House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday told voters in Pennsylvania that the “little secret” former President Trump mentioned at his Madison Square Garden rally is a get-out-the-vote strategy, not something “diabolical.”
Democrats have been in panic since Trump teased Sunday that his “little secret” with Johnson would help Republicans keep the House of Representatives come Election Day. A New York Times article suggested that in the worst-case scenario, Democrats feared Johnson would work with Trump to steal the election and stop the certification of results on Jan. 6. 2025, should Vice President Harris win.
“It’s nothing scandalous, but we’re having a ball with this. The media, their heads are exploding. ‘What is the secret?’” Johnson said Monday at an event for GOP congressional candidate Ryan Mackenzie, according to The Hill.
“It’s a thing we have about — it’s a get-out-the-vote. It’s one of our tactics on get-out-the-vote,” Johnson said in response to a voter’s question about Trump’s comment.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, speaks during a campaign event with former President Donald Trump, not pictured, at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Getty Images)
“But they are convinced,” the speaker added, jokingly rubbing his hands together like he had an evil plan.
On Sunday, Trump said his “little secret” with Johnson would help Republicans win congressional elections, but he otherwise kept tight-lipped about it.
“I think with our little secret we’re going to do really well with the House, right?” Trump said, directing his remarks at Johnson. “Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a little secret — we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”
His comments, delivered with a chuckle, set off a reported wave of fear and panic among Democrats who speculated that Trump could have been referring to attempts to steal the election.
Trump waves goodbye after a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, 2024 in New York City. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., told the Times he took Trump to mean he had a “backup plan” in case Republicans lose the election.
“There’s a lot of ability for a bad actor to mess with the Electoral College if he’s the speaker of the House,” he said. “If I’m wrong, they should say so. Trump has a lot of secrets: His medical records are secret, his taxes are secret, his phone calls with Vladimir Putin are secret. Clearly he hides a lot from the American people. Now he’s openly stated that he’s hiding something from the electorate.”
In comments to The Hill, Johnson called the rampant speculation that he and Trump were planning to break the law after the election “absolute, utter nonsense.”
Johnson said that Trump was joking about a GOP get out the vote strategy when he discussed their “little secret” at a rally at Madison Square Garden. (Getty Images)
“I’m a lifelong constitutional law attorney. We’re going to respect the law. We’re going to follow the constitution to a T,” Johnson told the outlet. “I’ve proven that over and over and over. So all this conjecture is actually hilarious to us, that people are apoplectic about this. It’s a — it’s one of our get out the vote strategies. That’s what we’re talking about. And it’s almost a tongue-in-cheek thing.”
Reached for comment, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital, “President Trump has done countless telerallies reaching millions of Americans across the country in key regions that also helps bolster Republicans in congressional races.”
In Pennsylvania, Johnson said Trump refers to this get-out-the-vote effort as their “secret.”
“It’s not diabolical,” he said, per The Hill. “It’s actually very good. It’s going to help us with the turnout. All this is blowing their minds. They just can’t — They cannot fathom that Trump and Vance have the support that they do around the country like they do from — from new demographics of people.”
Chris Pandolfo is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital. Send tips to chris.pandolfo@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @ChrisCPandolfo.
The Republican National Committee has filed an emergency stay application with the U.S. Supreme Court after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court voted to allow provisional ballots for those who had improperly cast mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.
Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that voters in the state who had improperly cast their mail ballots, such as not using a secure envelope, would be permitted to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day. But state law does not allow for such provisional ballots.
The RNC’s filing noted that Pennsylvania law does not permit provisional ballots under such circumstances and has accused the state’s highest court of seeking to rewrite state law to fit their members’ political preference.
“When the legislature says that certain ballots can never be counted, a state court cannot blue-pencil that clear command into always. And here, the General Assembly could not have been clearer,” the RNC’s attorneys wrote.
RNC Chair Michael Whatley said in a statement: “Pennsylvania law has critically important safeguards to ensure every legal vote is counted properly. We have filed an emergency application in the Supreme Court to preserve those safeguards. Pennsylvanians’ mail ballots must be protected for our country’s most important election.”
Judge Samuel Alito, who handles emergency appeals arising from Pennsylvania, ordered the parties to respond to the RNC’s application by Wednesday. The RNC is seeking a ruling by Friday in advance of next week’s election. As noted in The Hill, the case is one of four election-related emergency motions at the Supreme Court currently pending.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the prestigious award given to Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya last week and what it has to say about those who censored, blacklisted, and vilified him for the last four years. In celebrating his fight for “intellectual freedom,” the National Academy effectively condemned those who joined the mob against him as well as the many professors who stayed silent as he and others were targeted.
Here is the column:
Few in the media seemed eager to attend a ceremony last week in Washington, D.C., where the prestigious American Academy of Sciences and Letters was awarding its top intellectual freedom award. The problem may have been the recipient: Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
Bhattacharya has spent years being vilified by the media over his dissenting views on the pandemic. As one of the signatories of the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, he was canceled, censored, and even received death threats.
That open letter called on government officials and public health authorities to rethink the mandatory lockdowns and other extreme measures in light of past pandemics.
All the signatories became targets of an orthodoxy enforced by an alliance of political, corporate, media, and academic groups. Most were blocked on social media despite being accomplished scientists with expertise in this area.
It did not matter those positions once denounced as “conspiracy theories” have been recognized or embraced by many. Some argued that there was no need to shut down schools, which has led to a crisis in mental illness among the young and the loss of critical years of education. Other nations heeded such advice with more limited shutdowns (including keeping schools open) and did not experience our losses.
Federal agencies now support the lab theory as the most likely based on the scientific evidence.
Likewise, many questioned the efficacy of those blue surgical masks and supported natural immunity to the virus — both positions were later recognized by the government.
Others questioned the six-foot rule used to shut down many businesses as unsupported by science. In congressional testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted that the 6-foot rule “sort of just appeared” and “wasn’t based on data.” Yet not only did the rule result in heavily enforced rules (and meltdowns) in public areas, but the media also further ostracized dissenting critics.
Again, Fauci and other scientists did little to stand up for these scientists or call for free speech to be protected. As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the result of massive social and economic costs.
I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions. They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.
Now the scientific community is recognizing the courage shown by Bhattacharya and others with its annual Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom.
So, what about all of those in government, academia, and the media who spent years hounding these scientists?
Biden Administration officials and Democratic members targeted Bhattacharya and demanded his censorship. For example, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) attacked Bhattacharya and others who challenged the official narrative during the pandemic. Krishnamoorthi expressed outrage that the scientists were even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”
Journalists and columnists also supported the censorship and blacklisting of these scientists. In the Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik decried how “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford allowed these scientists to speak at a scientific forum. He was outraged that, while “Bhattacharya’s name doesn’t appear in the event announcement,” he was an event organizer. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.”
Then there are those lionized censors at Twitter who shadow-banned Bhattacharya. As former CEO Parag Agrawal generally explained, the “focus [was] less on thinking about free speech … [but[ who can be heard.”
None of this means that Bhattacharya or others were right in all of their views. Instead, many of the most influential voices in the media, government, and academia worked to prevent this discussion from occurring when it was most needed.
There is still a debate over Bhattacharya’s “herd immunity” theories, but there is little debate over the herd mentality used to cancel him.
The Academy was right to honor Bhattacharya. It is equally right to condemn all those who sought to silence a scientist who is now being praised for resisting their campaign to silence him and others.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Mainstream leftist media, along with the Democrats (The Party of the KKK), are trying their best to falsely paint Trump and MAGA as Nazis. Maybe it’s time to remind them of the true horrific past of the Democrat party with this scary costume.
Disgusting Creep Tim Walz Follows Hillary’s Lead and Compares Trump Supporters in Madison Square Garden to Nazis
By Jim Hoft – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 27, 2024
Tim Walz joined Hillary Clinton and compared Trump supporters at Madison Square Garden today to see Trump to 1930s Nazis. Tim Walz: Donald Trump has descended into madness over the last few weeks. I think some of you don’t miss on this. Go do your Google on this. Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden. There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden. Don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there. What a nasty dog. They have nothing left in their arsenal, so they’re hurling the Nazi slur. Sick stuff. (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Audrey McNeal, a former delegate for the Democratic National Convention (DNC), has announced in a video released on Friday that she is officially joining the Republican Party. McNeal, who was previously a DNC delegate for both the 2020 and 2024 elections, declared that she will now be voting for the Trump-Vance ticket in the upcoming election.
In the video, McNeal, 22, explains that she was elected as a DNC delegate at the age of 18 and was excited to attend the convention to seek answers on important issues such as free speech, the border, and the economy. However, she soon became disillusioned after attending the DNC.
“After reflecting on my time at the DNC, I realized it was no longer the party of free speech and civil liberties that it used to be,” McNeal said. She added that the decision to install Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee without the democratic process, despite calls from prominent Democrats like former President Barack Obama for an open primary, was a clear example of this.
“For the rulers of the Democratic Party elite to install Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee via stripping the vote of 14 million Americans, including their own delegates such as myself, well that was a decision in a transaction that was concealed,” McNeal stated.
McNeal then announced that she has officially joined the Republican Party as a constitutional conservative. She expressed her excitement to be a part of the party and joins other young delegates who share her values.
Before her defection from the Democratic Party, McNeal had previously told GPB in August about the empowering experience of being among other young delegates at the DNC. She spoke about the support that she and her peers provided to each other in terms of campaigning and attending events together.
#ICYMI This year, 15 of Georgia’s 123 DNC delegates are under 35.
Audrey McNeal is one of those delegates. She lives in Fulton County and said it's "empowering" to be around other young delegates at the DNC. https://t.co/fG9YYgBOFh (From @gpbnews)
However, since joining the Republican Party, McNeal has made a new X account and has been vocal in her support for Trump. Her first post on Saturday quote-tweeted a clip teasing Trump’s podcast interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
McNeal also shared a quote from US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, stating, “‘It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.’” This quote clearly shows her belief in the importance of free speech, a belief that she believes is not upheld by the Democratic Party.
“It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears” – Louis Brandeis, US Supreme Court Justice https://t.co/R7Xx8XybGe
Her actions and statements speak for themselves, as she has made the decision to switch parties and pledge her support for Trump. McNeal’s story is just one example of Gen Z members rejecting the Democratic Party and joining the Republican Party, further strengthening Trump’s base of support.
It was such a fun time last week watching the perpetual drama queens that make up our national news media boil with rage over two newspapers declining to issue meaningless campaign endorsements. But it also revealed something unsettling about the unhealthy degree of emotional investment they have in this race.
Will the media accept the outcome of the election if Donald Trump wins? It’s far from a foregone conclusion that they will. There’s a strong argument they didn’t the last time Trump won. Why should anyone expect them to accept it this time around?
It’s a question these homely nerds are inclined to ask every elected Republican in the shallowest way possible — some variation of, “Will you accept the outcome of this election no matter what?” (I think every restaurant server from now on should ask Jake Tapper the moment he’s seated, “Will you accept the way your food comes out no matter what? It’s a yes or no question.”)
After the appalling behavior they displayed last week, now is a very crucial time to ask them the same thing. If they were this hysterical over management at The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times deciding, there would be no endorsement of Kamala Harris this campaign cycle — the type of endorsement that hasn’t mattered for decades — how can they be expected to acknowledge a Trump victory? And if they won’t, what will it mean to the people who are still influenced by them? They will have essentially been told their elections and their government are invalid. These are the things civil wars are made of.
As silly as the media have made themselves look, they’re dead serious. That a major news publication wouldn’t throw its weight behind the non-Trump candidate means nothing to normal people, but reporters in Washington and New York aren’t normal people. Look how they talk. They say things like “Democracy dies in darkness,” and we laugh because it’s corny. But they believe in earnest it’s a sacred oath binding their entire life’s meaning to a cause: maintaining the Washington and corporate power structure to their financial benefit. To hell with everyone else.
If in 2016 the news media eagerly went along with an absurd hoax that Trump won that election in large part because he conspired with the Russian government, what won’t they say when he wins again? They just spent the past three months telling voters that up is down, black is white, and Kamala is popular. They moved on from the attempt on his life like it was a standard news cycle that had run its course.
How could we expect them to concede defeat after everything they’ve done? And yes, a Kamala defeat will be theirs, too. Her campaign is theirs.
It’s a question they’re not ready to answer because, for them, it’s unthinkable.
The pink pussycat hats. A Women’s March that drew a half-million demonstrators to the nation’s capital. Millions of other demonstrators nationwide. It was all part of the Democrats’ reaction to Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. But this time could be different should the Republican former president prevail Nov. 5 over Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Trump is no longer an unknown entity and with polls so close, he has as good a chance of winning as losing, so the shock to the system of millions of Democrats will not be as intense.
More than a dozen influential progressives told the Journal they are dreading the prospect of Trump returning to power and are dismayed that half the country might see a different reality than they see. Jim Hannon, a psychotherapist and liberal organizer in Massachusetts, counseled calm in an open letter last week, noting the strength of Harris’ campaign while urging a broader perspective.
“Trump could win. So, panic then? No,” he wrote. “A Trump presidency would be awful but not the end of history.”
On a recent evening, the Journal reported, more than 200 joined a Zoom meeting titled Mass Training for Women’s Safety Teams hosted by a Women’s March veteran who noted its timing amid “escalating political violence.” Others are channeling their nerves into action by planning to attend Women’s Marches scheduled in Washington, D.C., and beyond on Saturday. In Boston, they are joining parties where volunteers fill boxes with abortion kits to mail to women in red states with strict abortion limits.
“We feel like we’re doing something,” Erin Gately, a 47-year-old physician assistant told the Journal. After Trump won in 2016, she took to the streets to protest but said this time she would focus on tangible actions such as protecting abortion rights.
Danielle Deiseroth, 28, executive director of Data for Progress, a liberal research group, told the Journal she has been talking with leaders of other progressive nonprofits about how to push back if Trump is elected. She said she anticipates progressives will look to Democrat governors as political torchbearers and Democrat attorneys general to contest Trump initiatives.
Laurie Woodward García, a South Florida activist, founded People Power United during Trump’s presidency to champion progressive causes, and, in her words, “stand up to fascism,” the Journal reported. Her bimonthly online seminars, some scheduled for after the election, explore the consequences if Trump were to enact Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda created by the Heritage Foundation from which he has distanced himself. Each session has drawn about 500 viewers.
“We’ve got to be optimistic and fight like hell,” she said.
That might be complicated by the uncertain trajectory of the Democratic Party, which would be at a generational crossroads with Barack Obama, the Clintons and President Biden all off the stage and no clear heir apparent should Harris lose.
“We’ll be in rebuilding mode,” South Carolina state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of Orangeburg, S.C., told the Journal.
This month, there is a new case on the docket after the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos. The First Circuit reversed a trial court that dismissed the case, alleging that the American firearms industry is legally responsible for violence in Mexico. I believe the First Circuit is dead wrong and will be reversed. However, as a torts professor, there is a question of whether the tort element of proximate cause could be materially changed in the case. Torts professors are already lining up to argue that there is a proximate cause under existing doctrines to hold the firearms industry liable. I respectfully disagree.
In the petition, Smith and Wesson and other gun manufacturers challenge the claim, including the argument that their sale of lawful firearms in the United States is the proximate or legal cause for the carnage in Mexico. They note that Mexico has long been riddled with violence and corruption connected to the extensive drug industry in that country.
In my view, the trial court dismissed the case correctly under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). That was passed to bar suits against firearms companies based on criminals using these products for criminal or intentionally tortious acts.
However, the First Circuit reversed on the ground that Mexico has made a legally cognizable case that gun manufacturers aided and abetted firearms trafficking that has harmed the Mexican government. The First Circuit is an outlier in this case and ignores both the purpose of the law and basic tort principles of proximate causation.
The Court has accepted the review on two questions:
1. Whether the production and sale of firearms in the United States is the “proximate cause” of alleged injuries to the Mexican government stemming from violence committed by drug cartels in Mexico.
2. Whether the production and sale of firearms in the United States amounts to “aiding and abetting” illegal firearms trafficking because firearms companies allegedly know that some of their products are unlawfully trafficked.
PLCAA was enacted to require dismissal at the inception of lawsuits like this, and other courts have recognized that. The First Circuit’s decision creates a circuit split.
Mexico’s complaint is wildly off base both factually and legally. It suggests that these companies are effectively funneling guns to criminal gangs in Mexico by producing products that they have used in criminal conduct.
The First Circuit adopted an analogy that destroyed the credibility of its decision:
Imagine that a U.S. company sent a mercenary unit of combat troops to attack people in Mexico City. Such an attack would directly cause Mexico itself the expense of paying soldiers to defend the city. Proximate cause would be quite clear. So, too, here, where the defendants are alleged to have armed the attackers for their continuing assaults.
Is that the best these federal judges could come up with? There is a vast difference between the United States sending a combat unit across the border and manufacturers who supply distributors who serve dealers who sell lawful products to consumers. That sounds more like The Merchandisers than The Expendables.
PLCAA specifically bars any “qualified civil liability action” against gun manufacturers and licensees. Any action filed against a federal firearms licensee for damages or other relief resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of a firearm is expressly addressed in the statute under § 7902 of PLCAA: “A qualified civil liability action … shall be immediately dismissed by the court in which the action was brought or is currently pending.”
Mexico and gun control advocates are focusing on an exception for any manufacturer or seller of a firearm that “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product [firearm], and the violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought….”
The First Circuit found that, if proven, a case can be made that Smith & Wesson engaged in “affirmative and deliberate efforts to create and maintain an illegal market for [its] weapons in Mexico” and that, as such, it was “aiding and abetting downstream dealers in violating state and federal laws governing the transfer of firearms.” The level of speculation and conjecture in such a claim is manifestly obvious. Mexico failed to offer anything beyond conclusory claims as to “downstream” users to allege this nexus.
The exception is clearly directed at violations of gun statutes, such as falsifying records or conspiracy to sell to a specific prohibited person. Even then, it must be shown to be the proximate cause of the injury. Mexico does not maintain such a specific showing but treats sales generally as aiding and abetting the violence in that country.
Under standard tort doctrine, criminal or intentionally tortious acts by third parties generally cut off legal causation. However, there is an exception where such conduct is foreseeable. Here is the language from Second Restatement of Torts 448:
“The act of a third person in committing an intentional tort or crime is a superseding cause of harm to another resulting therefrom, although the actor’s negligent conduct created a situation which afforded an opportunity to the third person to commit such a tort or crime, unless the actor at the time of his negligent conduct realized or should have realized the likelihood that such a situation might be created, and that a third person might avail himself of the opportunity to commit such a tort or crime.”
