RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/04/30/vivek-ramaswamy-schools-chuck-todd-on-the-evils-of-transitioning-children-n1691640

Democrats have a history of claiming to be the party of science. To them, their positions are objectively supported by scientific evidence, be they about abortion, the COVID-19 vaccines, or climate change. Yet, the “science” that they claim backs up their positions is not exactly true. The most recent example of this is the radical left’s endorsement of transgender ideology.

On NBC’s Meet the Press when moderator Chuck Todd engaged in a debate with GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on this issue, particularly when it comes to children, Ramaswamy argued that it is reasonable to prohibit genital mutilation or chemical castration through puberty blockers for minors. Chuck Todd disagreed, offering some ginormous whoppers to support his position.

“But below the age of 18, I think it’s perfectly legitimate to say that we won’t allow genital mutilation or chemical castration through puberty blockers,” Ramaswamy said.

“You’re calling it that, but how do you know it’s that? Again, how do you know? Are you confident that you know that gender is as binary as you’re describing it? Are you confident?”

For what it’s worth, Ramaswamy graduated from Harvard College summa cum laude with an A.B. in biology and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Chuck Todd, however, attend George Washington University and majored in political science but didn’t earn a degree.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-count-ron-desantis-out-trump-2024-gop-primary-moderates-culture-war-34be9a75?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Can Ron DeSantis beat Donald Trump? In the game of presidential politics, well-known front-runners often falter and up-and-comers often win—Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton, and Jimmy Carter came from nowhere to beat establishment figures such as Rep. Mo Udall and Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson. When Mr. Trump was the challenger, he polished off Jeb Bush, the Florida governor who once led the pack.

The DeSantis ship is clearly listing and must right itself. I wouldn’t normally give advice to a Republican candidate, but someone has to stop Donald Trump from regaining the presidency, and I wouldn’t count on President Biden to do it given his low job-approval rating and widespread doubts about his fitness. Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden in the RealClearPolitics polling average. A Trump-Biden rematch is a risky proposition, and with the Democrats consolidated around Mr. Biden, the only way to avoid it is through the Republican primary.

To get back in the game, Mr. DeSantis has to put cultural issues to the side and run on character, competence and common sense. He has the strong character of a family man who cares for his wife, a cancer survivor; the energetic competence of an accomplished governor; and the common sense to campaign on such issues as a balanced budget, a workable immigration system, crime policies that target criminals and improve policing, and programs that reduce the size of government. The major issues facing the country ,according to Mr. DeSantis’s supporters in the latest Harvard/CAPS Harris poll, are inflation (36%), immigration (29%), and the economy and jobs (28%). Eighty-one percent of all voters back a plan to balance the budget, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents. This could be the cornerstone of a smart economic plan.

Challenger presidential campaigns always have at least one near-death experience, so a dip isn’t unusual. Mr. DeSantis has been swinging for social conservatives, which has alienated centrist and liberal voters while failing to take any voters from Mr. Trump. Conservative Republicans have, in the face of Mr. Trump’s indictment, rallied behind the former president. How long this supports lasts or how it might hold up in the event of other indictments isn’t clear, but Mr. Trump definitely has gained strength in recent weeks.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/27/outcome-of-proud-boys-trial-could-decide-trumps-fate/

Of the hundreds of video clips used as evidence in the marathon trial of five members of the Proud Boys, prosecutors began closing arguments not with a clip of the defendants engaged in criminal activity but with a clip of Donald Trump.

The government showed the jury a portion of the September 2020 presidential debate; goaded by Joe Biden and then-Fox News host Chris Wallace to condemn “white supremacists and militia groups” in an effort to downplay Black Lives Matter and Antifa violence, Trump asked them to “give me a name.” Biden quickly answered, “the Proud Boys.”

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said in response.

The offhand remark—Trump later said he did not know who the Proud Boys were—made the group “jubilant,” assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe told the jury on Monday morning. “These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what,” Mulroe said, referring to Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Enrique Tarrio, Dominic Pezzola, and Zachary Rehl.

Prosecutors have used the clip at other points during the nearly four-month trial—a not-so-subtle reminder to jurors from a city that voted 93 percent for Joe Biden that the men on trial supported Trump. But the Justice Department may have a more sisnter reason to tie the Proud Boys to the former president. Any convictions in this trial would give Special Counsel Jack Smith, an independent prosecutor in name only, justification to pursue similar charges against Trump as a coconspirator of sorts.

