Wednesday, August 31, 2022

How stupid are Democrats?

Some apparently believe that this is how the FBI "found" the documents???


Seriously? There are people literally arguing that Donald Trump left documents with classifications laying semi-organized on the floor? I guess he even put up little helpful signs (like 2A) to make sure that people would know what was there. Apparently never occurred to them that the agents might have organized this and spread it out this way in order to take a picture? 

I mean... there is stupid... and then there is TDS stupid. 

The DOJ is desperately beside themselves in an all out effort to avoid the transparency and oversight of a special master?

You can almost "smell their desperation here"

The main question is why are they so afraid of transparency if they did nothing wrong and were justified in their 30 armed agent raid of Mar-a-Lago? 


The late night filing opposing was almost childish. Claiming that after sending 30 people to raid the place, showing pictures of the raid to the public (not a single legal analyst has a good reason for this), but then telling the Court that a special master would be a security risk?  

Moreover, as Turley and others have pointed out, the 1978 Presidential records act allows a former President both access to their records and the opportunity to declare privilege over these papers (in fact they are literally considered privileged for five years). However the court filing suggests that no such legal ability exists and suggests (falsely) that Trump having access to any of this was potential obstruction when the law literally demands that right. Seems as though the DOJ would like to pretend that the PRA does not exist or is not relevant here. 

This is similar to how the warrant suggested that there was no "secured locations" in Mar-a-Lago (as far as they knew). Yet, internet researchers took about 10 minutes to find the public White House records which stated that two areas of Mar-a-Lago (the office and the storage area in question) were both declared and considered secured. The office was declared a secured briefing room and the storage locker was declared a secured storage area. Unless these were "revoked" by Biden, they remained secure locations at the time of the raid. 

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

The two tiered Joe Biden campaign strategy

He has a plan! Maybe not a good one... but a plan non-the-less.

In spite of all the rhetoric claiming differently, the President still sits at
historical low 41.9% approval according to Real Clear Politics averages

  1. Throw your supporters about 1.5 trillion in new spending!
  2. Call your opponents names!  

This would be bad news for Democrats and their hopes of keeping the Senate...

Walker leads by two in Georgia Senate race after several other polls show the race moving in his direction


 

McCarthy logically reiterates why the Justice Department is not planning to prosecute...

Justice Department Bulldozes Court on Trump Privilege Claims
Of course, I’m not the judge on the case. I am an analyst — and one who does not believe the Justice Department intends to prosecute Trump for mishandling classified information or records-retention violations. Therefore, I’m not surprised that prosecutors are living dangerously. But it’s worth observing that they are being presumptuous, heedlessly so in my view.
Many judges would get pretty steamed about that. It will be interesting to observe how Judge Cannon reacts. For now, I would simply say that, if the Justice Department’s filter team — inadvertently or not — passed along to its investigative team materials that were privileged, this would mainly be a problem only if the government intended to prosecute. The investigators’ exposure to privileged information might trigger disqualification of “tainted” prosecutors or dismissal of charges.
By contrast, if there isn’t going to be an indictment, then there’s nothing much to worry about. The government can afford to be very aggressive, both in its narrow construction of privilege and in its determination to bull through the privilege-review process without waiting on such inconveniences as judicial review. The Justice Department can afford to irritate the court if there is not going to be a courtroom prosecution.
Again, I don’t think the Justice Department intends to prosecute Trump on classified information and records-retention offenses. I think the government just wanted its documents back — to restore order, to conduct a damage assessment regarding any national-security compromises, and to assess whether any documents bear on the DOJ’s January 6 investigation.

As McCarthy and many other prosecutors have explained, a search warrant is almost always provided at the same time  that an arrest warrant is issued.. The main reason would be that doing a search prior to an arrest tips off the potential suspect and gives them time to hide other things or even flee. So far nobody has offered any good "prosecutorial" reasoning for searching first and arresting later. Those who seem to believe Trump is on his way to the slammer just seem to avoid this issue.

