Tag: election

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insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies

Sleepy’s New Clothes

Joe Biden, Jake Tapper, election, president, democracy, cover up, scandal

“I was shocked to see his condition,” CNN commentator Van Jones tells Jake Tapper on State of the Union. Mr. Jones is talking about when former (but then-) President Joe Biden stepped up to debate his challenger, current (but then former-) President Donald Trump.

“And so was the world,” he continues. “And that wasn’t the first time [Biden] was in that condition; the book makes it very, very clear.”

The book noted above being Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-​Up, and His Disastrous Decision to Run Again, written by host Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, a national political correspondent for Axios. 

“There are people who knew and said nothing and that is a crime against this Republic,” argues Jones, “and I think the Democrats are gonna pay for a long time for being a part of what is now being revealed to be a massive cover up.”

“It was obvious to the American people before the debate,” former Obama strategist David Axelrod offers. Obvious to politicians, too, but not “politically wise to speak out.”

“[T]his is The Emperor’s New Clothes playing itself out in real time,” Jones elaborates. “Everybody knew but everyone was afraid to say.”

Later in the program, still pitching his book, Tapper blames a “small, secretive group of advisors” as the culprits, clarifying that “the original sin of the 2024 election” was “President Biden’s decision to run for reelection, even though he would be theoretically 86 years old at the end of his second term and was showing every day of it.”

One can only wonder how Mr. Tapper and so many other journalists missed in real time what a president of these United States was “showing.”

Democrats remain focused on the disaster of losing the election, but the real disgrace? After the June 27, 2024, debate non-​performance, they and their fawning media allowed a person clearly not up to the job to remain in this most incredibly powerful position for another seven months. 

Silly me, I’m focused on the presidency and the job he’s supposed to do for Americans. Not just wielding political power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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The Colorado Gambit Crushed

Colorado, Trump, election, democracy

The Supreme Court unanimously nixed the clever scheme to keep Donald Trump off the Colorado ballot. The court explained its actions in the second paragraph of its anonymously written March 4th ruling: “Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.”

That’s it. The 14th Amendment, which the Colorado gambit relied upon, does make Congress the instrument for preventing “an insurrectionist” from serving in office.

So Colorado’s ploy to rig the 2024 election out in the open has been stopped. And good thing, too, since the political repercussions could have been … harrowing. 

A lot of commentary and reporting on the ruling has been devoted to pushing what was not covered. Take the CNN article by John Fritz and Marshall Cohen, “Trump’s on the ballot, but the Supreme Court left key constitutional questions unanswered.” It is hard not to interpret such headlines as providing excuses to partisan Democrats — in this case those at CNN — who had put so much hope in Colorado’s (and other states’) taking of the Trump matter into their own hands. 

“But while the unsigned, 13-​page opinion the Supreme Court handed down Monday decisively resolved the uncertainty around Trump’s eligibility for a second term,” the article explains, “it left unsettled questions that could some day boomerang back to the justices.”

True enough, but so what? Take the first mentioned: “Could Democratic lawmakers, for instance, disqualify Trump next January when the electoral votes are counted if he wins the November election?”

Well, no. 

The 14th’s third section does not list presidents as barred by insurrection: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-​President,” it says. Electors of. But not the President and VP.

I’m sure the Supreme Court would be happy to expedite an opinion to that effect should the Democrats attempt anything that stupid.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly political challengers

Pied Pipers, Again

Adam Schiff

In 2015, the Hillary Clinton campaign exhibited the hubris for which politicians have been associated since the dawn of civilization. 

Instead of relying on a strategy of promoting Hillary herself, Clinton insiders plied what they called “Pied Piper candidates,” Republican hopefuls who, they theorized, would shift mainstream candidates further “right,” thus making the ultimate winners unpalatable to enough general election voters to win Hillary the election. There were three they identified: Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump. 

We know how this worked out.

In California, Democrats are returning to hubristic form.

The serpentine Adam Schiff, who is running to fill the slot formerly occupied by Senator Diane Feinstein, has directed $11 million in the primary “to elevate a GOP candidate,” according to The Washington Post. 

