RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/15/elon-musk-says-he-voted-for-republican-mayra-flores-in-historic-texas-special-election-is-leaning-toward-desantis-in-2024/

Billionaire Elon Musk said early Wednesday morning that, as promised, he voted Republican for the first time in his life in Texas’s 34th Congressional District, where Republican Mayra Flores flipped a historically Democrat seat. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO also revealed that he is leaning toward voting for Ron DeSantis in the 2024 presidential election.

Flores, who defeated Democratic candidate Dan Sanchez 51 percent to 43 percent, will become the first Mexican-born congresswoman to serve in the House.

Musk made the pro-GOP revelations following the historic upset in the South Texas special election, Tuesday night.

“I voted for Mayra Flores – first time I ever voted Republican,” Musk tweeted in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. “Massive red wave in 2022.”

When asked by the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley Twitter account who he was leaning toward supporting in 2024, Musk responded, “DeSantis.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/06/jerry-nadler-on-the-rocks/

You don’t often see political heavyweights in a fight to the death in the midterms. Incumbents usually win — and when they don’t, it can be because they were caught by surprise, whether in a primary or general election, heralding a larger wave.

Recall Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, who was taken down by Tea Party upstart Dave Brat in 2014 — the first time in history that a sitting House leader had lost in a primary. More recently, AOC felled Joe Crowley, the Democratic Caucus chairman, which marked the ascendance of the New Left.

Sometimes, incumbents do lose. But rarely do they lose to each other in races that pit powerful politicians against each other, fighting for political survival. One such battle is unfolding in New York City between two powerful House Democrats. Congressman Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is running in a primary against Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, for New York’s twelfth congressional district. Both are high-profile members who’ve been in Congress for decades and vehemently opposed the Trump agenda more recently. It was Nadler atop the Judiciary Committee who pushed both of Trump’s impeachments through the House, led arguments against him in the first trial, and investigated his administration on a host of other issues. Maloney, meanwhile, hauled the heads of agency after agency before her committee for oversight hearings to grill them on Trump’s policies — especially immigration. They’ve continued chairing these powerful bodies into the Biden years. With these credentials, each has high name recognition and high fund-raising potential. They’d be near-unbeatable in their seats on their own.

June 14 Primaries
Laxalt Wins GOP Nomination to Challenge Sen. Cortez Masto in NV

GOP Challenger Fry Ousts Rep. Rice in South Carolina’s 7th District

Rep. Mace Fends Off Arrington Primary Challenge in SC-1

Flores Wins South Texas House Seat Long a Democratic Stronghold

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-supreme-courts-mail-vote-anarchy-pennsylvania-election-ballots-samuel-alito-david-ritter-11654866895

The Supreme Court has whiffed again on enforcing clear election laws. On Thursday, over conservative dissents, the Justices allowed the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals to mandate that Pennsylvania count mail ballots that voters neglected to date. What ballot requirement might a judge let slide next? Apparently we won’t find out until the lawyers get busy after the November elections.

The legal dispute here involves a 2021 judicial race in Lehigh County. Republican David Ritter has a 71-vote lead. There are 257 mail ballots that arrived by the deadline, yet voters submitted them without handwriting a date. Mr. Ritter says tallying them could flip the outcome. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, no less, has ruled that undated ballots are invalid, because state law unambiguously says voters must “fill out, date and sign” the declaration.

The Third Circuit’s justification for squashing that law is the Civil Rights Act, which says officials can’t “deny the right of any individual to vote” based on a paperwork error that “is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law.” Mr. Ritter asked for a stay from the Supreme Court, which the majority denied without comment.

Justice Samuel Alito dissents, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. “When a mail-in ballot is not counted because it was not filled out correctly, the voter is not denied ‘the right to vote,’” he says. “Rather, that individual’s vote is not counted because he or she did not follow the rules.” He adds that it’s akin to what might happen if a voter goes to the wrong polling place or mails a ballot back to an incorrect return address.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/07/trumps-growing-rivalry-with-desantis-must-be-contained/

Donald Trump is “absolutely” running for president again in 2024. That is what one person deep within the former president’s orbit told me off-the-record in March when I asked him. Trump himself was recorded by someone who attended a golfing event earlier this year in which the person recording the video said, “first on tee, the 45th president of the United States!” This comment prompted Trump to look up angrily at the camera and declare, “Forty-fifth and the 47th president!”

Given Trump’s penchant for the “art of the comeback,” one would be foolish to assume that Trump’s days as a presidential contender are behind him.