In fact, the Proud Boys face three conspiracy counts: seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and a conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging any duties. A conspiracy, according to the government, only requires the agreement of two or more individuals.

Prosecutors insist the conspiracy began on December 19, 2020—a date that should alarm Team Trump. At 1:42 a.m. on December 19, Trump tweeted this: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” According to the Justice Department, that prompted Tarrio and Biggs to formulate plans to “radicalize” the group.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/04/27/gdp-numbers-point-to-a-recession-just-in-time-for-the-2024-presidential-election-n1690868

The Republicans should borrow a page from the Democratic playbook and have signs printed up saying, “It’s the economy, stupid,” plastering them all over the country. The mirage of the Biden economy is beginning to dissipate as $5 trillion in stimulus spending peters out and the economy begins to slide into what will hopefully be a short recession.

The pre-COVID economy gave Biden a solid foundation that he promptly squandered in trillions of dollars of wasteful and unnecessary spending. His “stimulus” ended up stimulating inflation that destroyed ordinary people’s savings and reduced the standard of living for millions of Americans.

The economy grew 3.2% from July through September and 2.6% from October through November. The latest GDP number shows sluggish growth of 1.1% — and the biggest news out of the BLS is the pummeling taken by the housing market.

“This morning’s data was the worst of both worlds, with growth down and inflation up,” Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance, said in a client note.

The Fed has raised interest rates nine times over the past year as Jerome Powell has put the screws to the economy hoping to tame inflation. Inflation has come down some, but the underlying numbers are terrible, leading to an expectation that the Fed’s rate hikes aren’t done yet.

An economic model used by the Conference Board puts the probability of a U.S. recession over the next year at 99%.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/04/26/can-biden-win-without-covid/

Now that Joe Biden has announced his plans to run for reelection, the question that must be weighing on the minds of Democratic Party officials is “Can he possibly win without COVID?”

They must know that without the pandemic, Biden had no chance of defeating Donald Trump in 2020. When he announced his candidacy exactly four years ago, the economy was booming and optimism was rising. Trump’s approval rating was edging upward. The only reason he had for running, he said, was because Trump was a racist.

Then COVID happened. And it let the already enfeebled Biden avoid a grueling national campaign. It let him pin every death on Trump. It gave him the chance to promise something bold.

Now, four years later, Biden is far more mentally and physically incapacitated and he can’t hide out in his basement. His reason for being reelected – “to finish the job” – sounds more like a threat than a promise.

Biden’s record is so unimpressive that the White House website manages to scrape together only a handful of “accomplishments” – the first of which is a flat-out lie: “Lowering the costs of families’ everyday expenses.”

An honest accounting of Biden’s first term in office would include this list of “accomplishments”:

Added $3 trillion to the national debt … so far.
Boosted long-term deficits by $5.45 trillion.
Set off an inflationary spiral.
Caused real wages to fall.
Encouraged 4.4 million to drop out of the labor force.
Left Americans and weapons behind after a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Evacuated four U.S. embassies.
Sparked a U.S. military recruiting crisis.
Weakened U.S. standing abroad.
Created a self-imposed energy crisis.
Repeatedly exceeded executive authority.
Massively increased government dependency.
Unleashed an unprecedented illegal immigration crisis.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/joe-biden-makes-major-move-win-second-term

America: Joe Biden is lying to you.  He wants another four years in the Oval Office, but meanwhile he’s refusing to do his job.

Notwithstanding high inflation brought on by excess spending, he won’t even meet with Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House, who is proposing to cut outlays in return for raising the debt ceiling. Biden prefers to spin fables about the GOP and divide our country by demonizing job creators.

Republicans in the House are not crazy; their plans to rein in spending are not “wacko” as Biden has called them. They are common sense measures such as families might embrace after a holiday spending spree leaves them with too much credit card debt. They won’t fix the problem by going shopping; instead, they need to figure out where they can save a few bucks.

Speaker McCarthy and his GOP colleagues are trying to do just that – save a few (trillion) bucks. Their program includes practical ideas like taking back $50-$70 billion of the trillions of dollars allocated by Congress during the COVID emergency that were never spent. 

Now that the crisis has passed, we don’t need to further fund vaccine distribution or help aircraft makers keep employees, both of which were in those monster relief bills. 