Moreover, as McCarthy is arguing here; the actions of the Justice Department makes it fairly obvious that they are not worried about whether or not they would be able to use any of these documents in any prosecution. Had they "been" worried about that, then there would be no need to rush through things as they have and they should have welcomed a special master to make both the search and the subsequent inspection of the information by the books. Slow and steady wins the race in these sorts of situations. 

But by "bulldozing" both the search and the subsequent filtering through of the information they have likely tainted enough of the information that there is a strong possibility that none of it would be usable for any future prosecution if it turns out that they have been looking at privileged information. But again, as McCarthy points out... none of that matters if they were never really interested in prosecuting the former  President. 

McCarthy suggests that a Judge should be "furious" with the Biden Justice Department here and the manner in which they have ignored protocols and the fourth amendment. He is not suggesting one way or the other how the Judge might rule in light of the Justices department moving forward and completing their research rather than waiting for a ruling. Just that such an action is really a direct slap across the Judges face here. 

The point very well could be a moot one, if the DOJ is not planning on charging. If they do attempt to file charges, then that is a whole other can of worms. Then it would be almost a done deal that a special master would be assigned to "check the work" of the DOJ.

While many are arguing that Trump and his legal team were slow to the draw here, from a criminal liability standpoint, the more rope that the Justice department is given here, the more likely it is that they might hang themselves as it pertains to any possible criminal prosecution. Anyone who has viewed or been informed regarding anything that is considered privileged would not be allowed to be involved in any prosecution and no charges can be filed using any of the information that might be considered privileged. 

In my humble opinion, this was a political move and one that was designed to gather information that could be "leaked" to damage Trump and the GOP.  I don't believe that criminal prosecution was ever the goal. I believe this was about political persecution. I might also suggest that they probably got much of the same as they got when they investigated Trump for two years over Russian collusion. What the little boy shot at and missed! 


Some good news this morning

Gibson’s Bakery Wins! Ohio Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Oberlin College Appeal
The Ohio Supreme Court just refused to accept jurisdiction over Oberlin College’s appeal (the Court also refused to hear the Gibsons’ appeal seeking to reinstate the full punitive damages award). It was a 4-3 decision, and it means the Gibsons now can collect approximately $36 million.

This has been a long time coming and for Gibson bakery, not a moment too soon. They are said to be just a few months away from going out of business. Now it appears that if anyone is going out of business it might be Oberlin College, who still appears to have not learned a damned thing out of all of this.

They still seem to believe that they are correct in a woke we can cancel anyone for any reason spoiled rotten liberal way that makes you want to watch them squirm now that 36 million will be leaving their coffers (unless of course they file for bankruptcy).  

Monday, August 29, 2022

Interesting timing?

Last Friday the Judge overseeing the FBI raid filed her official intent to appoint a Special Master and then on Monday the FBI admits that they took privileged information?


Obviously the FBI has been filtering through papers for three weeks now. Is it really just a coincidence that they decide now to admit that they took (and obviously have looked through) privileged information. Without first looking at things, you cannot determine if you are looking at information that it privileged. Once you have seen it, you cannot unsee it. 

Thus the need for a special master that should have been installed from the beginning to make sure these sort of blatant errors should not have happened. Under more normal circumstances, if any law enforcement took more documents than they were supposed and/or viewed documents that they were not supposed to, all of the documents could be declared poison and inadmissible for any court filings. 

In this case... I doubt the FBI cares. I suspect that they have no intentions of charging Trump for anything associated with the raid which is why they started rummaging through everything while resisting calls for the special master. Their intention was probably to make it look like Trump was being a criminal by raiding his home and then they likely hoped they could find other embarrassing information from the search to "leak" to the public.  

After all.. political prosecution through media leaks has been the modus operandi from the start here. 

Not sure that the Biden 30 armed agent raid on his political rival's home will actually help the Democrats?

Democrats are doing everything in their power to deflect the poor economy as an issue in the upcoming midterms... including Biden and his DOJ calling for the raid of an ex and possibly future President's home. 


