Category: Elections

Media exploits tax ignorance

The old Gray Lady ain’t what she used to be, but she can still manage to conjure a story out of nothing. Using stolen tax returns and mirrors, the New York Times manufactured a scandal that will allow Chris Wallace to ask President Donald John Trump about his taxes at tomorrow’s debate instead of asking Biden why he and Obama used the FBI to spy on President Trump.

Like any modern journalist, Wallace is relieved that he will not have to ask a substantive question in this Evening of the Septuagenarians. At 72, Wallace will be the youngest man on stage. Am I alone in wondering how healthy it is for the nation to have its government and media still run by baby boomers? In the case of Biden, McConnell, and Pelosi, it is pre-boomers.

Most Americans are not CPAs and have little understanding of the mechanics of taxes, but we do get the gist of how it works: Rich people hire accountants to minimize taxes. What journalists call loopholes are in actuality the law, and you can bet that Congress accepted plenty of money from lobbyists to insert those provisions into the tax code.

The Times story said President Trump averaged paying $1.2 million a year in federal income taxes over the last 17 or so years, which indicates he makes around $3 million a year. If true, that would confirm my suspicion that he is land rich, cash poor, which makes sense as he is in the real estate business. Hello?

No, Nobody Really Cares About Trump’s Taxes.

Didja hear the big story about how Trump only paid $750 in taxes? Or maybe it was $1 million. Or $1,000,750. It was definitely one of those, probably. If it even matters.

Does it matter? If so, why?

I would argue, Dear Reader, that it does not matter.

The goal of stories like the NYT’s latest “bombshell,” among our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the media, isn’t to convince anyone of anything. And it certainly isn’t to inform anyone. No, the goal is to reinforce the existing beliefs of their audience. People who hate Trump read this earth-shattering story and say, “See? We told you!”

But unfortunately for them, there’s a flip side to that coin: People who love Trump say, “So? We don’t care!”

Nothing is proven and nobody is swayed. And within weeks or even days, it’ll be forgotten. Remember the bombshell revelation about Trump insulting the military? I barely do, and it was three weeks ago. (I had to Google it just now to make sure I didn’t just dream it.) Hell, Trump was impeached this year, and it mattered so little that it wasn’t mentioned once at the Democratic National Convention.

Literally 0% of this stuff is news. Nobody’s confused about who and what Trump is. The media reported on his tax avoidance in 2016. Hell, he bragged about it during a debate. If it didn’t matter last time, it’s not going to matter now. Nobody’s going to vote for the other guy because of this. Either Joe Biden runs a better campaign than Hillary Clinton did, or he doesn’t.

Trump and Biden have both been participants in American public life since the ’70s. The main difference: Trump is exactly the same guy he was when he was elected in 2016, and Biden is a faint shadow of the man he was when he dropped out of the presidential race in 1988.

If Trump is too old to be president, how is anybody supposed to get excited about a guy who’s even older?

 

Biden’s Texas Political Director Implicated in Massive Mail-In Ballot Harvesting Scheme in Harris County

A Biden Campaign operative in Texas is attempting to rig the 2020 election with the help of others in a massive ballot harvesting scheme, according to two private investigators who testified under oath that they have “video evidence, documentation and witnesses” to prove it. With the help of mass mail-in ballots, the illegal ballot harvesting operation could harvest 700,000 ballots, one Harris County Democrat operative allegedly bragged.

The investigators—a former FBI agent and former police officer—claim that Biden’s Texas Political Director Dallas Jones and his cohorts have been “hoarding mail-in and absentee ballots” and ordering operatives to them fill out for people in Harris County illegally, “including dead people, homeless people, and nursing home residents in the 2020 presidential election,” Patrick Howley of the National File reported.

While law enforcement agencies are reportedly investigating these potential crimes, nothing will be done about it until “well after the November 3, 2020 election” the former FBI agent said.

Dallas Jones was appointed the Biden campaign’s Texas Political Director in late August.

Mark A. Aguirre and Charles F. Marler provided sworn affidavits as part of a class-action lawsuit in the Texas Supreme Court, Steven Hotze, M.D. et al., against Harris County and the state of Texas. Continue reading “”

Project Veritas uncovers ‘ballot harvesting fraud’ in Minnesota

A ballot-harvesting racket in Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Minneapolis district — where paid workers illegally gather absentee ballots from elderly Somali immigrants — appears to have been busted by undercover news organization Project Veritas.

One alleged ballot harvester, Liban Mohamed, the brother of Minneapolis city council member Jamal Osman, is shown in a bombshell Snapchat video rifling through piles of ballots strewn across his dashboard.

“Just today we got 300 for Jamal Osman,” says Mohamed, aka KingLiban1, in the video. “I have 300 ballots in my car right now . . .

“Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. . . . Look, all these are for Jamal Osman,” he says, displaying the white envelopes.

“Money is the king in this world . . . and a campaign is driven by money.”

The video, posted on July 1, was obtained by Project Veritas and included in a 17-minute video expose released Sunday night.

Under Minnesota law no individual can be the “designated agent” for more than three absentee voters.

The allegations come just five weeks before a presidential election plagued with predictions of voter fraud. Both President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr have warned that the increased use of mail-in ballots, due to COVID-19 concerns about in-person voting, are vulnerable to fraud, especially when unsolicited ballots are mailed to all voters in certain states. Continue reading “”

Joe Biden is retired
The campaign has called nine early press lids this month

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign called another early morning press lid at 9:20 a.m. on Thursday, leaving strategists and reporters wondering what the hell is going on. It was the ninth time this month that Biden had no public events on schedule and thus told the press before lunchtime that they would not be needed for the rest of the day.

It’s downright bizarre that a campaign would squander nine perfectly good days that could be spent on the trail just two months out from the election. What was Biden doing during this time instead? Sitting at home with his wife in Wilmington and hopping on the occasional Zoom event? Sam Stein, who is a Daily Beast reporter and purportedly not a campaign spokesperson, insisted that Biden must have been prepping for Tuesday’s debate against Trump. But even Hillary Clinton, who was blasted for being ‘over-prepared’ for the first debate in 2016, only started lightening her campaign schedule the week prior. Debate prep thus hardly comes close to explaining Biden’s subdued September.

If we compared Biden’s recent campaign schedule to the supposedly standard 40-hour work week (full time employees in the US actually work about seven hours longer than that, on average), we’d have even more reason to be concerned. From August 31 to September 6, Biden called an early lid three times and was out in public campaigning for just over 34 hours. From September 7 to 13, he again called three early lids and was out on the trail about 35 hours. He made up some slack in the third week of September, putting in 65 hours on the trail. But so far this week, he’s only been out and about for just over 24 hours and has already called two early lids. It seems like a bad sign that Biden is campaigning for an office that requires brutally long working hours and can’t even keep up with the average American worker while campaigning. Perhaps it would be fairer to compare him to the average American retiree? Obama only slept for about five hours each night while in office, and Trump sleeps about four. Could Biden’s physical health be as troublesome to his campaign as his mental health seems to be?

Perhaps Biden’s frequent rest stops are an extension of his campaign’s strategy to ‘never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake’. They opted to keep him locked in the basement during the early months of the pandemic while Trump held daily press conferences about the coronavirus. It worked for a short time, with Biden taking a comfortable lead in many swing states, but since then the polls have tightened. Biden risks falling into the same trap that Hillary Clinton did in 2016 when she got too comfortable with the idea that Trump would talk his way out of victory. She took for granted voters in places like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. They responded by casting their ballots for her opponent. Will voters in 2020 feel similarly snubbed when they find out Biden spent more than a third of his month on the couch?

And she doesn’t mean getting the car out for people who don’t have one

Driving Voters to Join Team Trump

I’ll be upfront right here: I didn’t vote for Donald Trump in 2016. That’s because I couldn’t abide the man, and I knew that my state would be voting red anyway. So my vacant presidential ballot (no, I didn’t vote for Hillary) didn’t make any difference. But this year I’m voting to re-elect him. Disgust with leftist stunts will be driving me to the polls as soon as they open early (yes, I always vote in person).

And you know that I’m not the only one, either.

Take, for example, how Black Lives Matter activists harassed older Floridians just trying to enjoy a meal. Because Breonna Taylor or something.

Hold on — isn’t Florida supposed to be a battleground state? It is indeed, but Trump is gaining ground in the polls there; Real Clear Politics gives Joe Biden an average edge of only 1.3%. Wanna bet stunts like that will be driving Florida voters to join Team Trump? As Sharyl Attkisson tweeted:

“From what I can tell, at this point, you may as well call them the “Get-Out-The-Trump-Vote-Patrol.”

Continue reading “”

Texas AG Pax­ton Announces Joint Pros­e­cu­tion of Gregg Coun­ty Orga­nized Elec­tion Fraud in Mail-In Bal­lot­ing Scheme

Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced that authorities arrested Gregg County Commissioner Shannon Brown, Marlena Jackson, Charlie Burns, and DeWayne Ward on charges in connection with an organized vote harvesting scheme during the 2018 Democratic primary election. To increase the pool of ballots needed to swing the race in Brown’s favor, the group targeted young, able-bodied voters to cast ballots by mail by fraudulently claiming the voters were “disabled,” in most cases without the voters’ knowledge or consent. Under Texas election law, mail ballots based on disability are specifically reserved for those who are physically ill and cannot vote in-person as a result.

