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Of ‘Convicted Felons’ and Lying Frauds

Last week, a New York City jury, prompted by the legal coordination between Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan—both partisan actors—convicted Donald Trump on 34 felony counts having to do with falsification of business records. Or election fraud. Or more tax issues. Or … something. Nobody really knows, and apparently it was unnecessary for the jury to agree on the crime in order to find Trump guilty of one.

No matter.

Trump was convicted and may now face jail time. We’ll find out on July 11—just a few days before the Republican National Convention. Obviously, this represents opportune timing for the Biden campaign. And yet Trump remains firmly knotted with President Joe Biden in the race for the White House. There have been four polls taken since Trump’s conviction. In all of them, Biden and Trump are either tied or within two points either way.

But how? The question echoes throughout the media: How can a convicted felon be running even with the incumbent president? The answer is twofold: First, Biden is a truly awful president; second, Biden has no ground to stand on in labeling Trump a threat to law and order.

First, Biden’s terrible record. Americans have been slammed by inflation for three years. Our social fabric has continued to decay as Biden openly seeks “equity”—meaning discriminatory legal regimens designed at rectifying group disparities—in every area of the federal government. On the foreign front, Biden has hamstrung Ukraine in its defense against Russia, and openly manipulated on behalf of Iran and Hamas in Israel’s war against the terror group that performed Oct. 7. It is difficult to see an area of the world that is markedly better off since Biden took the White House.

Second, Biden’s hypocrisy. In the aftermath of the Trump conviction, Trump naturally condemned the justice system that targeted him. Biden then responded by doubling down on his narrative that Trump’s pushback represents a threat to our democracy and our institutions: Last week, Biden staggered out to the podium to claim that “the American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed.” He added that it was “dangerous” and “irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”

The problem is this: Biden as defender of our democracy and our institutions just doesn’t play. This is the same president who tried to use his Occupational Safety and Health Administration to illegally cram down vaccines on 80 million Americans; who attempted, in defiance of law, to relieve student loan debt—and then bragged about defying the Supreme Court; whose Justice Department even let him off the hook for mishandling of classified material by calling him a dotard. Biden’s party has spent years tut-tutting massive riots, appeasing pro-terrorist student trespassers, and calling for an end to parental autonomy. There isn’t an institution in the country Biden hasn’t weakened.

To hear Biden rail against Trump for undermining institutions, then, simply won’t play. But Biden doesn’t have much left in the playbook.

All of which means that Trump still—still—has the upper hand. Ironically, Trump being sent to jail might actually help him, given that most Americans will correctly see the jailing of Biden’s chief political opponent as an act of vicious partisanship unworthy of the most powerful republic in world history.

In 2020, Biden ran on the platform of stability and normalcy; he has exploded both. All he’s left with is slogans about Orange Hitler. And that’s unlikely to be enough come November if gas prices are high, groceries cost too much, and the world remains aflame.

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post Of ‘Convicted Felons’ and Lying Frauds appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Democrats’ Lawfare Proves Politically Impotent, Likely to Come Back to Haunt Them

Nearly 14 months after the first of four unprecedented criminal prosecutions against former President Donald Trump commenced in earnest, the Democrat-lawfare complex got its man: The Soviet show trial in “Justice” Juan Merchan’s dingy New York City courtroom produced its preordained “guilty” verdict.

It is perhaps hackneyed to observe that, in convicting and seeking to incarcerate a former president and current leading presidential candidate, we have “crossed the Rubicon.” Well …

  • Did we not cross a Rubicon when the demonic Obama administration sued the nuns—yes, literal nuns—of the Little Sisters of the Poor to try to force them to subsidize abortifacients?
  • Did we not cross a Rubicon when Democrats threw out 4,000 to 5,000 years of “innocent until proven guilty” civilizational norms to try to derail the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh?
  • Did we not cross a Rubicon when then-vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris solicited funds to bail out anarchic Antifa-Black Lives Matter street hooligans?
  • Did we not cross a Rubicon when the American Stasi—sorry, the FBI—raided Mar-a-Lago over a document dispute?
  • Did we not cross a Rubicon when myriad Trump attorneys, including the renowned scholar John Eastman, were prosecuted for practicing the legal profession?
  • Did we not cross a Rubicon when Peter Navarro or Steve Bannon (just now) were ordered to jail?

The Rubicon, truthfully, is a shallow, inconsequential river in Italy. That it is so shallow helps explain why Julius Caesar was able to cross it so easily. At this juncture in American history, it no longer suffices to speak of crossing a Rubicon. We are now rapidly crossing great seas—perhaps even circumnavigating the globe. You might call President Joe Biden and the rest of the Democrat-lawfare complex our modern-day Magellans.

Ruinous or not, however, their precedent has now been set. And that raises the obvious question: For Democrats, will all of this, and especially their multifront anti-Trump lawfare, prove to be worth it?

That obvious question, in turn, has an equally obvious answer: absolutely, positively not.

First, Democrats do not seem to be getting much of a bump in the early polls after last week’s verdict. In each of the two major national polls that have been conducted exclusively after the verdict, from pollsters Emerson College and Morning Consult, Trump leads by one point. As even the liberal Washington Post conceded on Thursday, “Other polls conducted before and after the verdict suggest between no change and a two-point shift toward Biden. The shifts are quite a bit smaller than pretrial polls suggested they could be.”

Considering that Trump was already leading in most national horse race polling and that the Republican Party currently has a built-in Electoral College advantage wherein its presidential candidate can slightly lose the popular vote while still prevailing in the electoral vote, the Biden-Harris campaign ought to be worried.

Democrats’ lawfare isn’t winning over many swing voters.

Former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom May 30 during his since-ended “hush money” trial in New York City. Democrats got their preordained “guilty” verdict, but there’s no evidence it gave them the polling bump they hoped for. (Photo: Michael Santiago/Getty Images)

Second, the damage the Democrat-lawfare complex has caused to the American public’s faith and trust in the justice system is simply astronomical—and likely irreparable. Even prior to the onslaught of Trump indictments filed last year, many of us “deplorables” were already convinced we have a two-tier system of justice in this country: Consider the wholly disparate prosecutorial treatment of the BLM-Antifa rioters and the “J6-ers” present during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol jamboree, for instance.

But the Democrat-lawfare complex’s serial overreaches have now removed any doubt as to the blatant impartiality and patent unfairness of our regnant legal order. It is impossible not to be jaded or cynical. Leviticus 19:15 commands: “You shall commit no injustice in judgment; you shall not favor a poor person or respect a great man; you shall judge your fellow with righteousness.”

Does anyone think this describes America today?

Third, the Right finally seems to be snapping out of its long lull and beginning to gear itself for pitched battle against a domestic foe that wants to punish us, prosecute us, subjugate us, and remove us from the entirety of American public life. That portends poorly for leftists.

My friend John Yoo, the Bush-era Justice Department official and law professor normally a bit less pugnacious than yours truly, opined: “Repairing this breach of constitutional norms will require Republicans to follow the age-old maxim: Do unto others as they have done unto you.”

Megyn Kelly, the influential broadcaster who has had a complex relationship with Trump going back to the 2016 GOP presidential primary, said after the verdict: “I’m going to utter words I never thought I would utter in my life: We need Steve Bannon.” The famously combative Bannon appears headed for an unjust four-month prison sentence in a few weeks, but her point stands.

Democrats have no idea what they have unleashed. Perhaps worse, they don’t even care.

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post Democrats’ Lawfare Proves Politically Impotent, Likely to Come Back to Haunt Them appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Time Magazine Betrays Its Tilt in Biden, Trump Interviews

Does Time magazine really matter anymore?

It still has a circulation of more than 1 million, but that is one-third of what it was in 2012. Does anything it reports still resonate, or is it like a tree that collapses unheard in the solitude of the woods?

Time just secured an interview with President Joe Biden, when Biden has granted very few interviews to print news outlets. Time gained access to Donald Trump in April, and the first thing you notice when you compare the two interviews is the length.

At the top of the transcripts, Time claims the Biden transcript is a “28 minute read,” while Trump’s is listed as 83 minutes. Time’s “fact check” of the Trump interviews (“21 minute read”) is almost as long as the Biden interview.

Another noticeable tilt is the agenda of questions. Biden’s questions were overwhelmingly about foreign policy. There are three on inflation, three on immigration, and three on Biden’s age. There were zero questions on Hunter Biden and the Biden scandals. There were zero questions on the Trump trial or the Trump prosecutions.

Did Team Biden put any conditions on which questions could be asked? It’s a fair question, considering how selective they’ve been in handing out interviews.

By contrast, by my count, Time asked Trump 11 questions about the Trump prosecutions (and “revenge” for them), five questions about Jan. 6, two about potential political violence in 2025, four on fighting the “Deep State,” three on his “dictator for a day” joke, and four on whether he’d seek to overturn the 22nd Amendment and seek a third term.

On top of that, Trump drew 14 questions on abortion policy and six on crime. It’s obvious from the Time transcripts that they consider Trump’s opinions on domestic issues to be much more controversial—and even extremist—than anything Biden advocates.

The rest of the media picked up on Trump’s abortion answers, and Biden didn’t have to provide any abortion answers.

Even the age questions to Biden were timid softballs, and Biden’s answer—suggesting he could take his interviewer Massimo Calabresi in a fight—was taken as a joke. Calabresi told CNN’s Jake Tapper it was “lighthearted” and “quite funny.” Biden responded to a follow-up about voter concerns with his usual spin: “Watch me.” Calabresi confessed it might be a “stock answer.” So, why not push through it? Why not ask, “Everyone’s been watching you, that’s your problem”?

Time could have asked Biden why his team refuses to release audio of his interview with stolen-documents special counsel Robert Hur, with the fear Republicans will exploit the audio in advertising. But Time pretends Hur is a nobody and that Biden’s stolen documents should already be forgotten. Hur refused to prosecute Biden, and Jack Smith just keeps prosecuting Trump.

It looks a bit rigged.

By contrast, Trump’s interviewer Eric Cortellessa lectured him: “I just want to say for the record, there’s no evidence that President Biden directed this prosecution against you.” Trump rejected that: “I always hate the way a reporter will make those statements. They know it’s so wrong.” Time, like other slavishly pro-Biden outlets, refuses to acknowledge that Biden’s No. 3 Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo resigning to join Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team of Trump prosecutors shreds the “no evidence” lie.

The Democrats running Time are hyperbolically raising fear that a president using the Justice Department might go after his political opponents, while somehow being blind and deaf enough to ignore that Biden is using the Justice Department to go after his political opponents. They can’t believe anyone would object to their shamelessness.

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post Time Magazine Betrays Its Tilt in Biden, Trump Interviews appeared first on The Daily Signal.

To the Condescending Cranks Faking Outrage Over Upside-Down Flags

In our modern political dumpster fire, there has never been an art so refined and illustrious as pointless pearl-clutching. 

In this, the ninth year of 2016, most everyone is fairly desensitized to the political drama emanating from the Left’s ardent claims that any conservative policy or protest is an appeal to fascism as their own organizations and protesters set fire to cities (and sometimes themselves).

Republicans pass a bill banning sexually explicit content in public schools from kindergarten to third grade? Florida Democrats and media labeled it fascism.

A U.S. Supreme Court justice’s wife flies a Revolutionary War flag commissioned by George Washington? Salon’s senior writer described Justice Samuel Alito and his wife as “extremely invested in the semiotics of American fascism.”

The New Republic, The Guardian, taxpayer-funded PBS—any time a Republican so much as upholds parliamentary procedure, defends former President Donald Trump, or questions the surge of gang and cartel members amid waves of illegal immigrants—these outlets are ready in the wings to call any to the right of Chairman Mao a fascist.

The latest banner of fascism to be shouted down in a “Two Minutes Hate” session out of George Orwell’s “1984”: flying the flag of the United States upside down. The horror!

As ridiculous as it might sound—the group that has spent the past eight years defending those who burn, shred, and desecrate the U.S. flag is suddenly outraged over many in the nation who have flown the U.S. flag upside down in a symbol of distress over Trump’s political prosecution and conviction.

Many on the Left and precious few on the Right have taken to social media to lambast those who would fly the U.S. flag upside down as “disrespectful,” “treasonous,” and “idol-worshipers.”

Is this the case? Are those who reacted to Trump’s felony convictions in New York City simply bowing at his feet in a brutal backstabbing of the United States? Is this heinous, unspeakable act the very hallmark of fascism and the alleged “cult of personality” that the Left has predicted for almost a century?

Of course not, and you know that.

We needn’t walk down the halls of easily accessible history to discern how this wrist-shattering pearl clutch is both hypocritical and ignorant. But we’ll do so, not out of necessity but because heaping good data en masse against poorly constructed arguments is entertaining.

First and foremost: Flying the flag of the United States upside down is not disrespectful, illegal, treasonous, or even unprecedented.

Although 4 U.S. Code § 8, commonly referred to as the “Flag Code,” isn’t legally enforceable (because U.S. citizens retain First Amendment rights to do with their own flags whatever they wish), flying the flag upside down under appropriate circumstances wouldn’t violate the law.

The law clearly states: “The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.” (The “union” refers to the patch of blue with 50 stars.)

Thousands in the U.S. have flown our flag upside down to express their “dire distress” in such instances over the past century.

Leftists consistently flew the U.S. flag upside down throughout Trump’s presidency to signal their deep disquiet and fear, from Washington state to Louisiana. Democrats in New Jersey resolutely flew the flag upside down in protest of Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. Some Republicans flew their flags upside down when Barack Obama was reelected in 2012.

The American flag has been flown upside down as “a tribute to veterans’ sacrifice,” and was one of the many symbols of protest against the Vietnam War used by leftist demonstrators in the 1960s.

The Flag Code doesn’t specify what “extreme danger to life or property” entails, nor does it restrict such interpretation to a physical danger or a political one. Might there be a situation today in which many Americans feel in deep distress over a perceived danger to the life and property of their republic?

Never before in American history has a former president, much less one running for office again, been charged and convicted in such a kangaroo-court fashion that even his political adversaries note the insanity of the circumstances.

In an extremely heated presidential election campaign, indicting one of the two frontrunners would be considered enough of an anathema—but the case of New York v. Trump was more than precarious, it was a circus. 