The Third Restatement contains the same approach while, again, recognizing that “If the third party’s misconduct is among the risks making the defendant’s conduct negligent, then ordinarily plaintiff’s harm will be within the defendant’s scope of liability.” Restatement (Third) of Torts: Physical & Emotional Harm (2010)§ 19 cmt. c (“If the third party’s misconduct is among the risks making the defendant’s conduct negligent, then ordinarily plaintiff’s harm will be within the defendant’s scope of liability.”).
However, these exceptions have not been extended to the extent envisioned by Mexico or the First Circuit. For example, in the famous case of Brower v. New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, 91 N.J.L. 190 (1918), a train negligently struck a wagon carrying cider and knocked the driver senseless. The railroad personnel left his goods unprotected and they were stolen. The court ruled:
“The negligence which caused the collision resulted immediately in such a condition of the driver of the wagon that he was no longer able to protect his employer’s property; the natural and probable result of his enforced abandonment of it in the street of a large city was its disappearance; and the wrongdoer cannot escape making reparation for the loss caused by depriving the plaintiff of the protection which the presence of the driver in his right senses would have afforded.”
Simply selling a lawful product falls significantly short of this type of nexus. It would be akin to holding train manufacturers liable for the negligent operation of the train engineer in Brower in aiding and abetting such conduct by third persons.
It is hard to see how the Court could find that these companies were “the” proximate cause of the harm without creating a federal standard for proximate cause that would extend foreseeability beyond any recognition. There are powerful superseding intervening forces in play in Mexico. To embrace this theory that the manufacturers knowingly and foreseeably increased the risk of violence in Mexico would allow torts to effectively gut the industry and existing federal law.
Previously, gun control advocates tried to use product liability and nuisance laws to curtail gun sales. Those cases failed as over-extending tort doctrine to achieve indirectly the courts what could not be achieved directly in the legislatures. Conversely, Congress passed PLCAA to prevent such circumvention of the legislative process.
There are good-faith arguments to be made that the exception for criminal conduct can be maintained where there is sufficient foreseeability and that the First Circuit was merely allowing Mexico to prove its case. However, the complaint is manifestly insufficient for such a claim.
There is no specific evidence that would establish the required showing of knowledge or foreseeability by manufacturers in working with Mexican drug gangs. Mexico has been rife with drug cartels and corruption for decades. Much of this violence has occurred with the cooperation and collusion of Mexican officials, including law enforcement officials.
In my view, the First Circuit should and will be reversed.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Gov Walz and the Minnesota Democrats are in a war with police and the people of Minnesota, well documented in the new Alphnews.com movie titled “Minnesota v. We The People”.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
The Pravda press has asked former President Donald Trump over and over again whether he’ll accept the results of the election if his Democrat opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, wins. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has heard the question ad nauseam as well.
CBS News political correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns peppered the former president with the question in late August, as the Democratic National Committee was installing Harris as the party’s nominee following President Joe Biden’s forced exit from his reelection campaign.
“Will you accept the results of this election?” the reporter asked.
“Absolutely. I assume it’s going to be a fair election. If it’s going to be a fair and free election the answer is absolutely I will,” Trump said.
Burns pressed with this ridiculous question. “What does fair mean to you?”
“It means the votes are counted. It means that votes are fair,” Trump said. “It means they don’t cheat on the election, they don’t drop ballots, install new rules and regulations that they don’t have the power to do.”
In other words, if leftist activists and Trump-hating elections officials don’t rig this election like they did the last one.
“They don’t use 51 intelligence agents to give phony reports, which had an effect on the election. They don’t do many of the things that they did in the last election,” he added, referring to the former intelligence officials who signed a letter insisting the Hunter Biden laptop story reported by the New York Post days before the 2020 presidential election was “Russian disinformation.” It was not. It was very real. And the Deep State, assisted by a complicit corporate media, silenced a story that many Americans say could have changed the results of the election.
Do Tell
But the Pravda press has been generally loath to ask Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the same question. The Federalist is asking. We sent email requests to both the Harris campaign and the vice president’s office asking if she will accept the results of the election if she loses next month to Trump. As of publication, crickets.
The Federalist also asked the National Security Leaders for America whether their members will accept the results of the election if the former president wins. NSL4A made headlines and garnered lots of airtime last month when its 700-plus former government, military and national security leaders signed an open letter endorsing Harris. Former CIA Director John Brennan is one of the endorsers. He’s also one of the 51 signers of the letter falsely claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.
Again, no response.
A good question voters should be asking is, why aren’t the accomplice media asking whether Harris, the Democrats, the intelligence community and other swamp creatures will be patriotic enough to accept the results of the election if Trump wins?
They Do Not Accept
They’ve been far too busy publishing all kinds of stories asking all kinds of conservatives whether they’ll accept the results of the election if their guy loses — Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.), even Republican voters at large via variouspolls. They’re the same “journalists” who like to gloss over the fact that leading Democrats refused to accept the election results of 2016, when Trump surprised the world and beat bitter shrew Hillary Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state and the Pravda press’ presidential chosen one.
“I do not see this president-elect as a legitimate president,” the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., told NBC News as Trump was taking office amid Democrats’ cries of “Russian interference.”
“I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians and others that helped him get elected. That’s not right. That’s not fair. That’s not the open democratic process,” he added.
Sour Grapes Hillary said the same and has kept on saying since.
“I believe [Trump] understands that the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories — he knows that — there were just a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out like it did,” she complained in a 2019 CBS News interview.
During the vice presidential debate between Vance and Walz, moderator Norah O’Donnell demanded Vance answer whether he would “seek to challenge this year’s election results.” She didn’t press Walz on whether he would accept the results of a Trump-Vance win.
Walz was given a moment to deliver a “can’t we all get along” speech, insisting that questioning the results of elections must end.
“When this is over, we need to shake hands, this election, and the winner needs to be the winner,” the leftist said. “This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.”
Vance rightly reminded Walz about the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party.
“…[W]e have to remember that for years in this country Democrats protested the results of elections. Hillary Clinton in 2016 said that Donald Trump had the election stolen by Vladimir Putin because the Russians bought like $500,000 of Facebook ads,” Vance said. “This has been going on for a long time. And if we want to say we need to respect the results of the election, I’m on board. But if we want to say, as Tim Walz is saying, that this is just a problem that Republicans have had, I don’t buy that.”
Voters shouldn’t buy it, either. That’s why it’s important to know where the Democrat Party presidential nominee stands less than two weeks before Election Day. So, The Federalist is asking.
Vice President Harris, will you accept the results of the election if you lose?
An official with National Security Leaders for America has provided a comment following the publication of this story. The official, who asked to be identified as an NSL4A “spokesperson” said the following:
“Unlike Mr. Trump, who led a violent insurrection to try to overturn an election he lost, our members–who fought for this nation’s democratic and pluralistic ideals–will respect America’s democratic decision. We hope Mr. Trump, whose own Chief of Staff said Mr.Trump wants to be a dictator, will do the same.”
As has been well documented, Trump’s former chief of staff’s incendiary comments have been debunked by multiple sources, and the assertion that Trump “led a violent insurrection” is widely disputed.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
Texas business leader “Joe from Texas” Penland Sr., who has been asking candidates to sign onto the “Contract from the American People,” a 10-point initiative to fight the spiraling national debt, told Newsmax that he’s endorsing former President Donald Trump, saying his platform to revive the economy closely matches what Americans are demanding.
“If you look at Donald Trump’s platform, what he has, about eight of these 10 [on the contract] are on his 15-point script that he has,” Penland told Newsmax’s National Report Friday.
Still, Penland said he and others working with the initiative didn’t support Trump from day one because two years ago, they didn’t know who would be in the election.
“We held off until we talked to thousands of people to see what they really want,” said Penland, explaining that the contract contains demands that make sense to the American people, and politicians are being asked to sign on and take the pledge to better the country.
Penland told Newsmax that the economy has gotten worse for the “last several presidents.”
He added that when the election started, he got requests for money for campaigns and decided to “take the money that they want” and launch an investigation into what is going on with debt and other problems.
“We hired some people and we put a team together and we started researching, and as you researched it, it got a lot worse than what you hear on the news or reading the paper,” said Penland.
And while on tour around the country, Penland said the group learned that “people are really further into this than what the politicians give us credit.”
“They think that the American people are completely in the dark, that we don’t know what we’re doing,” he said. “Look at all the businesses that this country has. You know, we are the empire of the world as far as business and people all want to come to this country. They all want to start their business here.”
But the United States is “subbing that market out,” he said.
Penland is the founder and chairman of Quality Mat Company, one of the oldest and largest producers of rig, oilfield, and crane mats in the world, and has served on several bank boards over a quarter of a century, and he said he thought it was important to “unmask the American financial situation.”
“This contract is not from me and is not from Dave Walker, who’s the former comptroller general of the United States who helped author it,” he said. “This is from the American people. This is what the American people want. And the politicians need to listen to that.”
The national debt is now at almost $36 trillion, and Penland pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office has projected that the United States will go $2 trillion more in the hole per year for the next 10 years.
“That would be $56 trillion,” he said. “We’ll pay $2 trillion a year in interest. That money should be helping children go to school, should be helping elderly people, should be taking care of our streets and our border.‘
“It took us over 220 years to get to $1 trillion in debt, and now we go $2 trillion every year in debt for the next 10 years,” he said. “I think it’s unacceptable. And I take offense to it.”
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Chinese hackers who tapped into Verizon’s system were targeting phones used by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The newspaper said investigators were working to determine what communications, if any, were taken.
The Trump campaign was made aware this week that Trump and Vance were among a number of people inside and outside of government whose phone numbers were targeted through the infiltration of Verizon phone systems, it added. The campaign did not confirm that Trump’s and Vance’s phones were targeted. Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, said the former president’s Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris has emboldened China and Iran to attack U.S. infrastructure to prevent Trump from returning to office.
The Harris campaign could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Trump campaign was hacked earlier this year. The U.S. Justice Department charged three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps with the hack, accusing them of trying to disrupt the Nov. 5 election.
The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said on Friday they were investigating unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by people associated with China. The joint statement by the agencies did not name the targets of the incident.
Verizon said it was aware of a sophisticated attempt to reportedly target U.S. telecoms and gather intelligence.
The largest U.S. telecom company added it was working with law enforcement.
Kamala Harris speaks during a July 13 campaign event at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. (Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)
As Vice President Kamala Harris slips in the polls, the Democratic National Committee/Harris campaign/mainstream media fusion talking points become even more absurd. Claiming that JD Vance and Donald Trump were “weird” did not work—especially given the genuinely odd behavior of vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz and would-be first gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Nor was the next Harris meme convincing: that the frenetic and nonstop Trump was somehow “exhausted,” “senile,” and “confused.” Voters know the workdays of the younger Harris are usually far shorter—or sometimes not workdays at all.
But Harris also falsely claimed the physically and mentally challenged President Joe Biden was, in her words, “absolutely authoritative” and “very bold and vibrant.”
Now Harris asserts that Trump is a “fascist,” a “dictator,” and “unfit” for office. But this new talking point will also not stop the Harris campaign’s hemorrhaging—and for a variety of reasons.
First, voters see the election as a conflict of two absolutely antithetical visions.
On the one hand is the prior, concrete Trump 2017-20 record: border security, no major wars abroad, calm in the Middle East, a deterred Russia, Iran, and China, low inflation, low interest rates, lower crime, lower taxes, strong deterrent military—and opposition to mandatory electric vehicle mandates, biological males competing in women’s sports, and the woke/DEI agenda.
On the other hand, is the Biden-Harris 2021-2024 record: the unchecked entry of 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens and a destroyed border. People still struggle under Biden-Harris’ earlier hyperinflation and high interest rates. The horrific regional wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue. Biden-Harris embraces the unpopular woke/DEI agenda.
Harris herself knows that the Biden-Harris years were a failure. That is why she has shed almost all of the administration’s hard left-wing agendas—policies she has embraced for much of her adult life.
So suddenly, in the last 90 or so days, Harris has completely flipped and flopped.
Now she is for more funding of, not defunding, the police. She pivots for a secure border, not 20 million illegal aliens pouring across it. Harris brags about fossil fuel energy, not banning fracking; she’s for increasing, not cutting, defense.
In fact, several endangered incumbent Democratic senators in swing states are claiming more allegiance to Trump’s issues than identifying with Harris and her unpopular record as vice president.
Voters likely conclude that if Trump doubles down on his record, while even Harris and many senators temporarily piggyback on it, then it must be more effective and popular than Harris’ own.
Second, Harris now claims Trump is a fascist and insurrectionist.
But mouthing “Jan. 6” ad nauseam no longer persuades voters that Trump is a danger to anyone. They recall that Harris bragged of the far more violent demonstrations of 2020—five killed, $2 billion in damage, 1,500 law enforcement officers injured, 14,000 arrested—and said that the unrest would not and “should not” stop, while drumming up support to bail out jailed violent protesters.
Nor does the slur that Trump is a fascist resonate. The Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris administrations weaponized the CIA and FBI to interfere in the 2016 and 2020 elections by peddling the fake “Steele dossier” and suppressing all the embarrassing news about Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop.
Trump certainly didn’t coordinate, as Biden did, with local, state, and federal prosecutors to wage lawfare prosecutions to destroy his political opponents. He didn’t use the FBI to partner with social media to suppress the news.
Neither Trump nor his supporters tried to remove Biden from state ballots.
The House’s Republican majority didn’t impeach Biden twice despite the Biden family’s corruption and Joe Biden’s unlawful, decadeslong removal of classified papers to several insecure private residences.
Trump and the Republicans never coercively removed the party’s primary-winning nominee. They didn’t nullify the will of 14 million primary voters. And in backroom fashion, they didn’t anoint a candidate who had never entered a single primary in her life.
Nor did Trump support packing the Supreme Court. He doesn’t seek unconstitutional means of destroying the Electoral College. He isn’t demanding an end to the Senate filibuster or the creation of two new states to obtain four partisan Senate seats.
Third, as for Trump being “unfit” and lacking “decorum?” It depends on what the Biden-Harris standards were.
Having a trans activist reveal his breasts on camera at a White House “pride party?”
Biden’s reportedly calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a f***ing idiot” and “son of a b**ch?” Bragging about locking Trump up, while waging lawfare against him?
Unleashing son Hunter Biden with impunity to shake down foreign governments?
The Nov. 5 election will not be decided on these empty talking points or fake, media-generated narratives.
Instead, only two criteria matter: Which candidate’s past record and current agenda best appeal to voters? And which candidate seems the most authentic and genuine?
This week, I wrote about polls that show the public is not buying the apocalyptic predictions of the imminent death of democracy unless Kamala Harris is elected president. Now, a new poll shatters another main talking point of pundits and the press. Democratic candidates, including Vice President Harris, have denounced voter identification laws as “Jim Crow 2.0” attacks on voters. A majority of voters have long supported these laws. According to a new Gallup poll, that majority is now a supermajority.
Despite unrelenting attacks on these laws in the media, eight in ten Americans now support both laws:
With less than two weeks to go in the presidential campaign and voting already underway in many states, 76% of U.S. adults favor the concept of early voting. Two other election law policies are supported by even more Americans — requiring photo identification to vote (84%) and providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time (83%). …
Majorities of Americans favor a range of election law policies that expand voters’ access to the ballot box, including early voting, automatic voter registration, and sending absentee ballot applications to all eligible voters. They also broadly support measures to limit fraud and ensure election integrity, including requiring photo identification to vote and providing proof of citizenship when first registering to vote.
There are few major political issues today that could show this type of overwhelming support, including from Democrats. Yet, both the Democratic politicians and pundits continue to denounce these laws. Indeed, the campaign against Georgia resulted in their losing the All-Star Game and its economic benefits. Yet, under these laws, Georgia is setting records in the turnout of voters.
In the meantime, the Biden Administration is continuing to oppose and legally challenge efforts of states like Virginia to remove alleged non-citizens from their voting rolls.
They’ve attacked him. They’ve impeached him. They’ve arrested him. They’ve desperately tried to imprison him. They unconstitutionally denied him access to the ballot. They’ve tried to kill him. Democrats have failed at every turn to get rid of Donald Trump. Now the self-proclaimed defenders of democracy and their corporate media allies are turning to the last vestige of hope for the desperate in an extremely tight presidential race: Lies. And name-calling.
‘Do You Think Donald Trump Is a Fascist?’
Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris opened Wednesday night’s CNN town hall with a long tirade in which she warned ostensibly undecided voters that Trump would be a dictator if given another term in the Oval Office.
“Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?” host Anderson Cooper asked the vice president in the opening moments of the latest long-form, packaged-as-news political ad for the Harris-Walz campaign.
“Yes, I do. Yes, I do,” Harris answered as if reciting an unholy wedding vow.
Of course she does. The “Trump is Hitler” narrative is Harris’ — and the left’s — closing argument in a Reader’s Digest presidential campaign for the Democrats. It must be noted that Harris’ abridged quest began with the Democrats’ bloodless coup that removed the demented Democrat president of the United States from his run for a second term.
In an act of corporate media collusion so transparent it burns the eyes, the shameless Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief at The Atlantic, published the hit piece earlier this week that Harris and her team are using in one last-ditch effort to paint the former president as “unfit” to be president again. The smear job, citing bitter former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly, claims, among other outlandish charges, that while in office Trump suggested Hitler “did some good things.” The story, mostly employing anonymous sources, was quickly debunked on the record by multiple people who were in the room with Trump.
As my Federalist colleague John Daniel Davidson wrote, the story “would never have passed muster in a newsroom 20 years ago.” And former Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi aptly noted on X, “The Hunter Biden laptop story couldn’t be repeated by any major outlet because it hadn’t been independently verified. The Atlantic pieces can be repeated by everyone. Weird how that works.”
The Hunter Biden laptop story couldn't be repeated by any major outlet because it hadn't been independently verified. The Atlantic pieces can be repeated by everyone. Weird how that works.
Of course, it’s not weird at all. Painting the former president as the devil has long been the playbook. Lies and empty accusations are just fine, if they’re in pursuit of what the left thinks is right. And what is right to the Democrats is holding on to power by any means necessary.
Just ask the late spawn of Satan, Harry Reid. The nasty, formerly breathing Democrat senator infamously lied about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney not paying his taxes. Reid lied from the Senate floor. When called out on his lie, Reid sneered, “Romney didn’t win, did he?”
‘She May Lose’
That’s the left. It’s what they do. And, yes, sometimes the lies work. But there is political peril for Harris. Voters have heard it all from Democrats, particularly the patently false stuff about Trump and his relationship with the military and service members.