“The ads argue that Republican Steve Garvey — a congenial former pro baseball player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres who voted twice for Donald Trump but won’t say if he will do so again — is too conservative for California and highlight his recent surge, in an apparent effort to consolidate support for him on the right.”

The idea is to boost Garvey with Republican primary voters in hopes that Garvey takes the second of two spots available for the November election under California’s Top Two system, becauseSchiff’s people think Garveyis easier to defeat than liberal Democrat “Rep. Katie Porter, whom Schiff and his backers would prefer to avoid facing come November in this left-​leaning state.”

But can this strategy really work in California? The ads portray Garvey as more Trumpian than he probably is, and recent polling suggests that Schiff and Garvey are now neck-and-neck.

A review of the Clinton metaphor, “Pied Piper,” shows how slippery the strategy can be. The “Pied Piper of Hamelin” is a cautionary tale. 

The Democrats’support may go the way of rats and children.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access election law partisanship political challengers

Parties Demoted

voting, elections, primary, democracy, rules

Though “[s]everal left-​leaning groups have sued to block the former president from the state’s ballot on 14th Amendment grounds,” Tom Ozimek of The Epoch Times reported in November, “Trump Listed on Michigan Primary Ballot,” as the headline states.

The primary was yesterday. Trump won. As expected.

But he appeared on the primary ballot only with legal wrangling. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, was under a lot of pressure to keep Trump off the ballot. Which she resisted, explicitly stating that she thought the maneuver to allow state officials to prohibit Trump from appearing on ballots because of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause was a bad idea.

Michigan’s voting system is now quite complicated. First, it’s an open primary state, so there will always be strategic voting, where partisans will cross lines to sabotage opponent parties. Though in the case of Trump, there is some irony here, since Trump benefitted in 2016 from such voting by Democrats, thinking he was the candidate easiest to beat in the general election.

Michigan sports a hybrid system for selecting partisan candidates to appear on the general election ballot. “More of Michigan’s 55 delegates to the Republican National Convention (RNC) will be awarded,” explains Nathan Worcester, also of The Epoch Times, “through the caucus process than through the primary vote — 39 as opposed to just 16.” But there are dueling conventions for caucusing, and it’s quite a mess.*

Michigan also now offers early voting at special voting sites. Is it a sign of a healthy democracy that there are so many ways to vote?

It sure doesn’t seem healthy that national partisan politics almost kept a Republican candidate off a primary ballot. Could the solution be to take parties’ candidate selection entirely out of state balloting?

Demote major parties from their current favored position to paying their own way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In the Democratic Primary, President Biden won big against Dean Phillips, a largely unknown congressman from Minnesota, and author Marianne Williamson. But, with roughly half the vote counted, a not insignificant 14 percent of Democrats snubbed the president (and the field) by voting “Uncommitted.” Many were no doubt protesting the president’s policies concerning the Israel-​Hamas War; in the county containing the University of Michigan, 20 percent voted uncommitted. Yet, even in rural counties across Michigan, more than 10 percent of Democrats opted for uncommitted.

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general freedom international affairs

Dangerous Neighbor

Taiwan, election, China, Paul Jacob

“Are you a journalist?” asked the woman in an overflow crowd of thousands, who, like me, couldn’t fit into the packed stadium for a Democratic Progressive Party rally on the eve of Taiwan’s election.

“Or do you just love Taiwan?” 

With a broad smile, I told her: “I love Taiwan.”

This, my second trip to the beautiful island nation, was as inspiring as my first, in 2019. 

Two other women in the crowd explained they flew in from Italy to cast their ballots — believing the future of Taiwan depended on their vote. Which, of course, it did.

Most poignant was my conversation with a couple who had escaped the Chinazi clampdown in Hong Kong. After discussing how those 2019 protests helped “wake up the world,” I snapped a selfie with them. 

Then, five minutes later, they came back to ask me not to post their picture on social media without blacking out their faces. You see, they have relatives still in Hong Kong who might face harassment or worse from the Chinazis, if they were outed. 

“Enjoy the freedom of Taiwan today,” a Taiwanese man had offered earlier in the day at the Kaohsiung Museum of History. “It may be gone tomorrow [Election Day].” He feared a KMT victory would usher in a government far too willing to cozy up to the Chinese regime. 