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, ran on the promise of doing anything he could to find something to indict Trump with. Outside his jurisdiction, Bragg used a federal election statute—which the Federal Election Commission already had stated Trump didn’t violate—as a convoluted lever to turn 34 counts of “falsifying business records,” misdemeanors that by this point were outside New York’s statute of limitations, into felonies.

As if that weren’t enough, Judge Juan Merchan refused to allow a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission to testify, refused to allow the defense to speak to the jury before deliberation, and informed jurors that to convict they didn’t have to reach a unanimous decision on what crime was committed.

Such actions by Merchan set a nation on fire even as trust in institutions already was wavering.

Elie Honig, a former federal and state prosecutor, wrote for New York magazine, an extremely liberal publication: “Prosecutors got Trump—but they contorted the law.” Honig pointed out that never before in U.S. history has there been a state prosecution using federal election law.

You’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned Trump’s sex life, his character, or his business decisions—in fact, many of those expressing extreme distress at this forded Rubicon aren’t being protective of Trump like he was some kind of nonsensical religious idol. 

Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, and Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who have spent the past few years as Trump’s chief opposition within the GOP, both called this case and conviction despicable. 

When a reporter asks President Joe Biden whether he used this case to politically persecute Trump and he casts a wicked grin in her direction, how is the nation supposed to respond?

Reporter: "President Trump refers to himself as a political prisoner and blames you directly. What's your response to that, sir?"

Biden: *smiles*pic.twitter.com/CZY8JUMvKO

— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) May 31, 2024

Why is the left side of the aisle afforded the right to ride through towns and cities shouting about the impending doom of the republic like some bastardized caricature of Paul Revere, and the right side isn’t allowed to call out the very sham John Adams unpopularly fought in court to prevent?

Spare me your clutched pearls, neoconservatives. Your faux dignity and condescension at the concerns of Americans whose carcass of a justice system is paraded openly don’t move me. 

I don’t have to defend Trump’s personal life and sign onto a “cult of personality” to recognize that each of us has a right to be free from political persecution and election interference. 

Commentator Alyssa Farah’s silly claims that flying the flag upside down signals “selling out” are as pathetic and hypocritical as the rest of the cast of “The View” with whom she clucks and quacks about abortion rights, gun confiscation, and anti-Catholicism.

Whistling past the graveyard and sending a “strongly worded letter” have only mired us further in the muck of Third World antics.

I reserve the right to fly my flag upside down to signal my extreme distress at this danger to the life and property of the republic I love, and I’ll do so whenever I find it appropriate.

The post To the Condescending Cranks Faking Outrage Over Upside-Down Flags appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Beware When Leftist Journalists Use Founders to Attack Trump

When the elected Democrat district attorney of Manhattan and his 12 (likely Democrat) Manhattan jurors convicted Donald Trump on artificially inflated felony counts of business accounting, you could count on leftist journalists to try to make it the Most Historic Event Ever.

We’re not even sure it won’t all be reversed on appeal. But “historic” is their word of choice … when they like the result.

In 1999, when Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about sex with an intern named Monica Lewinsky, Geraldo Rivera was furious on the “Today” show: “It was a spiteful action, an action that they performed absolutely in violation of the framers’ intent. It was a legislative coup d’etat.”

Impeaching Trump twice was never a “coup” to NBC News. But the worst part of that spectacle was leftist activists like Rivera trying to speak for the framers of the Constitution. He was implying it wasn’t just a revolting result but revolting in the eyes of James Madison and the rest. The Left reveres nothing about the Founders, routinely denouncing them as a racist, sexist, capitalist patriarchy.

This regrettable citation of the Founding Fathers happened again with the Trump trial, and again in this case, the American revolutionaries were placed on the side of the Democrats.

George Stephanopoulos began his commentary on “This Week” with the second president: “In 1774, John Adams said representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Two hundred and fifty years later, the heart and lungs of liberty are facing what may be the ultimate stress test.” It’s John Adams vs. Trump.

The front page of the June 3 New York Times was topped with an editorial—labeled “News Analysis”—from its White House correspondent Peter Baker. He picked Patrick Henry as the Trump opponent.

“The revolutionary hero Patrick Henry knew this day would come,” Baker began. Henry “feared that eventually a criminal might occupy the presidency and use his powers to thwart anyone who sought to hold him accountable.” In Henry’s words, “Away with your president, we will have a king.”

Never mind that historians pointed out Henry was inveighing against the Constitution before it was ratified. Baker channeled the Democrat line: “The notion that 34 felonies is not automatically disqualifying and a convicted criminal can be a viable candidate for commander in chief upends two and a half centuries of assumptions about American democracy.”

Inside the paper, the headline over Baker’s essay was “If a Felon Becomes President, Can Anyone Limit His Power?” The text box underlined the theme again: “Revival of a long-ago fear that a U.S. leader could try to be a king.” All that followed was the argument ad infinitum that Trump’s second term would result in “unfettered abuses of authority.”

What Baker and Stephanopoulos refused to understand was that this rhetoric of a president abusing authority can also be applied to President Joe Biden. On CNN, Scott Jennings mocked Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., on how Biden ruthlessly ignored the courts and the Congress in offering $165 billion in student loan “forgiveness” to win younger voters.

“You’re a member of Congress,” Jennings told Auchincloss. “Does it not offend you that the president of the United States is usurping your authority?” The eventual answer was no.

The Democrats and their media enablers use “history” to establish how there is a “right side,” and that is their leftist agenda. Undercutting democratic norms and coequal branches of government is admirable when the ends justify the means. The Founding Fathers are just yellowed paper puppets in their relentless power games.

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post Beware When Leftist Journalists Use Founders to Attack Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.

‘Badfellas’: Joe Biden and Robert De Niro, 2 Raging Peas in a Pod

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to let Donald Trump turn America into a place that is filled with anger, resentment, and hate,” President Joe Biden said May 29 in Philadelphia.

So, why did America’s self-styled uniter-in-chief decide to “stop the shouting and lower the temperature”—as he promised in his inaugural address—by recruiting Robert De Niro, one of Hollywood’s loudest hotheads?

“Trump wants revenge, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it,” the veteran actor said as narrator of a Biden campaign ad released May 24. De Niro’s overheated audio track continues: “Now, he’s running again, this time threatening to be a dictator. To terminate the Constitution.” 

Biden could have tapped the suave and even-keeled George Clooney or the widely admired Julia Roberts, both talented supporters. Instead, Biden picked the boisterous, unhinged De Niro, whose comments about Trump slide from the vulgar to the violent.

On May 28, the Biden campaign staged a press conference outside the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building. Inside Room 1530 that morning, I was among those witnessing closing arguments in New York State vs. Donald J. Trump. Confirming suspicions that this bookkeeping-entry trial was a Democratic election-interference operation, like Trump’s other persecutions, De Niro and Biden-Harris 2024 Communications Director Michael Tyler stood before microphones and taunted Trump on one of the toughest days of his life.

“I don’t mean to scare you. No, wait, maybe I do mean to scare you,” De Niro said. “If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss these freedoms goodbye that we all take for granted … And elections. Forget about it. That’s over. That’s done. If he gets in. I can tell you right now. He will never leave.”

De Niro added, “Donald Trump wants to destroy not only the city, but the country, and, eventually, he could destroy the world.” (Funny: After Trump left office in January 2021, Americans’ freedoms and elections remained, and the rest of the Earth is still there.)

This disastrously misconceived stunt then melted down as local Trump fans defended the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and swapped insults with the two-time Academy Award winner, whose screen credits include “Goodfellas” and “Raging Bull.”

You’re trash! You’re done!” one man yelled at De Niro. Another screamed: “You ruined Leo DiCaprio!” 

“You are gangsters,” De Niro hollered back. “You are gangsters!”

This was not the first time that Biden’s new spokesman devolved into what the president decries as “anger, resentment, and hate.”

  • “He’s so f—ing stupid,” De Niro told ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel in March. “He’s a f—ing moron.”
  • While hosting the June 2018 Tony Awards, De Niro declared: “F— Trump.”
  • “He’s a punk. He’s a dog. He’s a pig,” De Niro ranted about Trump in a 2016 video for #VoteYourFuture. De Niro notoriously added: “I’d like to punch him in the face.”

But De Niro and Biden are not so far apart.

The warm, lovable Grandpa Lunchbucket Joe from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who Democrats showcased in 2020 was a mirage. Americans have learned the hard way that Biden is a nasty, vindictive man who lusts to imprison the leader of the opposition. Asked Friday at the White House about Trump’s charge that Biden had made him a political prisoner, Biden displayed an Arctic smile that seemed chilled by ice water in his arteries.

???Exclusive !!! The face of corruption. pic.twitter.com/IAvDv7X5ie

— Chris LaCivita (@LaCivitaC) May 31, 2024
  • Biden led a chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and left thousands of pro-American translators and other local allies to the Taliban’s tender mercies.
  • When the remains of 13 Americans killed in a suicide bombing returned home from Kabul, Biden repeatedly and coldly checked his watch, rather than focus exclusively on those fallen GIs’ flag-draped caskets.
  • After a massive train derailment, chemical spill, and conflagration plagued East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, 2023, residents waited for Biden to visit. And waited. And waited. The East Palestinians finally saw Biden last Feb. 16—fully 54 weeks into their long local nightmare. In contrast, Trump flew in to feel their pain just 19 days after their toxic hell exploded. 
  • Biden blames ongoing inflation not on his own reckless spend-aholism, but on “corporate greed.” So, U.S. companies generously kept inflation at 1.4% as Trump left office. But then they suddenly became gluttons and boosted overall prices by 19.87% over Biden’s first 39 months versus 5.58% for Trump’s equivalent interval?

Really? 

  • Unlike De Niro, Biden keeps his mouth clean in public. But off-camera, he is a bully who pummels staffers with foul language. In an article headlined, “Old Yeller: Biden’s Private Fury,” Axios’ Alex Thompson reported that the president explodes at White House aides. “G– d— it, how the f–k don’t you know this?” Biden demands. To others, he screams, “Get the f–k out of here!” 
  • Despite multiple death threats, two home-trespassing incidents, and an armed impostor’s arrest at a campaign event, Biden has rejected Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s five requests for Secret Service protection. Never mind that his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963, nor that his father was fatally shot in 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian-Jordanian infuriated by RFK’s “sole support of Israel,” as Sirhan told British newsman David Frost. (Sound familiar?) Nice guys don’t expose their competitors to the risk of killing in cold blood.

Biden, 81, and De Niro, 80, deserve each other. They are a pair of mean, cranky, decaying leftists who gush anger, resentment, and hate at their political opponents.

In a word: Badfellas.  

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post ‘Badfellas’: Joe Biden and Robert De Niro, 2 Raging Peas in a Pod appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Many Reasons You Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Question Election Results

It’s been said that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.

Most of us remember the national election of 2020: The COVID-19 pandemic, sudden changes to election procedures, mysterious mail-in ballots, allegedly hacked voting systems, and legions of lawyers filing scores of lawsuits.

I think we all remember the aftermath in 2021, as well. Thousands of angry conservative voters traveled to Washington, D.C., and entered the Capitol to protest the certification of the election after a surprise upset led to Joe Biden becoming the president.

Then came the speculation: Did the Chinese hack voting machines to flip the vote in favor of Biden? Were countless mail-in ballots shoved into voting machines in the dead of night?

Was Joseph R. Biden really the most popular presidential candidate in United States history even after running his entire campaign from a basement in Delaware?

I’ve prosecuted election fraud cases, but I do not know the answer to any of those questions. That’s not what this article is about. It is about why you should never be afraid to question the results of an election.

‘I’m Not a Conspiracy Theorist, But … ’

Having been in the Texas Attorney General’s Election Integrity Division, I have had more than a few conversations with people who almost seem to feel guilty about talking to me about election concerns. They usually start out with the other person saying, “Well, I’m not a conspiracy theorist but …”

That additional qualifier has never surprised me, considering how many risks there are associated with questioning the results of elections.  

The moment anyone is in the vicinity of someone who claims an election was stolen, they risk becoming an “election denier.”

A few notable attorneys who filed election contests have been threatened with losing their license to practice law and even imprisonment. More than 500 of the 1,265 people who were arrested after marching on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 are—more than three years later—still awaiting trial for what may ultimately amount to a misdemeanor conviction.

The rest of us are constantly told by “experts” that there was nothing wrong with the 2020 election.

But what if those experts were wrong?

Reprimanding Fulton County

Recently, the Georgia State Elections Board voted 2-1 to reprimand Fulton County after finding significant issues with the vote tally in the 2020 presidential election. The board’s investigation concluded there had been over 140 separate violations of election laws and rules not only related to how Fulton County tallied the initial vote, but also how it conducted its recount.

It should be noted that the only vote against reprimanding Fulton County was from board member Janice Johnston and that was only because she felt the reprimand didn’t go far enough. She wanted a more comprehensive investigation conducted by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office.

Out of a plethora of issues in how the election was conducted, the investigation also found that there were more than 3,000 duplicate ballots scanned during the recount. The Georgia Secretary of State’s general counsel declared that it’s inconclusive whether or how many of the 3,000 duplicates were included in the tabulated results.

There were also more than 17,000 ballot images that are allegedly missing from the recount. 

Keep in mind that Fulton County’s initial hand recount shortly after the election awarded 1,300 additional votes to Trump, and while the current numbers would not change the outcome of the election, an open question of whether there are potentially more than 4,000 votes not properly accounted for in a swing state election that was decided by only 11,000 votes is—to say the least—problematic.

The Georgia secretary of state’s position appears to be that the initial count, the hand recount, and the machine recount are all relatively similar and therefore not a cause for alarm. When Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was asked directly about allegations of election fraud, he said, “No, the numbers are the numbers … . The numbers don’t lie.” 

That seems like a difficult conclusion to reach when his organization seems to not be sure what the numbers are.

It also somehow seems worse to imply that more than 140 violations of election laws were committed by the election administrator’s office for the state’s most populated county by incompetence rather than malfeasance.

Compare Raffensperger’s lack of enthusiasm with the efforts to remove Sidney Powell’s law license, or the criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump currently pending in Fulton County, both of which stem from the actions they took (or are alleged to have taken) in response to issues arising out of the way Fulton County ran the 2020 presidential election.