As pollster and political strategist Frank Luntz told CNN’s Kasie Hunt hours before her network’s town hall, Harris runs a real risk of alienating the relatively few undecideds in the race. Luntz said Harris did well in the opening days of her Joe Biden replacement campaign focusing on “why she should be elected.” Remember all those “good vibes” and joy and crap?
“She’s had the best 60 days of any presidential candidate in modern history. And then the moment that she turned anti-Trump and focused on him and said, ‘Don’t vote for me, vote against him,’ that’s when everything froze,” the strategist said.
The polls show as much. Trump in recent weeks has devoured any gap as Harris could no longer hide and had to answer at least some actual questions about her record and her agenda. In Harris parlance, he is unburdened by what has been.
Trump is defined, Luntz said.
“He’s not gaining, he’s not losing. He’s who he is and his vote is where it is,” the pollster said.
“[Harris] is less well defined and if she continues just to define this race as ‘vote against Trump,’ she’s going to stay where she is now, and she may lose.”
But desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess. Democrats haven’t been able to stop Trump to date. So, they’re hoping to deal him a death blow with lies.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
The latest battleground state polls have the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remaining a dead heat as Election Day approaches, with single-digit margins or ties being reported. The seven battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will likely determine who will become president, political analysts say.
Current polling for each state shows:
Arizona: The race between Trump and Harris remains tight. A Marist Poll released Thursday shows Trump with a 1-point lead (50%-49%) over Harris. Recent polls from Morning Consult/Bloomberg and Atlas have the two in a tie at 49% each.
Georgia: The numbers are still too close to call. The Marist Poll on Thursday shows Trump and Harris in a tie with 49% each. The recent Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll shows Trump up by 2 points (50%-48%).
Michigan: No new polls for Thursday. A RealClear Politics average gives the battleground state’s nod to Trump (47.9%-47.7%).
I have previously written about the European Union’s (EU) effort to use its infamous Digital Services Act (DSA) to force companies like X to censor Americans, including on postings related to our presidential election. This is a direct assault on our free speech values, and yet the Biden-Harris Administration has not raised a peep of objection. Now, the EU is threatening to set these confiscatory fines with reference to revenue from companies other than X, including Space X.
The EU has warned Musk that it is allowed to hit online platforms with fines of as much as 6% of their yearly global revenue for refusing to censor content, including “disinformation.” The inclusion of companies like Space X is ridiculous but perfectly consistent with the effort of the EU to use the DSA to regulate speech in the United States and around the world.
The EU is arguing that as a “provider” Musk’s entire business portfolio can be included in the fine calculation. It is ridiculous and chilling. Musk’s other companies have nothing to do with the platform policies of X. It is simply an unhinged coercive measure designed to break Musk.
X has objected:
“X Holdings Corp. submits that the combined market value of the Musk Group does not accurately reflect X’s monetization potential in the Union or its financial capacity, In particular, it argues that X and SpaceX provide entirely different services to entirely different users, so that there is no gateway effect, and that the undertakings controlled by Mr. Elon Musk ‘do not form one financial front, as the DMA presumes.’”
However, the abusive calculation is precisely the point. The EU censors are making an example of Musk. If they break us, no company or executive could hope to defy them. They are being cheered on in this effort by an anti-free speech movement that includes America politicians and pundits.
One of the lowest moments came after Elon Musk bought Twitter on a pledge to restore free speech protections, Clinton called upon European officials to force Elon Musk to censor American citizens under the DSA. This is a former democratic presidential nominee calling upon Europeans to force the censorship of Americans. She was joined recently by another former democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, who called for government crackdowns on free speech.
In my new book on free speech and various columns, I write about the DSA as one of the greatest assaults on free speech in history. As I wrote in the book:
“Under the DSA, users are ’empowered to report illegal content online and online platforms will have to act quickly.’ This includes speech that is viewed not only as ‘disinformation’ but also ‘incitement.’ European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager has been one of the most prominent voices seeking international censorship. At the passage of the DSA, Vestager was ecstatic in declaring that it is ‘not a slogan anymore, that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.’”
The pressure on Musk’s other companies has also been ramping up in the United States. Recently, the California Coastal Commission rejected a request from the Air Force for additional launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It is not because the military agency did not need the launches. It was not because the nation and the community would not benefit from them. Rather, it was reportedly because, according to one commissioner, Musk has “aggressively injected himself into the presidential race.” It is all part of Musk mania and the need for the anti-free speech movement to break the only executive who has defied the pressure from this alliance of media, academic, corporate, and government officials.
As I have discussed previously, there is a crushing irony in all of this. The left has made “foreign interference” with elections a mantra of claiming to be defending democracy. Yet, it applauds EU censors threatening companies that carry an interview with a targeted American politician. It also supports importing such censorship and blacklisting systems to the United States. When you agree with the censorship, it is not viewed as interference, but an intervention.
Anti-free speech advocates like Clinton are now going old school. After trying to convince Americans to embrace censorship and blacklisting, they are now praising governments like Brazil and the EU for directly imposed speech regulations on American citizens.
The question is where is the Biden-Harris Administration and Congress. You have a foreign government forcing the censorship of speech of American citizens. We routinely impose reciprocal trade barriers on countries for interfering with our markets. Yet, when a government seeks to curtail political speech in the United States, our leaders are silent.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the growing hysteria among press and pundits proclaiming the imminent end of democracy if Kamala Harris is not elected. The predictions of mass roundups, disappearances, and tyranny ignore a constitutional system that has survived for over two centuries as the oldest and most stable democracy in the world. More importantly, the public appears to agree that democracy is under threat but appear to hold a very different notion of where that threat is coming from.
Here is the column:
“Democracy dies in darkness” is the Washington Post’s slogan, but can it handle the light?
The Post has been doggedly portraying the election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris as a choice between tyranny (Trump) and democracy (Harris). Yet when it commissioned a poll on threats to democracy shortly before the election, it did not quite work out.
Voters in swing states believe that Trump is more likely to protect democracy than Kamala Harris, who is running on a “save democracy” platform. The poll sampled 5,016 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. When asked whether Trump or Harris “would do a better job” of “defending against threats to democracy,” 43% picked Trump while 40% picked Harris.
Notably, this was the same result when President Biden was the nominee. While over half said that threats to democracy were important to them, the voters trusted Trump (44%) more than Biden (33%) in protecting democracy.
Even with the slight improvement for Harris, the result was crushing for not just many in the Harris campaign but the press and pundits who have been unrelenting in announcing the end of democracy if Harris is not elected.
I have long criticized the apocalyptic, democracy-ending predictions of Biden, Harris and others as ignoring the safeguards in our system against authoritarian power. Nevertheless, Harris supporters have ratcheted up the rhetoric to a level of pure hysteria. Recently, Michael Cohen, a convicted felon and Trump’s disbarred former lawyer, told MSNBC that if Trump wins the election, he will “get rid of the judiciary and get rid of the Congress.”
Recently, MSNBC host Al Sharpton and regular Donny Deutsch warned viewers that they will likely be added to an enemies “list” for some type of roundup after a Trump election. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow also joined in the theme of a final stand before the gulag: “For that matter, what convinces you that these massive camps he’s planning are only for migrants? So, yes, I’m worried about me — but only as much as I’m worried about all of us.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was quick to add her own name to a list that seems to be constantly updated by the media. She told podcast host Kara Swisher, “I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy threw me in jail.”
On ABC’s “The View,” the hosts are becoming indistinguishable from tinfoil-hatted subway prophets. Whoopi Goldberg even explained how Trump is already committed to being a dictator who will “put you people away … take all the journalists … take all the gay folks … move you all around and disappear you.”
Of course, assuming that Cohen is wrong that there will be no courts after a Trump victory, this would require federal judges to sign off on the rounding up of MSNBC personalities, all gay people, all reporters, and, of course, Whoopi Goldberg. All that is required is for over two centuries of constitutional order to fail suddenly, and for virtually every constitutional actor in our system to suddenly embrace tyranny.
Those pushing this hysteria often curiously cite the January 6 riot as proof that the end is near. Yet that horrible day was the vindication, not the expiration, of our constitutional system. The system worked. The riot was put down. Congress, including Republicans, reassembled and certified Biden as the next president. In the courts, many Trump-appointed judges ruled against challenges to the election. Our system was put through a Cat 5 stress test and did not even sway for a moment. Nevertheless, the same voices are being heard on the same media outlets with doomsday scenarios.
Former Acting US Solicitor General Neal Katyal told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” ominously, “We are looking at a very possible constitutional crisis and one that’s going to make January 6, 2021, look like a dress rehearsal. And this year, the rogues have had four years to go pro and perfect the big lie.”
In other words: Be afraid, very afraid.
Then, in a New York Times column, Katyal lays out scenarios premised on a complete breakdown of the oldest and most stable democratic system in history. It is like telling passengers on an ocean liner that we will all drown and then whispering that this is “assuming the crew intentionally scuttles the ship, all bulkheads and sealed departments fail, and every lifeboat and life preserver is discarded.”
But then we are all going to die.The only way to avoid that watery grave (with the death of democracy itself)? Vote Democratic.
There is, however, some good news in all of this: Despite years of alarmist predictions from Biden, Harris, the press, and pundits, the public is not buying it. It is not because they particularly like Trump. Many of his supporters seem poised to vote for him despite viewing him as polarizing and, at times, obnoxious.
No, it is because the American voter has a certain innate resistance to being played as a chump. Many of the same figures claiming that democracy is at stake supported ballot cleansing to remove Trump and others from the ballots. They supported the weaponization of the legal process in New York against Trump. Likewise, as Harris insists that she is the only hope for fundamental rights, many cannot fail to notice that she is supporting an unprecedented system of censorship that one court called “Orwellian.”
None of this means that the choice between Trump and Harris is easy. However, Harris’ claim to be the only hope for democracy is proving as tin eared as running on pure “joy.”
Voters are clearly demanding more than a political pitch of abject fear mixed with illusive joy.
A.F. Branco Cartoon — Harris-Biden’s last four years in office have been a total wreck on the American people, and now that she’s running for another four years, she says that she’ll fix it, but according to the latest polls, fewer voters believe her.
GOING VIRAL: Anderson Cooper Drops Bomb on Kamala Harris: You’ve Been in the White House For 4 Years. Why Haven’t You Done Any of This Already?
Cristina Laila – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 23, 2024
Kamala Harris participated in a CNN town hall for undecided voters on Wednesday night. She completely bombed. Kamala Harris did so bad that even CNN admitted she ‘didn’t close the deal’ with voters. CNN moderator Anderson Cooper pointed out to Harris that there are voters out there who say that day one for her started almost four years ago. Kamala Harris keeps promising to secure the border and bring down the price of groceries. (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco Cartoon — Desperation has consumed the Harris campaign, which has brought out the “Trump is Hitler” card just 12 days before the election. Kamala echoed a debunked comment by Trump’s ex-disgruntled Chief of Staff John Kelly. October surprise?
President Trump Slams ‘Comrade’ Kamala and ‘Low Life’ John Kelly’s Disgusting ‘Hitler’ Allegations as Desperate Election Ploy Just 2 Weeks Before Voting
By Jim Hoft – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 24, 2024
With just 12 days left before Election Day, the Democrats and their allies are pulling out all the stops, launching baseless attacks to smear President Trump. On Wednesday, Kamala Harris pushed a tired, debunked hoax published by The Atlantic, being owned by a Kamala’s personal friend Laurene Powell Jobs. Harris seized upon a claim from Trump’s former Chief of Staff, John Kelly, who conveniently “remembered” just in time for the election that Trump allegedly praised Adolf Hitler—an absurd and false claim. This latest smear came as part of a coordinated effort by Harris and the Democrats, desperate to shift the narrative away from their failing policies and lackluster campaign.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – It’s been a lousy week for Kamala and a great week for Trump as he surges ahead in the polls. The mainstream media and the Democrats ridiculed Trump for showing up for a campaign stop at McDonald’s, but it turned out to be an ingenious move politically. No worries, Kamala, I hear McDonald’s is hiring.
War Room Guest Host Dave Bossie Discusses President Trump Dominating the Polls with Rasmussen Pollster Mark Mitchell (VIDEO)
By David Greyson – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 22, 2024
** Please keep our friend and political prisoner Steve Bannon – the founder of The War Room – in your thoughts and prayers during this time. War Room guest host Dave Bossie discussed President Trump dominating in the polls with Rasmussen pollster Mark Mitchell on Tuesday. Mitchell said that President Trump is doing better in the polls now than in 2016. “Instead of taking a bottom-up approach, I would take a top-down approach because Donald Trump is polling better than he did in 2016,” Mitchell said. (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Trump’s pick for Vice President, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, arrives on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wis. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Two Christian college students who were mocked by Vice President Kamala Harris at a recent campaign rally have a warning for Christians: get ready for more of the same.
Grant Beth and Luke Polaske attended the Harris-Walz rally at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse last week when they shouted phrases like “Christ is King!” as Harris spoke about abortion rights.
In an interview Sunday with “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Beth said the pair’s shouted phrases drew the ire of those around them.
“I was pushed by an elderly woman. We were heckled at, we were cursed at, we were mocked,” Beth said. “In reflection of the event, Jesus was mocked. His disciples were mocked, and that’s OK.
“We did God’s work, and we were there for the right reasons.”
Grant Beth and Luke Polaske attended the Harris-Walz rally at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse last week when they shouted phrases like “Christ is King!” as Harris spoke about abortion rights. | Screenshot/YouTube/Fox News
Polaske, who said he and Beth were approximately 20 to 30 yards away from Harris, said he can confirm the vice president addressed them specifically.
“There’s a lot of controversy that says she wasn’t talking to us or [that] we left. We didn’t get kicked out. Well, I can speak on Grant and I’s behalf,” he said.
“On video, Grant’s getting pushed and shoved, and there’s about five seconds before she tells us to go to a small rally down the street. You can see on the video, she waves. She was actually waving to me,” Polaske added.
At that point, he said he removed his cross necklace, held it up in the air, and “pointed at” Harris.
“She looked [me] directly in the eye, kind of gave me an evil smirk,” he said.
Harris paused her speech to address the students, quipping, “You guys are at the wrong rally,” which drew loud applause from the audience. The moment quickly went viral on social media.
While Harris focused on the economy and her vision for the 2024 campaign, she also criticized former President Donald Trump for his role in overturning Roe v. Wade. “When Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, as president, I will proudly sign it into law,” she pledged.
Beth warned that a Harris presidency could lead to tensions with the Christian community.
“You’re going to get the Kamala Harris that alienates over 50 percent of the U.S. population that is Christian,” he argued, referencing her decision to skip the Al Smith Memorial Dinner, a long-standing charity event attended by presidential candidates.
Polaske made similar predictions in a social media post Sunday in which he warned about the “spiritual warfare” involved in the 2024 election.
He wrote: “Christianity is the most hated and persecuted religion in the world. I have seen this firsthand when my faith was mocked and insulted by the Vice President of the United States. I hope as Christians we do not compromise our morals to vote for a woman who does not care about our faith.‘
“We are in the midst of a spiritual warfare this election cycle. With that being said, let’s not forget what we are taught to do as Christians.”
After quoting Christ’s command for His followers to love their neighbor, Polaske added, “He tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. In Jesus’ name, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Because in the end, WE WIN.”
U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, appeared to reference the exchange during his own rally in Wisconsin Sunday afternoon while speaking about his Catholic faith. During his speech, an attendee shouted “Jesus is King,” to which Vance responded, “That’s right. Jesus is King.” He described Harris’ rhetoric as “anti-Christian” and suggested it reflects a broader issue in modern politics.
After sharing about his return to faith as a Catholic and being baptized in 2019, Vance referenced what he described as VP Harris’ “anti-Christian rhetoric.”
“I say this as a Christian, as a person who was baptized for the first time just a few years ago. There is something really bizarre with Kamala Harris’ anti-Christian rhetoric and anti-Christian approach to public policy,” he said.
The Democratic Party is losing its edge over the GOP in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, with Democrats changing their party affiliation at more than twice the rate of Republicans, according to state data released after voter registration ended Monday evening. A total of 9,088,583 registered voters were tallied across the state when the sign-up period ended at midnight on Monday. Registered Democrats maintained a lead over registered Republicans, at 3,971,607 registered Democrats to the GOP’s 3,673,783.
Though the Democratic Party accounts for nearly 44% of registered voters compared to the GOP’s 40%, it has seen its advantage over Republicans dwindle this year.
In 2020, there were 9,090,962 registered voters across the parties in Pennsylvania, only slightly more than the 9,088,583 voters registered this cycle.
President Biden won the state in 2020 by 1.17 percentage points. That year, Democrats had a larger margin of registered voters compared to their Republican counterparts, at 4.2 million to 3.5 million. The data show that Democrats had a registration advantage over Republicans by 685,818 voters during an election Biden won by 80,555 votes.
The GOP has whittled down that lead this year to a 297,824 margin. When comparing registered voters this election year to 2020, Democrats face a net loss of 257,281 voters, while Republicans have a net gain of 428,537 registered voters.
More than double the number of previously registered Democrats changed their party affiliation this cycle compared to the number of registered Republicans who left the party: 54,668 registered Democrats changed their party affiliation compared to 25,634 Republicans, Pennsylvania Department of State data shows.
The data is broken down by county, with Philadelphia notably reporting 18,928 Democrats changed their party affiliation compared to just 3,401 Republicans doing the same. Bucks County, which sits outside of the City of Brotherly Love, reported 2,089 Democrats changed their party affiliation compared to 1,624 Republicans. In Allegheny County, home to the state’s second-largest city of Pittsburgh, 6,564 Democrats changed their party affiliation while 2,202 Republicans did the same.
A voter fills out a mail-in ballot at the Board of Elections office in the Allegheny County Office Building on Nov. 3, 2022, in Pittsburgh. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
The registered voter data comes after reports surfaced that concerns were mounting within the Democratic Party that the Harris campaign is failing to effectively connect with voters in Pennsylvania.
Poor campaign management and staffers lacking relationships with Democratic political leaders in the Keystone State are allegedly rocking the campaign, Politico reported last week. The outlet reported that Democrats are worried that the campaign’s state manager lacks an understanding of Philadelphia, the state’s largest city, while campaign staffers have allegedly not invited local Democratic politicians to events in the state, and have not effectively deployed surrogates.
Politico reported that it spoke with 20 Democratic politicians, allies and party leaders for the story, who reported they are restless over Harris’ campaigning efforts.
“Our campaign is running the largest and most sophisticated operation in Pennsylvania history,” Harris’ national campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez said in comment to Fox News Digital when asked about the report last week. “While Trump’s team still refuses to tell reporters how few staff they have in the state, we have 50 coordinated offices and nearly 400 staff on the ground.”