In total, the state filed 134 felony charges against the four defendants, including engaging in organized election fraud, illegal voting, fraudulent use of an application for a mail-in ballot, unlawful possession of a mail-in ballot, tampering with a governmental record, and election fraud. Penalties for these offenses range from six months in state jail to 99 years in prison.

“It is an unfortunate reality that elections can be stolen outright by mail ballot fraud. Election fraud, particularly an organized mail ballot fraud scheme orchestrated by political operatives, is an affront to democracy and results in voter disenfranchisement and corruption at the highest level,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Mail ballots are vulnerable to diversion, coercion, and influence by organized vote harvesting schemes. This case demonstrates my commitment to ensuring Texas has the most secure elections in the country, and I thank the Gregg County Sheriff and District Attorney for their continued partnership. Those who try to manipulate the outcome of elections in Texas must be held accountable.”

A grand jury returned indictments on 23 felony counts against Commissioner Brown, 97 felony counts against Marlena Jackson, eight felony counts against Charlie Burns, and six felony counts against DeWayne Ward. The Office of the Attorney General was assisted by The Gregg County Sheriff’s Office during the investigation. The Texas Attorney General will prosecute this case alongside the Gregg County District Attorney.

Read copies of the indictments here.

Military Ballots Found in the Trash in Pennsylvania, All Were Trump Votes.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office Middle District of Pennsylvania released a statement on the situation on Thursday:

On Monday, September 21, 2020, at the request of Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis, the Office of the United States Attorney along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Scranton Resident Office, began an inquiry into reports of potential issues with a small number of mail-in ballots at the Luzerne County Board of Elections.

Since Monday, FBI personnel working together with the Pennsylvania State Police have conducted numerous interviews and recovered and reviewed certain physical evidence. Election officials in Luzerne County have been cooperative. At this point we can confirm that a small number of military ballots were discarded. Investigators have recovered nine ballots at this time. Some of those ballots can be attributed to specific voters and some cannot. All nine ballots were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump.

While nine ballots have been recovered, it is not clear how many were actually discarded.

This announcement comes on the heels of a report that three trays of mail, including absentee ballots, were discovered in a ditch in Wisconsin.

NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers nationwide.

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Election Day is less than 50 days away when tens of millions of voters, including more than 5 million first-time gun buyers, will head to the polls to cast their ballot in the most consequential election for the Second Amendment.

#GUNVOTE is a campaign by the NSSF to encourage America’s gun owners, target shooters and hunters to register to vote, to become educated on where the candidates stand on the Second Amendment and, on election day, not to risk their rights and #GUNVOTE.

Rep. Matt Gaetz: Bloomberg may face criminal probe for paying felons’ fines

Rep. Matt Gaetz warned billionaire Michael Bloomberg that he may be facing a criminal probe for paying the outstanding fines and fees of 32,000 convicted felons in Florida so they could regain their right to vote ahead of the November election.

Speaking to Fox News’ “Hannity” Tuesday evening, Gaetz (R-Fla.) said he had spoken to Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody prior to his appearance on the show about Bloomberg’s voter effort in the Sunshine State.

On Tuesday, it was reported that the former NYC mayor had raised over $16 million for, and donated $5 million to, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.

Bloomberg’s push would benefit ex-cons as part of a 2018 state constitutional amendment allowing felons who have served their time to regain their right to vote.

Before they can regain that right, however, they need to pay any fines, fees or restitution.

In a statement to Axios, a representative for Bloomberg said, “The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy and no American should be denied that right. Working together with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, we are determined to end disenfranchisement and the discrimination that has always driven it.”

To Gaetz and Moody, however, there are legal concerns regarding Bloomberg’s political spending in this specific case.

“I believe there may be a criminal investigation already underway of the Bloomberg-connected activities in Florida,” Gaetz told Sean Hannity.

“[Under Florida law] it’s a third-degree felony for someone to either directly or indirectly provide something of value to impact whether or not someone votes. So the question is whether or not paying off someone’s fines and legal obligations counts as something of value, and it clearly does. If Michael Bloomberg was offering to pay off people’s credit card debts, you would obviously see the value in that.

“When you improve someone’s net worth by eliminating their financial liabilities, that’s something of value. Normally, it would be very difficult to prove that that was directly linked to impacting whether or not someone was going to vote. But they literally wrote their own admission,” the Florida Republican argued, referencing a Washington Post report. Continue reading “”

The Prelude to World War II: The Spanish Civil War and Today’s America

America is definitely not Europe, but we can find a number of parallels between European history and contemporary America. For example, we’ve previously written about the Italian Years of Lead as a possible template for urban unrest and low-level inter-tribal warfare in the United States. Another example of how things might play out in the United States is the Spanish Civil War.