In fact, the results of Georgia’s inquiry stand in contrast to the popular talking point that Trump’s allegations were so spurious that even individuals in his own administration refuted his claims of election irregularity.

Internal Dissenters’ Willful Blindness

For example, Christopher Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security, who claimed on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.”  

Not only does it now seem that Krebs was wrong, but less than a month after making that statement, it was publicly reported that Krebs and his agency had been unaware of what could be one of the largest cyberattacks of our national infrastructure in history.

There was also then-Attorney General Bill Barr publicly declaring on Dec. 1, 2020, that the Department of Justice and the FBI had not uncovered evidence of “widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the election”—after an investigation he had called for only three weeks prior.

In Texas, after we received an allegation of election fraud, our team of investigators and attorneys—who are already familiar with Texas election law—would seek to contact the election administrator for the county the allegation originated from to obtain their records of the election. Those records were often voluminous and would take time to review.

We would then make attempts to speak to witnesses, including the voters, to determine whether there had been fraud or irregularities in the voting process. We would investigate whether those who cast suspicious ballots were qualified to vote, whether they typically voted by mail or in person, whether their vote in that election came from their listed home address or somewhere else, whether they are even aware a vote was cast in their name, and sometimes even whether they are alive or deceased.

Consider that there were 81,139 votes—in Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona, combined—which separated Trump from Biden in the election. Among those four states, there were approximately 12,883,742 total ballots cast. Neither of those numbers would include instances where ballots had been destroyed.

The time it took for Georgia to issue its findings on Fulton County alone took three years. At the time of Barr’s statement, the FBI only had a total of 13,245 special agents in the entire bureau, spread out across the United States and other parts of the world. Even if the Justice Department devoted all its resources and limited the scope of their investigations to the largest counties of those four states, it would have taken several weeks just to compile evidence, much less come to a definitive conclusion just for one of those states.

There is also the question whether Barr even wanted the Department of Justice to be involved. The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, William McSwain, claimed that Barr told him to stand down on investigating election fraud allegations, instead ordering him to refer any complaints to the state of Pennsylvania.

While Barr disputes McSwain’s account, other witnesses testified under oath to receiving the same guidance.

In December 2020 an “irate” Bill Barr called investigators looking into Jesse Morgan’s claim of hundreds of thousands of completed mail-in ballots hauled across state lines to “STAND DOWN”

“‘I told you you need to stand down on this.’

“[He was] agitated, to say the least.” pic.twitter.com/orzqQFL245

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) April 4, 2024

So, when Barr said he had not seen evidence sufficient to conclude that fraud would have changed the results of the election, it seems that is exactly what he meant. He hadn’t seen fraud that would change the outcome. That would be difficult to find for someone unfamiliar with election fraud—and not interested in looking for it.

So-Called Fact-Checkers’ Echo Chamber

Nevertheless, Barr’s statements are a common talking point for media “fact-checkers,” who are adamant that election fraud is a myth.  

Take for example how fact-checkers handled allegations of Jesse Morgan. Morgan was a post office contractor who claimed that 288,000 pre-filled ballots had been shipped into the state of Pennsylvania in trailer that somehow mysteriously vanished after being delivered to a post office.

As a former prosecutor, the fact that the investigation by the U.S. Postal Service and the FBI only concluded that Morgan’s claims could not be corroborated, while Morgan himself was never charged with making a false statement to a federal agent seems to me to mean that the investigation was inconclusive. That is, neither confirming, nor denying his account.

If that’s the case, then we are left with the notion there is no security camera footage, records, manifests, receipts or explanation for a missing post-office trailer allegedly containing 288,000 ballots that was left inside a secured post-office motor pool, or that it was just a shoddy investigation.

That didn’t stop the Dispatch and PolitiFact from concluding that Morgan’s allegations were false in their entirety based on the aforementioned sound bite from Barr, and the Postal Service’s largely redacted report.

More dubious fact-checks come from The New York Times. It fact-checked 15 separate statements from Trump about the 2020 election. In the interest of brevity, I’d like to go summarize what I personally took from just a few:

  • Trump claimed surprise ballot dumps changed the outcome of the election overnight. The Times fact-checked this as false, because there were just a lot of mail-in ballots that took a long time to count.
  • Trump claimed mail-in ballots were a corrupt system. Times fact-checkers concluded this was false, because experts say voter fraud is rare.
  • Trump claimed the recount in Georgia was meaningless because there was no signature verification. The Times concluded this was also false, before oddly explaining how signatures cannot be verified during recounts because ballots are separated from the carrier envelope that contains the voter’s identifying information.
  • Trump claimed the Pennsylvania secretary of state and the state Supreme Court abolished signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots. The Times said this was misleading, because the Pennsylvania State Election Code never required signature verification in the first place.
  • Trump claimed that in Georgia only 0.5% of ballots were rejected in 2020 compared with 5.77% in 2016. The Times said that was also misleading, because the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believes the 5% total increase in accepted ballots was likely just due to the addition of a curing mechanism for Georgia mail-in ballots.

Other popular rebuttals stem from the 2020 election contests. The 2020 general election was easily the most litigated in my lifetime. According to some news outlets, Trump and Republicans filed over 60 election challenges, losing almost all of them.

The results of the 2020 election cases always seem to be the easy way out of any debate over the election results. Why wouldn’t they be? The judges found there was no election fraud. Case closed.

Except they kind of didn’t.

Democratic Operatives and the ‘Steele Dossier’

For background, a large bulk of the work against the 2020 presidential election contests was done by the law firm of Marc Elias. Formerly of Perkins-Coie, Elias is notably famous (or infamous) for his involvement with the entirely debunked opposition research against Trump known as the Steele Dossier. Ironically, Elias also thinks Russians intervened in the 2016 election to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In addition to being at the forefront of litigating election lawsuits on behalf of Democrats, Elias’ law firm also seeks “favorable advisory opinions” from the Federal Election Commission on behalf of Democratic candidates. They are unashamedly pro-Democrat, and to put it mildly, they are very committed to what they do.

Elias’ win record speaks for itself, and I’m not discounting his firm’s successes, but the 2020 general election was an easy playing field. In election contests, “the tie goes to the runner,” and all he and his team have to do to win is make sure that none of the allegations of fraud in any of the election contests are considered sufficient to warrant discounting the results.

This was made all the easier because judges have a hard time with any case involving an election.

Legal Timeliness and Standing

Take for example Trump v. Biden, where the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Trump’s suit was barred by the legal doctrine of laches. That is to say that Trump’s allegations were reasonable, but the case had been brought too late for courts to act.

To quote the court, “the time to challenge election policies such as these is not after all ballots have been cast and the votes tallied.”

Essentially, a candidate shouldn’t wait to get cheated out of an election before they sue over it.

A similar result occurred in Kistner v. Simon in Minnesota. In that case, the petitioners filed their lawsuit within days of the postelection review, but the court concluded two claims were barred as they should have been brought before the election, and for the third claim, the court found the petitioners failed to provide service to the other county officials required by Minnesota election laws.

In Arizona’s Ward v. Jackson, the Arizona Supreme Court classified instances where a “duplicate ballot did not accurately reflect the voter’s apparent intent as reflected in the original ballot” as a mere error, and held that it did not believe there were enough of these “errors” to overturn the results of the election.

Also stated by the court: “Where an election is contested on the ground of illegal voting, the contestant has the burden of showing sufficient illegal votes were cast to change the result.” It is not enough to prove there was fraud, you must prove there was enough fraud to change the outcome.

In Donald J. Trump for President v. Way, the New Jersey federal district court declined to hear a challenge to the New Jersey governor’s executive order No. 177, which directed the state to send mail-in ballots to all registered voters and extended ballot counting to all ballots received up to 48 hours after the polls closed on Election Day.

After the suit was filed, the Democrat-controlled state legislature passed a bill codifying the governor’s decree, thereby making it law. One of the bill’s co-sponsors allegedly claimed that the bill’s purpose was to “undermine the Trump campaign’s lawsuit.”

Changing the Rules in the Middle of the Game

The court’s ruling in that case was that it would defer to the state on whether to suddenly change election rules in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sidney Powell’s suit in Wisconsin, Feehan v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, was dismissed after the court ruled a Wisconsin voter and potential elector lacked standing to contest the election process in Wisconsin. The federal District Court of the Middle District of Pennsylvania came to the same conclusion in Donald J. Trump for President Inc. v. Boockvar. The result was the same in Nevada in Donald J. Trump for President Inc. v. Cegavske.

Also from Nevada is my favorite postelection opinion by far, Law, et al. v. Whitmer, et. al. In that case, the judge stated that he considered witness declarations—typically statements submitted under the penalty of perjury—to be “hearsay of little or no evidentiary value,” citing that per Nevada’s election code, election contests “shall be tried and submitted so far as may be possible upon depositions … .”

At the time of this suit, America was still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and many courts were not even permitting contested hearings out of fear that several people in an enclosed space listening to live testimony could spread the virus.

That prohibition often extended to requests to take someone’s deposition, which was a hurdle I ran into in some of my own cases. Before reading this opinion, I would have thought that “so far as may be possible” under those circumstances would be broad enough to increase the viability of sworn statements to be presented as evidence. I would have been wrong.

Considering the court’s order only gave the contestants from Nov. 17 to Dec. 3 to gather their evidence and granted only 15 depositions to both sides, it’s not clear what evidence the judge expected them to be able to marshal.

I’m not insinuating there was bias, but it feels that way, reading the 10 paragraphs devoted to just bolstering the credibility of the defense expert compared to the five paragraphs the judge spends on the why he felt the entirety of the evidence presented by the other side was inadequate.

Procedural vs. Evidentiary Reasons

The bottom line is, a significant number of the election challenges brought in 2020 appear to have been thrown out for procedural reasons, rather than evidentiary ones. In the few cases where election fraud was discussed, the courts seemed to consistently hold that those bringing the case hadn’t shown enough fraud.  Just don’t tell the fact-checkers at Reuters that.

Going into the election of 2024, it’s not even clear who will be able to successfully contest a national election. Neither voters nor electors appear to have standing to contest an election in their own state, and at least a state attorney general and House Representatives do not have standing to challenge elections in other states. 

Those who do make it past the standing requirement only have weeks to depose as many witnesses as it takes to prove that enough fraudulent ballots were counted to change the result of the election.

If you’re unfamiliar with an election case, that could potentially mean finding thousands of fraudulent ballots in less time than it would take to contest a speeding ticket. Good luck with that. 

The silver lining in all of this is that a byproduct of the controversies surrounding the 2020 presidential election is that we are at least talking about it. And the public outcry has been substantial.

Once a niche topic, election integrity is now at the forefront of public discourse, and several states—including Georgia—are engaged in massive undertakings to identify vulnerabilities in their electoral process and have already taken steps to pass new laws seeking to prevent election integrity issues.  

When Texas ran into hurdles with its high criminal court declaring it was unconstitutional for Attorney General Ken Paxton to unilaterally prosecute election fraud, the voters responded by voting out three of the eight justices who signed on to the opinion, and they were the only three up for reelection.

I do not know what happened in 2020, and I don’t know what’s going to happen in 2024. But I do know election fraud exists, and it has been around for a long time. So long as there are ways to cheat the system to obtain power, there will be people seeking to take advantage of them.

I also know that behind every successful election challenge, investigation, prosecution, and legislation are individuals courageous enough to come forward and question the results when something seems off.

That courage is becoming less and less rare after 2020, and it will be a force to be reckoned with in 2024.

That’s why I encourage everyone to never be afraid to question the results of an election when they see something suspicious, and act on those suspicions.  

Maybe you win, maybe you lose, but the only way it will change is if you’re not afraid to talk about it.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post The Many Reasons You Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Question Election Results appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Trump Vows to Fight On Despite Conviction

Shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday, a New York jury brought the country to an unprecedented brink by finding Donald Trump guilty of financial fraud, making the former president a convicted felon for now (unless or until the conviction is overturned on appeal) and making the upcoming election a referendum, he now hopes, not just on his record against Joe Biden’s but the entire political system.

Republicans call it a miscarriage of justice; for Democrats, it’s proof that no one is above the law.

History will remember it as a new chapter: Donald J. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime.

“We didn’t do anything wrong. I am a very innocent man,” Trump told reporters after the verdict, dressed in his trademark blue suit and too-long tie at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York.

Then a familiar script as the former president embraced martyrdom, arguing that his conviction was part of a larger war for the soul of a nation.

“I’m fighting for our country. I’m fighting for our Constitution,” he said. “Our whole country is being rigged right now.”

Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a case stemming from “hush money” payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign. Each count carries a maximum prison term of four years.

Sentencing is scheduled for July 11, just four days before Trump is slated to accept the Republican presidential nomination for a third consecutive time.

Although questions abound about the fate of the former president and the nation, there is little to no chance Trump will end up behind bars before the end of the year. He is expected to remain free on bail pending appeal, a process that is not likely to be exhausted until well after Election Day.

The case now shifts to the appellate courts—as well as the proverbial court of public opinion.

Democrats have been desperate to cast the election as a rematch of Biden v. Trump with an emphasis on character, not a judgment on President Joe Biden’s first term in office. They may have gotten what they wanted.

“Donald Trump is a racist, a homophobe, a grifter, and a threat to this country,” said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. “He can now add one more title to his list—a felon.”

Sources close to the former president prefer a different description.

A senior Trump campaign official predicted weeks before the decision that a conviction would “make him the Nelson Mandela of America,” comparing Biden to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his imprisonment of political rival and late dissident Alexei Navalny.

The framework suits Trump, who blasted out an email fundraiser shortly after his conviction calling himself “a political prisoner,” arguing both that “justice is dead in America” and “our country has fallen.”

This kind of rhetoric, complete with comparisons of the U.S. to the Third World, is likely to accelerate in the weeks and months ahead. Both major presidential campaigns now argue that the other could end democracy.

“These people would do anything and everything to hold onto political power. They don’t care if they destroy our country in the process,” said the former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

Martyrdom has been a central theme of Trump’s return to politics. After his indictment in New York last year, the GOP nomination was practically a fait accompli and his campaign nearly told RealClearPolitics as much at the time. It is unclear whether that phenomenon will translate to a general election.