“While the Trump campaign closed its ‘minority outreach offices,’ we invested in targeted advertising to Black and Latino voters starting in August of 2023 and have now spent more than any previous presidential campaign on outreach to these communities. The Vice President is also campaigning aggressively in Pennsylvania – spending 1 out of 3 days in the state in September.”
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at Divine Faith Ministries International on Oct. 20, 2024, in Jonesboro, Georgia. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
Vulnerable incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey made national headlines last week when he distanced himself from Democratic Party leaders and launched a campaign ad detailing how he “bucked Biden” and “sided” with former President Trump.
The ad features a married couple – Republican Marygrace and her Democrat husband Joe – praising Casey as an “independent,” citing his support for Trump’s trade policies and efforts to “protect fracking” from the Biden administration.
“Our marriage – pure bliss! But on politics, we just don’t agree. Except for Bob Casey. He’s independent,” Marygrace says, with her husband chiming in, “That’s right!”
“Casey’s leading the effort to stop corporate greedflation and price-gouging,” Marygrace continues. “Casey bucked Biden to protect fracking and he sided with Trump to end NAFTA and put tariffs on China to stop them from cheating. So, in this house, we agree, it’s Bob Casey who’s doing right by Pennsylvania.”
Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger Dave McCormick (Mark Makela/Getty Images)
Casey has served in the Senate since 2007, ultimately becoming a stalwart within the Democratic Party, voting on legislation Biden supported, for example, 98.5% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight data. He is now facing his toughest re-election effort yet, as he squares up against Republican challenger Dave McCormick.
The Fox News Power Rankings score the presidential contest in Pennsylvania as a toss-up, with the Senate race a lean Democrat designation. The Cook Political Report, this week, however, shifted the Senate contest from a leans Democrat race to a toss-up race, underscoring Casey’s difficult re-election battle.
Pennsylvania is touted as the state that will likely determine the outcome of the general election on Nov. 5. A Fox News survey of Pennsylvania voters published late last month found Harris narrowly ahead of Trump by 2 points (50-48%) among registered voters, while the race is tied at 49% each among likely voters.
Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolofo and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Erstwhile Republican primary opponents as well as longtime allies and lawmakers are in talks for key roles in a second Trump administration, including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., getting strong consideration for secretary of state, the New York Post reported Tuesday.
While Trump makes the rounds in battleground states to defeat Democrat nominee Kamala Harris, his transition team is in advanced talks with a host of Republican heavy hitters to fill out a would-be Cabinet and administration positions, according to the Post.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told the Post last week that as many as 10 House lawmakers “are probably real contenders to be acting or serving at the Cabinet level or [as] deputy secretary.”
Johnson didn’t name names, but the Post reported Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., is being considered for defense secretary and/or state, along with Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn. House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., could get consideration for CIA director or ambassador to the United Nations, according to the report.
Outgoing North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who challenged Trump in the 2024 GOP primary, is being eyed for energy secretary, according to the report. Burgum was considered a finalist to be Trump’s running mate.
Rubio, too, was a finalist for vice president until Trump selected Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio. Rubio has been a loyal supporter of Trump since being vanquished by Trump in the 2016 Republican primary.
“Sen. Rubio is respected and known for his expertise in matters of foreign affairs and he has been a strong and loyal supporter of President Trump,” a campaign source told the Post.
Allies from Trump’s first administration are also expected to land top spots, including former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, the Post reported. Likewise, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would also likely have a prominent role in a second term.
Grenell, O’Brien and sitting Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., are seen as contenders for national security roles under Trump, according to the Post.
Biotech mogul and GOP primary opponent Vivek Ramaswamy would also be in line for an administration role, perhaps Homeland Security, but he has eyes on replacing Vance in the Senate or running for governor of Ohio in 2026, according to the Post.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris join hands while viewing fireworks July 4 from a White House balcony with first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
President Joe Biden will leave office on Jan. 20, 2025.
Although the Biden-Harris administration has been riddled with flawed and failed policies, perhaps the most lasting damage will be from its reckless approach to the federal budget.
When Biden and Harris took office on Jan. 20, 2021, the gross national debt was $27.8 trillion. It’s now $35.8 trillion. Such enormous numbers are nearly impossible to comprehend. However, if one were to spread out the debt evenly, every U.S. household would have roughly $273,000 of red ink. Of that, just over $61,000 per household came during less than four years of the Biden-Harris administration.
Although the administration’s defenders argue that this was an inherited mess, the reality is that Biden and Harris made a bad situation much worse.
Although government spending related to COVID-19 drove up budget deficits in 2020 and 2021, the Biden-Harris administration and its allies in Congress saw the pandemic as an opportunity to blow out spending and tax subsidies for unrelated issues.
This opportunity included:
A $1.9 trillion stimulus package containing a multitude of handouts for left-wing political groups.
Several rounds of student loan write-offs costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, despite most of the schemes being struck down in court as illegal power grabs.
Democrats’ misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act, which set up a gigantic corporate welfare system on behalf of “green” energy producers.
Through poor legislative choices and deliberate administrative decisions, Biden and Harris have increased 10-year deficits by $7 trillion relative to when they took office.
Needlessly increasing the government’s deficit spending even after the economy recovered from the damage caused by COVID-19 lockdowns was a major factor behind the wave of inflation that began in 2021. Even today, inflation rates remain elevated relative to the pre-pandemic trend as tens of millions of families struggle to deal with high prices.
Once it became clear that inflation was not a short-term problem, the Federal Reserve took the step of raising interest rates to regulate the money supply. This increased the cost of borrowing for households, businesses, and even Uncle Sam.
Although federal interest payments also increased from 2014 to 2020, primarily due to rising debt, higher interest rates caused these payments to explode under the Biden-Harris administration. In fact, interest on the national debt cost almost three times as much in fiscal year 2024 as in fiscal year 2020.
Although it’s possible that the Federal Reserve’s recent move to lower interest rates might provide some relief on this front, the federal government is still in the process of rolling over old low-interest debt at today’s relatively higher level. This makes it likely that Washington will need over $1 trillion to finance the national debt in fiscal 2025. Coupled with chronic deficits that grow the total debt every year, interest payments possibly could grow with no end in sight.
From an economic perspective, that represents $1 trillion of dead weight, which will drag down growth and reduce the amount of job-creating private investment. This could lead the U.S. down the same path as Japan, which went from an economic powerhouse in the 1980s to a near afterthought today, in part because of overloading on government debt.
Fortunately, it’s not too late for America to change course. We have hundreds of ways to cut wasteful spending and corrupt handouts across the federal government. From defunding the academic Left, to curbing pork barrel earmarks, to reforming Medicare’s payment system, a variety of fixes not only would improve budgetary health but remove harmful favoritism.
It seems unlikely that the swamp is going to willingly drain itself. That means the first step will be for American citizens to hold their leaders accountable and demand a return to fiscal sanity in the wake of the Biden-Harris administration.
Call it the Mark of Kaine. The heated dispute between the Biden Administration and the State of Virginia just took a curious turn after Virginia lawyers released support for the effort to remove alleged noncitizens from the voting rolls ahead of the presidential election. The main witness against the Biden Administration may prove to be Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) who is on the ballot this election.
The Biden Administration sued to stop the removal of 6,303 alleged noncitizens from Virginia’s voter rolls before the election, which is expected to be close in the state. It relies on the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), or the “Motor Voter Law,” which bars “systemic” removal of voters from the rolls less than 90 days before an election.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin ordered compliance with existing laws, citing Virginia code 24.2-439, requiring the removal of noncitizens whose names were added under false pretenses. It also cited Virginia Code 24.2-1019, requiring registrars to immediately notify their county or city prosecutor of such situations.
The NVRA has exceptions for removals within what the Justice Department calls the “quiet” period before an election, including the removal of individuals who are “ineligible to vote because of a criminal conviction or mental incapacity, or for “correction of registration records pursuant to this chapter.” However, the state argues as a threshold matter that these are not systemic removals. The state argues that these are individual actions triggered automatically by citizens identifying themselves as noncitizens but then joining the voting rolls. It is a crime for a noncitizen to vote in the election.
The state notes that the voter is notified of the problem and allowed to correct any errors to remain on the rolls. If they do not correct the problem, they are removed from the rolls. However, they can still vote on election day with a “provisional” ballot to challenge any removal.
Virginia is not targeting any group and does not know how these voters might vote. It is responding to a notice coming from the Department of Motor Vehicle of a possible ineligibility and potential criminal act if the person actually votes, which is admittedly rare for noncitizens.
While the Justice Department insists that some of these individuals are actually citizens, the system allows for those citizens to remain on the rolls by simply correcting the DMV record.
I understand concerns over changes close to the election, but there seemed to be a host of options for the Justice Department short of this lawsuit, including working with the state to be sure that this relatively small number of voters are given ample opportunity to correct their records.
This weekend, Virginia added a new wrinkle in the litigation. The Virginia law has been on the books since 2006. The bipartisan legislation was signed into law by then Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. It has been used without any objection for all those years. However, it now appears that Kaine’s administration specifically asked the Justice Department to determine if the law was compliant with federal laws, including an express inquiry about the NVRA. On December 16, 2006, the Justice Department completed its review and found no objections to the Virginia law though it added that it reserves the right to object in the future to any such laws.
Gov. Youngkin further told Fox News that past governors continued to use the law within the 90 days period without a peep of objection from the Justice Department. These facts distinguish the Virginia case from the Alabama case where a court enjoined removal of names of suspected non-citizens.
Now, Kaine is on the ballot and there is a close election for the presidency. The Biden Administration is suddenly claiming to be “shocked, shocked” that there are alleged noncitizens being removed from the ballot.
In July, in an interview with WJLA-TV , Kaine insisted that “voting should be reserved for U.S. citizens.” When pressed recently, his campaign issued a non-statement statement that, again, insisted that “it is illegal for noncitizens to vote” while adding that “just as we want to block noncitizens from voting, we need to keep eligible voters from being purged from voting rolls, particularly just weeks from an election.”
Youngkin agrees that the state must “block noncitizens from voting” and is using the very law Kaine signed (and the Justice Department approved) for that purpose.
In the end, these votes are unlikely that to change any electoral outcomes. However, there is a broader fight building over a variety of election integrity efforts. States have complained that the Biden Administration has harassed and sued them at every turn as they sought to require voter identification or other laws.
Florida is now suing the Biden administration for allegedly obstructing the verification of immigration records so the state can remove any non-citizens. The state alleges that the Biden Administration has simply refused to supply required verification information.
These are just a few of the over 165 election-related lawsuits filed in the days before the election by the federal and states authorities and various public interest groups.
Some local officials are sparring with state officials. Fourteen states do not require voter identification. Despite the opposition from the Administration and many Democratic leaders, Gallop and other polling show Americans overwhelmingly support voter identification laws. In California, the state actually made it illegal for local election officials to ask for identification from voters.
The key about the lawsuits filed close to the election is the first round is often the last round. Whoever wins these fights for injunctive relief is likely to remain the prevailing party in the final days before the election.
There is now a virtual army of lawyers deployed by both parties to secure or to protect the expected small margin of victory in the election. Indeed, lawsuits like the Virginia action constitute a type of “harassing fire” to push back on states on identification and eligibility efforts.
The Biden Administration’s move against Virginia shows how one person’s voter integrity is another’s voter suppression. Indeed, the man who signed this state law is now supporting the Administration seeking to limit its use.
Yet, the mark of Kaine on this law is an indelible reminder of how even long-standing practices are now being challenged in this hair-triggered environment. For voters, they will have to be careful when picking their line at their polling place. The longest line is likely the lawyers waiting to get inside.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Democrats, the party of child genital mutilation and late-term abortion, are outraged at Trump for his comments alluding to Arnold Palmer’s private parts.
HILARIOUS: Jake Tapper Asks Mike Johnson “Why is [Trump] Talking About Arnold Palmer’s Penis?” – Johnson Responds, “You Seem to Like That Line A Lot” and Leaves Tapper Embarrassed
By Jordan Conradson – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 20, 2024
In a hilarious exchange, White Dude for Harris and CNN correspondent Jake Tapper was embarrassed by House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday when he asked, “Why is [Trump] talking about Arnold Palmer’s penis?” Johnson joined CNN’s State of The Union on Sunday morning, where he was asked about Trump’s humorous locker room talk at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Saturday evening. In response, Johnson said, “Jake, you seem to like that line a lot,” which flustered the far-left host. Tapper’s question comes after President Trump’s rally at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where he cracked a joke about his late friend Arnold Palmer, whom he called “all man.” (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
How does a Democrat senator hang on to his seat when voters are leaning Republican? If you’re 17-year incumbent Sen. Bob Casey, D-Penn., you start running advertisements aligning with former President Donald Trump.
Leftist scumbag Bob Casey — who supported BOTH impeachment hoaxes and votes with Kamala 100% of the time — is now desperately trying to embrace President Trump.
Pennsylvanians know he's a shill for Kamala's deranged, radical left agenda — and always will be. pic.twitter.com/nlplWvQiK9
The feeling is not mutual, with Trump calling Baldwin a “Radical leftist senator.”
Baldwin must have noticed a change in the wind to suddenly align with Trump because in September she was seen on video calling Trump the “most offensive, and hateful, and unacceptable presidential candidate we’ve ever had.”
“What does that say about the people who support him?” she added.
This is what @SenatorBaldwin thinks of Trump and his supporters
If you live in Wisconsin vote for @EricHovde for Senate
“Imagine being Kamala Harris and changing the channel from President Trump’s epic performance at the Al Smith dinner only to see … swing state Senate Democrats embracing President Trump’s historic record in their ads,” Republican National Committee Spokesman Gates McGavick told The Federalist. “Thankfully for Kamala, this will all be over for her in just 18 days.”
Trump was asked about this phenomenon on a recent appearance on a Breitbart News Special Report, hosted by Matt Boyle,that aired on SiriusXM Patriot channel 125.
“Well, it’s an honor, actually,” Trump said. “They have senators that voted to impeach me, Democrat, and they’re Democrats, and now they’re bragging about my policies, and they have to use that because their policies were radical left and not good. So, they’re now taking ads saying that I was in favor of tariffs like President Trump. I was in favor of this and that. And nobody’s ever seen anything quite like it, but they weren’t. I mean, they weren’t.”
Riding Trump’s Popularity to Maintain Statehouse Power
Federal Democrat candidates are not the only ones embracing the “Trump is my pal,” strategy.
In a Republican-leaning Pennsylvania district, 16-year incumbent Pennsylvania State Rep. Frank Burns is running as a Trump-loving Democrat. Burns has been running ads — many, many ads — attacking his Republican challenger, Amy Bradley, using images of Trump, and implying that he is more aligned with Trump than Bradley is.
Image CreditFrom Frank Burns Ad
“President Trump supports secure borders and putting America first. Amy Bradley doesn’t,” one television ad says. “It’s time to tell Amy Bradley —” the video cuts to Trump saying, “You’re fired. Get out of here.” In fact, Burns is the incumbent and could be the one fired by voters in this scenario.
It is also a total lie. Trump endorsed Bradley.
“Frank seems to be obsessed with President Trump’s endorsement of me. He is accusing me of tricking the president, which is ridiculous,” Bradley told The Federalist. “Sen. JD Vance also endorsed me last weekend following Frank’s accusations, they are clearly on board with my campaign.”
Local Republicans driving past the “Republicans for Burns” signs dotted strategically throughout Cambria County next to Trump signs, may believe they were paid for by Republicans, but the fine print on the signs shows they were paid for by The Committee to Reelect Frank Burns.
Image CreditWilliam Klika
Image CreditWilliam Klika
Burns represents District 72 in the Pennsylvania House. The district largely covers Cambria County, which went for Trump in 2020. According to Pennsylvania Department of State data, the district currently has 20,272 registered Republicans; 16,902 registered Democrats; and 4,910 registered voters not affiliated with the two major parties.
To win, Burns needs to flip Republican voters, and he often tries to present himself as friendly to conservative causes. Burns is endorsed by Gun Owners of America. The Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation endorsed Burns as the incumbent with a known voting record, and also lists Bradley as a pro-life candidate. Burns sometimes votes against his party.
Yet Democrats are spending big bucks on this small, rural, state race to keep Burns in power.
“Right now, the Democrats hold a one vote majority in our state house, 102-101, so every member of each caucus matters,” Matt Brouillette, CEO and president of the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, told The Federalist. “Frank Burns is an outlier in that he is in a very conservative district but empowers the Philadelphia progressive political agenda to march through the halls of our General Assembly.”
A look at Pennsylvania Department of State campaign finance reports going back to 2008 show The Committee to Reelect Frank Burns fund rarely had more than $100,000, and often much less for campaign spending. That is typical spending for a race of this size in Pennsylvania. His most recent required financial filing, May 13, 2024, shows he had $40,000 on hand.
The new financial reports, due Oct. 25, will show a huge infusion of cash into the Burns campaign, because the Committee to Reelect Frank Burns has spent more than $4 million on broadcast advertising.
FCC records show Burns has signed multiple advertising contracts in excess of $100,000 each.
It is quite a contrast from the nearly $22,000 his Republican challenger has spent so far.
The Federalist requested an interview with Burns, but he did not respond, so we could not ask him who is funding these extraordinary buys.
But it helps to understand the delicate balance of power in the statehouse. The party in power leads committee discussions, and the majority leader decides which bills make it to the floor for a vote. For a long time, Pennsylvania has had a Republican-led House and Senate, and a Democrat governor. It meant Republican bills passed and were often vetoed by the governor. Democrats were powerless to get much done.
After 12 years of Republican leadership, in 2022, the Pennsylvania House flipped to a razor thin Democrat majority, 102-101. But immediately after the election, before the House was sworn into office in January 2023, Democrats had three vacant seats, giving Republicans the voting majority, 101 Republicans and 99 Democrats.
One Democrat seat was empty because longtime Democrat Rep. Anthony M. “Tony” DeLuca died after the ballots were printed. Voters chose him posthumously.
Two other seats were immediately vacated by candidates who ran for two offices at the same time and won both seats. They both left their House seats for higher offices. Former state Rep. Austin Davis is now lieutenant governor, and former state Rep. Summer Lee is now in Congress.
Republicans wanted to vote for a party leader while they had the voting majority. Democrats used delaying tactics and by February 2023, Democrats had won special elections to fill the three vacancies, and the power was back to 102 Democrats and 101 Republicans.
But in July, former state Rep. Sara Innamorato, a Democrat, left the district representative seat to run for the position of Allegheny County Executive. The House was tied at 101 for each party until a September 2023 special election where Democrat Lindsay Powell prevailed, moving the power back to Democrats 102 and Republicans 101.
The tug of war has continued since then. Often when Democrats lose a member, they go into recess until it is resolved so Republicans can’t call a special vote and regain power over the chamber.
