RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://townhall.com/columnists/byronyork/2022/06/01/a-2024-trumpbiden-death-match-n2608031

For all the speculation that goes on around Donald Trump and the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, it’s possible, even likely, that the more intense battle will be among Democrats. A new poll from Mark Penn, the former Clinton strategist who runs the Harvard-Harris Poll, suggests President Joe Biden’s support among Democrats is significantly weaker than Trump’s support among Republicans. And that could lead to chaos on the Democratic side.

Penn’s question was very simple. To Republicans, he asked, “If the Republican presidential primary for the 2024 election was held today, who would you vote for?” And to Democrats, he asked, “If the Democratic presidential primary for the 2024 election was held today, who would you vote for?”

The results: Forty-one percent of Republicans named Trump, while 12% named Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 7% named former Vice President Mike Pence, and 4% each named former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Ted Cruz. There were a few other names lower down — Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Tim Scott, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — and a fairly large percentage, 28%, who said they were unsure or would choose someone else.

On the Democratic side, the results were 23% for Biden, while 9% named Vice President Kamala Harris, 8% named Sen. Bernie Sanders, 7% support 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton and 5% back Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Another fairly large number of people, 31%, said they were unsure or named someone else.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/do-americans-really-want-an-octogenarian-in-the-oval-office/

Republican primary voters would be forfeiting one of the party’s most effective lines of attack against Biden if they nominated Trump in 2024.

A Harvard–Harris poll released last week asked registered voters: “Do you think Joe Biden is showing he is too old to be President or do you think he is showing he is fit to be president?”

Sixty-two percent of respondents — nearly two-thirds — said they thought Biden was too old, compared with just 38 percent who said they thought he had proved himself fit for the job.

If Biden, at the age of 79, is registering poll numbers like that in 2022, how much more will the issue of his age weigh on the minds of voters should he seek another term in 2024?

Americans will not merely have to be comfortable with the fitness of the man they vote for in 2024 — they will have to confident that he’ll remain fit to serve as president through January 20, 2029, when Biden would be 86 years old. Attacks on Ronald Reagan’s age obviously didn’t hurt him in 1984, but at the end of a second term Biden would be nearly a decade older than Reagan was when he left office at the age of 77.

Voters do not need to play the role of armchair psychiatrist to see that Biden has lost a step. Despite all the attempts in the mainstream media to recast Biden’s troubles speaking as a lifelong battle with a stutter, it is plain to anyone with eyes and ears that the president who now struggles to make it through a speech is not nearly as sharp as the vice president who debated Paul Ryan in 2012.

https://americanmind.org/salvo/permanent-irrelevance/

The California GOP remains committed to its decline.

California Assemblymember Megan Dahle’s election committee transferred $40,500 to the state Republican party on April 22; two days later, the California State Republican Party endorsed her husband, State Senator Brian Dahle, as its candidate for governor. The timing of this transfer gave rise to suspicions that Megan Dahle purchased the party’s endorsement for her husband, but this is just one of many controversies in a state party that has never been more divided or more impotent.

The electorate’s share of Republican voters in California, at 23.9 percent of registered voters, has never been lower. This decline has been unrelenting; from 34.9 percent in 2002 to 34.6 percent in 2006, to 30.1 percent in 2010, to 28.6 percent in 2014, to 25.3 percent in 2018.

The weakness of California’s Republican party is reflected in every metric that matters. Its representation in California’s congressional delegation is 10 out of 53, which at 19 percent does not even reflect voter registration totals. Similar underachievement plagues their showing in the state legislature: Republicans number 19 out of 80 seats in the assembly, and 9 out of 40 seats in the state senate. Of the eight higher state offices—governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, controller, superintendent of public instruction, and insurance commissioner—not one is held by a Republican. Every one of these office holders are Democrats. For those Californians who recall that the state was cherry red through the election of George Bush in 1988, this leftward turn is cause for endless regret.