The Spanish Civil War is known to historians, amateur and professional alike, as the “dress rehearsal for the Second World War.” It is so termed because it pitted one side – which was equipped, armed and funded by Europe’s fascist regimes (Germany and Italy) – against a government largely funded and propped up by the Soviet Union. However, it is worth noting that General Francisco Franco’s nationalist forces were not themselves fascist (though there were fascists within their ranks) and that Spain remained neutral during the Second World War, later becoming a close ally of the United States in the fight against communism internationally.

While there are few perfect analogs to be found anywhere in world history, there are parallels between the contemporary domestic political situation in the United States and the period immediately before and during the Spanish Civil War. And while the situation in the United States might play out in a much similar way to the Spanish Civil War, it is worth noting that our previous Civil War was the bloodiest in human history. There is little doubt that a Second American Civil War would not be significantly more destructive.

Table of Contents

BLUF:
It’s the same old bad actors, hoping that they can grab power back.
Didn’t Hillary Clinton say in 2016 that the failure to accept the results was a “threat to our democracy?” Well, sounds like they’re gearing up not to.
[again .ed]

Biden Campaign’s Latest Moves Look Like Dems Know They’re Going to Lose, but Not Concede

It’s been something to see, watching media pitching this constant idea that President Donald Trump might somehow refuse to leave office if he lost the election.

Here’s CNN spreading the nonsense, yet again.

Now, the only party which has actually said they wouldn’t concede has been the Democrats, with folks like Hillary Clinton urging Joe Biden “don’t concede under any circumstances.” Continue reading “”

All Joe knows is what’s rolled up on his teleprompter by his handlers.
And my guess is that every tweet is done by his handlers as well.

Joe Biden Counters Evidence, Claims ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Would Save Lives

Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden claimed on Sunday that a ban on “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines would save lives.

He did this via a tweet referencing the 1994 federal “assault weapons” ban:

Biden’s tweet ignores the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) report which showed the federal “assault weapons” ban had a negligible effect on crime at best.

The Washington Times quoted University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper, author of the NIJ report, saying, “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.” Continue reading “”

We’re Not Stupid

Bob Woodward has a new book out. It’s supposedly bad for the sitting Republican president, released two months before the general election. It’s deemed “worse than Watergate.” Wash. Repeat. Are we seriously still doing this?

Are we really going to treat this as some ordinary election cycle with some ordinary Republican in office? Does the media still think their ordinary reaction to a predictable, ordinary book will elicit an ordinary public reaction? Sincerely, I’m asking.

When you’re really forced to think about the time in which we live, the men from which to choose as candidates, and the hellscape our once-great American cities have become – to even consider Bob Woodward’s book as something upon which your vote would hinge is perhaps the dumbest thing one could ponder. Continue reading “”

Democrats’ Plot to Abolish Election Night

The Left and its media allies are warning Americans not to expect a winner on election night. If Donald Trump leads on Nov. 3, the victory will be nothing more than a “red mirage,” says Josh Mendelsohn, whose firm consults for the Democratic National Committee. In the days or weeks afterward, a Trump victory will be beaten back and undone as mail-in ballots tip the election for Joe Biden, predicts New York Times columnist David Brooks. “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances,” warns Hillary Clinton.

Don’t swallow this propaganda that election night victories are a thing of the past because of mail-in voting. Election night is a hallmark of American democracy. The public should be demanding the easy reforms that would protect it. Continue reading “”

BLUF:
Former White House staffer Michael Anton presented a frightening scenario three days ago in The American Mind. Determined to oust the President, even if they lose the election, Democrats have “war gamed” plans to pull off a coup d’etat. Anton explains:

“Remember that phrase from the Dem war game: “street fight.” In other words, a repeat of this summer, only much, much bigger. Crank the propaganda to ear-drum shattering decibels and fill the streets of every major city with “protesters.” Shut down the country and allow only one message to be heard: “Trump must go.”

Criminal street gangs may prove to be a highly valuable force multiplier for the Left Army around this coming election.  And they will be active in more cities than Chicago.  Count on it.

Urban Criminal Gangs in the Civil War to Come.

On September 2, the New York Post featured a news story headlined “FBI warns Chicago gangs have ‘shoot on sight’ pact against cops.” The FBI warned that, “Dozens of Chicago street gangs have made a pact to ‘shoot on-sight any cop that has a weapon drawn on any subject in public.’ ” These street gangs include “the Vice Lords, Black P Stones and Latin Kings,” that have a combined membership of several tens of thousands.

Even before this “pact” among criminal gangs was agreed upon, lethal attacks on Chicago policemen were up significantly this year. The Post cites Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown that it was clear “people are seeking to do harm to cops.” Continue reading “”