With the help of Frank Burns voting with his party, the chamber voted to make Democrat Joanna McClinton Speaker of the House, and with that, the longtime Republican House veered its agenda to the left. Democrats desperately want to hold on to power — even if it means promoting Trump’s agenda in campaign ads.
“[Burns] can’t disown the fact that he voted for Joanna. He had to, and that’s typical Frank Burns. When the party needs him, he’s there for Democrats,” State Rep. Josh Kail, who serves on the House Republican Campaign Committee, told The Federalist. “The guy has this phony facade back in district, but he goes to Harrisburg, and he’s a complete enabler of the left-wing agenda. He voted for one of the most liberal speakers of the house to give Democrats control of the House … The most important vote that a legislature takes is when they vote for who the speaker is, and who’s going to control the calendar and what we’re voting on. He is directly responsible for all of the left wing votes that we’re getting out of the state house.”
Alfonso Aguilar is director of Hispanic Engagement at American Principles Project and former chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship in the administration of President George W. Bush. Follow him on X: @amigoaguilar
Hispanic voters are bolting from the Democrats faster than Kamala Harris can say “Latinx.” This is one of the most significant trends in this year’s presidential campaign. The growing discontent is a result of economic frustration as well as a broader cultural clash over values, as many Hispanics reject the Biden-Harris administration’s radical positions on gender ideology and parental rights.
According to the most recent NBC/Telemundo poll, Harris leads former President Donald Trump with Hispanic voters by 14 percentage points. However, that is the smallest margin for a Democrat in over a decade. Every other presidential Democratic candidate since 2012 had an advantage of at least 36 points and, eventually, went on to win the Hispanic vote by similarly significant margins.
The NBC poll is far from an outlier. The latest Quinnipiac University survey shows that Harris’ lead among Hispanics nationally is down to single digits. In the key battleground states of Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, Harris is only slightly ahead. In the border state of Arizona, Trump is actually winning the Hispanic vote. This increased support of Hispanics for Trump and Republicans is driven by several factors.
According to the Pew Research Center, the economy is the top issue for Hispanic voters. Often with larger families and lower median incomes, Hispanics have been disproportionately hurt by crippling inflation and the massive influx of illegal immigrants into their communities. Under Trump, Hispanic unemployment hit a record low of 4% and, contrary to common assumptions, more than half of Hispanic voters support stricter border security measures.
Yet Hispanics are also disgusted by the Biden-Harris administration’s extreme cultural agenda. Two-thirds identify as Catholic or Protestant. And it turns out they aren’t thrilled about the latest “woke” school offerings: teachers chatting about sex with their kids in class and allowing adult men access to girls’ locker rooms.
An American Principles Project survey of Hispanic voters in Arizona and Nevada revealed strong opposition to these progressive positions. Over two-thirds surveyed said schools should stick to teaching the fundamentals and leave “sex and racial issues” to parents. Hispanics are repulsed by the Left’s obsession with “transgender kids” and “transgender girls of color,” and reports that reveal 5,700 minors underwent sex-change surgeries in the United States in the last four years.
Trump is making inroads with Hispanic voters by slamming “transgender insanity” and running ads denouncing Harris’s support for taxpayer-funded sex-change treatments and surgeries.
The blitz against Harris on cultural issues has been so effective that even Democrat strategists had to “concede” to The New York Times that it is “taking a toll in some races.” But wait, the Democrats have an ingenious trick up their sleeve!
The Harris campaign announced the launch of a coalition called “Hombres con Harris”—literally, “Men With Harris.”
The campaign apparently hopes this new group will help stem the party’s losses among Hispanic men. Just like “White Dudes for Harris” has been so helpful for her support among Caucasian males. But in truth, it’s the Democrats’ far-left agenda, not a lack of awkwardly named affinity groups, that is repelling Hispanic voters. Hispanics have historically voted Democrat, but they do believe in common sense and that parents know what is best for their children.
If the Republican Party wants to solidify and expand its gains with Hispanic voters, it must continue to champion commonsense policies that prioritize family values, parental rights, and economic opportunity.
Hispanic voters have had enough of being treated like a checkbox for the Democrats. They’re making their voices heard, and this time, it might just sound like “Adios!”
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
Migrants of different nationalities walk toward the United States on a highway in Tapachula, Chiapas State, Mexico, on Oct. 5, 2024. (Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)
Jason Hopkins is a reporter covering immigration issues for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—A migrant caravan is heading northward toward the United States a few weeks before Election Day, the results of which will almost undoubtedly spell changes for border enforcement policies, according to The Associated Press.
A roughly 2,000-person-strong migrant caravan left southern Mexico on Sunday in hopes of reaching the U.S. in the coming days, according to the AP. The latest caravan is so far the largest since newly elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum entered office in October. Among those in the caravan are individuals who expressed concern that a new administration in Washington, D.C., would lead to the end of a popular app that has allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals to schedule appointments with Customs and Border Protection officials in hopes of entering the country.
“That is what makes us fearful,” Joel Zambrano, a Venezuelan national, said to The Associated Press. “They say this could change because they could both close the CBP One appointment and all the services that are helping migrants.”
The CBP One app was first created in October 2020, with the Biden-Harris administration dramatically expanding its use in January 2023. The popular app enables migrants to schedule appointments in order to obtain exemptions at ports of entry and permits them to submit biometric data to federal immigration authorities in order to apply for travel authorization and obtain parole. More than 800,000 noncitizens scheduled appointments through the CBP One app from January 2023 through the end of August 2024, according to CBP. The Biden-Harris administration has additionally flown in more than half a million foreign nationals into the country via an initiative known as CHNV—a program that grants two-year parole to Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals.
Roughly 7.4 million migrants have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, according to the latest data from CBP. While the CBP One app and an election-year crackdown on illegal immigration by the Mexican government have helped keep migrants in southern Mexico, many are reportedly leaving the region due to a delay in asylum appointments and a lack of job opportunities.
“The situation in my country is very bad, the president doesn’t do anything for us. We spent a week by the border, but getting documents takes time,” Honduran Roberto Domínguez said to The Associated Press. “The documents we get are only for us to be in Tapachula and we cannot leave the city.”
Despite an attempt to brand herself as more of a border hawk since launching her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has consistently polled poorly with voters on border enforcement issues following her administration’s oversight of a historical border crisis. Former President Donald Trump, for his part, has pledged to hire 10,000 Border Patrol agents, give them a 10% pay bump, and wage a large-scale deportation effort.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Gov Walz trying to load his shotgun was emblematic of his entire reign in Minnesota. Now, he wants to bring his Marxist expertise to destroy the rest of our failing country.
Self-proclaimed firearm enthusiast Tim Walz struggles to load $2,100 shotgun during hunting trip
(Daily Caller News Foundation) — Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota appeared to have difficulty loading a semi-automatic shotgun in a video posted online during his pheasant-hunting trip while campaigning. Walz took part in the annual Governor’s Pheasant Hunting Opener near Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, Saturday, to kick off the season for the upland game bird, the Associated Press reported. Video posted to social media shows Walz struggling to load the shotgun while talking to reporters. “It never fits quite right,” Walz said as he tried to load shells into the ( READ MORE…)
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Free Market Capitalism is great, but when big corporations merge with the Government, it begins to smell a lot like fascism, affecting our food quality and health as a nation. Our politicians are being paid huge money to look the other way.
RINO Mitch McConnell Issues Stern Warning to GOP Senators: Backing Josh Hawley’s Anti-Corporate Donation Bill Could Mean ‘Incoming’ Consequences
By Jim Hoft – Nov 1, 2024 – The Gateway Pundit
In a recent private meeting, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell issued a stern warning to Republican senators against supporting a new bill from Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), or they will face an “incoming” from the “center-right” if they supported Hawley’s bill, according to CNN. On Tuesday, Sen. Hawley introduced a new legislation titled the Ending Corporate Influence on Elections Act. This bill aims to “get corporate money out of American politics and dramatically cut back on publicly traded corporations’ ability to influence elections.” (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
At Ethel Kennedy’s funeral on Wednesday, President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama were caught on camera seemingly discussing Vice President Kamala Harris’ election chances, according to a professional lip-reader hired by the New York Post.
In the video, Biden can be heard telling Obama that “she” is “not as strong” as him, to which Obama responds, “that’s true.” The outlet suggests that the conversation is about Harris’ chances in the upcoming election.
But the White House was quick to dismiss the lip-reading claims, with spokesperson Andrew Bates telling the New York Post, “A ‘lip reading expert’? Did your usual right-wing soothsayer have their out-of-office up?
Only President Biden and President Obama know what they discussed, but this certainly wasn’t it.” Even former Biden White House officials, who are now working on the Harris campaign, denied the claims, saying that it is “not even like [Biden] to say that” and urging the outlet to get “a new lip reader.”
However, this is not the first time Biden has expressed confidence in his own abilities to defeat President Trump in the election. In July, after dropping out of the presidential race, Biden appeared on “The View” and said that polls showed he was still able to beat Trump and that he even believed he could beat the former president if he was still in the race. He also admitted to not fully believing the claims that there was an overwhelming reluctance for him to run again, and instead, suggested that some people just wanted a chance to move on.
But Harris’ reputation among voters seems to be taking a hit, with her negative rating increasing four points in just one month, according to MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki. And journalist Mark Halperin, speaking on Oct. 8, claimed that he had seen new private polling that showed Harris was “in a lot of trouble.” He went on to say that both Trump’s supporters and Democrats with access to data were feeling “extremely bullish” on Trump’s chances in the last 48 hours. Halperin also pointed out that Harris is in danger of losing key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia.
It seems that the more voters learn about Harris and her policies, the less they support her. Her favorability ratings have dropped, and she is now facing trouble in key battleground states. Biden, on the other hand, continues to express confidence in his abilities but the reality is, he may just be in denial. As noted by the lip-reader, even Obama seemed to agree that Harris is not as strong as Biden.
If the two men who have worked closely with Harris are not convinced of her abilities, why should the American people be? It is clear that Trump still has a strong chance of winning this election, especially now that Harris’ weaknesses are being exposed.
A senior adviser to the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz presidential campaign has admitted that the perceived lead Harris held over former President Donald Trump in recent polls was not as significant as it appeared. David Plouffe, a veteran political strategist and adviser to Harris, made this revelation during an interview on the popular podcast Pod Save America over the weekend, sparking concerns about the direction of the campaign. Plouffe’s comments revealed that the comfortable lead over Trump that had been reported in recent months was, in fact, misleading. “This is the race we have; it’s the race we expected,” Plouffe said, explaining that the race between Harris and Trump is much closer than earlier polls suggested. He added, “I don’t think it’s going to open up for either candidate. I think it’s going to be close all the way in.”
Plouffe discussed how a string of polls over the past month had shown Harris with a comfortable lead over Trump, but this lead quickly evaporated as more recent data became available. He explained that the earlier polling numbers did not reflect the true state of the race, leading to what he described as a “freakout” within Democratic circles.
“I think the freakout is because there were a bunch of polls, I’d say in the last month, that showed a lead for Kamala Harris that was not real,” Plouffe said during the interview. “It’s not what we were seeing. We’ve seen this thing basically be tied, let’s say, since mid-September.”
According to Plouffe, Harris never had a commanding lead over Trump, and the race has been neck and neck for some time. The perceived lead, which some media outlets and polls suggested was in Harris’s favor, was not backed by internal campaign data. Instead, both candidates have been running in a tight race that will likely stay competitive until the election day.
Plouffe emphasized that the Harris campaign anticipated a tight contest from the beginning and was not counting on an easy victory. He reminded listeners that, in key battleground states, the race will likely be decided by a very slim margin. “This thing’s going to be decided on the margins in these few numbers of states,” he said.
Drawing parallels to the 2020 election, Plouffe warned that the Harris campaign must prepare for another razor-thin outcome. In 2020, Trump lost to President Joe Biden by narrow margins in several swing states, and Plouffe suggested a similar dynamic is at play in 2024.
While the Harris campaign holds hope for broader support, Plouffe noted that Trump appears stronger this election cycle than in 2020. “We have a higher ceiling,” Plouffe said of Harris’s potential to win over undecided voters, “but I also think Trump is stronger than he was in 2020.” This statement acknowledges the possibility of Trump gaining ground among voters who previously voted against him or were undecided in the previous election.
For the Harris campaign, the challenge lies in mobilizing voters, particularly in key battleground states. Plouffe’s comments suggested that Harris’s path to victory will require a combination of energizing her base and winning over swing voters in states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.
Pollsters and political analysts have echoed Plouffe’s sentiment, predicting that the 2024 presidential election will hinge on turnout and voter enthusiasm. While Harris may have a “higher ceiling,” her campaign must work harder to tap into that potential, especially as Trump’s base remains energized and highly motivated.
Plouffe’s remarks also highlight the growing strength of Trump’s candidacy. Despite facing legal battles and controversies, Trump has maintained strong support among his base, and recent polls indicate that he is competitive in key states that he narrowly lost in 2020. This newfound strength has made the 2024 election even more challenging for the Harris campaign.
Former President Trump has remained a formidable opponent in the political landscape, and his influence over the Republican Party is stronger than ever. Plouffe’s comments suggest that the Harris campaign is well aware of the challenges ahead, particularly as Trump continues to rally his supporters with promises of a return to power.
David Plouffe’s candid assessment of the Harris campaign’s standing in the race against Trump offers a sobering look at the reality of the 2024 election. While earlier polls may have shown Harris with an edge, the truth is that the race is far closer than previously thought. As both campaigns gear up for the final stretch, the Harris team faces an uphill battle in maintaining momentum and ensuring high voter turnout.
With Trump’s growing strength and the narrowing of the polls, the 2024 election promises to be a tightly contested battle that could once again be decided by just a few thousand votes in critical swing states. Both sides are bracing for a fierce fight to the finish, as the stakes for both parties could not be higher.
U.S. President Joe Biden, left, meets with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, Oct. 18 2024. (Frederic Kern/AP)
The U.S. budget deficit grew to $1.833 trillion for fiscal 2024, the third highest on record.
The other two years when the U.S. budget was higher than $1.8 trillion were in 2020, when the deficit rose to $3.13 trillion, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and stimulus relief measures. In 2021, the deficit was $2.78 trillion, as the government continued pandemic-related spending.
U.S. receipts for the 2024 fiscal year hit a record $4.919 trillion, up 11%, or $479 billion, from a year earlier, as individual non-withheld and corporate tax collections grew. Fiscal 2024 outlays rose 10%, or $617 billion, to $6.752 trillion.
The biggest driver of the year’s deficit was a 29% increase in interest costs for Treasury debt to $1.133 trillion, topping outlays for the Medicare healthcare program for seniors and defense spending.
But a senior Treasury official said the weighted average interest rate on federal debt interest costs began to decline in September for the first time since January 2022. For September, the government reported a $64 billion surplus, compared to a $171 billion deficit in September 2023, but the improvement was largely due to calendar adjustments for benefit payments. Without these, there would have been a $16 billion deficit in September 2024.
Reported receipts were a record for September at $528 billion, up 13% from a year earlier, while outlays were $463 billion, down 27% largely due to the calendar adjustments.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks Sept. 12 at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The United Kingdom’s Labor Party and Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign may be marching into the same legal jeopardy as the Australian Labor Party and Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president did in 2016: violating federal law that bans foreigners from financial involvement in American political campaigns.
Various news sources report that Sofia Patel, head of operations for the Labor Party in the U.K., is recruiting members to campaign for Harris in swing states such as North Carolina, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
As a former member of the Federal Election Commission, the agency responsible for civil enforcement of federal campaign finance laws, I can tell you that the law on this is quite clear: 52 U.S.C. § 30121 prohibits any foreign national from making “a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value” in connection with a federal, state, or local election.
As the FEC’s website explains, that ban doesn’t prevent a foreigner from participating in “campaign activities as an uncompensated volunteer” although even as a volunteer, the foreigner cannot “participate in the decision-making process of the campaign.” But this also means that if the members of the U.K. Labor Party who are interfering in our 2024 election process aren’t really volunteers, then Patel, her party, and the Harris campaign are potentially in a lot of trouble.
If Patel and the Labor Party are paying any expenses for party members, including travel costs to get to the U.S. or any kind of salary or stipend, then they are violating the law. And if the Harris campaign accepts their help, then the campaign also is violating the law. That is exactly what happened in 2016 to the Australian Labor Party and Sanders’ campaign for the U.S. presidency.
As the 2018 agreement to settle the enforcement action (MUIR 7035) filed by the FEC against the Labor Party explains, the Sanders campaign accepted “seven delegates” from the Aussies to work in four locations. These individuals were part of “an international program that sends delegates around the world to engage with progressive, social democratic, and Labor parties,” the document says. The so-called volunteers not only had travel expenses covered by the Australian Labor Party, but they also received a stipend from the party. In other words, they were being paid by the Australian Labor Party to work for the Sanders campaign. Those payments constituted a “prohibited in-kind foreign national contribution in violation of” federal law, as the settlement agreement outlines.
The Australian Labor Party claimed that the purpose of the program “was to learn best practices and skills in progressive policy and campaign development” and that the party “did not intend to influence any election.” That claim obviously doesn’t pass the laugh test.
In order to settle the case, the Australian Labor Party agreed to pay a civil penalty to the FEC of $14,500 and to “cease and desist” from violating federal law. The Sanders campaign— “without admitting liability”—agreed to pay a similar civil penalty of $14,500 and to stop violating the law. Why? Because it is also a violation of the law for a campaign to accept a foreign financial donation or in-kind contribution. By accepting the assistance of foreign-paid staffers, the Sanders campaign broke federal law.
By the way, even if the U.K. Labor Party were to work independently of the Harris campaign without any coordination or communications between them, it still potentially would violate the law. An FEC regulation, 11 CFR 110.20, explains that foreign nationals also are banned from making any “independent expenditure, or disbursement in connection with any federal, state, or local election.”
It seems a bit far-fetched to believe that the U.K. Labor Party would send “volunteers” to the U.S. without paying their way, or that these volunteers would know what to do in a foreign country without any communications or coordination with the campaign they are here to assist. But even if that is true and the foreign nationals are engaging only in independent campaign expenditures, they are still breaking the law. In any event, the U.K. Labor Party is going down a dangerous road that may result in legal action against it.
Apparently, the party hasn’t learned the lesson from its brethren in Australia, who discovered that interfering in a U.S. election has consequences. Patel, as the party’s operations chief, might want to give the Aussies a call.
The Harris campaign should publicly reject this assistance and inform the U.K. Labor Party that its members aren’t welcome to play in American politics. Otherwise, the vice president’s campaign will be saying that it welcomes foreign interference in our election process—as long as it’s progressive interference that helps Harris’ side of the political aisle.
Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, but Heritage is named in this commentary for identification purposes only. The views expressed are the author’s own and don’t reflect an institutional position either for Heritage or its Board of Trustees.
Wilson Fauber has been a well-respected real estate agent and broker in the Staunton, Virginia, area for 44 years, with no professional complaints ever filed against him. That is, until 2024, following an aggressive initiative by a political opposition group intent on damaging Fauber’s reputation by targeting his Christian beliefs.
“In 2015, I posted Biblical quotes on my personal Facebook page,” Fauber said. “Around the same time, Rev. Franklin Graham had created a post, and I re-posted with some additions for emphasis,” said Fauber, who is also an ordained minister. “The post thread contained Bible references and explanations from a minister’s perspective.”
The quotes, posted on behalf of Arise International Ministries from Fauber’s personal Facebook page, emphasized the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. They were made before the Supreme Court had decided or heard oral arguments regarding same-sex marriage in 2015 — meaning that at that time, under law, marriage was between and man and a woman — and well before the National Association of Realtors (NAR) amended its ethics code language regarding hate speech.
Fauber knows of no complaints or claimed offense regarding his posts, until 2023, when he chose to run for Staunton City Council. Coining Fauber “the Hater,” an opposition group targeted his biblical beliefs. The group’s slander caught the attention of the NAR, of which Fauber is a longtime member.
A New Amendment to Code of Ethics
In 2020, the NAR adopted a new amendment to its code of ethics. Standard of Practice 10-5 compels realtors to avoid the use of “harassing speech, hate speech, epithets, or slurs based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.” Suddenly, Fauber’s 2015 comments about marriage in the Bible, reiterated in a 2023 interview, became fair game for an ethics complaint.
“There were those who don’t like freedom of speech and freedom of religion and so they researched my Facebook accounts and found the post from 2015 and then a local reporter met with me to ask me if I still believed in the scripture I had posted,” Fauber said.
Fauber confirmed that he did. Those who filed the NAR board of ethics complaints referenced the front-page story, which showed that Fauber made related comments more recently than in 2015.
No Longer a Free America
The claim was filed in February 2024 and Fauber was notified in May, via email, not a certified letter, a short time before the scheduled hearing in June, he said.
“I had just days once I received an email through [my primary inbox],” Fauber said. “I had days to find an attorney.”
Due to certain ongoing health issues, the hearing was rescheduled and is now set for Dec. 4, when the board will determine whether Fauber violated the NAR code of ethics. If the allegations are proven, Fauber could have his membership suspended, losing access to the critical multiple listing service (MLS).
“It’s pretty much impossible to do the real estate business without the MLS,” Fauber said. “The MLS does more than allow a realtor to find a property, it includes when it’s sold, how many days it’s been on the market and other information, documents and restrictions.”
“When somebody brought him up on ethics charges, the board could have chosen to dismiss them, but they did not,” Cobb said. “We’re really in a situation where if someone’s personal faith posted on their personal Facebook speech becomes hate speech in the minds of an employer or an association, we don’t live in a free America, everyone should be concerned about that.”
“Wilson never injected this into his campaign,” said Michael Sylvester, FFLC litigation counsel. “He has to keep reiterating that he loves and wants to serve all people.”
Before November 2020, when the hate speech clause was adopted, the code of ethics all related to how real estate agents and affiliates worked with clients, Fauber said. Now that has changed.
“The NAR has now given themselves permission to police real estate agents 24/7,” Fauber said. “It’s deeply troubling that an organization like the NAR can police my life, and complaints can be filed against me for reading a passage of scripture, even in church; that a person wouldn’t even have to be present to file a complaint about me. That’s far reaching.”
Not an Isolated Event
Fauber’s case is not the first time the NAR has been accused of anti-Christian action; in Montana this past February, Sen. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, sponsored legislation to ensure Christian members of the NAR are free to express their beliefs following the fining and suspension of local pastor and realtor Brandon Huber.
In Virginia, phone calls of cases like Fauber’s come pouring in daily, Cobb said, regarding someone who has lost a job or suffered significant harm due to their faith.
The FFLC was founded in response to the state’s liberal legislature that was passing “blatantly unconstitutional” laws like the Virginia Values Act, Cobb said.
“We knew people even more than in the past were about to lose their freedom of speech and freedom of religion,” she said. “We are finding in fact that not just the laws we saw, but in general, there is every day a growing need for legal representation for people who are truly losing their jobs, their livelihoods, as a result of their faith.”
Christian realtor Hadassah Carter recently won her case against the Virginia Real Estate Board, citing harassment and discrimination for her beliefs. Carter included Bible verses and Christian phrases on her website and was subjected to monitoring and accused of violating Virginia’s fair housing statutes by the board due to her religious speech.
‘Society Has Really Reached a New Low’
“The hopeful outcome is that the ethics judges will recognize that Wilson hasn’t violated the rule and has never spoken against anybody in any online space or publicly,” Sylvester said. “In the bigger picture, if quoting the Bible is hate speech then society has really reached a new low. Usually we admire our professionals, but now we are telling our professionals they need to leave their values at the door. One would have thought that this 2020 rule would be to stop society’s greatest evil, but now it is targeting Christian ministers.”
In the meantime, the harm done to Fauber’s reputation may be irreparable.
“I’ve earned an excellent reputation and am well thought of in the community,” Fauber said. “As with any accusation, people wonder if something is there; it creates some doubt. That seed has been planted in the community. After 44 years in the business and an excellent reputation, it’s very disheartening.” Threats of bodily harm against Fauber during the campaign led him to seek protection from the local police department, he said.
“If this can happen to Wilson it can happen to anyone and if we don’t stand up alongside, we may not have anyone stand with us when it happens to us,” Sylvester said.
Ashley Bateman is a policy writer for The Heartland Institute and blogger for Ascension Press. Her work has been featured in The Washington Times, The Daily Caller, The New York Post, The American Thinker and numerous other publications. She previously worked as an adjunct scholar for The Lexington Institute and as editor, writer and photographer for The Warner Weekly, a publication for the American military community in Bamberg, Germany. Ashley is a board member at a Catholic homeschool cooperative in Virginia. She homeschools her four incredible children along with her brilliant engineer/scientist husband.
By now it’s commonplace to note that Kamala Harris often seems out of her depth, like she’s unsure what to say about policy, or how to explain her past positions, or why she hasn’t already done the things she’s promised to do if she’s elected given that she’s the current vice president.
But on one particular subject she’s been consistent and forceful throughout her campaign. She’s adamant that Donald Trump will destroy America if he’s reelected. And not “destroy” in the sense of enact bad policies, but that he’ll round people up with the military and put them in camps. She talks about this all the time now. At one point during her Wednesday evening interview with Bret Baier on Fox News, she became visibly upset after Baier played a clip of former President Donald Trump calling out the weaponization of government and the endless investigations and lawfare he’s been subjected to.
The vice president, her voice rising in outrage, jabbed her finger at Baier and said, “You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him.”
At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania this week she told the crowd that former President Donald Trump considers anyone who doesn’t support him to be an enemy of the United States. “He is saying he would use the military to go after them.”
Earlier this week, during an audio town hall with Charlamagne Tha God, Harris claimed without a hint of irony that if Trump is elected, he’ll use the Department of Justice “as a weapon against his political enemies,” adding, “You know who does that? Dictators do that.” At one point during the show, she agreed with a caller who said Trump will lock “anyone who doesn’t look white into camps,” replying, “You’ve hit on a really important point and expressed it I think so well.”
That’s just a sampling from this week, but there are many other recent examples. In the waning weeks of the presidential election, Harris has been deploying increasingly extreme rhetoric about Trump and the dangers he poses to the country. Even before Harris seized the Democratic nomination from President Joe Biden, the idea that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy was the refrain of the Biden campaign. Harris has taken that theme and run with it. The purpose of it isn’t just to scare voters into casting their ballot against the former president, or to provoke some unstable would-be assassin into taking a shot at Trump (although some Democrats no doubt see that as a happy by-product of this Trump-as-dictator rhetoric). Its main purpose is to prime Democrat voters for violent resistance should Trump win in November.
Consider the lopsidedness of the rhetoric between the Trump and Harris campaigns. Trump often makes sweeping (and mostly true) statements about the deep state, about the border and illegal immigration, about crime, about how Harris and the Democrats are destroying the country. But when he uses the phrase “destroying the country,” he’s talking about things like crime, homelessness, drug addiction, rampant inflation and the cost of groceries. These things, he says, are the result of policies Democrats have put in place. If you’re looking for someone to blame, he says, blame Biden and Harris, because all these problems are their fault.
But that’s not what Harris and the Democrats are doing with their rhetoric. They’re not making a case that crime and inflation will be worse under Trump because of his policies. Democrats aren’t really interested in policy. What they’re doing is pushing a narrative that Trump is going to be a fascist dictator if he wins office and use the powers of the presidency to go after ordinary Americans. That’s an extreme and frankly unhinged position with no basis in reality. You don’t say things like that unless you’re hoping to provoke a strong reaction, and the reaction Democrats are hoping to provoke is violent resistance to a second Trump term.
After all, if you really thought that Trump would order the military and the Justice Department to round up you and your family, wouldn’t you do anything to stop him? Wouldn’t you take to the streets to save your country and thwart the rise of a fascist dictatorship? At least two would-be assassins have taken the Democrats’ anti-Trump rhetoric seriously. Harris is hoping that many more people will do so between now and Election Day and respond by rejecting a second Trump term — in the streets, if they must.
There’s a precedent for this that Democrats set four years ago. During the BLM riots in the summer of 2020, Harris herself was out in front egging on the rioters, infamously working to raise bail money for those who had been arrested. Of the protests, she said this in a June 2020 interview with Stephen Colbert: “Everyone beware. They’re not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after Election Day … They’re not gonna let up, and they should not.”
Harris and her fellow Democrats knew that the civic unrest unleashed by BLM and Antifa rioters would damage Trump’s reelection campaign, and they did their utmost to amplify the violence and also justify it by claiming the moral high ground. The protesters and rioters were only reacting to systemic injustice, after all, and as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.”
All of this only makes sense if you understand that Harris isn’t just a bumbling politician but a left-wing radical, and left-wing radicals have no qualms about using violence as a political weapon. If your goal is to seize and wield political power as part of a revolutionary program to transform America, then who cares if a couple neighborhoods here there get burned to the ground in race riots? Who cares if some young women get raped and killed by illegal immigrants, or a handful of apartment complexes get taken over by criminal alien gangs? Those things on their own might be unpleasant or disturbing, but they’re all in the service of a greater goal, which is the re-shaping of American society. So, it’s all justified.
What Harris and the Democrats are doing with this line about Trump rounding up Americans and putting them in camps is preparing the ground for massive civic unrest in the event of a Trump victory. The purpose of the unrest would be to cripple Trump’s administration before he even takes office, and to disrupt normal life for so many Americans that they will rue the day they ever voted for Trump.
It’s the hecklers veto on steroids, and it’s exactly what Harris is planning for and hoping to provoke if Trump wins.
John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.
Vice President Kamala Harris has so over-used her talking points about “growing up in a middle-class family” and about her “love of the American people and our “hopes, dreams, ambitions, and aspirations,” that they have become punch lines to jokes. That’s not a good macro-political sign for her presidential campaign. And neither are some of the numbers emerging from the smaller demographics she must have to win. One of those smaller units of the American electorate are the Arab Americans generally, and in Michigan specifically, and the news isn’t great for Team Harris there either.
In early October, the Arab American Institute released its poll of Arab Americans on the upcoming presidential election. The “top line” takeaway was very surprising: “Trump and Harris [are] in a virtual tie with Arab American voters (42-41%), with 12% supporting third-party candidates.”
I asked former President Trump why he was doing this well with this demographic, especially at the same time as his support among Jewish Americans is increasing?
“Because I want to see everything get worked out,” he replied. “I want peace,” he continued. “I don’t want to see people killed. I want peace, and they [Arab Americans] know that. And the Jewish people know that. And both sides like it and know that I can get peace.”
That’s a good answer, and perhaps it does account for a good chunk of some Arab Americans voting Trump, but the same poll revealed that when “asked to rank their top issues, the following were the top three for Arab American voters: jobs and the economy (39%), Gaza (26%) and gun violence (21%).” Turns out that this demographic cares the most about the same issue the entire electorate cares the most about: The economy. There was no cross-tab provided on how the 39% break down between Trump and Harris, but my guess is that, as with the electorate as a whole, Arab Americans who are worried about inflation and their jobs break for Trump.
Then there are the issues that very few pollsters ask about and which this poll didn’t. The first is “transgender rights” which can mean a lot of things to different people. But to at least many millions of voters it means this: Boys who identify as girls playing in girls’ sports and using girls’ locker rooms. The second issue not often polled is “reparations.” This issue was introduced into the campaign just this week when Vice President Harris was asked about reparations by podcaster “Charlamagne tha God” and the Democrat nominee declared the issue “needed to be studied.”
The Harris campaign has distanced itself from the controversy. (AP/Jacquelyn Martin)
“Americans view the prospect of reparations mostly negatively,” according to a 2021 Pew Research Study. “Three-in-ten U.S. adults say descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should be repaid in some way, such as given land or money,”Pew reported. 77% of Black Americans support reparations while only 39% of Hispanic Americans and 33% of Asian Americans do. (Arab Americans were not broken out in the polling.)
What about the first issue mentioned above? A super-majority of all Americans—69% according to Gallup—believe that “transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender.” But the Biden-Harris Administration has proposed new Title IX rules that have been widely viewed as mandating the right of transgender athletes to compete in the sports reserved for the biological category they identify with. To most voters that probably means “boys who identify as girls playing girls sports.”
While Harris has not spoken to this specific issue, she has adopted the very controversial position of taxpayer payment for prison inmates seeking to transition from one sex to another. (The Trump campaign has made Harris’s on-the-record support for these taxpayer payments part of their ad rotation.)
It is a guess, but a safe one, that conservative family cultures of the sort typical for Arab Americans—Muslim, Christian or agnostic—largely reject both reparations for Blacks and the idea of biological boys playing in girls’ sports.
That’s an informed guess because the Arab American Institute polling demonstrated that Arab Americans are in fact like most Americans on what matters most. Don’t be surprised when the post-election exit polling reveals that Arab Americans ended up supporting Trump in roughly the same percentage as all Americans and that they viewed Vice President Harris as simply too radical to take a chance on.
Hugh Hewitt is host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., pictured leaving the Senate chamber July 25, didn’t want noncitizens to vote when he was Virginia’s governor. (Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images)
In 2006, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine signed a bipartisan bill requiring the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to provide a list of noncitizens’ names to the state’s Board of Elections for removal from the voter rolls.
Now, less than a month before Election Day, the Biden-Harris administration’s Justice Department is suing in hopes of restoring 6,303 noncitizens to Virginia’s voter rolls who were removed in August. Subsequent Virginia governors since Kaine, both Republican and Democrat, have overseen the removal of noncitizen voters from the rolls.
In August, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, signed an executive order to do so, in part relying on the 2006 law drafted by then-state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli.
“It passed without much controversy, about 2-1 in the Legislature, and then Tim [Kaine] signed it when he presented himself as a centrist,” Cuccinelli, a Republican who was elected as Virginia’s attorney general in 2009, told The Daily Signal.
“This is pure political timing,” Cuccinelli said of the Biden-Harris administration’s legal action. “These are literally people who self-identified as noncitizens.”
“If the purpose was to generate news, that’s what the DOJ has done,” he said. “They want noncitizens, both legal and illegal, to vote.”
Kaine, who signed the 2006 bill into law, went on to become a U.S. senator representing Virginia as well as Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential running mate in 2016. The Daily Signal sought comment from Kaine’s Senate office as well as his reelection campaign.
Kaine’s campaign referred to a July interview with WJLA-TV (Channel 7), in which a reporter asked: “Should non-U.S. citizens vote in American elections?”
Kaine replied: “No. Voting should be reserved for U.S. citizens.”
The campaign also noted that a Kaine campaign spokesperson told WJLA on Wednesday:
Sen. Kaine believes that noncitizens should not vote in state or federal elections, and that’s why he signed legislation as governor to guard against it. It is illegal for noncitizens to vote and the good news is that there is no evidence that noncitizens have voted or are voting in Virginia.
And just as we want to block noncitizens from voting, we need to keep eligible voters from being purged from voting rolls, particularly just weeks from an election. Sen. Kaine is focused on making sure that every eligible Virginian has the opportunity to vote in this critical election.
The matter likely won’t be resolved in court by Election Day, Cuccinelli said, now the national chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative. However, he said, the Justice Department’s lawsuit seems to be intended as a warning for other states not to clean up voter rolls.
The lawsuit alleges that Virginia’s removal of noncitizens from voter rolls violates the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the “motor voter law,” because the removal comes fewer than 90 days before an election. DOJ’s action follows a federal lawsuit filed by the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and the League of Women Voters of Virginia in which those organizations make the same arguments.
“These liberal groups sued Virginia and then a few weeks later the Justice Department files the same lawsuit,” Katie Gorka, chair of the Fairfax County, Virginia, Republican Committee, told The Daily Signal.
“This shows they are nervous about Virginia,” Gorka said of leading Democrats. “It used to be a solidly blue state and now has moved to the middle and is a toss-up.”
“They are going for the optics and this is going to backfire. Americans overwhelmingly believe that only Americans should vote,” she said.
The plaintiffs in the private lawsuit in Virginia are represented by Campaign Legal Center, Protect Democracy, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Advancement Project.
Three organizations involved in the litigation—the League of Women Voters, the Advancement Project, and Campaign Legal Center—participated in a White House conference in 2021. That meeting was about implementing President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which directed federal agencies, including the Justice Department, to partner with private interest groups to boost voter registration and turnout.
As The Daily Signal previously reported, the Justice Department last month brought a similar lawsuit against Alabama for removing noncitizens from that state’s voter registration rolls. A similar lawsuit was brought against Alabama by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left organization known for labeling mainstream center-right organizations as “hate groups” similar to neo-Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC also was represented at the White House conference on Biden’s election executive order.
The Justice Department has invoked “presidential privilege” to prevent release of its strategic plan for implementing Biden’s order of March 7, 2021.
Still, Cuccinelli said, he thinks “for sure” the Virginia litigation is tied to the president’s order.
“They are hiding communications all over the place,” the former Virginia attorney general said. “There is no way to treat these as privileged. It is pure collusion and weaponization of government through these outside groups.”