The endorsement of Brian Dahle by the California Republican party might therefore be considered irrelevant. His chances of winning are zero. The decision to endorse Dahle does have consequences, however. The party passed up an unconventional but potentially transformative opportunity to expand its reach by endorsing independent candidate Michael Shellenberger, one of the most interesting political aspirants to emerge in California in many years. A former progressive environmentalist who supports nuclear power and argues that the threat of climate change catastrophe is overstated, Shellenberger has staked out contrarian positions that could have broad appeal to Californians tired of crime, high energy prices, and absurd regulations that inhibit development.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/fbi-november-ballot-lloyd-billingsley/

As the midterm election approaches, the Annual Statistical Transparency Report Regarding the Intelligence Community’s Use of National Security Surveillance Authorities shows why the Federal Bureau of Investigation is also on the ballot.

One of the few to give this document the attention it deserves was historian Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and affiliated scholar at the University of California’s Hastings School of Law.

The report “provides statistics and contextual information concerning how the Intelligence Community uses the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act  and certain other national security authorities to accomplish its mission.” The Act authorizes the U.S. government to engage in mass surveillance of foreign targets.

As Guariglia discovered, FISA is “still being abused by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to spy on Americans without a warrant.” This abuse takes place under Section 702, an amendment to FISA.

Between December 2020 and November 2021, Guariglia notes, the FBI potentially queried the data of more than three million Americans without a warrant. Collection of the data, from telecom and internet providers, renders conversations described as “incidental,” but they aren’t. Each intelligence agency’s rules on “targeting” and “minimization,” Guariglia shows, allow access to access to the communications of Americans caught in  the “702 dragnet.”

https://thejewishvoice.com/2022/05/california-republican-goes-full-ilhan-omar-in-anti-semitic-rant/

California’s upcoming primary elections could deliver Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) an unlikely foreign policy ally—Republican Greg Raths, who last week said the “Jewish community” uses money to “control” U.S. politicians.

Raths’s anti-Semitic rant came during a May 20 Orange County Islamic Foundation candidate forum, which saw the Republican claim that U.S. support for Israel is bought and paid for by the “Jewish community.” Raths, who is running against Republican congresswoman Young Kim in California’s 40th Congressional District, also called to “rein in” U.S. foreign aid to Israel, a position he said he is able to support because he hasn’t taken “one dime” from Jewish sources.

“That’s the problem. Israeli PAC in Washington, they got money and they control a lot of these politicians. And the other side, the Palestinians, they don’t have the clout. So these politicians go where the money is, unfortunately,” Raths said. “The Jewish community is very well organized in the United States and they control a lot of politicians. That’s why the foreign aid is so large going to Israel. … The Jewish community has never given me one dime, so I’m not beholden to them at all.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/us-congressman-crist-visits-boca-mosque-linked-joe-kaufman/

CHARLIE CRIST (D-FL DISTRICT 13)

Former Governor of Florida and current US Representative Charlie Crist is running for Governor again, so he is on the campaign trail looking for votes. Unfortunately, one of the constituencies he is seeking support from is the radical Muslim community. In Florida, this group is sizable and politically active. Last month, Congressman Crist found himself at the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR), a mosque that has substantial links to terror and bigotry. Given his own history, one can surmise that Crist did not just wander into this particular mosque, as he has embraced Muslim extremists in the past. This article was written to expose a dangerous tendency of Crist.

ICBR was founded via the Muslim Student Organization (MSO) at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). It was incorporated in October 1998. The seed money for the building of its mosque – $600,000 – came from the Global Relief Foundation (GRF), an al-Qaeda-related charity that was shut down by the US government in December 2001 and an entity that ICBR had donated nearly $17,000 to, itself.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/05/25/georgia_thwarts_trumps_kingmaker_role__147651.html

In the end, it was much ado about nothing in Georgia except for political grandstanding.

Since the state swung narrowly in Joe Biden’s favor in 2020, Donald Trump vowed to seek revenge. The improbable targets of his ire were Georgia Republicans, specifically Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Although both men had backed the former president in his reelection bid, neither would join Trump in contesting the GOP ticket’s razor-thin loss. Trump recruited newly defeated Republican Sen. David Perdue to challenge Kemp for his seat, appeared in TV ads, and spent millions from his political action committee on Perdue’s behalf. Trump also endorsed Rep. Jody Hice, who challenged Raffensperger.