On Saturday, however, DDP presidential candidate Lai Ching-​te won a clear victory. His triumph was declared by the gaslighting Butchers of Beijing to be an “extreme danger.” 

But it is obvious to all that the nation of Taiwan is a danger to no one … and Communist Party-​ruled China is a danger to everyone. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* One doesn’t need to look to Asia to see the threat from China. Chinese dissidents in the U.S. and Canada are routinely harassed and threatened, which our governments seem unable to do much about. And the website we’ve launched — StopTheChinazis​.org — has numerous writers but only two have chosen to use their real names. Why? Fear of reprisals from the CCP against Americans here in America. 

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Enthusiasm for Extremism in Action

Donald Trump, TDS, voting, election

She insists it’s about the rule of law. And not political. Not in any way.

“Maine Secretary of State Claims Politics Played ‘No Role’ in Booting Trump Off Ballot,” is how The Epoch Times headlined the story.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has unilaterally barred former President Donald Trump from the Maine presidential primary ballot. As in the Colorado case, the excuse rests with the January 6, 2021, protest rally and mob entrance into the capitol building. She says that “the weight of evidence” she “reviewed indicates that it was an insurrection.” 

Knowing what real insurrections are, and what words mean, and the long history of protests that get out of hand, including in recent times, most non-​partisan people, as well as all Trump supporters, must conclude just the opposite: no insurrection was even attempted.

Bellows may actually believe that the January 6 events constituted an insurrection, that her job allows her to do what has never been done in American history, and that this would be good for the nation.

On the insurrection issue, she and Democrats rely upon motivated reasoning. People worked up in a cause can believe almost anything that would aid the cause. Still, the common-​sense guess is that almost no one really believes her … but of course her Democratic comrades must pretend.

On the scope of her position, prudence would usually steer a partisan such as herself away from doing such a radical thing.

On the good of the nation, the clear hyperpartisan appearance would exacerbate tensions around the country, widening the divide into a chasm.

What may really be in evidence, though, is that leftists are mimicking the radicalism of the pandemic lockdowns, driven by the sheer frenzy of their vision of themselves as embodiments of righteousness … always to exercise arbitrary power.

An enthusiasm that spreads virally. As a mania. 

Thus does extremism work.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Democratic Mountain High

Donald Trump, Colorado Supreme Court, election, insurrection

How to spark a civil war?

“A divided Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot,” wrote David Knowles for Yahoo News. This will, of course, induce a “showdown in the nation’s highest court to decide whether the front-​runner for the GOP nomination can remain in the race.”

The idea — half plausible, I suppose — is that President Trump’s actions on January 6 spurred an insurrection attempt, therefore he is ineligible to run for any federal office.

But emphasize the half-​plausible, since, no matter how often Democrats repeat it, the rally-​turned-​mini-​riot-​turned-​incursion into the Capitol Building did not amount to anything like an insurrection. Capitol Hill interlopers on January 6 were neither prepared nor demonstrating a plan to overthrow the peaceful succession of power. 

They certainly didn’t try to take over the government.

Nor has Mr. Trump been convicted of any such thing.

But, as we all know, this is a controversial matter falling mostly on partisan lines (the Colorado State Supreme Court being made up entirely of Democratic appointees) … which makes interpretation of the third section of the 14th Amendment rather tricky.

The state-​by-​state lawsuits have been sponsored by progressive interest groups trying, desperately, to stop Donald Trump from pulling off a Grover Cleveland: returning to office after a fluke one-​term “pause.”

Yet, even if the Supreme Court balks at putting down this too-​clever-​by-​half-​plausible scheme, the best Democrats could hope for is preventing Trump from running in blue states with blue courts. Trump might still win despite not being on some state ballots. 

Or lose in an election obviously rigged because he is barred. 

A recipe for deep distrust, resentment and anger.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment election law partisanship

Election Challenge Criminalized?

Trump, election, indictment, votes, legitimacy

Another day, another indictment of former President Trump. This one, out of Georgia, would criminalize election challenges.