The Daily Signal sought comment from both of the private litigants in the Virginia case: the League of Women Voters and the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights. Neither responded. The Justice Department filed the lawsuit Oct. 11 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
“As the National Voter Registration Act mandates, officials across the country should take heed of the law’s crystal clear and unequivocal restrictions on systematic list maintenance efforts that fall within 90 days of an election,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
“By canceling voter registrations within 90 days of Election Day, Virginia places qualified voters in jeopardy of being removed from the rolls and creates the risk of confusion for the electorate,” Clarke said in the public statement. “Congress adopted the National Voter Registration Act’s quiet period restriction to prevent error-prone, eleventh-hour efforts that all too often disenfranchise qualified voters.”
Last night, millions tuned in to watch Fox’s Bret Baier interview Vice President Kamala Harris in a brief but substantive exchange. One of the most interesting aspects of the interview was the purely pedestrian view of the presidency that Harris presented in the interview. Harris repeatedly responded with “I will follow the law” while refusing to say where she personally stands on immigration, transgender athletes, and other issues.
After confining interviews to largely softball forums like The View, Harris faced a serious journalist who pushed for actual answers on policies. While confined to a short time by the Harris campaign, Baier kept pulling Harris back to these questions to cut off the evasions that have characterized past interviews. Baier noted that she has previously campaigned on some of these issues and publicly declared that she worked for such things as gender transitioning operations for undocumented persons. Harris now refuses to state her position on such issues and says “I will follow the law.”
Yet, Harris is not adopting that pedestrian model in other areas like abortion rights where she is pledging to use executive powers to resist pro-life laws. The Biden-Harris Administration has used such orders to negate both constitutional and statutory authority. That includes orders that were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on issues like the national eviction moratorium.
Notably, Harris did flip her position on decriminalizing unlawful entries. Despite running on that pledge in her earlier unsuccessful run for the White House, Harris now says that she is against such decriminalization. As with her past opposition to fracking and gun rights, the change is likely to draw criticism that Harris is adopting a new persona for a close race.
The refusal to give her position on these issues is reminiscent of Joe Biden’s last campaign where he simply refused to say if he opposed packing the Supreme Court with an instant liberal majority. What is different is that Harris previously stated strong and public positions on these questions but is now refusing to confirm that she continues to support those policies, including some that rank near the top of issues for voters.
Baier did a heroic job in trying to prevent the filibustering of the interview and push for answers on these questions. It was the first such interview where Harris faced a dogged interviewer. Given the frantic effort of the staff to end the interview (after showing up late), it is likely to be the last.
The mantra of “I will follow the law” ignores that a president plays a major role in the legislative process and has considerable executive powers in determining how such laws are enforced. The presidency is more than a promise of “joy” and compliance. It is about leadership on issues that matter to voters.
The interview had a seasonal feel with Halloween approaching like a political reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven where every question is answered by “Nevermore.”
That could well be the theme of the Harris campaign. When pressed on contradictions or controversies, Harris seemed to declare “Nevermore Trump” over and over again. We will see if that is enough in a matter of a few weeks.
In the meantime, real journalists will be left seeking answers that never come, exclaiming like Poe’s protagonist “tell me—tell me, I implore!” However, “Quoth the [Harris] ‘Nevermore.’”
A.F. Branco Cartoon – The DOJ is Suing Virginia over purging illegal registrations from their voter rolls. The Biden DOJ knows that having illegal immigrants vote in the upcoming election will help Kamala Harris.
DOJ Fights for Illegal Aliens to Vote in Virginia
By John Mills – The Gateway Pundit – Oct 13, 2024
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is now suing Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia for having the temerity to remove unlawful voters from the election rolls. In 2019, I made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to my Virginia County Clerk of the Court on those rejected for Jury Duty. The Jury Duty rolls, by Commonwealth of Virginia Law, harvest the names predominantly from the Voting Rolls. There are 20 different reasons someone can be rejected from Jury Duty. Doing basic math, there are three non-debatable categories where someone would be unlawful to be on the election roll. Yet 6% of the names were rejected from Jury Duty because they were unlawfully on the election rolls. Taking in other categories where there may be an issue with the lawful nature of the voter, applying a very low percentage of the total, the number of potential unlawful names on the rolls shot to 12% of the total on the Virginia Rolls being unlawful (again a very low, small “c” conservative percentage was applied). READ MORE…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Here we are just a few weeks before election day. People have already begun voting around the country and yet panic is setting in at the Kamala Harris campaign. Maybe it’s the RealClearPolitics polling averages showing former president Donald Trump leading in 6 of 7 swing states. Or it could be headlines like this, “Trump is in a better polling spot now than he was against Clinton or Biden,” from USA Today. Ouch!
Despite raising $1 billion, Harris not only isn’t making any inroads with voters, but she’s losing momentum. Americans have complained from the start of her selection as the Democratic nominee that they need to hear more about where she stands on the issues considering her history and the disastrous results of Biden-Harris policies. But Kamala, the woman of “change” and “joy,” has supplied neither details nor seriousness.
Kamala remains oblique, much like a riddle wrapped in an enigma, to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill. But there is one group that isn’t confused at all about Harris’ positions and intentions: the progressive left. Why? Because for years she has been showing them who she is, and during this campaign she has been telling them in their own special language, that nothing has changed.
Harris has no problem being specific and avoiding word salads when she’s actually speaking her mind and not trying to hide something. Like in 2020 when telling Stephen Colbert in the wake of George Floyd’s death that the riots “were not going to stop. And everyone beware, because they’re not going to stop… and they should not, and we should not.” This, as she also promoted and encouraged a fund to bail out those arrested during the riots. A clip of Harris has also emerged of the vice president addressing the National Congress of American Indians on Columbus Day in 2021—full of red meat with nary even a side salad in sight—discussing the “shameful past” of Columbus Day, decrying the explorers “perpetrating violence, stealing land, and spreading disease.”
Destroying America’s heroes is an important plank in destroying the country.
In 2017, Trump’s first year in office, Kamala Harris made clear her enthusiasm for the cancerous leftist ‘woke’ ideology. Fox News reported on her remarks at a conference imploring people that, “We have to stay woke. Like everybody needs to be woke. And you can talk about if you’re the wokest or woker, but just stay more woke than less woke.” Her commands were punctuated by bursts of her now well-known bizarre and inappropriate laughter.
But this is not the version of Kamala voters with which voters have been presented for the past few months, which is understandable. After all, even a home invasion robber knows he can’t announce at the door what he’s up to; you unlock the door because you think you’re helping a guy who wants to mow your lawn. No one wants more of malevolent, woke progressives. The Democrats and Kamala know it, but they believe America deserves to be kneecapped, so they won’t stop.
Hence, Kamala is behaving as though she’s been dropped in from the planet Venus as a gift from the stars to chart a new way by “turning the page” to better vibes and joy. Or from what has been, to the same darn thing but with pearls on.
The bad news for Harris is, platitudes and fantasy talk might be good for a first date, but not when you’re running to become president of the United States. But progressives are just fine with Kamala Harris despite her talk of being a capitalist, believing in entrepreneurs with great lawns, and her affinity for the middle class because well, you know the rest.
The so-called progressive left (which is actually quite regressive) are comfortable that Kamala hasn’t changed, because she tells them so directly and indirectly. Her most direct wink-and-nod to her pals on the fringe of her party came during the CNN interview with Dana Bash in August. After being asked about her dramatic policy shifts on issues like immigration and energy production, she told Bash,“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed.”
That may sound like another vacuous platitude but having been on the left as a community organizer, I recognized that phrase immediately and can tell you there’s much more to that line than people realize. When leftist organizers talk about their “values” they mean the socialist wish-fantasy of government which owns and controls everything, devoting its efforts to centralized planning on behalf of the workers who exist to maintain the bureaucratic state. “Fundamentally transforming” the nation is their “value” system. With that simple, seemingly innocuous phrase, Kamala was saying a great deal to the leftist extremists who hold the Democratic Party in thrall.
The indirect message comes from the vacuousness of the campaign itself. It is understood by the left that the goal is to win, no matter what that takes. Have they gotten the message? You bet. Take it from Sen. Bernie Sanders.As reported by The Hill, “Asked during an interview on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ whether Harris had abandoned her progressive ideals, Sanders said she is saying what she needs to say to beat Trump. ‘No, I don’t think she’s abandoning her ideals. I think she’s tried to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election…”
The duality of Kamala’s message involves believing the average American is too dumb to know when they’re being manipulated with gibberish, and the left will understand the language meant to assuage them. And just in case, Kamala herself will use a blunt instrument if things start to go south, as they are. When asked on “The View” if she would have “done something differently than President Biden during the past 4 years,” the page-turning change-agent answered, “There is not a thing that comes to mind… And I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.” Oh, the tangled web she weaves.
Harris is entering what David Sacks, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor, calls a “doom loop” noting, “What I said two months ago is that if Harris gets behind, she’s going to have to abandon the basement strategy of not doing interviews… The problem is she is not good at interviews, and if she does more interviews, she’s going to fall further behind in the polls… That’s where we appear to be right now.”
As her campaign falters and she scrambles to make more noise at the voters with interviews, Democrats are coming to grips with having underestimated the American people. The left understands what her intentions are. The rest of us must also understand that her gibberish has an actual meaning meant to obscure her intentions and gain power to maintain the catastrophic Democratic agenda.
Jocelyn Benson, secretary of state of Michigan, speaks March 28 at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York City. (Shahar Azran/Getty Images)
Michigan’s top election official, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, is the subject of a bar complaint over her department’s actions to keep independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name on the ballot.
State Sen. Ruth Johnson, a Republican who immediately preceded Benson as secretary of state, filed the bar complaint alleging that Benson manipulated procedures to undermine the Nov. 5 election. Michigan is one of the most fiercely contested battleground states. Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, and former President Donald Trump, a Republican, are separated by a single percentage point, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls.
Johnson’s formal complaint to the State Bar of Michigan contends that Benson represented to numerous courts that there was a statutory deadline to finalize the list of candidates for the state ballot. However, the complaint says, Benson ignored her own deadline to keep Kennedy’s name on the ballot.
Before Kennedy suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump, polls showed he likely pulled more votes from Trump than Harris. Thus, keeping Kennedy on the ballot in Michigan would likely help Harris in the swing state. (Kennedy opted to remain on the ballot in other states.)
Johnson’s complaint, filed Oct. 11 with the Attorney Grievance Commission of the State Bar of Michigan, says that Benson violated Rule 3.3 by knowingly making false representations in court. According to the complaint, Benson’s arguments repeatedly were based on false representations of the law as she defended her department’s administration of elections.
“As put forth above, Benson’s conduct rises to false misrepresentation of law. However, in her official capacity as secretary of state, Benson’s framing of state laws for the purpose of furthering her goal is deceitful in nature,” Johnson’s complaint reads. “Benson’s decision to put a candidate back on a ballot, after his name was removed, after the ballots were certified, and after the statutory deadline lapsed, is an abuse of authority as secretary of state resulting in a manipulation of state election procedures and calling into question her political priorities.”
Rule 3.3 of Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct states that “a lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer.”
Kennedy, previously a Democrat, suspended his independent candidacy for president in August and notified several state election officials—including in Michigan—that he wanted to be removed from the ballot. The Michigan Bureau of Elections, an entity of the Michigan Department of State, refused to remove Kennedy’s name from the ballot. So Kennedy sued. The case went through Michigan courts, which decided to keep Kennedy’s name on the ballot. He appealed to federal court.
Earlier this month, Judge David William McKeague of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled that Benson had attempted to “influence the upcoming presidential election by manipulating state election procedures.”
Johnson’s bar complaint quotes the federal judge as saying: “Secretary Benson’s actions … serve no purpose other than to sow needless confusion in a presidential election,” would “inevitably cause confusion, and … undermine faith in this core democratic institution.”
The Republican National Committee previously filed lawsuits over Benson’s election guidance on matters such as signature verification and mail-in ballot safeguards, and for failing to scrub the voter registration rolls of the names of dead people or voters who moved. The Public Interest Legal Foundation sued Michigan over Benson’s refusal to removethe names of 26,000 dead people from voter registration lists.Of those, almost 4,000 had been dead for over two decades; 17,479 were dead for more than a decade; 23,663 had been dead for at least five years.
The foundation, an election watchdog group, noted that Benson’s department mismanaged voter rolls. She publicly defended her department, however.
A spokesperson from the Michigan Department of State did not respond to The Daily Signal by publication time.
She now stands accused of unethically contacting a key represented witness to get her to change her testimony. In my view, ethical proceedings are unlikely after the disclosure of ex parte communications with former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson. However, the evidence seemingly contradicts public accounts of how Hutchinson decided to fire her counsel and change her testimony.
Hutchinson was represented by Stefan Passantino, who some clearly viewed as a stumbling block to getting Hutchinson to turn against Trump. Hutchinson would claim under oath that Passantino pressured her to stay “loyal” to Donald Trump and coached her responses to support Trump despite her conflicting accounts.
However, newly disclosed evidence allegedly contradicts that account, including Hutchinson telling former Trump aide (and now The View co-host) Alyssa Farah Griffin that “[Passantino’s] not against me complying.” Griffin reportedly responded “I actually agree with Stefan’s approach and think it’s accomplished everyone’s goals. I am happy to tip liz off.”
Hutchinson would later dump Passantino and testify to allegations that have been challenged as untrue. That includes the limo allegation that was repeatedly raised by Cheney and others. Hutchinson recounted the story that Trump allegedly grabbed the wheel of the vehicle after the Secret Service allegedly refused to take him to the Capitol. Cheney and the Committee were aware that the account was directly and clearly refuted by the driver of the vehicle. However, they buried his account and highlighted that claim in its final report as being credible.
The new allegation concerns the communications leading up to that changed testimony. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., chairman of the House Administration oversight subcommittee has released the new evidence while alleging that Cheney used an encrypted phone app to evade defense counsel in speaking with Hutchinson. Under Rule 4.2 of the Rules of Professional Conduct, “a lawyer shall not communicate or cause another to communicate about the subject of the representation with a person known to be represented by another lawyer in the matter, unless the lawyer has the prior consent of the lawyer representing such other person or is authorized by law or a court order to do so.”
At the outset, in my view, Cheney was acting as a member of Congress in this matter. That has always been a rather grey area for lawyers who are also members of Congress. The bar has taken a broad view of the need for lawyers to adhere to these ethical standards. However, it is not clear politically or ethically if the Bar officials would be inclined to pursue Cheney, who has been lionized in Washington for her role in the investigation. Yet, the record does indicate that Cheney was not just aware of the represented status but the policy of the House to respect the rules governing represented parties. In one message Griffin tells Hutchinson, “Her one concern was so long ad [sic] you have counsel, she can’t really ethically talk to you without him.”
That did not appear to prove a barrier. Before Passantino withdrew as counsel, Cheney communicated secretly with Hutchinson. A later message was sent to Cheney reading on June 6, “Hi, this is Cassidy Hutchinson. I’m sorry for reaching out this way, but I was hoping to have a private conversation with you (soon), if you are willing.”
Cheney responded, “I would be happy to. Let me know what time works for you.”
A few days later, Hutchinson fired Passantino, who told Just the News that “I absolutely had no knowledge at the time that Congresswoman Liz Cheney was communicating with my client behind my back – either directly, through her staff, or through cutouts.”
However, Cheney has claimed that it was Hutchinson who reached out to her and indicated that she was severing her counsel. As an investigating member of Congress, she had an institutional interest, if not a duty, to pursue witnesses.
In her memoir, Cheney said that it was Hutchinson who contacted her directly after her third interview and added “I was very sympathetic to her situation, but I did not want our committee to be advising her on what she should do next…I told Cassidy that she could consult another lawyer, and seek his or her independent advice on how best to move forward.”
We have previously discussed Passantino’s defamation lawsuit against MSNBC legal analyst and former Mueller aide Andrew Weissmann.
Once again, I am doubtful that this would rise to a formal Bar ethics investigation. However, the evidence shows the communications leading to Hutchinson’s firing of her counsel and changing of her testimony, including accounts later challenged by critics.
Hutchinson, Griffin, and Cheney have been reportedly campaigning together this month in support of Vice President Kamala Harris.
In the end, there are ethical concerns raised by these communications. Cheney should have worked through new counsel and proposing alternative counsel raises additional concerns given the interest of Cheney in having the witness “flip” against Trump. She could have waited for new counsel to communicate with her and the Committee.
Alternatively, Hutchinson could have fired her counsel and formally contacted the Committee as an unrepresented party. The ethical rules are designed to avoid this type of murky representational posture. Nevertheless, I am doubtful that this will result in any ethical proceedings against Cheney.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – The Media (CBS, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, etc. are showing their complete bias in support of Kamala Harris, covering up her lies and cleverly editing her interviews. At the same time, misrepresenting Trump at every turn.
President Trump Responds to “The Greatest Fraud in Broadcast History” After Fake News ’60 Minutes’ is Busted Editing Kamala’s Nonsensical Answer with Previous Soundbite, Calls for CBS to Lose its Broadcasting License
By Jordan Conradson – Oct 11, 2024 – The Gateway Pundit
On Thursday, President Trump issued a scathing rebuke against CBS and the network’s ’60 Minutes’ program after they were busted for deceiving the public with a fraudulent edit of Kamala Harris’s recent interview. As The Gateway Pundit reported, ’60 Minutes’ cut Kamala’s nonsensical answer to a question and replaced it with a completely separate sentence she said earlier in the interview. This is fraud and election interference. This move is completely disqualifying for a news organization and proves more than ever that CBS is a Regime-controlled propaganda machine… READ MORE
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Last week, Politico ran a headline. Once upon a time, it would have been tempting to attach some superlative to said headline, such as “astonishing,” “remarkable,” or “crazy.” Now such headlines are commonplace and illustrative of the information warfare that defines American politics. Anyway, here it is:
One of the biggest political problems in America is the complete disconnect between what passes for “conventional wisdom” inside the beltway and how most Americans’ perception of reality affects how they vote. Roughly half the country identifies as politically conservative, and beyond that, there are supermajorities involving good chunks of the Democrat party that think that elite opinion has gone too far left on several key issues. And yet, nearly all discussions that take place context of our “media-run state” basically start from the premise that radicalism on the right is a clear and present threat to the republic, whereas radicalism on the left is never threatening to prosperity and our way of life. Rather, it’s just a messaging problem, where the establishment left must be given broad latitude to say whatever it needs to say to get elected and stave off the absurdly broad category of candidates labeled dangerous right-wing extremists. And it doesn’t matter if what is said is fundamentally dishonest because the threat justifies the deception.
This is why an army of fact-checkers, misinformation experts, censors, and journalists — and good luck telling the difference between those four ostensible vocations, as they are frequently rolled into one indistinguishable blob — exists to create the illusion of retroactive continuity between what’s being said now and what we all know actually happened.