Millions of words were written and much airtime expended handicapping whether Georgia would show that Trump had molded the Republican Party in his own likeness. It didn’t happen Tuesday night, at least not in Georgia. Kemp maintained his early lead in the polls while earning the endorsement of former Vice President Mike Pence along the way and cruising to an easy victory – as did Raffensperger. Pence, largely written off by the media, looked more prescient, if not instantly relevant. In an appearance with Kemp on the eve of the election, Pence called a vote for Kemp a “deafening message” that the Republican Party is “the party of the future,” stirring new headlines that he is positioning himself for a presidential run in 2024.

In the end, Kemp easily bested Perdue, more than tripling the votes the former senator received and setting up a rematch election against Stacey Abrams, whom he defeated in the 2018 general election.

But Georgia is only one state. Trump has racked up a mixed record in contested primaries so far this year while wading into various contests to settle old scores or establish himself as a kingmaker. J.D. Vance, the Yale law school graduate and venture capitalist turned author, undoubtedly has Trump to thank for his win in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary. Likewise, Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor backed by Trump in Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate race, leads by just under 1,000 votes in a race against hedge fund executive David McCormick, which appears headed for a recount.

In the end, it was much ado about nothing in Georgia except for political grandstanding.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/georgia-governor-kemp-defeats-perdue-in-gop-primary-setting-up-rematch-against-stacey-abrams/

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has successfully fended off a challenge from former Senator David Perdue in the state’s Republican gubernatorial primary, the Associated Press has projected. The victory sets up a rematch between the governor and Democrat Stacey Abrams, whom he defeated in the 2018 general election.

Kemp bested Abrams by 55,000 votes in November 2018, though Abrams contested the race and has made repeated claims that the election was stolen from her.

She has, to this day, never conceded to Kemp and said as recently as October, “Just because you win, doesn’t mean you won.”

Abrams peddled disinformation about Georgia’s new election law, becoming one of many Democrats to claim the law would suppress voter turnout. Even when Tuesday’s primary races saw record early voter turnout —more than 850,000 ballots were cast in person or returned via absentee ballot in three weeks of early voting— Abrams claimed that the voter turnout is not proof that the law has not caused voter suppression.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/athena-thorne/2022/05/22/arizona-sheriffs-office-investigating-active-organized-voter-fraud-in-yuma-county-n1599853

The Yuma County Sheriff’s Office (YCSO) announced  earlier this month that it is investigating “a recent pattern of fraudulent voter registration forms leading up to the 2022 Primary Election.” The inquest has arisen from the office’s current investigation of “cases of voting fraud from the 2020 General Election.” YCSO is working in conjunction with the Yuma County Recorder’s Office, which is formally documenting all the evidence the probe turns up. As of March, the YCSO says it had 16 open cases related to potential registration and/or voting fraud.

No one can go back in time and undo the irregularities and fraud of the 2020 General Election, which was docukented in the recently released film, 2000 Mules. But it is possible — indeed, necessary — to learn by examining what happened and apply the lessons to preventing bad actors from ever compromising another election, going forward.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/elections_speaking_of_foreign_intervention.html

When leftists complain and warn of foreign intervention in U.S. elections, Russia and China are always brought up as the usual suspects. They’re the big bad foreign meddlers and all the organs of state must be revved to watch out for them.

But there’s far more evidence of another country getting active already in U.S. elections — and it’s one that lectures the U.S. a lot about “non-interference” in its “internal affairs.”

If you’ve guessed ‘Mexico,’ you’d be right. 

Here is the press release from an NGO called “Mi Familia Vota,” a leftist NGO that has been loudly praised and honored by the Obama administration, that just came in the email:

Mi Familia Vota Enters Into Important Partnership With Embassy of Mexico to Advance the Well Being of Mexican and Immigrant Communities

Washington D.C. – Mi Familia Vota and the Embassy of Mexico are proud to announce that we will be working together for the well-being of the Mexican and Immigrant community in the United States through strategic services and collaboration.

Héctor Sánchez Barba, the CEO and Executive Director of Mi Familia Vota, stated: 

“We are excited to partner with the Embassy of Mexico and its consular network on this strategic collaboration to empower the Mexican and immigrant communities in the United States on central issues of civic participation, resources, and information. We will ensure that they know their rights and take advantage of the available opportunities in terms of immigration regularization, the DACA program, as well as on issues related to COVID-19. The historical contributions of the Mexican community have been central to the advancement and well-being of our nation. I take great pride in this partnership and look forward to the work ahead.”