Court has not crippled Trump so far, however, and Biden has not surpassed his rival a single time this year in the RealClearPolitics Average of polls. Well aware of those numbers, the Biden campaign attempted to tamp down jubilation on the left over the bad legal news consuming the right. They warned that Trump still could win.

“There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box,” said Biden-Harris communications director Michael Tyler.

Ian Sams, spokesman for the White House counsel’s office reacted to the news by saying only, “We respect the rule of law, and have no additional comment.” By remaining silent, however, he ceded the spotlight to Trump, allowing his rival to shape the first 24 hours of the narrative.

[Biden didn’t comment until early Friday afternoon, when he noted before turning to the Israel-Hamas war that, “just like everyone else,” Trump will have an opportunity to appeal the verdict. The president added: “That’s how the American system of justice works. And it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”]

Nothing bars Trump from running for president as a felon. It is unclear, however, if he will be able to cast a vote for himself while his case goes through the appeal process.

A more immediate consequence of the trial ending: Trump’s schedule just opened up, and Trump can return to the campaign trail in earnest.

Sources in regular contact with the former president report that the prospect of prison has not cast a shadow over Trump personally. One told RealClearPolitics that Trump “sincerely believes” that divine providence now guides his steps and “that he has been chosen for a time such as this.”

Trump has six months to convince the country to return him to the White House, and in the most extreme circumstance, to preserve his freedom. Republicans were as bullish over those odds as they were angry.

“Today’s verdict from this partisan, corrupt, and rigged trial just guaranteed Trump’s landslide victory on Nov. 5, 2024,” Mike Davis, founder and president of the pro-Trump Article III Project, told RealClearPolitics.

Former Rep. Peter Meijer, a Michigan Republican who voted to impeach Trump, echoed that sentiment, warning that a conviction would backfire on Democrats. “The chain reaction will cause infinitely more damage than whatever they think they are preventing,” he told RCP.

The conviction created a tidal wave of donations as Trump began fundraising almost immediately after leaving court. The Trump campaign buckled briefly at the surge. The fundraising website, WinRed, temporarily crashed under the strain of heavy traffic.

“I’ll lose friends for this,” wrote Shaun Maguire in a lengthy post on X announcing his $300,000 donation to Trump. A partner at Sequoia Capital and a former Democratic donor, Maguire said that “lawfare” in part inspired his donation:

“Fairness is one of my guiding principles in life,” he said, “and simply, these cases haven’t been fair for Trump.”

Following the conviction, there was a discernable shift on the right among conservatives who normally argue that the judicial system ought to remain apolitical. Some Trump allies described the guilty verdict as “the Rubicon.”

Asked about the new Republican appetite to use the courts to go after political opponents, Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller told RCP that “the good guys must be as tough as the villains or freedom is doomed.”

The field of potential vice presidential candidates snapped to attention in their immediate condemnation of the conviction.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the verdict was “a complete travesty that makes a mockery of our system of justice.” Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, called it “election interference.” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said it was an “absolute injustice” that “erodes our justice system.”

“From the start, the weaponized scales of justice were stacked against President Trump. Joe Biden, far left Democrats, and their stenographers in the mainstream media have made it clear they will stop at nothing to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., in a lengthy statement to reporters.

“This lawfare should scare every American,” said a more succinct North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican. “The American people will have their say in November.”

The safest thing for any Republican elected official anywhere Thursday night was to attack the judicial system. Defending that institution, meanwhile, was verboten.

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a frequent Trump critic now running for Senate, appeared to miss the memo when he shared a statement calling for GOP leaders to “reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.”

Replied Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump adviser dispatched to oversee the Republican National Conventio: “You just ended your campaign.”

The most common sentiment among Trump’s close circle of advisers and friends was that something had changed permanently, not in the former president personally but in the country.

“Today marks a turning point,” said Brooke Rollins, who led Trump’s Domestic Policy Council before launching the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank often described as a Trump White House in waiting. “I see it as a fire that has been lit. I see the sleeping giant of the American people awakened.”

On the second day of jury deliberations, Trump had kept up appearances with a smile. A verdict was not expected Thursday, and by the afternoon, Judge Juan Merchan was preparing to dismiss the jury for the day.

The foreman replied instead that the jury had reached a verdict. He read each of the 34 charges and followed by a one-word pronouncement: “guilty.”

A smile turned to a grimace, and Trump, surrounded by his defense team, stared forward stone-faced as he listened to the verdict and American history. He vowed in brief remarks to reporters afterward that he would “fight till the end and we’ll win because our country’s gone to hell.”

It was like so many of the pronouncements he has made after so many of the other controversies that have defined his political life. It was also different. A loss, if the conviction stands, could mean prison.

Rollins predicted that Trump would persevere, as he has before.

“From my perspective,” she said, “it is almost biblical to see this sort of courage and leadership and unwillingness to back down even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.”

The post Trump Vows to Fight On Despite Conviction appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Manhattan Borough Pres.: Dems Need to Focus on 'Real-World Issues' Like Crime, Immigration

On Wednesday’s “CNN News Central,” Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine (D) stated that “as much as I am alarmed at what a Trump victory would mean for our democracy,” “that is not moving swing working-class voters. What I’m hearing from

The post Manhattan Borough Pres.: Dems Need to Focus on ‘Real-World Issues’ Like Crime, Immigration appeared first on Breitbart.

Sen. Katie Britt: Democrats Block 'Laken Riley Act' in Senate, Again

Senate Democrats have again blocked the "Laken Riley Act," which would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take into custody illegal aliens arrested, charged, or convicted for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.

The post Sen. Katie Britt: Democrats Block ‘Laken Riley Act’ in Senate, Again appeared first on Breitbart.

Illinois Democrats Dumping the Term 'Offender' for 'Justice-Impacted Individual' in State Law

Illinois Democrats are pushing a bill that will change how criminals are described in state laws and codes with a proposal that would end the use of the word "offender" and replace it with the term "justice-impacted individual."

The post Illinois Democrats Dumping the Term ‘Offender’ for ‘Justice-Impacted Individual’ in State Law appeared first on Breitbart.

Up to 2.7 Million Noncitizens Could Vote Illegally in November, Study Warns

A new study has revealed that roughly 10% to 27% of noncitizens living in the U.S. are illicitly registered to vote, which could result in up to 2.7 million illegal votes being cast in the November elections.

Experts say the significant amount of potential illegal votes could be enough to alter election results.

The study, released last week by the research institute Just Facts, notes that the 2022 U.S. census recorded approximately 19 million adult noncitizens living in the country. “Given their voter registration rates, this means that about 2 million to 5 million of them are illegally registered to vote,” the report observes. “These figures are potentially high enough to overturn the will of the American people in major elections, including congressional seats and the presidency.”

On Tuesday, James Agresti, president of Just Facts, joined “Washington Watch” to discuss the scope of noncitizens casting ballots and the implications of the study’s findings.

“[T]here are very broad openings for noncitizens to vote,” he explained, adding:

In no state in the nation are they required to provide proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote. Now, a couple of states like Arizona tried to enact that requirement, but they were blocked by a court ruling supported by the Obama administration.

And if you look at the federal voter-registration form, it says you can submit all different forms of ID to register. That could be a Social Security number; it could be a driver’s license number; or it could just be a utility bill.

I mean, these are things that anyone can get by living here. They do not prove you’re a U.S. citizen.

And more than that, a lot of noncitizens have faked Social Security numbers, especially illegal immigrants. That’s what they do to work. A recent estimate by the Social Security Administration tallied 2.5 million noncitizens who had Social Security numbers gained by using fake birth certificates or stealing those numbers from somebody else.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and board member of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, concurred. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)

“[T]he problem is, states aren’t doing very much to verify citizenship, so it’s extremely easy for someone who’s not a citizen to register to vote and to vote in elections,” he remarked during Monday’s edition of “Washington Watch.”

“And when that is discovered, oftentimes nothing is done about it.”

Agresti went on to point out the effect that lax enforcement of citizen verification could have in November. “[B]ased on the latest available data, approximately 1 million to 2.7 million noncitizens are going to vote in the upcoming presidential election unless something changes. And that is more than enough to tip the results of congressional races, Senate races, and yes, the U.S. presidency.”

Von Spakovsky echoed Agresti’s concerns. “[I]t doesn’t matter whether they’re black or white, Asian or Hispanic. It doesn’t matter which political party they support. Every time an alien illegally votes, that alien is voiding, negating the vote of a citizen, no matter which political party they support,” he contended. “And the Democrats just don’t seem to want to understand that or to basically ignore it.”

Agresti further reflected on the motivations behind the Democrats’ opposition to efforts to improve election integrity.

“[I]t’s always hard to read people’s minds, but I can tell you this: The vast bulk of these noncitizens are voting for Democrats. According to the best data we have, about 80% of them will vote for Democrats when they vote illegally. And Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to prevent any kind of checking of people’s citizenship. It does benefit them. Is that their reasoning? It’s an obvious incentive, but I can’t read their minds.”

Earlier this month, House Republicans attempted to address the issue by introducing a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and would remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls. But Agresti expressed doubt about the bill’s chances of passage. “My guess is it will move in the House and die in the Senate, but that’s just an educated guess. And again, even if somehow it got through the Senate, there’s no way [President] Joe Biden’s signing that bill.”

“However,” he added, “I do think in the aftermath of the election, and we hate to have a repeat of 2020, that there should be some accountability, some lawsuits that demand proof that people are who they say they are in tight races. None of that was secured in the last round of election lawsuits, and it needs to be there.”

Agresti concluded by urging candidates involved in tight elections to demand verification that only citizens voted. “A candidate has to make a plea and say, ‘Hey, I want this data to prove that these people who are registered and voted actually are citizens.’”

Originally published at WashingtonStand.com

The post Up to 2.7 Million Noncitizens Could Vote Illegally in November, Study Warns appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Carter Page Finds Trump Trial Eerily Familiar

Déjà vu.

That phrase captures Carter Page’s reaction as he walks through lower Manhattan. The Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse, the Jacob Javits Federal Building, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office all remind the former Trump campaign adviser of various moments in his career—from intern for New York’s now-deceased Democratic U.S. senator to foreign-intelligence source to the victim of fraudulent FBI spying.

What Page finds most eerily familiar is the bookkeeping-entry trial of President Donald Trump, which he observed in person. Page considers the scene in Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom just the latest episode in the relentless persecution of the former president and his supporters.

This began virtually the day that the real-estate magnate declared his presidential candidacy.

“The [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] abuse/international spy scandal that prominent [Democratic National Committee] operatives and senior officials of the Obama-Biden administration designed to take out President Trump in his first political campaign remains largely unresolved,” Page tells me exclusively. “For more than seven years, we have continued to fight against the corrupt U.S. Department of Justice and the Democrat Party’s operatives who have largely dominated these continued dishonest attacks against President Trump, myself, and so many others.” 

Page recalls “the original witch hunt” that began in 2016. Left-wing pro-Hillary Clinton operatives at the CIA, DOJ, and throughout the Deep State—not least then-FBI officials James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok—spied on Trump’s campaign, snooped on his advisers, raided their homes, sentenced some to prison, and locked up others.

“Believe it or not, people have families,” Page says. “Think of the impact that this has had on President Trump’s family, Gen. Michael Flynn’s family, my own, and so many others. All of this chaos tore families apart. But on the other hand, it also pulled families together. That’s why I was so very moved to see Eric Trump here to support his father.”

Page waited in line to enter the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building, along with scores of journalists eager to cover New York v. Trump. Page and other citizens sat beside the Fourth Estate and marveled at this unprecedented scenario.

“Although Fox News and a few other conservative media outlets maintain a limited presence in Courtroom 1530, the vast majority of enthusiastic attendees who fill the benches at 100 Centre Street are the same mainstream outlets that pushed the false Russia collusion hoax, from late in the 2016 election through the first three years of the first Trump administration,” Page says. “Just as the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was unsuccessfully used as an early prop to ‘get Trump,’ this court in lower Manhattan is the latest front line in this ongoing assault on American democracy.”

Trump’s defenders have questioned Merchan’s objectivity in this matter, given his political donations to President Joe Biden and a PAC called Stop Republicans, as well as his daughter’s management of a political consultancy that runs digital ads and raises money for Democratic candidates and causes.

Page, however, gives Merchan the benefit of the doubt. He believes that the jurist displayed common decency by excusing Trump to attend his son Barron’s graduation from Palm Beach’s Oxbridge Academy last Friday.

Like most Americans, Page is eager to see whether a jury from Manhattan—which voted 86.4% for Joe Biden—will “Get Trump,” no matter what, or whether District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s crumbling case will make them gag. If so, perhaps through gritted teeth, they just might acquit Trump of these so-far unproven charges.

Either way, Page, a Naval Academy alumnus and foreign-energy expert, understands the moral of this story.

“The main lesson is that we need to start fighting much more strongly,” Page says. “President Trump and each of us other crime victims have certainly learned this the hard way. Equally important, we must be ready to call out the Democrats’ continued election interference campaigns, especially now, as their assault on American democracy has reached new levels with this latest ongoing show trial.”

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

The post Carter Page Finds Trump Trial Eerily Familiar appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Biden Education Department Shared Activists’ Memo on Mobilizing Dem-Leaning Voters

Biden administration officials circulated and discussed a memo authored by a coalition of liberal groups aimed at getting more college students to participate in elections as part of the Education Department’s presidentially ordered voter-registration efforts, newly surfaced emails show.

Groups that donated millions to elect Democrats and are funded by major liberal donors submitted a list of recommendations to the Education Department in 2021 outlining ways the department could get college students, a historically liberal demographic, to vote more, according to emails obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. [Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.]

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The memo recommended that the Education Department include a voter registration option on its college financial aid application, use resources to make students aware of vote-by-mail opportunities, and allow universities to use federal work-study to pay students for nonpartisan election work.

The coalition of groups sent its memo in response to President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order directing federal agencies to promote voter registration, education, and participation, offering recommendations on how to implement it.

Nick Lee, deputy assistant secretary for higher education, shared the memo with Annmarie Weisman, another deputy assistant secretary, and Gregory Martin, another department official, emails show. Lee explained to Weisman and Martin that he had been discussing ways to implement Biden’s executive order with an Education Department policy director and that he was willing to speak further on the topic.