 

Sunday, August 28, 2022

Here are some interesting facts that seem "inconsistent" with the Biden Garland DOJ rhetoric...

From Real Clear Investigations

The White House Documents show that both a secured briefing and secured storage facility was set up in Mar-a-Lago! When did that change? Did the Biden Administration DOJ/FBI ask that those documents to remain there... only to later revoke the secure status of the facility? Had the DOJ/FBI told Trump to keep those documents there, then would a letter from the National Archives override that?

Looks like Trump is going to get his special master assigned!

A humiliating blow that just might undercut the entire concept of the raid! 


Just like there was no "good" reason for Merrick Garland to bypass his own Office of Legal Counsel, there was no "good" reason for him to deny a request for a Special Master. The only "reason" in both cases would be to avoid scrutiny and to allow the FBI unfettered access to materials that otherwise should not have been taken. If this was all an honest deal and there were no nefarious intentions by the DOJ or FBI, then they should welcome a Special Master. 

If the Judge follows through with the appointment (and this would be tough to take back at this point) then the documents that have already been reviewed will likely be taken back from the FBI and would (in theory) not be allowed to be used in any sort of future legal action if the Special Master decides that the documents were not part of what they should have been taking.  

Al that being said, he FBI has been scouring through these documents already for quite some time. I am guessing this has been pretty much a 24-7 effort since they took the documents. For no other reason than to avoid having a Special Master take the documents if one was appointed. Garland probably knew he would eventually lose on this issue as there was little legal reasoning for not assigning one. 

So if there was something big that the FBI had found, we would already know about it. I mean there has been literally no effort from anyone to keep anything secret on this one. The FBI and DOJ have been leaking like sieves. Down to the number of classified documents found in each search (all which should be ironically sort of internally classified information). If there was something gathered outside of these classified documents that was harmful to Trump, the NY Time and WaPo would already be reporting it. 

Here is an interesting question...

Why can Joe Biden take classified documents to his private residence?  


The other day while taking a few unscripted questions the President first mocked the concept that he had authority to declassify things, but then admitted that he often takes classified documents to his private residence. He suggested this was okay because "HE" had secret service with him and that "HE" had a "Secure office" at his residence where he worked on Presidential issues that involved classified documents? 

Ironically in spite of all the buzz about Trump breaking the law, Presidents taking classified documents outside of the White House has been going on for as long as we have had Presidents and classified documents. What makes it okay for Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Biden to take classified documents to their homes, when the Biden DOJ is suggesting that Trump doing that same thing is a crime? Keeping in mind, that he was still President when these documents were brought to his home?

There is no reason that Biden's residence in Delaware or Obama's residence in Chicago are or were anymore secure than Mar-a-Lago. As a former President, Trump still has secret service service surrounding him. In fact, it was secret service who added extra security around the Presidential records that remained in Mar-a-Lago. 

There is nothing in any laws that states a President can "temporarily" declassify a document to take home, but cannot keep it there. Once he has declassified it to have it brought to his residence, then it no longer falls under the laws of classified documents (because it is no longer classified).  Last time I checked these documents are not golden chariots made out of a pumpkin. They do not turn back into classified documents at the stroke of midnight. 

Moreover, there is no real tangible evidence that our Secret Service is any less capable of keeping Mar-a-Lago secure than they would be keeping the private residence of Joe Biden secure? Does anyone "really" believe that the Russians or the Iranians or the Chinese are breaking into Mar-a-Lago and rummaging through a Secret Service secured storage area? 

The more we know.... the more questions there are. 

Just a gentle reminder...

Please feel free to use the legacy blog for arguments or debates. The legacy blog is not comment moderated. I am trying to accommodate both sides here. Those who want to see a clean comment thread, free of spam and free of the same two people bullying every thread into submissions (stay here). Those who want to be free to post the same thing multiple times or call people a goat fucker over and over and those who want to mock them... well go over there. 