Jonathan Turley observes that in this fourth indictment, “every call, speech, and tweet appears a criminal step in the conspiracy. District Attorney Fani Willis appears to have elected to charge everything and everyone and let God sort them out.”

This is the kitchen-​sink, banana-​republic approach to “justice.” Facts? Plausibility? Irrelevant when the would-​be one-​party regime has a target in view.

In masterful understatement or point-​missing, Turley writes that the “greatest challenge for Georgia is to offer a discernible limiting principle on when challenges in close elections are permissible and when they are criminal.”

But how can it ever be criminal simply to challenge election results or call for a recount or plead for further investigation of the flimsiest of allegations, even via imperfect phone call?

The “limiting principle” operative here is obvious. Is the challenger on our side or the other side? Our side, the challenge is legal. Other side, it’s illegal, prosecutable. This is Willis’s “principle.”

Per Turley, it’s important for campaigns to seek judicial review of an election “without fear of prosecution.” Yes, important. But from the perspective of those who want to prevent other-​side campaigns from seeking recourse when an election is close or seems pockmarked by fraud, what’s important is making sure other-​side campaigns do fully feel this fear.

The bad guys already understand what’s at stake, what Mr. Turley is so carefully explaining as if they are perhaps only a little confused.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Surfin’ U.S.A.

no red wave

Back in the Spring, a pollster was detailing his findings to a group of us. The Democrats were none too popular, he informed. And informed. And further informed. But at one point, the pollster stopped to remind: “Don’t get me wrong, that’s not to suggest the public is fond of Republicans.”

“We have the worst inflation in four decades, the worst collapse in real wages in 40 years, the worst crime wave since the 1990s, the worst border crisis in U.S. history, we have Joe Biden who is the least popular president … since presidential polling happened,” Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen explained on Fox News, “and there wasn’t a red wave.”

Barely a ripple.

Voters, he continued. “looked at all of that and looked at the Republican alternative and said, ‘No, thanks!’”

Calling it “an absolute disaster,” Thiessen advised the GOP to do a “a really deep introspective look in the mirror right now.”

Watch for cracks.

More than the abortion issue or the mixed blessing of Mr. Trump’s omnipresence, I think the GOP’s problem was the lack of any serious, cohesive and positive agenda. We are indeed facing massive inflation, crime, cultural revolution … but what are you going do ’bout it?

Answers aren’t coming from the Republican Party.

In last year’s red wave across my home state of Virginia, it wasn’t now-​Governor Glenn Younkin who made respecting the rights of the parents of public education students a cataclysmic issue. Parents did that.

The Republican Revolution of 1994 rode a tsunami produced in no small part by the term limits movement. With term limits measures on the ballot throughout the country, the GOP gained 52 seats to secure a majority after 40 consecutive years in the minority — even defeating the Democratic House Speaker. 

Want candidates to ride a popular, pro-​freedom wave? 

Better start splashing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law Voting

Following the Law

mail in ballots, cheating, counting

It’s official.

Well, it was already official because it was Pennsylvania law. And because the U.S. Supreme Court had confirmed it.

What is it? Election officials may not count mail-​in ballots that are undated or incorrectly dated.

Official, yes, but now even more official.

On November 1, a week before the election, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that yes, election officials must follow Pennsylvania election law that says you can’t count undated or incorrectly dated ballots.

A voter who mails in a ballot is obliged to sign and date the outer envelope before sending it off. The court orders election officials to “refrain from counting any absentee and mail-​in ballots received for the November 8, 2022, general election that are contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes.”

The ruling was issued in response to litigation initiated by the Republican Party, which has launched a slew of lawsuits around the country to combat shady election practices.

The court’s clarification is important. A problem loomed over the upcoming election. Pennsylvania’s secretary of state had been giving the go-​ahead for officials to count ballots whether they’re dated properly or not … and to heck with election law and the SCOTUS. Until the ruling, county officials throughout Pennsylvania lacked consistent policies about how to handle bungled ballots.

Of course, when reasonable election rules are ignored, it’s easier to commit election fraud — notwithstanding the disingenuous claim advanced by some proponents of lackadaisical election procedures that fraud is either a vanishingly small problem or does not exist at all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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