Lee also shared the memo with members of the Education Department’s Office of the General Counsel, again explaining that the department was in the process of finalizing responses to Biden’s voting executive order, emails show.

The Biden administration may have been receptive to at least one of the recommendations the coalition of left-of-center groups offered.

In April 2022, the Education Department clarified that universities could pay students with federal work-study funds to engage in election-related work. Although students may be compensated for voter registration work, they cannot be paid using federal funds “for work involving partisan or nonpartisan political activity, including party-affiliated voter registration activities, as this is expressly prohibited,” the department said.

In February, the Education Department expanded on the specific work that federal funds could cover, stating that “supporting broad-based get-out-the-vote activities, voter registration, providing voter assistance at a polling place or through a voter hotline or serving as a poll worker” were all acceptable.

Although Biden’s executive order stresses that agencies should tap “nonpartisan third-party organizations” to aid with voter registration efforts, the effects of registering more college students to vote could be a boon for the Democratic Party.

A September 2020 poll found that 70% of college students said they would vote for Biden in that year’s election, compared to just 18% who said they would vote for then-President Donald Trump. Strong turnout among college students in 2022 helped Democrats pull off a better-than-expected midterm election performance, NPR reported.

Heading into the November presidential election, Biden’s reelection campaign is seeking to mobilize college students.

The president held a 23-point lead over Trump among college students heading into the election, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics poll conducted in March.

The groups that sought to push the Education Department to mobilize more college voters themselves have ties to the Democratic Party.

The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, for instance, are both signatories of the memo and have spent millions of dollars to help elect Democrats through their political action committees, Federal Election Commission records show. Both groups endorsed Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary season and historically have supported the Democratic Party.

New America Foundation, which signed on to the memo through its education program, has received extensive support from the Soros family’s philanthropic network, pulling in millions since 2016, according to a grant database. George Soros himself has donated massive sums to Democrats and is one of the largest figures in the left-of-center philanthropic world.

The Voter Participation Center, another group that signed on to the memo, has received over $1 million from nonprofits managed by Arabella Advisors, tax filings show

Arabella Advisors is a consultancy firm that manages a network of nonprofits that spend millions every year on efforts to help liberal groups and Democrats.

The Voter Participation Center on its website claims to work diligently to mobilize members of the “New American Majority,” which includes people of color and unmarried women, to register to vote and cast ballots.

Republicans have taken issue with the Biden administration’s approach to using federal resources to juice voter participation.

“We have concerns about the lack of constitutional and statutory authority for federal agencies to engage in any activity outside the agency’s authorized mission, including federal voting access and registration activities,” a May 13 letter from the House Oversight Committee sent to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young reads.

The Education Department, New America, the Voter Participation Center, the National Education Association, and the American Federation of Teachers didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

The post Biden Education Department Shared Activists’ Memo on Mobilizing Dem-Leaning Voters appeared first on The Daily Signal.

D.C.'s Democrat Mayor Heading to Las Vegas on 'Economic Mission'

Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) is heading to Las Vegas for an "economic mission" after enjoying the Masters golf tournament in Georgia on the taxpayer's dime.

The post D.C.’s Democrat Mayor Heading to Las Vegas on ‘Economic Mission’ appeared first on Breitbart.

The Truth About the 1968 Democrat Convention

Will we see a repeat this summer of the infamous 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention that devolved into chaos and anarchy? This year’s convention is, like 1968, set to take place in Chicago and social unrest is percolating on the Left, to say the least.

In a recent interview on Fox News, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn.—who challenged President Joe Biden in the Democratic Party presidential primary—said that given our current course of events, history is likely to repeat itself.

“I’m afraid this is looking awfully like 1968 with a lot of anger and angst and disenfranchisement that I think are going to play out on TV this summer, and it’s going to be awfully contentious,” Phillips said on Wednesday.

In 1968, anti-Vietnam War and various other far-left protesters descended on the Windy City to protest the party’s presidential nominating convention.

Illinois delegates hold a banner touting Chicago Mayor Richard Daley on the convention floor on Aug. 29, 1968, the final day of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. (Photo: Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

The situation escalated when then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, a Democrat, had enough and unleashed the Chicago Police Department on the protesters.

The media at the time strongly criticized the Chicago Police Department, but many Americans strongly sympathized with the authorities, who desperately sought to restore order. The events of the convention likely swayed a lot of voters concerned about violent radicals taking over their cities. Many in the media sided with the protesters, while the American people largely sided with the police.

Democratic Party delegates hold placards at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago in August of that year. (Photo: Archive Photos/Getty Images)

The chaos was likely one of the reasons Republican Richard Nixon defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey in November 1968. Preelection chaos created by the Left led to the “silent majority” delivering Nixon a resounding victory.

Given the protests we’ve seen across the country in recent months and the pressure the Left is putting on Democrats over Israel’s war in Gaza, it’s hard not to think that this year’s Democratic convention could see similar protests.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has said that safety is a “top priority” for the convention, but he’s hardly the law-and-order mayor that Daley was. In fact, Johnson has supported defunding the police, has openly sympathized with the anti-Israel protesters, and even made it clear that he’s nothing like Daley.

As my colleague Tony Kinnett noted, Johnson has said he’s a different kind of Democrat. In a certain sense, Johnson’s attitude is a sign that in the long-term, the New Left factions that protested in Chicago in 1968 “won.” (More on that later.)

While prominent Democrats and members of the media insist that 2024 won’t be like 1968, it’s difficult not to see that a storm is potentially brewing.

There have already been significant protests at Chicago universities, pro-Palestine groups have sprung up around the city (some spouting chants like “Death to America!”), and a large group of anti-Israel protesters raised a Palestinian flag near where the Democratic convention is set to take place Aug. 19-22. 

There’s no question that Democrats are already getting nervous about what might happen.

The 1968 convention was a seminal moment in both the history of the Democratic Party and the United States. It signaled a long-term takeover of the party and various other institutions by the New Left. 

Given that the comparisons will continue to be made, it’s worth looking back at what happened 56 years ago.

New Left Organizes to Sow Chaos

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson had elected not to seek a second term despite winning a landslide in 1964. Even though the Vietnam War had been conducted by Democratic presidents, the party had turned in an antiwar direction. This became a flashpoint for a party that had become increasingly divided.

The common narrative of the Chicago Democratic National Convention in the years that followed was that it was a “mostly peaceful” protest of the Vietnam War, broken up by a brutish and out-of-control Chicago police force.

That’s not exactly accurate.

The reality is that the well-organized protesters were looking to pick a fight to bolster their cause, as historian Stephen F. Hayward described in his book, “The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980.”

“The Chicago police reacted to a calculated provocation,” Hayward wrote. “And, like the case of fighting schoolchildren, where the second child to strike a blow is the one usually caught by the teacher, the media caught the police reaction and attributed it as the cause of the violence.”

Hayward explained how plans to disrupt the convention began as early as December 1967 and were the product of three main groups.

Those groups were the Youth International Party, or the “Yippies”; the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, or “Mobe”; and the Students for a Democratic Society, the SDS. The factions had slightly different agendas for what they wanted to pull off in Chicago.

The Mobe generally wanted a peaceful protest to take place, though it wasn’t exactly averse to causing mayhem—and potentially, violence.

“It would be a mistake to think that the fight against the war can be won in the ballot box,” said Mobe leader David Dellinger. “It still has to be won on the streets.”

The Yippies wanted something more like a giant street festival. They announced a plan to put LSD in the Chicago water supply. Chlorine treatment of the water would have neutralized any threat to the Chicago population, but the Chicago police took the threat seriously enough to put officers in front of the city’s filtration plants.

The Students for a Democratic Society were looking for a fight. Hayward noted that the reasons the SDS was looking to ratchet up violence is that they saw liberal antiwar presidential candidates like Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy as a threat.

For leaders of this movement and others on the far Left, the entire American system needed to be overthrown. They weren’t looking for peace in Vietnam; they were looking to overturn the American way of life and government.

While the three factions plotted different tactics to achieve their goals, they were nevertheless united behind a larger agenda.

They wanted to sow chaos as much as possible so that they could eventually shove their more moderate cohorts on the Left aside and take the reins of power. They wanted to agitate, disrupt, and put the most pressure possible on Democrats to bend to their will.

Humphrey frequently mentioned on the campaign trail that he wanted to bring the “politics of joy” to the country. The activists were having none of it.

“We are coming to Chicago to vomit on the ‘politics of joy,’” SDS leader Tom Hayden wrote before the convention, “to expose the secret decisions, upset the nightclub orgies, and face the Democratic Party with its illegitimacy and criminality.”

Days of Rage

Given the other events of 1968, it isn’t hard to see why the Democratic convention became a mess in hindsight.

Two riots had already taken place in Chicago earlier in the year. Civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot in April and Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June.

Many college campuses had been in turmoil in the spring. Student protesters had practically shut down Columbia University and occupied Hamilton Hall before being cleared out by the New York Police Department in late April. Yes, I’m still talking about 1968 here, not 2024.

By August, the mood was still deeply unsettled. The Democratic race came down to Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine. While the party had conceded a great deal to the antiwar wing, it wasn’t nearly enough to appease the activists.

There were late attempts to move the convention to Miami, but they didn’t come to fruition. Johnson, who remained a powerful influence in the party, was alleged to have said that “Miami is not an American city.” The show went on.

The 1968 convention was set to take place for four days in Chicago’s International Amphitheater, starting on Aug. 26. Before the events kicked off, protesters began gathering in the city.

Daley was hesitant to issue permits to the protesters, but consented to let them gather miles from the convention in Lincoln Park. He then changed his mind and ordered Chicago police to implement an 11 p.m. curfew.

Again, while many of the about 12,000 protesters who showed up in the city likely wanted to conduct a peaceful protest, the organizers knew that it would be easy to manipulate the situation to initiate violence.

More from Hayward:

[H]ard-core leaders of the Left knew it would be easy to manipulate the situation into a violent confrontation with police—and be able to blame the police. 

Chicago’s police were notoriously aggressive toward protesters and rioters. [Daley] had famously ordered his police to “shoot to kill” arsonists and looters during the riots that followed King’s assassination in April. (It should be noted, however, that no one was shot during the convention riots.)

Once the protesters had been pushed out of Lincoln Park, all hell began to break loose as the protesters violently clashed with police, who used tear gas and billy clubs to disperse the crowd.

It wasn’t just police clashing with the protesters. Daley brought thousands of National Guardsmen into the city, too, with the governor’s consent.

Violence continued to ramp up around the city as the protesters continued to clash with police, and members of the media got caught up in the melee.

Aug. 28 saw the most significant day of violence at the so-called “Battle of Michigan Avenue,” which was televised live. That night, Humphrey secured the nomination as police clashed with protesters who had attempted to march on the convention.

Authorities put up barricades around the convention site and tightened up security even further for the final day of the convention, where protesters twice tried to get into the convention hall, but were rebuffed.

Hundreds of protesters and police officers suffered injuries during the scrums and authorities arrested more than 650 people.

Though many prominent Democrats blamed Daley for the violence that took place, Daley naturally disagreed.

He argued that calling on the police and National Guard was necessary to suppress people who were intentionally creating violence and disorder. 

Daley gave a speech addressing what had happened.

“In the heat of emotion and riot, some policemen may have overreacted,” he said. “But to judge the entire police department by the alleged action of a few would be just as unfair as to judge our entire young generation by the action of this mob.”

Daley further said that while he didn’t condone any violent actions, he also would not permit a “group of violent terrorists to menace the lives of millions of people, destroy the purpose of this national convention, or take over the streets of Chicago.”

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley confers with President John F. Kennedy, a fellow Democrat, in the Oval Office of the White House on July 11, 1962. Daley was still mayor six years later during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. (Photo: Arnie Sachs/CNP/Getty Images)

The Aftermath

SDS leader Hayden said that the result of the Chicago protests was “100% victory in propaganda” and said he hoped that what happened in Chicago would be repeated around the country whenever Humphrey showed up at a campaign stop.

From the perspective of the New Left activists, the chaos was seen as a victory. The fact that several prominent members of the media were injured in the events was a bonus that would lead to sympathy and positive coverage for their cause, or so they said.

But attitudes around the country were hardly universal. Most Americans sided with Daley and the police over the activists, and many thought the police should have been even more proactive.

“A poll taken shortly after the riots found that 71 percent of Americans thought Chicago’s security measures were justified; 57 percent thought the police had not used excessive force, while 25 percent thought the police had not used enough force,” Hayward wrote.

In a sense, both the activists and their most stalwart opponents benefited politically from the Chicago convention.

The moderate wing of the Democratic Party continued to lose power and influence. The party was forever changed by what had transpired, and popular narratives took hold that the activists were on the right side of history, while the authorities were simply reactionaries.

On the flip side, a rising coalition on the Right—fed up with the urban chaos and intentional agitation—would deliver the White House in a landslide to Nixon.

The post The Truth About the 1968 Democrat Convention appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Will Democrats Pay a Price for Their Crumbling Lawfare Strategy Against Trump?

President Joe Biden, who wears bespoke sneakers to prevent embarrassing collapses and whose command of the English language rivals that of most kindergartners, is in bad political shape. 

It is unsurprising that Democrats have resorted to some of the slimiest tactics imaginable to derail President Donald Trump’s comeback bid and push their senile octogenarian across the November finish line. Properly skeptical of their chances to topple Trump in a fair mano-a-mano, the Democrat-lawfare complex in 2023 conjured up four separate criminal prosecutions—two federal probes and two state probes—targeting the 45th president. After all, if you can’t beat him, then … prosecute and incarcerate him! All in the name of “our democracy,” naturally.

Suffice it to say that the Democrat-lawfare complex’s brazen, cynical attempt to subvert our constitutional order in the name of saving it has not gone according to plan.

In Washington, D.C., Special Counsel Jack Smith’s crown-jewel case against Trump, pertaining to the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 jamboree at the U.S. Capitol, has been interrupted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices stepped in to assess the thorny constitutional question of the scope of immunity from criminal prosecution for former presidents, and a decision is not expected until late June.