Trump even went as far as teasing in the last week that he would announce his intentions about running again in 2024 after the 2022 midterm elections. In the meantime, Trump has worked assiduously to cultivate a strong following among GOP candidates and has tried ensuring that his endorsement becomes a qualifier for primary candidates seeking GOP nominations this year. While these attempts to become the kingmaker of the GOP have had mixed results, the fact is that even out of office and having been kicked off Twitter, Trump is the star of this show. 

And that’s another aspect animating Trump’s continued dance in the political arena. He wants to be front-and-center, not only to avenge himself against his political rivals for what he believes was Biden’s theft of the 2020 presidential election but to also protect his brand. Should he no longer be the only star of the potential Republican 2024 presidential field, these things might be damaged—which could negatively impact Trump’s bottom line. 

Yet, there are other rising stars and potential rivals on the Right and there is much time between 2024 and today. Of note, former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice President Mike Pence, and current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have all been rumored to be interested in running for the Republican nomination in 2024. Still, Trump is by far the most visible political figure in America today—and certainly the most popular on the Right. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-trump-is-the-loser-in-a-georgia-rematch-kemp-abrams-raffensperger-primary-voters-11654283552?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Ordinarily it’s a bad idea to search for national political significance in state primary elections, but these are not ordinary times.

The data points: On May 24 Republican Gov. Brian Kemp defeated former Sen. David Perdue by 52 points, and Secretary of State Brian Raffensperger bested his nearest opponent, Rep. Jody Hice, by 18 points. Both men were incumbents, but their challengers are accomplished politicians in their own right.

The remarkable thing about both races is Donald Trump’s assertive role in them. He carried on one-sided feuds with both winners and endorsed the losers. Mr. Raffensperger had insisted that Mr. Trump’s allegations about widespread voter fraud in Georgia were false, and in a 2020 postelection phone call with the president flatly rejected the idea that the secretary of state could “find” the 11,780 votes needed to deliver Georgia. Mr. Kemp later certified the election, moving Mr. Trump to call for the governor’s resignation and to say he was “ashamed” to have endorsed him in 2018. The former president’s hostility to both incumbents seemed to indicate electoral trouble for them, but they had none.

https://thehill.com/news/campaign/3511563-mccormick-concedes-to-oz-in-pennsylvania-senate-gop-primary/

Businessman David McCormick has conceded to rival Mehmet Oz in the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania, capping off a confusing and narrowly divided process.

McCormick said during a media availability on Friday that he had “came so close” on election night and had spent more than two weeks “making sure that every Republican vote was counted in a way that would result in the will of Pennsylvanian voters being fulfilled” after a recount was called with Oz leading by fewer than 1,000 votes.

“But it’s now clear to me, with the recount largely complete, that we have a nominee. And today I called Mehmet Oz to congratulate him on his victory,” he said. “And I told him what I always said to you — that I will do my part to try to unite Republicans and Pennsylvanians behind his candidacy, behind his nomination for the Senate.”

In a brief Twitter thread, Oz confirmed that McCormick had called him and said he was “tremendously grateful” for his support.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com/

The question in the title, of course, is aimed at Mr. Trump and the 2024 Presidential election. While I admire what Mr. Trump accomplished as President and for the way he battled media vilification, I find his ego, language and bullying offensive.

Obviously, no one knows the answer to the question, including, in all probability, Mr. Trump. The election is thirty months away, with midterms coming first. Mr. Trump will turn 76 on June 14 – granted he would be younger than was Mr. Biden in 2020, but no longer in the flower of youth, nor even in the comfort of middle age. Mr. Trump remains controversial and divisive – not the soothing, empathetic figure the nation needs when it is fraught with division as to who we are and what we stand for. (Is it really alright to let young men in high school who self-identify as women use girls’ showers? The condoning of deviant behavior in the name of social justice, no matter what the LBGTQ community may claim, is aberrant.)

Mr. Trump remains the dominant figure in Republican politics. A poll of potential Republican primary voters taken in March of this year by Morning Consult, a global decision intelligence company, gave Mr. Trump 55% of the vote, Ron DeSantis 12%, Mike Pence 10% and Nikki Haley 7%. Ohio’s J.D. Vance appeared to have been helped by Mr. Trump’s endorsement in the May 3rd Senatorial primary. Other Trump-endorsed candidates like Georgia’s Herschel Walker’s bid for the U.S. Senate and Arkansas’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s campaign for governor were successful. Yet Virginia’s gubernatorial election last November and Georgia’s primary on May 24th suggest Mr. Trump is not a fool-proof king maker. In fact, last week’s Harvard-Harris poll showed a preference for Mr. Trump had declined to 41% among Republican primary voters.