And so, we have the headlines such as the one above. In the real world, we’ve had record inflation, and anyone looking to buy a house or car has taken note of the fact interest rates are about three times higher than they were before Harris and Biden took office. But it’s not enough to say that the economy is good; before you can even choke down that obvious falsehood, we’ve moved from an incorrect cause to an offensive effect. The real problem isn’t that people can’t afford groceries; no, the real problem is the voters themselves, who are presumed ignorant for not believing a lie. Without even getting past the headline, you’re experiencing more gaslighting than a winter solstice in Victorian London.
Which brings me to another Politico headline, which even ran on the same day, natch. This time it’s a column by Jonathan Martin, a former New York Times political reporter, who is currently Politico’s senior political columnist and politics bureau chief. Martin is here to tell us “Here’s What Harris Must Do to Seal the Deal.” To that end, he’s hatched a plan where Harris can “prove to skeptics that she’s committed to bipartisan government” by, among other things, preemptively announcing Mitt Romney is going to be her Secretary of State.
Of course, the idea that Mitt Romney, who for years now has been a professional malcontent who’s entire public persona revolves around attacking nearly all of his senate GOP colleagues, has bipartisan cred is wishful thinking. And that’s without even going into how spectacularly Martin’s proposal validates the concern that ideological extremism is forever a one-way street. In 2012, when Mitt Romney was running for president against Obama, he was a racist, gay-bullying, dog-abusing, extremist who gave his employees cancer. Without exhuming what Martin himself said during Romney’s failed presidential bid, it sure says something that many of his peers who dutifully smeared Romney for threatening a Democratic president’s hold on power have no problems with now soliciting the guy that did all these terrible things to help elect a Democrat president.
Regardless, the whole point of Martin’s cockamamie scheme to retrofit Harris as a bipartisan moderate ultimately boils down to this assessment: “These voters don’t want white papers, they just crave reassurance Harris isn’t a lefty.”
Well, Martin has correctly identified the problem, and he’s even come up with a plan to remedy it — even if an unconvincing, last-minute feint at bipartisanship is unlikely to sway voters. But before we get on with hatching a plan to reassure voters “Harris isn’t a lefty,” Martin is skipping a pretty crucial question that anyone concerned with truth-telling would probably try and address.
Is Harris, in fact, a lefty?
The answer is unequivocally yes. She’s a creature of San Francisco politics, and she had the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate. One of the most effective ads Trump has run so far involves video footage of Kamala Harris saying, in her own words, that taxpayers should pay for the sex change operations of prisoners. Because she’s running away from her liberal record, she’s flip-flopped on several major issues since she was installed as the Democrat presidential candidate because her previously articulated positions were electorally damaging. She’s even now committed to building a border wall, for crying out loud.
Unsurprisingly, Martin and his peers have put precious little pressure on Harris to explain how and why her sudden attempt to hot swap radical leftist policies with more moderate policies is remotely sincere.
To the extent that Martin even deigns to acknowledge this might be an issue, his response is something: “I know from having covered her for a decade that she’s no faculty club progressive, much more comfortable dropping a ‘motherf–ka’ than taking care to say ‘Latinx.’”
I don’t know what world Martin is envisioning where people that swear are somehow so transgressive they’re anathema to people that police gender neutrality. Speaking of gender cops, it’s probably worth mentioning Harris, who I am assured is no “faculty club progressive,” currently has her pronouns listed in her Twitter bio. Regardless, it’s more likely that those that insist neutering the lexicon are very much the same people who consider objecting to use of the word “motherf–ka” a matter of kink shaming.
In case you were wondering, though, the word “Latinx” is used in Harris’ 2019 campaign book, The Truth We Hold, seven times — it’s eight times, if you count the fact the word has its own entry in the index. (It must be said that this is a different book than the one Harris now stands accused of plagiarizing; the book where she stole other people’s ideas amusingly titled Smart On Crime.) Anyway, maybe this is all pedantic. I’m just a guy who CTRL-F’d her book, and Martin probably knows her well enough to have her cell number. As such, I’m sure Martin would advise me to take Harris seriously, not literally.
In any event, I don’t think Martin is intentionally deceiving anyone or endorsing the idea that Kamala should openly deceive people by telling her to present herself as moderate. Alas, he’s not a cartoon villain, and if he was, that would be an easier problem to address. Unfortunately, the fact remains that deception is the logical outcome when journalists’ default assumption is that radicalism among Democrats is something to be massaged and contextualized, not called out for what it is.
As it is, Kamala Harris is pretty radical. If voters are concluding that the supposed mango monster opposing her, who thinks taxpayer-funded sex changes are bad and has long opposed letting millions of largely unvetted illegal immigrants into the country, might be the more moderate choice, well, it’s not an occasion to assail them for noticing the wrong things. It’s an invitation to state the facts fairly for once and get out of way and let democracy take its course.
Mark Hemingway is the Book Editor at The Federalist, and was formerly a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. Follow him on Twitter at @heminator
The blurring of the lines between news and opinion has eroded the public’s trust in the legacy media. (Maria Vonotna/iStock/ Getty Images)
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Americans’ trust in the mass media has fallen to a record low leading up to the November election, according to a new survey released by Gallup on Monday. About 36% of those surveyed said that they have “no trust at all” in the mass media, while only 31% expressed a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence, and 33% expressed “not very much” confidence, according to the Gallup survey.
The low trust in the media comes as mainstream outlets are being criticized over accusations of bias, such as with the lack of coverage of President Joe Biden’s mental acuity before his debate against former President Donald Trump.
Americans’ confidence in the mainstream media previously dropped to a previous low of 32% in 2016, which was matched in 2023, according to previous Gallup surveys.
Democrats expressed the highest amount of confidence in the mass media being able to report news “fully, accurately, and fairly,” with 54% saying they trust it, according to the survey. Age gaps also made a difference in the ratings, with 74% of Democrats aged 65 and older having a fair or great amount of confidence in the media, compared with just 31% of Democrats aged 18 to 29.
Republicans and independents expressed much lower confidence in the mass media, compared with Democrats, with only 12% of Republicans and 27% of independents saying they have a great or fair amount of media trust, according to the survey.
The U.S. legislative branch was also rated poorly, with only 34% of people saying they trusted it.
ABC journalists Linsey Davis and David Muir came under fire after they moderated the ABC News presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10, as many debate viewers thought it was unfairly rigged against Trump. Viewers expressed outrage over Trump being fact-checked multiple times by the debate moderators, while Harris was largely not challenged on her claims.
CBS News was recently criticized for editing footage of Harris’ response to a question about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in a “60 Minutes” interview Oct. 7
While many people expressed concern over Biden’s mental acuity following his appearance in the June 27 presidential debate against Trump, several corporate news outlets tried to blame Biden’s debate performance on his having a cold.
Gallup’s poll was conducted between Sept. 3 and Sept. 15 and surveyed a random sample of 1,007 adults from all U.S. states, with a plus-or-minus 4 percentage point margin of error.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk demonstrates his enthusiasm for former President Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Oct. 5. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
BUTLER, Pa.—Elon Musk said the reason he was in Butler on Oct. 5 to speak at former President Donald Trump‘s rally was because of the critical nature of this year’s presidential election.
“The reason I’m here is because I think this is the most important election in our lifetime. This may be the most important election that has ever happened,” the industrialist said.
The world’s richest man and the leader of Tesla and X (formerly Twitter) was standing in the holding room behind the stage of the event, on a dirt floor, with white curtains behind him, and chicken crates and haystacks to his right. “I think we’re looking at the destiny of civilization, of America, the Western civilization,” he said.
The traditionally media-shy Musk, wearing an “Occupy Mars” shirt underneath a black sport coat and “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, was all smiles as he and Trump bantered back and forth during the interview.
“I think President Trump represents the actual path to a democratic future, ironically, because they say he’s a threat to democracy. But, in fact, the ones saying he’s a threat to democracy are the ones who are a threat to democracy in reality,” Musk said.
Musk famously endorsed Trump in a post on X minutes after a gunman tried to kill the former president here in July. Musk, a robust supporter of free speech even before he purchased X, said, “Who are the ones that are trying to silence free speech? That’s the Democrats. They’re the ones trying to silence free speech. You know who the bad guys are, the ones who want to stop you from speaking, those are the bad guys. It’s a no-brainer.”
Musk said he recognizes that the people here in Butler, and in places all across the country that aren’t located in the centers of power and wealth, are the ones most concerned about protecting and preserving both free speech and the Second Amendment.
“America is about freedom and opportunity,” he said. “You have to have freedom to speak your mind. What is the First Amendment? Why does it exist? Because in the countries people came from, you’d get arrested or killed for speaking your mind. Why is the Second Amendment there? Because you weren’t allowed to own firearms in other countries so they could oppress you. The thing protecting the First Amendment is the Second Amendment.”
Trump leaned over: “Salena, he’s worth $300 billion. Salena, $300 billion. I worked my ass off, and I’m like a fraction of that,” he joked.
Earlier in the day, a woman I interviewed said that, to her, Musk is the Benjamin Franklin of our era: an inventor, a proponent of free speech, and a disrupter. She said she really liked that he both “made things” and explored the newest frontier through space.
“That is part of the American ethos, hard work, innovations, but also helping people out in the way he has done with Starlink in North Carolina,” she said.
“I try to be as helpful as possible,” Musk said with a smile. “Well, if it wasn’t for President Trump, this would be hopeless.”
Musk said his message was to make sure people exercise their voting power.
“I think we really need to encourage people to register to vote,” he said. “That’s my main message today: Everyone in the audience, there’s nothing more important than registering to vote.’
“Anyone. People in the streets. Everyone. Friends, family, people you run into. Text them right now,” he said, encouraging people to “swamp the vote.”
“Check swampthevote.com to see if you’re registered. Everyone here has one mission. Everyone listening, you’ve got one mission. Register everyone you know to vote,” he said.
Youngstown State University political science professor Paul Sracic said it’s hard to overstate how significant Musk’s full-throated endorsement of Trump is this year. “Musk is to the 2020s what Trump was to the 1980s and ’90s. He is a celebrity businessman. Trump famously appeared in one of the ‘Home Alone’ movies, and Musk made a guest appearance on ‘The Big Bang Theory,’” he said of Musk’s cultural impact.
“Also like Trump, he is a risk-taker and builder, something that appeals to the American psyche. People forget, but one of the things that helped Trump when he first ran for president was his ability to get things done. His rebuilding and restoration of the skating rink in Central Park, something the New York City parks department had failed to do, was frequently mentioned,” Sracic said.
“Musk is the classic self-made billionaire,” Sracic explained. “He made his initial fortune by helping to design PayPal, an innovative online payment system that was later purchased by eBay. Rather than sit on his wealth, or just try to grow it by investing in the stock market, Musk used it to build other things. In almost every case, Musk’s innovations paralleled things the government was trying to do, but he did it better,” he said.
Think of it this way: The Inflation Reduction Act tries to use government subsidies to encourage companies to build and consumers to buy electric vehicles, while Musk actually makes vehicles.
For the past 60 years, one of the symbols of American ingenuity and world dominance has been the space program run by NASA, a government agency, Sracic explained. “Over the years, NASA has begun contracting out its rocket program to private companies. One of those companies, Boeing, was supposed to transport our astronauts back and forth to the International Space Station on their Starliner capsule. When that capsule was found to have potential safety issues, trapping two U.S. astronauts on the space station for months, it is Musk’s SpaceX that will rescue them next February,” he said.
Polls clearly show that people are unhappy with the direction of the country. Failures such as this one by NASA, along with our crumbling infrastructure, make voters feel like we as a nation are falling apart.
The Biden-Harris administration has tried to appeal to voters by a combination of intense government spending on projects and industrial policy, which subsidizes private businesses. “And they are upset that the American people don’t properly credit them for their achievements, and sometimes blame the press for not covering the story,” Sracic said.
What the Harris campaign misses, however, is the hunger people have for innovation. “We don’t want to be as good as the Chinese. We want to be better,” Sracic said. “When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, we didn’t just want to launch a rival satellite. We wanted to go to the moon. That’s the America people want back again.”
Sracic said there are several ways that Musk and Trump are alike. “Trump could have taken his money and had a nice retirement. Instead, he entered politics and went from being an admired celebrity to being ridiculed and attacked. In the same way, Musk didn’t have to buy Twitter. In fact, it was by all accounts a poor financial decision. But Musk, like Trump, wanted, to quote Teddy Roosevelt, to be ‘the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.’”
Minutes after the interview, Musk took to the stage and was greeted with wild enthusiasm by the crowd, an enthusiasm he responded to by jumping in the air.
While many of the political elite still struggle to understand the connection two billionaires would have with the working and middle class of the country and why both Trump and Musk meet that moment, it is real and has much to do with being seen and respected by both of them.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk demonstrates his enthusiasm for former President Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Oct. 5. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
BUTLER, Pa.—Elon Musk said the reason he was in Butler on Oct. 5 to speak at former President Donald Trump‘s rally was because of the critical nature of this year’s presidential election.
“The reason I’m here is because I think this is the most important election in our lifetime. This may be the most important election that has ever happened,” the industrialist said.
The world’s richest man and the leader of Tesla and X (formerly Twitter) was standing in the holding room behind the stage of the event, on a dirt floor, with white curtains behind him, and chicken crates and haystacks to his right. “I think we’re looking at the destiny of civilization, of America, the Western civilization,” he said.
The traditionally media-shy Musk, wearing an “Occupy Mars” shirt underneath a black sport coat and “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, was all smiles as he and Trump bantered back and forth during the interview.
“I think President Trump represents the actual path to a democratic future, ironically, because they say he’s a threat to democracy. But, in fact, the ones saying he’s a threat to democracy are the ones who are a threat to democracy in reality,” Musk said.
Musk famously endorsed Trump in a post on X minutes after a gunman tried to kill the former president here in July. Musk, a robust supporter of free speech even before he purchased X, said, “Who are the ones that are trying to silence free speech? That’s the Democrats. They’re the ones trying to silence free speech. You know who the bad guys are, the ones who want to stop you from speaking, those are the bad guys. It’s a no-brainer.”
Musk said he recognizes that the people here in Butler, and in places all across the country that aren’t located in the centers of power and wealth, are the ones most concerned about protecting and preserving both free speech and the Second Amendment.
“America is about freedom and opportunity,” he said. “You have to have freedom to speak your mind. What is the First Amendment? Why does it exist? Because in the countries people came from, you’d get arrested or killed for speaking your mind. Why is the Second Amendment there? Because you weren’t allowed to own firearms in other countries so they could oppress you. The thing protecting the First Amendment is the Second Amendment.”
Trump leaned over: “Salena, he’s worth $300 billion. Salena, $300 billion. I worked my ass off, and I’m like a fraction of that,” he joked.
Earlier in the day, a woman I interviewed said that, to her, Musk is the Benjamin Franklin of our era: an inventor, a proponent of free speech, and a disrupter. She said she really liked that he both “made things” and explored the newest frontier through space.
“That is part of the American ethos, hard work, innovations, but also helping people out in the way he has done with Starlink in North Carolina,” she said.
“I try to be as helpful as possible,” Musk said with a smile. “Well, if it wasn’t for President Trump, this would be hopeless.”
Musk said his message was to make sure people exercise their voting power.
“I think we really need to encourage people to register to vote,” he said. “That’s my main message today: Everyone in the audience, there’s nothing more important than registering to vote.’
“Anyone. People in the streets. Everyone. Friends, family, people you run into. Text them right now,” he said, encouraging people to “swamp the vote.”
“Check swampthevote.com to see if you’re registered. Everyone here has one mission. Everyone listening, you’ve got one mission. Register everyone you know to vote,” he said.
Youngstown State University political science professor Paul Sracic said it’s hard to overstate how significant Musk’s full-throated endorsement of Trump is this year. “Musk is to the 2020s what Trump was to the 1980s and ’90s. He is a celebrity businessman. Trump famously appeared in one of the ‘Home Alone’ movies, and Musk made a guest appearance on ‘The Big Bang Theory,’” he said of Musk’s cultural impact.
“Also like Trump, he is a risk-taker and builder, something that appeals to the American psyche. People forget, but one of the things that helped Trump when he first ran for president was his ability to get things done. His rebuilding and restoration of the skating rink in Central Park, something the New York City parks department had failed to do, was frequently mentioned,” Sracic said.
“Musk is the classic self-made billionaire,” Sracic explained. “He made his initial fortune by helping to design PayPal, an innovative online payment system that was later purchased by eBay. Rather than sit on his wealth, or just try to grow it by investing in the stock market, Musk used it to build other things. In almost every case, Musk’s innovations paralleled things the government was trying to do, but he did it better,” he said.
Think of it this way: The Inflation Reduction Act tries to use government subsidies to encourage companies to build and consumers to buy electric vehicles, while Musk actually makes vehicles.
For the past 60 years, one of the symbols of American ingenuity and world dominance has been the space program run by NASA, a government agency, Sracic explained. “Over the years, NASA has begun contracting out its rocket program to private companies. One of those companies, Boeing, was supposed to transport our astronauts back and forth to the International Space Station on their Starliner capsule. When that capsule was found to have potential safety issues, trapping two U.S. astronauts on the space station for months, it is Musk’s SpaceX that will rescue them next February,” he said.
Polls clearly show that people are unhappy with the direction of the country. Failures such as this one by NASA, along with our crumbling infrastructure, make voters feel like we as a nation are falling apart.
The Biden-Harris administration has tried to appeal to voters by a combination of intense government spending on projects and industrial policy, which subsidizes private businesses. “And they are upset that the American people don’t properly credit them for their achievements, and sometimes blame the press for not covering the story,” Sracic said.
What the Harris campaign misses, however, is the hunger people have for innovation. “We don’t want to be as good as the Chinese. We want to be better,” Sracic said. “When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, we didn’t just want to launch a rival satellite. We wanted to go to the moon. That’s the America people want back again.”
Sracic said there are several ways that Musk and Trump are alike. “Trump could have taken his money and had a nice retirement. Instead, he entered politics and went from being an admired celebrity to being ridiculed and attacked. In the same way, Musk didn’t have to buy Twitter. In fact, it was by all accounts a poor financial decision. But Musk, like Trump, wanted, to quote Teddy Roosevelt, to be ‘the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.’”
Minutes after the interview, Musk took to the stage and was greeted with wild enthusiasm by the crowd, an enthusiasm he responded to by jumping in the air.
While many of the political elite still struggle to understand the connection two billionaires would have with the working and middle class of the country and why both Trump and Musk meet that moment, it is real and has much to do with being seen and respected by both of them.
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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