The most likely result is a mixed opinion that holds some “core” Article II presidential functions are immune from post-presidency prosecution, but other acts are not. This would require a remand to the trial court for fact-finding to determine which legal category the acts in Smith’s indictment fall into. That trial court finding could then be appealed, too. There is virtually no chance Smith can wrap this all up before November.

In Florida, Smith’s other federal case has not been more successful. The Florida prosecution, pertaining to Trump’s post-presidency handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, had at least some potential on the legal merits. But Smith wildly overplayed his hand by charging Trump with violating the controversial World War I-era Espionage Act, and the proceedings have frequently been set back due to the strenuous demands of the Classified Information Procedures Act—a 1980 statute first introduced in the Senate, ironically, by then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

Recently, Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely postponed the trial start date, which had initially been scheduled for May 20. There is again little to no chance Smith can reach a jury before November.

The case in Fulton County, Georgia, which once seemed the most perilous of them all due to Georgia’s sprawling Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the far-left Atlanta jury pool, and the potential for high-profile prosecution witnesses, has gone totally off the rails. Ever since January, the only questions in the case have not been substantive legal issues such as whether Trump oversaw a grand conspiracy to “overturn an election,” but tabloid fodder such as whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her illicit extramarital lover and appointed special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, are too compromised to bring the case.

The trial court’s finding that only one of them must recuse is now pending before a Georgia appellate court, and it is likely the Supreme Court of Georgia will weigh in, too. This case isn’t reaching a jury before November, either.

That leaves the ongoing drama in New York City, where a literal porn “star” (Stormy Daniels) and a convicted felon (Michael Cohen) are aiding the George Soros-funded prosecutor’s case of … well, he hasn’t exactly told us what it is. We surmise the case entails alleged New York State fraudulent bookkeeping charges in furtherance of a federal campaign finance law violation—which doesn’t even fall into the local district attorney’s jurisdiction.

The prosecution is about to rest its case, and we don’t even know for sure what the actual black-letter legal case is. On Thursday, the “star witness” convicted felon’s testimony was so bad that far-left CNN anchor Anderson Cooper remarked: “I think if I was a juror in this case watching that, I would think this guy is making it up as he’s going along.”

Brutal.

The Democrats’ strategy is failing. But it is up to the American people to make them pay for it.

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. 

The post Will Democrats Pay a Price for Their Crumbling Lawfare Strategy Against Trump? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Trump Says He's Making a 'Heavy Move into Minnesota'

Former President Donald Trump is making a "heavy move into Minnesota," hoping to flip the state red after it has consistently voted blue in the presidential election since 1976.

The post Trump Says He’s Making a ‘Heavy Move into Minnesota’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto Lobbies Biden for Amnesty After Illegal Alien Charged with Killing Her Staffer

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), along with other Senate Democrats, is again lobbying President Joe Biden to take executive action in giving amnesty to some illegal aliens living in the United States. Cortez Masto's renewed push for such legislation comes a month after one of her staffers was killed allegedly by an illegal alien.

The post Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto Lobbies Biden for Amnesty After Illegal Alien Charged with Killing Her Staffer appeared first on Breitbart.

This Liberal Donor Pushes Left-Leaning Groups to Fund Efforts to Turn Out Voters

An influential left-of-center donor’s charity has launched an initiative compelling other philanthropies to pour money into voter-mobilization efforts for this fall’s elections.

Democracy Fund, founded and funded by liberal philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, has rallied 174 organizations and individuals pledging to expedite disbursement of grants related to get-out-the-vote operations and other efforts.

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The pledge called on signatories either to make the bulk of their election-related donations by the end of April, to “move up” disbursements scheduled for later in the year, or to streamline grant approval processes.

Alex Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the liberal dark money giant Arabella Advisors, Tides, and Democrat megadonor Susan Pritzker are among the major left-of-center philanthropic players to sign the pledge.

Omidyar, who founded eBay and has become a prolific investor, is worth over $10.9 billion, according to Bloomberg. Omidyar gave roughly $1.2 billion through various charitable arms to an array of primarily left-of-center causes between 2004 and 2020, according to a Capital Research Center report.

In 2020, Omidyar gave the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a sprawling Democrat-aligned political outfit, $45 million to support its Civic Action Fund project, a now-defunct voter-turnout initiative that focused on “empower[ing] those typically underrepresented in our democratic process” by ensuring they voted in 2020. The group collaborated with liberal politicians and activists to organize local get-out-the-vote efforts targeting low-propensity voters, according to Influence Watch.

In explaining his donation to Civic Action Fund, Omidyar cited the importance of “supporting local voter outreach and engagement of young people and people of color.” Young people and minority voters favor the Democratic Party by considerable margins, with voters 18 to 29 and all nonwhite constituencies favoring President Joe Biden by double digits in 2020, according to a CNN exit poll.

Civic Action Fund was active in 14 states, including the key states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, during the 2020 election season, according to its website. The group had staffers with ties to notable Democrats such as former President Barack Obama and former Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, according to Influence Watch.

Many of the signatories of Democracy Fund’s “All by April” pledge have clear ideological slants.

Alex Soros, son of influential liberal financier George Soros, has described himself as “more political” than his father.

Arabella manages a network of nonprofits that pours tens of millions into liberal causes every year. 

Tides comprises a variety of organizational arms, including one of the largest pass-through organizations for liberal philanthropists. And Pritzker has donated millions to Democratic and otherwise left-of-center political committees.

Arabella’s nonprofit network and the Soros family’s philanthropic ventures have dropped large sums on election spending.

Arabella’s nonprofits spent more than $62 million on voter registration and mobilization efforts during 2022, a midterm election year.

Much of the Arabella network’s spending also focused on getting Democrat-friendly demographics to the polls. New Venture Fund, one of Arabella’s arms, gave millions to the Voter Registration Project, a group “commissioned” by veteran Democratic operative John Podesta that, according to Influence Watch, “targets African-American, Latino, Native American, low-income, and other voter groups likely to lean left-of-center.”

The Soros philanthropic empire also gave millions to the Voter Registration Project between 2016 and 2022. The project’s efforts in 2020 netted Biden between 1 million and 2.7 million votes, according to a Capital Research Center report.

Open Society Policy Center, part of the broader Soros network, gave $1.4 million to the Voto Latino Action Fund in 2022. The organization focuses on registering Latino voters and loosening voting laws, according to its website.

High voter turnout among Latinos was among the reasons Democrats outperformed expectations during the 2022 midterm elections, according to Politico.

“Voter registration nonprofits are nothing more than a cost-effective way to achieve partisan electioneering results for Democrats while keeping the donors totally anonymous and giving them a tax write-off for their troubles,” Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at Capital Research Center, previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Democracy Fund, Arabella, Tides, and Open Society Foundations did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

The post This Liberal Donor Pushes Left-Leaning Groups to Fund Efforts to Turn Out Voters appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Smartest Thing a Liberal Said Last Week

(Steven Hayward)

The Biden Administration’s diplomacy with Israel over its war against Hamas has reached the Animal House “double-secret probation” stage, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning Israel that it may find itself diplomatically “isolated” in the world if it attacks Rafah. Is it possible for Israel to be any more “isolated” than it already is in the joke that is called “the diplomatic community”? Dean Wormer could hardly have done it better, though, to be fair to Faber College, Dean Wormer would make a better secretary of state than Blinken.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Hoodie) is having none of it:

I’m starting to think that instead of banning hoodies on the Senate floor, maybe we should require them. At least for Democrats.

Chaser—I’m finding it harder to dislike this guy for his otherwise liberal views:

dibs on your parking space https://t.co/o9QUhIbKyF

— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) March 21, 2024

Chaser—Fetterman does have some competition this week, from the Ragin’ Cajun himself, James Carville: “A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females [dominating the culture of the Democratic Party].”

Bobbing along

(Scott Johnson)

In his opening statement to the House Oversight Committee earlier this week, the glorious Mr. Tony Bobulinski torched Reps. Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin:

We keep hearing from certain corners that our “democracy is at risk” and that “democracy is on the ballot in 2024,” yet the same people preaching this mantra, who know better, continue to lie directly to the American people without hesitation or remorse. Representatives Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin, both lawyers, and Mr. Goldman a former prosecutor with the Southern District of New York, will continue to lie today in this hearing and then go straight to the media to tell more lies.

Mr. B., long may you run.

Professor Jonathan Turley takes it from there in the (highly recommended) Fox News column that he has now posted at his personal site: “The Dripping Away of the Democratic Party: Sir Thomas More and the Biden Corruption Scandal.” In the introduction to the column posted on his site, Professor Turley writes (links omitted): “Various members misrepresented my earlier testimony during the hearing on the basis for the impeachment inquiry. Members like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) stated that I joined other witnesses in saying that there was nothing that could remotely be impeachable in these allegations. That is demonstrably untrue. My testimony stated the opposite.”

What about Goldman? You can’t leave him out:

Rep. Dan Goldman, D., N.Y., captured the problem for Democrats in even addressing any of the mounting evidence contradicting the president. Yet, Goldman has long shown a willingness to rush in where angels fear to tread.

In previous attacks, Goldman repeatedly hit the Bidens with friendly fire when eliciting damaging answers from witnesses. Goldman has a habit of raising the worst evidence that his colleagues have avoided. In one hearing, he stumbled badly in raising the WhatsApp message where Hunter told a Chinese businessman that his father was sitting next to him and would not be pleased unless he sent him money. On another occasion, he prompted an IRS whistleblower to note that an email Goldman read into the record was actually a direct contradiction of the denials of the president.

In the latest misstep, Goldman pressed former Biden partner Tony Bobulinski on a proposal shared with Hunter and others to reserve 10% for “the Big Guy.” In other emails, Bobulinski was told to use such codes to avoid mentioning Joe Biden’s name. He was expressly identified as “the Big Guy.” Video

Goldman snapped at Bobulinski, “Did anyone ever respond to that email?”

Bobulinski responded “Yes, they did numerous times. Hunter himself did.”

Goldman blurted out “you’re right” before angrily reclaiming his time to cut him off.

The video below excerpts Bobulinski’s anticipation of the Raskin/Goldman defense of the Biden family business.

House Oversight Committee hearing goes off the rails when Hunter Biden's former business partner Tony Bobulinski calls out Reps. Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman for lying on behalf of the Biden Crime Family. pic.twitter.com/Xny4VTbhVc

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 20, 2024

Doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola

(Scott Johnson)

In a long speech on the floor yesterday Senate Majority Chuck Schumer called for the replacement of the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Times of Israel has posted the full text of Schumer’s remarks here. According to Schumer, Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace, the two-state final solution, and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. We must popularize the phrase “He doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.”

Jonathan Tobin places Schumer in the context of his career to date: “He’s been in public office continuously since the age of 25, and the 73-year-old Senate Majority Leader has spent his adult life grandstanding for the cameras and the press while always seeking some momentary political advantage as he schemed, back-stabbed and bloviated his way to the top of his profession.”

We can infer that Schumer now approves of foreign interference in another country’s elections. Only yesterday that was a big no-no for purported thought leaders toeing the Democrat Party line.

In this case the government Schumer seeks the replacement of a government that was democratically elected and formed by a close American ally fighting for its life under extremely difficult circumstances. That’s no way to treat a friend.

Schumer pretends that the relevant policies of the Netanyahu government are peculiar to Netanyahu and his coalition. That does not seem to be the case.

Schumer gives aid and comfort to Hamas and its friends in the Democratic Party. We can infer that the obstacle posed by Netanyahu is to the political objectives of the Democratic Party as conceived by President Biden.

Biden has just renewed his sanctions waiver on $10 billion held for the genocidaires of Iran. See Richard Goldberg’s New York Post column “Biden continues Iran’s access to $10 billion just weeks after its proxy killed three American soldiers.” Biden — he doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.

One has to wonder about the impact of Schumer’s speech in Israel. It can’t help but demoralize Israelis fighting for their lives. However, they are unlikely to think they need Schumer’s help to assess their own best interests. In articulating and pursuing Israel’s war aims, Netanyahu speaks for the people of Israel. They do not support surrender to Hamas or adoption of the two-state final solution.

Senator Tom Cotton has posted a statement responding to Schumer. Senator Cotton sees the unstated obstacle Schumer is addressing: “[T]he main elections that worry Chuck Schumer aren’t Israel’s but our elections because the rampant antisemitism that the Democratic Party has allowed to fester in its ranks is massively unpopular with the pro-Israel American public.” Senator Cotton adds this “come to Jesus” element to his statement for Schumer’s benefit: “Chuck Schumer should remove the log in his own party’s eye before he whines about the speck in Israel’s eye.”

America’s Most Important Political Trend

(John Hinderaker)

This is a good complement to Steve’s post immediately below. Why did Democrats decide, seemingly in unison, that it would be a good idea to enable millions of illegal immigrants? Because they (or, in any event, their children) will be voters, and the Democrats assumed they could count on minority votes for many years to come.

But that may have been a miscalculation:

NEW 🧵:

American politics is in the midst of a racial realignment.

I think this is simultaneously one of the most important social trends in the US today, and one of the most poorly understood. pic.twitter.com/QeRsuMSKaL

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) March 11, 2024


This is part of the broader realignment of the parties. The left’s current obsessions–the “trans” movement, global warming, the war on food and gasoline, and so on–are of no good whatsoever to working people. They are of interest primarily to wealthy whites, especially wealthy white women. Blue collar minorities, like other working people, are not stupid. They can see that it is the Republicans whose policies actually help them, and they are starting to vote accordingly.

How Illegal Can You Get?

(John Hinderaker)

Joe Biden can’t get far enough left to satisfy his base. In last night’s SOTU, he referred to Jose Ibarra, the career criminal who *allegedly* beat Laken Riley to death, as an illegal immigrant. Which is exactly what he is, although the correct legal term is “illegal alien.” Bizarrely, liberals were outraged, not that Biden referred to Ibarra as a murderer, but that he called him an illegal immigrant. This roundup is from Alpha News:

Democrats in Minnesota and across the country are infuriated that President Joe Biden referred to a criminal, illegal alien as an “illegal” during the president’s State of the Union address on Thursday. Specifically, President Biden was referring to the illegal immigrant who has been charged with murder in the killing of Laken Riley.
***
In response, left-wing Democrats have expressed outrage that President Biden referred to this criminal, illegal alien as an “illegal.” Just after President Biden’s speech concluded, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota put out a social media post on X saying, “Let me be clear: No human being is illegal.”

