is-shaping-up-as-a-key-issue-in-the-election-and-trump-has-the-advantage?

It’s a kitchen table election. Heading toward the CNN Presidential Debate next Thursday, one would think President Trump would be pulling together a scathing critique of President Biden’s performance regarding that old political cliché, kitchen-table issues, which surfaced again in the form of today’s affordability crisis for working folks.

Things like inflation, groceries, gas prices, et cetera — and I’ll get to those. Yet there’s an underrated issue which is looming larger and larger. And that is unaffordable housing.

Existing home sales for May came in just more than 4 million units — which is the lowest in 30 years. During the Trump years, home sales were running around 6 million.

Meanwhile, average home prices came in at $419,300, and that is a record high going all the way back to the recorded data beginning in 1999.

Pre-pandemic, during Trump’s term, home prices were running $270,000-plus.

And one of the keys to the unaffordable housing affordability crisis is the mortgage rate that has been running pretty consistently around 7 percent during the Biden years compared to below 4 percent during the Trump years.

Yes, it’s quite true that all these zoning-related regulatory burdens imposed by blue-state Democrats have limited the available supply of homes.

And it’s also true that a lot of those same blue-state Democrats want to incorporate the suburbs into the cities in order to build public housing and force crazy climate change regulations. Anything to stop gas-powered autos and basically destroy the value of your home.

Yet even in the healthier red states, sky-rocketing mortgage rates and home prices have made it very difficult, if not impossible, for working folks of any color or stripe to afford to buy a home — and in particular that includes younger folks.

Not enough has been written about this from a political standpoint. Only it sure should come up in the CNN Presidential Debate next week.