The Republican House plan also includes sensible approaches like asking able-bodied people on welfare who do not have children to either work 20 hours per week or enter a job-training program that might lead them to be self-sufficient. Generally, those kinds of rules, which Democrats used to support, get people off welfare and are popular.  

https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-florida-ron-desantis-2024-primary-d277a175?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“Florida is a model of successful GOP governance, and Republicans should be arguing they can do the same for the country if voters put them in charge of Washington. Instead Mr. Trump is borrowing lefty tropes and sources and making the same kinds of attacks on Florida that President Biden would. Who needs Democrats with Mr. Trump around? He is proving again that he has no fixed policy principles. If he somehow wins a second term in the White House, it will be unmoored from anything but personal loyalty to Mr. Trump.”

The funniest part about Mr. Trump’s effort to claim Florida is a dump? He still lives there. If he’s really miserable, why not relocate to one of his homes in New York or New Jersey?

He’s a New Yorker by birth and branding, but President Trump officially moved to Florida in 2019, a decision that made financial sense. Manhattan residents now face a top income tax of 14.8%, plus a top estate tax of 16%. Florida has neither. But as the 2024 primaries near, Mr. Trump has suddenly decided it’s in his interest to claim that Florida is really a high-tax hellhole.

Mr. Trump knows that Gov. Ron DeSantis could be a formidable rival, and Mr. Trump will apparently say anything to trash him. On Friday Mr. Trump issued a statement on “The Real Ron DeSantis Playbook,” which starts with a quote from spokesman Steven Cheung: “The real DeSantis record is one of misery and despair. He has left a wake of destruction all across Florida.” Which is no doubt why the Governor was re-elected last year with 59.4% of the vote.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-second-term-mistake-23dd7cbe?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

The White House is whispering that next week President Biden will announce his intention to run for a second term, though the polls say that even most Democrats hope he doesn’t. The public understands what Mr. Biden apparently won’t admit: that electing an octogenarian in obvious decline for another four years could be an historic mistake.

No doubt it’s hard to walk away from the Oval Office after working for five decades to get there. Flying Marine One home for the weekends beats Amtrak. The chance to pull the levers of power is intoxicating, and that’s also true for the advisers who have pushed him in such a sharply progressive direction in his first term. They know Mr. Biden will lead wherever they want him to go.

But asking the country to elect a man who is 80 years old and whose second term would end when he is 86 is a risky act that borders on selfish. It’s impossible to know Mr. Biden’s real physical and mental state because the White House goes to great lengths to hide it. But his decline is clear to anyone who isn’t willfully blind. He rarely holds a press conference, and his words are as scripted as possible to avoid embarrassing stumbles that he nonetheless continues to make.

Different people age at different rates, but the risk of an accelerated decline for Mr. Biden is considerable. The chance that he could serve a full second term is hardly assured.

This means Americans could be voting for his running mate to take over in a second term, which as of now would be Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Biden would be running on a vow to serve a complete term that he knows he might not be able to keep. At the very least, he owes the country more than a Rose Garden repeat of his Wilmington basement campaign strategy from 2020.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/21/trump-team-unloads-on-desantis-using-left-wing-sources-claiming-his-record-in-florida-is-one-of-misery-and-des

Former President Donald Trump ramped up his attacks against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday, releasing a campaign statement claiming the popular governor’s record in the Sunshine State is “one of misery and despair.”  In a press release titled “The Real Ron DeSantis Playbook,” Trump provided a long list of reasons why Florida “continues to tumble into complete and total delinquency and destruction,” and argued that it has become one of the least affordable states to work, raise kids, and retire.

“The real DeSantis record is one of misery and despair,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said. “He has left a wake of destruction all across Florida and people are hurting because he has spent more time playing public relations games instead of actually doing the hard-work needed to improve the lives of the people he represents.”

On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump on Friday also shared a number of polls showing him far ahead of all of his potential GOP competitors.

The attacks come amid speculation that DeSantis is planning to launch a 2024 run for president in the coming weeks.

According to Florida Voice reporter Brendon Leslie, the Trump campaign sourced far-left Florida blogger Jason Garcia for its anti-DeSantis talking points. Garcia regularly trashes the conservative governor from the left on his Substack and on social media.

The Trump Campaign linked to a Substack post from Garcia who argued the governor raised taxes by more than $1 billion during his first term, although Garcia went on to note that the governor cut taxes by “more than $4 billion overall.”