This message was parroted by Democrats all over the country. In Minnesota, state Rep. Maria Isa Perez-Vega, D-St. Paul, re-posted Congresswoman Omar’s message. Jason Chavez, a member of the Minneapolis City Council, also put out a statement saying, “No human is illegal.”

A myriad of other Democrats, including Congresswomen Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, and Delia Ramirez, put out social media posts with the exact same message. Last night, Nancy Pelosi went on CNN and said President Biden should have used the word “undocumented” when referring to the illegal alien.

Congressman Chuy Garcia, D-Illinois, put out a statement saying, “As a proud immigrant, I’m extremely disappointed to hear President Biden use the world ‘illegal.’”

Breaking the law is illegal. Is that really so hard to understand? And, oh–by the way–murder is illegal, too. Although liberals seem to care a lot less about a young woman who was beaten to death than they do about policing their wacko speech code. But I suppose there is nothing surprising about that.

Arizona Cranks Up More Criminal Charges

(John Hinderaker)

Politico reports that Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (a Democrat, of course) is accelerating an investigation that may lead to prosecutions of people close to President Trump’s 2020 campaign. Which is odd on its face, since the events that are the basis for the investigation happened more than three years ago. Why the sudden hurry? Obviously, Democrats see that Joe Biden is losing, and are throwing the kitchen sink at Trump:

Arizona prosecutors in recent weeks issued grand jury subpoenas to multiple people linked to Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, a sharp acceleration of their criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

The new steps, first reported here, are a sign that Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, is nearing a decision on whether to charge Trump’s allies in the state, including GOP activists who falsely posed as presidential electors in December 2020.

“Falsely posed as electors.” What an absurd characterization! In a number of states, Trump’s campaign had people lined up to be electors on his behalf in the event that his various legal challenges might succeed before the Electoral College met. There is nothing wrong with this, let alone illegal. The same thing happened in Hawaii in 1960, and would have happened in Florida in 2000 if the Supreme Court hadn’t first put the matter to rest.

The “fake elector” theory is one of several ways in which the Democrats have tried to criminalize making claims of voter fraud. In the wake of the 2020 election, Donald Trump and many others believed that the election had been stolen by the Biden campaign. Were they right? I doubt it, but we will never know for sure. There wasn’t enough time between the election and Biden’s inauguration for claims of voter fraud to be litigated on the merits, and in no case did any court ever permit the necessary discovery, conduct a trial and make findings on the extent of voter fraud by the Democrats.

In multiple criminal proceedings, Trump is accused of “trying to overturn” — or “plotting to overturn” — the result of the 2020 election. Again, there is nothing wrong with this. Al Gore tried to overturn the result of the 2000 election, and Al Franken got into the U.S. Senate by overturning the result of an election. There is nothing wrong with pursuing legal election remedies. And where extensive voter fraud is suspected, an attempt to investigate, litigate and overturn a fraudulent result is commendable, not criminal. But the reality is that voter fraud can only be prevented; it can’t be litigated and corrected after the fact. The Democrats have blocked common-sense ballot security measures at every opportunity, and they have no one but themselves to blame if the public widely suspects that our elections are rigged.

Sadly, it appears that some Trump associates have been bullied into guilty pleas in shameful criminal proceedings alleging that they were “fake electors.” This reflects the reality that government at either the federal or the state level can destroy your life at will. At some point, nearly everyone will surrender rather than go through bankruptcy and see his or her life destroyed.

The misuse of criminal proceedings by the Democratic Party to punish its political opponents is the most vicious legacy of our current political crisis.

After last night

(Scott Johnson)

Digging deep into the Super Tuesday primary results, I foresee President Biden facing off for a rematch against President Trump. Can you feel the excitement? The two candidates represent juggernauts within their respective parties.

Let’s take the Democrats first, courtesy of RealClearPolitics. What we have here is one full boatload of results. They raise the question: who is Marianne Williamson and what is she doing here? She is the best-selling author of a variety of books including A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course In Miracles, A Woman’s Worth, Illuminata, The Healing of America, and Illuminated Prayers. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Williamson continues to inspire audiences on a global scale as she lectures internationally in the fields of spirituality and new thought.

I infer from the results that Democrats resist the light. They resist new thought. Also, we don’t have a prayer. We need a miracle.

Biden’s presents himself as a throwback to the old-fashioned Democratic Party, yet he has adopted the policies of party’s far left. Most prominent among these policies is the opening of our borders and the implicit rejection of the sovereignty of the United States. Over the past three-plus years these policies have wrought great damage. Biden wants to test the outer limits of Adam Smith’s proposition that “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” One can’t help but wonder if we can put ourselves back on track.

It’s not Joe Biden’s Democratic Party. It’s the woke left’s Democratic Party. It’s the party of those who say the things which are not.

Biden made an appearance during the narrow window of his waking hours yesterday. He appeared to have dropped in from outer space. He sounded like he had not been briefed since he blasted off from his homeworld. J.B., phone home.

FULL VIDEO:

REPORTER: "What's your message to Democrats who are concerned about your poll numbers?"

BIDEN: "My poll numbers? The last five polls you guys don't report. I'm winning — five! Five in a row!" pic.twitter.com/Mz5gWQMRSA

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 5, 2024

On the Republican side of Super Tuesday (also courtesy of RCP), President Trump wrapped up the Republican nomination. Nikki Haley will suspend her campaign later this morning.

This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party. If President Trump were to keel over and leave us with an open convention in Milwaukee next July, I assess the odds that the delegates would turn to Haley at zero. It would be a politician in the mold of Trump — probably Ron DeSantis, or perhaps J.D. Vance or Vivek the Mistake. Trump has transformed the Republican Party. By contrast with Biden and the Democrats, he has stamped the party in his image.

I am surprised by the not insubstantial fraction of votes that Haley pulled yesterday. Some portion of the Haley represents Democrats voting in open primaries. Haley won Vermont, but even if she were the nominee she would lose it in November. Vermont is a socialist state. I’m not talking about Vermont. Assuming Trump can survive the Democrats’ lawfare, he cannot win without a united Republican Party. He has some work to do to put the Republican house together. His choice for vice president could help.

It is difficult to project the state of play in the coming months. My crystal ball is cloudy. Much depends on the course of the Democrats’ lawfare against Trump and, to a lesser extent, the nature of the campaign Trump runs. I think he best serves his own interests at this point when he is out of the news and provides the alternative to Biden. If the election can be reduced to a binary choice, Biden should lose. The Democrats’ lawfare means to preclude that.

Yesterday brought more news of the illegal immigration that Biden has invited, inflicted, facilitated, fostered. Biden’s derelictions in office are historic in nature. The Daily Mail reports, for example, “Biden administration ADMITS flying 320,000 migrants secretly into the U.S. to reduce the number of crossings at the border has national security ‘vulnerabilities.'” The New York Post reports “Elon Musk says Biden flying 320K ‘unvetted’ migrants into the US sets stage ‘for something far worse than 9/11.’” Elon Musk — he’s no dummy.

The true numbers involved in the invasion that Biden invited are staggering, whatever they are, as are the secondary effects. As I say, we need a miracle, or something like it.

Sinema Is Out

(John Hinderaker)

Kyrsten Sinema announced today that she will not seek reelection to her Arizona Senate seat:

Sinema’s move is significant but not unexpected. She raised only $595,000 in the final quarter of 2023, a fraction of the totals that Lake and Gallego each raised — although Sinema maintains nearly $11 million in her campaign account.

So it sounds like her mind was made up a while ago. Sinema’s withdrawal means the race will be between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Representative Ruben Gallego. Gallego is a far leftist; this is how Lake describes him:

He votes with Joe Biden 100% of the time, supported the Iran Deal, sanctuary cities, defunding the police, and voting rights for everyone pouring across the border. He even called the border wall “stupid.”

Lake will now be a heavy favorite to flip the Senate seat, obviously a desirable outcome. But I am a little sorry to see Sinema go. She was an old-fashioned–i.e, sane–Democrat. A dinosaur, in other words. While she no doubt voted with the Dems most of the time, there were important instances, as for example the original “Build Back Better” disaster, when she stood in the breach on behalf of the Republic. And I have it on good authority that she couldn’t stand her Democratic colleagues, which perhaps contributed to her decision to walk away.

In any event, while Kari Lake will likely mark an important step toward restoring Republican control of the Senate, we owe Kyrsten Sinema a debt of gratitude.

Democrat Denialists

(John Hinderaker)

In 2001, 2005 and 2017, some Democrat House members objected to the certification of electoral votes for the winning Republican presidential candidate. Those objections, while “denialist,” were only symbolic. But Democrat leaders in the House are now suggesting that if they control that body following November’s election–as they well might–they may refuse to allow a victorious Donald Trump to take office.

The Atlantic did the original reporting, behind a paywall. This is from the Election Law Blog:

Murray and other legal scholars say that, absent clear guidance from the Supreme Court, a Trump win could lead to a constitutional crisis in Congress. Democrats would have to choose between confirming a winner many of them believe is ineligible and defying the will of voters who elected him. …

In interviews, senior House Democrats would not commit to certifying a Trump win, saying they would do so only if the Supreme Court affirms his eligibility. But during oral arguments, liberal and conservative justices alike seemed inclined to dodge the question of his eligibility altogether and throw the decision to Congress.

“That would be a colossal disaster,” Representative Adam Schiff of California told me. “We already had one horrendous January 6. We don’t need another.” …

The choice that Democrats would face if Trump won without a definitive ruling on his eligibility was almost too fraught for Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland to contemplate. He told me he didn’t know how he’d vote in that scenario. As we spoke about what might happen, he recalled the brutality of January 6. “There was blood all over the Capitol in the hypothetical you posit,” Raskin, who served on the January 6 committee with Schiff, told me….

The Democrats have become so insane on the subject of Donald Trump that it is hard to know which of their mutterings to take seriously. But if Trump wins the election and a Democrat-controlled House refuses to certify his election on the ground that he is an “insurrectionist” under the 14th Amendment, we will be past the point of a constitutional crisis. If that happens, the only realistic path forward will be disunion, possibly accompanied by civil war, but preferably not.

This is one reason why the Supreme Court should put the 14th Amendment theory out of its misery, once and for all. It is obvious that the drafters of that amendment meant the just-concluded Civil War, in which 600,000 Americans lost their lives, when they referred to “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. In contrast, the January 6 protest was not one of the 50 most destructive riots of the last few years, and the only person killed was Ashli Babbitt. Not a single participant in the protest was arrested in possession of a firearm. Some insurrection!

In the interest of preserving the Republic, the Supreme Court should rule definitively that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not apply to Donald Trump.

Get a Load of Fani

(John Hinderaker)

Fani Willis’s prosecution of Donald Trump has descended into comedy, currently of the bedroom farce variety. As all the world now knows, Willis carried on a torrid affair with Nathan Wade, whom she hired to lead the Trump prosecution and to whom she paid an extraordinary amount of taxpayer money, and then helped him spend it. That is corruption of the most old-fashioned sort. Willis and Wade have claimed that their affair did not begin until 2022, some time after she hired him to prosecute Trump.

Which turns out to be a lie:

Phone records, recently unveiled in new court documents obtained by The Post, indicate a pattern of late-night visits by Wade to Willis’s apartment, raising questions about the timeline of their relationship.

According to the cellphone data presented in court, Wade frequented the vicinity of Fulton County District Attorney Willis’s condo in Hapeville at least 35 times before their confessed affair.
***
[Investigator Charles] Mittelstadt highlighted times that refuted both Wade’s and Willis’s testimony that they had not begun a relationship prior to November 2021, and that he had only visited the apartment on occasion to discuss business.

“I was directed into a deeper analysis on two specific dates: September 11-12, 2021 (before I understand Mr Wade was hired) and November 29-30 (prior to what I understand was the in-court testimony that the romantic relationship began in 2022).

“Specifically, on September 11, 2021, Mr Wade’s phone left the Doraville area and arrived within the geoface located on the Dogwood address [Willis’s condominium] at 10.45pm,” Mittelstadt said.

“The phone remained there until September 12 at 3.28am at which time the phone traveled directly to towers located in East Cobb consistent with his routine pinging at his residence in the area. The phone arrived in East Cobb at approximately 4.05am, and records demonstrate he sent a text at 4.20am to Ms Willis.

“Additionally, on November 29, 2021, Mr Wade’s phone was pinging on the East Cobb towers near his residence and, following a call from Ms Willis at 11.32pm, while the call continued, his phone left the East Cobb area just after midnight and arrived within the geofence located on the Dogwood address at 12.43am on November 30, 2021. The phone remained there until 4.55am,” he added.

Willis and Wade are the most famous illicit couple since Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Like Strzok and Page, Willis and Wade appear to have made texting and phoning one another a full-time job:

Mittelstadt’s report also showed Wade and Willis had made more than 2,000 voice calls to each other and exchanged just less than 12,000 text messages over an 11-month period in 2021.

It makes you wonder when Wade found time to rack up all those billable hours.

I don’t know what the future holds for Donald Trump, but I think we can confidently predict that the Sun soon will set on Fani Willis’s political career.

Pamela Geller: American Thinker: The Actions of The Guilty

Please read my latest column over at the Thinker.

I was suspended for saying the
e l e c t i o n was s t o l e n.

The Dem’s objective is to make it verboten, silence us completely, like it never happened, make people afraid to talk about it – like Soviet Russia or communist China. That’s why we have to keep saying it. pic.twitter.com/NrOsFWwdCU

— ???????? GELLER REPORT ???????? (@PamelaGeller) January 17, 2021

January 16, 2021

The Totalitarian Left Moves to Silence All Dissent

In an article that was picked up by the Mercury News, Ethan Baron of the Bay Area News Group wrote Tuesday that “A week after false claims of a stolen U.S. presidential election drove a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Twitter is allowing a far-right supporter of President Donald Trump to claim the election was stolen.” Baron’s intention was clear: he wants Twitter to ban me, as it banned Trump, for telling truths they want buried. His article shows how monstrous and totalitarian the left really is: leftists think they can publicly call for the censuring and banning of someone whose views they hate, and just like that, you disappear.

