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Posts tagged ‘2024 Presidental Elections’

Ben Shapiro Op-ed: Kamala Harris, Candidate of Myth


By: Ben Shapiro | July 31, 2024

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/07/31/kamala-harris-candidate-of-myth/

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on the South Lawn of the White House on July 22, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

So, Kamala Harris is the new Democratic candidate for president.

And, we’ve been told, she is incredible.

Not merely serviceable, a middle innings relief pitcher brought in when your starter suddenly implodes in the third inning. She is the Mariano Rivera of politics. She’s lights-out. She’s charismatic, fascinating, quick on her feet, charming. She is, in the words of the legacy media, a historic candidate—not just because she’s a black woman, a fact that explains her lightning-fast political ascent but that only Democrats are allowed to mention, and only then in the context of explaining why America requires a black female president—but because she is, apparently, so good at this.

Apparently, Harris was the candidate America needed all along. As in a bad romcom, all we needed to do was remove her glasses, brush out her hair, and put her in a better outfit—and she would transform from high school weirdo nerd into prom queen.

The media’s shift in position regarding Harris has been whiplash-inducing. After all, we were told in 2020 that she had run one of the worst campaigns in modern presidential history—mechanical, off-putting, unpleasant, incompetent, and arrogant. Then we were told that she was one of the worst vice presidents in modern history—free of accomplishment, running a completely dysfunctional office with extraordinary rates of staff turnover, so wildly unpopular that even a senile Joe Biden worried about whether Harris could compete with Donald Trump.

But now all is forgiven. All her oddities—coconut trees and electric school buses, Venn diagrams, and the significance of the passage of time—are delightful TikTok memes. Her strangely incoherent word salads, topped off with a heavy helping of smugness, are now evidence of her rhetorical brilliance. Her wild hand motions, so reminiscent of a drunken tarmac operator attempting unsuccessfully to usher a jumbo jet toward the gateway, are actually enchanting symptoms of her enthusiasm. And her positional dishonesty—the fact that she has now shifted virtually every position she ever held—is not evidence that she is a liar, but that she is astute and clever.

So, precisely what happened to turn Kamala Harris from a deeply disliked politician (35% approval rating) into an Obama-esque talent (44% approval rating)?

Joe Biden dropped out.

That’s it.

That’s the whole thing.

When Biden dropped out, the legacy media could finally end the rock-in-the-shoe discomfort of cognitive dissonance from which they had been suffering since Biden’s brain-dead debate with Trump. They had been forced by circumstance into doing something they despise: objective journalism, in which Democrats are treated as normal figures subject to cross-examination.

Since Barack Obama’s ascent nearly 20 years ago, the media have avoided just this sort of thing. Biden’s collapse onstage compelled them to do some journalism, just to cover their asses—otherwise, they would have been implicated in his health cover-up.

So, they did.

But they didn’t like it.

Now, Biden is gone. They can declare victory. And they can go right back to bathing in the warm, urine-filled kiddie pool of Democrat-media coordination they so enjoy. They’ve eaten their vegetables. Now it’s time for dessert: a heavy helping of Kamala cake. And they’re going to enjoy it.

The only question is whether the American people will fall for this quite obvious and heavy-handed routine. So far, some have. But presidential campaigns have a way of sanding off the varnish lacquered on by the friendly media. After all, at one point, the legacy media gave Hillary Clinton the same treatment. It didn’t work out well.

In the end, politicians tend to stand or fall on their own merit. Which is terrible news for Kamala Harris, since she has none.

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For Election Integrity, Ramaswamy Urges Federal Standards


By: Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH / November 20, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/20/for-election-integrity-ramaswamy-urges-federal-standards/

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks to supporters after the Thanksgiving Family Forum on Friday in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

DES MOINES, IOWA—National standards, including requiring an ID to vote and making Election Day a national holiday, are needed to ensure free and fair elections, says Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. While states typically run elections, the federal government has set minimum standards under the Help America Vote Act of 2001, and prior to that, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to ensure election integrity. 

“The federal government should set minimal standards. You have historical precedents for that, dating back 20 years. The federal government can set minimal standards,” Ramaswamy told The Daily Signal Friday after participating in the Thanksgiving Family Forum, an event hosting three Republican presidential contenders and staged by the Iowa-based Family Leader. The Daily Signal was the media sponsor. 

The other GOP presidential contenders at the forum were Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Former President Donald Trump did not accept an invitation to joint the forum. 

“Making an election a national holiday is important, single-day voting on Election Day as a national holiday, with paper ballots and government-issued ID to match the voter file—that’s the standards I want to be done in national elections,” Ramaswamy said. 

Ramaswamy, who founded the pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences, also staked out positions on abortion, Big Tech and border security. 

Although voters in his home state of Ohio approved a state constitutional amendment for abortion without restrictions through the ninth month of pregnancy, he said that’s no reason for pro-lifers to back down. 

He said if pro-life advocates had offered an alternative amendment, Ohio voters would have “flocked to it.”

“We need to offer an alternative of our own. I think that’s part of what was missing,” Ramaswamy said. “If there was a different amendment that was on the table in my home state of Ohio, people would have gone for it, flocked for it. The reality is that that didn’t exist. That’s why we lost.”

He added that should be seen as lessons learned for the movement.

“I don’t think the right answer is to compromise on our principles,” he said. “So, I think, stand for principles, but in a way that unites the country.” 

During the forum, Ramaswamy, Haley and DeSantis all expressed their strong support for protecting life. 

On the illegal immigration border crisis, Ramaswamy said the federal government should take a more aggressive approach. 

“Use our military to secure the border,” Ramaswamy said. “Use aquatic barriers on the southern border. End federal funding for sanctuary cities and end any funding or foreign aid to Central American countries until they’ve dealt with their end of the problem. End birthright citizenship for illegal migrants, for whom the Constitution was never intended to apply.”

Sanctuary cities are jurisdictions that refuse, as a matter of public policy, to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. 

Birthright citizenship occurs when illegal immigrants enter the United States and have children, who automatically become citizens under current law by virtue of being born in the country. The Supreme Court determined in an 1898 case that the 14th Amendment applied to anyone born on U.S. soil even though the language of the amendment doesn’t specify this.

Ramaswamy says the way to hold Big Tech companies accountable for censorship is to amend existing federal law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. which protects social media platforms from being held liable for the content users posts.

“My answer is, Section 230 should be an opt-in statute,” he said. 

Social media platforms have favored some political and social content over others, acting as a publisher. Companies that opt in to the liability protections should be prohibited from censoring content, he said. 

“If you opt in to it, then you are bound by the same constraints as the government itself, including the First Amendment,”  If not, there is the free market. You’re free, and you don’t get special liability protection. If you want special liability protection, you are bound by the same standards as the government. That’s the First Amendment.” 

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