The left and its propaganda arm, the establishment media, are now working hard to make it illegal, and get you banned from social media, to state the obvious fact that the election was stolen. The Democrats are seeking to criminalize and penalize anyone who says theelection was stolen. Their “insurrection” hoax, and impeachment of the president without due process or giving him the chance to defend himself, is designed to shut down any and all talk of their infamous election fraud. This is not the behavior of people who know they won fair and square and are watching their opponents have a tantrum about it. This is the action of the guilty.

That said, the election was stolen. The mountains of evidence of election fraud were never examined in any court, and then we were told that there was no evidence at all, or if there was any, it had already been dismissed in court challenges. The court cases were all dismissed on technicalities and procedural issues, not because there was no evidence of voter fraud. That evidence has still not been examined.

But it is a hallmark of the rapidly advancing totalitarianism of our age that thumbsuckers like Ethan Baron think they can kill you with righteous indignation. He wrote: “Anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller, in a tweet Monday about banks freezing political donations after a pro-Trump mob stormed the seat of the U.S. government, said the banks’ decision was, ‘Further proof the election was stolen.’” I am not “anti-Muslim” any more than foes of the Nazis were “anti-German,” but that’s another story. Baron offered no counterargument to my contention about the banks. He just presented it as if it were self-evidently false and egregious.

Baron knew, of course, that he didn’t have to show that what I said was inaccurate. All he had to do was point out that I had deviated from the leftist line, and the jackbooted neo-fascists who run Twitter and the other social media platforms would spring into action.

It was reminiscent of the media outrage that was directed at me in May 2015, when I hosted the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in Garland, Texas that was the site of the first ISIS attack on American soil. I was raked over the coals not just on CNN, but also on Fox, which hadn’t yet switched sides then, and by conservative spokesmen who should have known better. I was defending the freedom of speech against violent intimidation. We never saw the hate and attacks that were directed at me in the wake of that event in Garland directed at the Fort Hood jihadi, the Times Square jihad bomber, the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony jihad bomber, the Boston Marathon jihad bombers, the New York subway jihad bomber, or any other jihadis.

We have never seen the media hatred and anything like the attacks that were directed at me directed towards the jihadists who beheaded journalist after journalist (their own!), or towards those who beheaded hundreds of Christians, executed them because they were non-Muslims, or towards the perpetrators of the ongoing genocide of non-Muslims and secular Muslims in Muslim countries.

If we had a responsible media, they would stand for the freedom of speech as we did in Garland. If we had a responsible media, it would be applauding the fact that some people are still standing up and telling the truth about the election despite the immense pressure from powerful forces to stop doing so.

How do these people not understand this most basic, elemental concept of freedom?

I didn’t start this war for the freedom of speech, but I won’t lie down and submit, either. Twitter and the rest may heed Baron and ban me. But even then, this isn’t over. What remains to be seen is whether the free world will finally wake up and stand for the freedom of speech, or instead kowtow to this evil and continue to denounce me and others like me. What’s really frightening and astonishing about this assault on our freedom of speech is the number of people cheering on the silencing of dissent from the establishment line. I never expected that from my fellow Americans. But if the darkness of totalitarianism does come to the United States, it will be thanks to them and to the likes of Ethan Baron.

Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of The Geller Report and author of the bestselling book, FATWA: Hunted in America, as well as The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Pamela Geller, American Thinker: The AIPAC Boycott and Obama

Read my latest article over at The American Thinker:

The AIPAC Boycott and Obama

By Pamela Geller, American Thinker, March 23, 2019:

NBC News reported Thursday that “several Democratic presidential candidates will skip the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy conference this year after a prominent progressive group called on them to boycott the event.” This has been a rapid descent. In 2017, Kamala Harris said it was “an honor” to speak before AIPAC. But as quickly as the Democrats’ Jew-hatred is being normalized now, it has also been a long time coming. I warned about it over ten years ago.

The candidates who are boycotting AIPAC include senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sanders, as well as Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, and Howard Schultz. According to NBC, “the candidates’ decisions to skip the prominent pro-Israel lobbying group’s conference come one day after liberal group MoveOn.org called on all 2020 presidential candidates to steer clear of the event.”

The Democrats are now officially the party of Jew-hatred. This is largely due to the disastrous presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. It was Obama, with his consistently shabby treatment of Benjamin Netanyahu and relentless demonization of Israel, who mainstreamed and normalized anti-Semitism among the Democrats.

I warned about it all. In May 2008, before Obama was elected, a reader invited me to a senior-level AIPAC event at Cipriani’s. I went up to the Executive Director, Howard Kohr, and said that I understood AIPAC was “nonpartisan, but Obama will be lethal for the Jews.” Kohr scoffed. I went on to relate all that I had unearthed in my two years of relentless investigation of Obama, and I laid it out, point by point, fact by fact, with as little hyperbole as possible. Kohr shook his head. He would have none of it. We are nonpartisan, he insisted. To what point are you nonpartisan? If there is a candidate, a party, an official that is a Jew-hater, do you maintain neutrality, like Switzerland? He just smiled and walked away.

I meticulously documented Obama’s Jew-hatred, and his entourage of Jew-haters, in my book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War On America. I noted in that book that the American Jews who voted so overwhelmingly for Obama could have and should have seen his anti-Semitism and how he would normalize Jew-hatred in the Democrat Party. Take, for example, of a March 2007 account by the pro-Palestinian blogger Ali Abunimah at the the Electronic Intifadah website. Abunimah recounted how Obama had adopted a pro-Israel position as a matter of political expediency as his national aspirations developed. “The last time I spoke to Obama,” Abunimah recalled, “was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.”

When Abunimah greeted him, Obama “responded warmly,” and volunteered an apology for not being more outspoken against Israel: “Hey,” said the candidate to Abunimah, “I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.” Abunimah added: “He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, ‘Keep up the good work!’”

Abunimah’s piece — and Obama’s numerous anti-Semitic associations — got little attention. Throughout his life Barack Obama has been close friends with numerous virulent anti-Semites: Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Khalid al-Mansour, Rashid Khalidi and others.

It may be an old cliché, but it’s true: show me your friends, and I’ll show you who and what you are.

American Jews should have noted this, and noted it well. Instead, they fell for Obama’s smooth talk. But when Obama became president, he was true to his word to Abunimah, and turned viciously against Israel. And the whole world should have seen it coming.

Everything that is happening now in the Democratic Party — the relentless pandering to the Jew-haters Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the abject failure and collapse of the effort to rebuke Omar for her Jew-hatred, even indirectly, the boycott of AIPAC by the presidential candidates — I predicted and warned about. All my warnings are coming true. What does Howard Kohr have to say now?

Pamela Geller: American Thinker: The Actions of The Guilty

Please read my latest column over at the Thinker.

I was suspended for saying the
e l e c t i o n was s t o l e n.

The Dem’s objective is to make it verboten, silence us completely, like it never happened, make people afraid to talk about it – like Soviet Russia or communist China. That’s why we have to keep saying it. pic.twitter.com/NrOsFWwdCU

🇺🇸 GELLER REPORT 🇺🇸 (@PamelaGeller) January 17, 2021

January 16, 2021

The Totalitarian Left Moves to Silence All Dissent

In an article that was picked up by the Mercury News, Ethan Baron of the Bay Area News Group wrote Tuesday that “A week after false claims of a stolen U.S. presidential election drove a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Twitter is allowing a far-right supporter of President Donald Trump to claim the election was stolen.” Baron’s intention was clear: he wants Twitter to ban me, as it banned Trump, for telling truths they want buried. His article shows how monstrous and totalitarian the left really is: leftists think they can publicly call for the censuring and banning of someone whose views they hate, and just like that, you disappear.

The left and its propaganda arm, the establishment media, are now working hard to make it illegal, and get you banned from social media, to state the obvious fact that the election was stolen. The Democrats are seeking to criminalize and penalize anyone who says theelection was stolen. Their “insurrection” hoax, and impeachment of the president without due process or giving him the chance to defend himself, is designed to shut down any and all talk of their infamous election fraud. This is not the behavior of people who know they won fair and square and are watching their opponents have a tantrum about it. This is the action of the guilty.

That said, the election was stolen. The mountains of evidence of election fraud were never examined in any court, and then we were told that there was no evidence at all, or if there was any, it had already been dismissed in court challenges. The court cases were all dismissed on technicalities and procedural issues, not because there was no evidence of voter fraud. That evidence has still not been examined.

But it is a hallmark of the rapidly advancing totalitarianism of our age that thumbsuckers like Ethan Baron think they can kill you with righteous indignation. He wrote: “Anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller, in a tweet Monday about banks freezing political donations after a pro-Trump mob stormed the seat of the U.S. government, said the banks’ decision was, ‘Further proof the election was stolen.’” I am not “anti-Muslim” any more than foes of the Nazis were “anti-German,” but that’s another story. Baron offered no counterargument to my contention about the banks. He just presented it as if it were self-evidently false and egregious.

Baron knew, of course, that he didn’t have to show that what I said was inaccurate. All he had to do was point out that I had deviated from the leftist line, and the jackbooted neo-fascists who run Twitter and the other social media platforms would spring into action.

It was reminiscent of the media outrage that was directed at me in May 2015, when I hosted the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in Garland, Texas that was the site of the first ISIS attack on American soil. I was raked over the coals not just on CNN, but also on Fox, which hadn’t yet switched sides then, and by conservative spokesmen who should have known better. I was defending the freedom of speech against violent intimidation. We never saw the hate and attacks that were directed at me in the wake of that event in Garland directed at the Fort Hood jihadi, the Times Square jihad bomber, the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony jihad bomber, the Boston Marathon jihad bombers, the New York subway jihad bomber, or any other jihadis.

We have never seen the media hatred and anything like the attacks that were directed at me directed towards the jihadists who beheaded journalist after journalist (their own!), or towards those who beheaded hundreds of Christians, executed them because they were non-Muslims, or towards the perpetrators of the ongoing genocide of non-Muslims and secular Muslims in Muslim countries.

If we had a responsible media, they would stand for the freedom of speech as we did in Garland. If we had a responsible media, it would be applauding the fact that some people are still standing up and telling the truth about the election despite the immense pressure from powerful forces to stop doing so.

How do these people not understand this most basic, elemental concept of freedom?

I didn’t start this war for the freedom of speech, but I won’t lie down and submit, either. Twitter and the rest may heed Baron and ban me. But even then, this isn’t over. What remains to be seen is whether the free world will finally wake up and stand for the freedom of speech, or instead kowtow to this evil and continue to denounce me and others like me. What’s really frightening and astonishing about this assault on our freedom of speech is the number of people cheering on the silencing of dissent from the establishment line. I never expected that from my fellow Americans. But if the darkness of totalitarianism does come to the United States, it will be thanks to them and to the likes of Ethan Baron.

Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of The Geller Report and author of the bestselling book, FATWA: Hunted in America, as well as The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Pamela Geller, American Thinker: The AIPAC Boycott and Obama

Read my latest article over at The American Thinker:

The AIPAC Boycott and Obama

By Pamela Geller, American Thinker, March 23, 2019:

NBC News reported Thursday that “several Democratic presidential candidates will skip the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy conference this year after a prominent progressive group called on them to boycott the event.” This has been a rapid descent. In 2017, Kamala Harris said it was “an honor” to speak before AIPAC. But as quickly as the Democrats’ Jew-hatred is being normalized now, it has also been a long time coming. I warned about it over ten years ago.

The candidates who are boycotting AIPAC include senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sanders, as well as Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, and Howard Schultz. According to NBC, “the candidates’ decisions to skip the prominent pro-Israel lobbying group’s conference come one day after liberal group MoveOn.org called on all 2020 presidential candidates to steer clear of the event.”

The Democrats are now officially the party of Jew-hatred. This is largely due to the disastrous presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. It was Obama, with his consistently shabby treatment of Benjamin Netanyahu and relentless demonization of Israel, who mainstreamed and normalized anti-Semitism among the Democrats.

I warned about it all. In May 2008, before Obama was elected, a reader invited me to a senior-level AIPAC event at Cipriani’s. I went up to the Executive Director, Howard Kohr, and said that I understood AIPAC was “nonpartisan, but Obama will be lethal for the Jews.” Kohr scoffed. I went on to relate all that I had unearthed in my two years of relentless investigation of Obama, and I laid it out, point by point, fact by fact, with as little hyperbole as possible. Kohr shook his head. He would have none of it. We are nonpartisan, he insisted. To what point are you nonpartisan? If there is a candidate, a party, an official that is a Jew-hater, do you maintain neutrality, like Switzerland? He just smiled and walked away.

I meticulously documented Obama’s Jew-hatred, and his entourage of Jew-haters, in my book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War On America. I noted in that book that the American Jews who voted so overwhelmingly for Obama could have and should have seen his anti-Semitism and how he would normalize Jew-hatred in the Democrat Party. Take, for example, of a March 2007 account by the pro-Palestinian blogger Ali Abunimah at the the Electronic Intifadah website. Abunimah recounted how Obama had adopted a pro-Israel position as a matter of political expediency as his national aspirations developed. “The last time I spoke to Obama,” Abunimah recalled, “was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.”

When Abunimah greeted him, Obama “responded warmly,” and volunteered an apology for not being more outspoken against Israel: “Hey,” said the candidate to Abunimah, “I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.” Abunimah added: “He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, ‘Keep up the good work!’”

Abunimah’s piece — and Obama’s numerous anti-Semitic associations — got little attention. Throughout his life Barack Obama has been close friends with numerous virulent anti-Semites: Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Khalid al-Mansour, Rashid Khalidi and others.

It may be an old cliché, but it’s true: show me your friends, and I’ll show you who and what you are.

American Jews should have noted this, and noted it well. Instead, they fell for Obama’s smooth talk. But when Obama became president, he was true to his word to Abunimah, and turned viciously against Israel. And the whole world should have seen it coming.

Everything that is happening now in the Democratic Party — the relentless pandering to the Jew-haters Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the abject failure and collapse of the effort to rebuke Omar for her Jew-hatred, even indirectly, the boycott of AIPAC by the presidential candidates — I predicted and warned about. All my warnings are coming true. What does Howard Kohr have to say now?

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