Perhaps ideally people would comment in both areas and satisfy both concepts? 

I have also offered the Reverend and anyone else an opportunity to creates posts for everyone to view, but have not gotten any takers?

For the record... the average daily viewers is still up about 20% since comment moderation and yesterday we had over 100 unique visits (prior to moderation we had been averaging about 50) and are still seeing well over 3000 weekly page views. 

Lastly... looking into other manners to "moderate" the comments that will make that a quicker process and maybe eliminate the time zone issue. 

Sunday Funnies



Saturday, August 27, 2022

This appears to be a true statement from Scott Adams

The DOJ/FBI said they couldn't release ANY of the affidavit, which gives them the benefit of leaking information on their own terms and implying other things...

Nuclear secrets! Rumors of break ins to the storage! Plots to take over the world with Vladimir Putin! Conspiracies of pure evil! 

But when the affidavit was released we saw pretty much nothing "other" than a document dispute with the National Archives and disputes regarding the classifications of about 300 different documents. Oh... and about half of those documents had already been voluntarily provided to the FBI previously resulting in no threats of charges for the ex-President harboring classified documents in a nefarious manner. 

Apparently the concept must be that a President hanging onto 150 documents (that he claims he declassified) for a little over a year is perfectly acceptable. But keeping another 150 for an additional few months is worthy of 30 armed FBI agents ransacking through the residence without restriction?

There is literally "nothing" in the affidavit that explains that reasoning!

Which is why the "smarter" liberal "experts" are remaining quite "mum". 


A new old concept?

I am adding a new feature on the side bar that links over to the "legacy" blog... which of course is an uncensored unmonitored blog where Roger goes to post. I have offered to the Reverend that he could become an author over there as well and anyone who wants to go over and have an unmonitored debate could do so.  Perhaps given some "ownership" of the forum, there might be more "restraint" on their part.

I have also offered the legacy blog as a "page" at the top of the page. This can be accessed from the Mobile app as well. By dropping down where you see "home" under the Title and choosing legacy blog. I added the same page tab for the Legacy blog for ease of going back and forth. 

I am open to entertaining the idea of having one or two other authors over there to make it a group blog as it once was.

I also found something else that I had been working with at one time.  I could be open to managing multiple blogs from one page if one blog becomes too crowded. But I do find that the more options you have the less overall interest is generated. 

https://coldheartedtruthleft.blogspot.com/

This would conceivably give everyone two places to go to make comments and possibly debate. An open forum where the comments are in real time with no comment moderation.  The spam filter would still be in play and likely not monitored much if at all.  

On the flip side, if you are just looking to add your two cents on a subject and are okay with the moderation of the thread, then you can comment here. I suspect that some might be doing both. But it could solve the issues for those who still want real time debate but also want to see how others are reacting to one of my posts without having to filter through 15 cut and pastes in a row. 


Friday, August 26, 2022

BREAKING!!!!

Roger says is the DOJ charges Trump it will be about Classified Documents!

Who knew?

In fact he broke this news at least a dozen times today!

After literally promising better behavior just yesterday...

29 out of the last 50 comments are from Roger and 10 of them are from the Reverend. Now that is not how the comment threads "look" because not all of those 39 comments are being published. But that means that nearly four out of every five comments were made by one or the other. 

This after both of them (just yesterday) suggested we could turn off moderation because they would refrain from spamming every thread. 

Some of the comments that did not make the cut: 
(Click on them to increase the size.)


Roger literally cutting and pasting the post he was commenting on? Seriously did someone need to reread the post in the comment section? 


Oh and these gems - the "decent" Reverend losing his cool over a link because his entire intention was to criticize the source rather than engage in any debate whatsoever. Are we really here to argue about links? I mean why debate the actual subjects at hand when you can be an internet troll. 


and some more cut and pastes from Roger (complaining again about being blocked) or just linking the same exact article (lawandcrime) that he put in about 5 different comments over multiple threads since the article hit. Apparently Mr "I won't cut and paste. I will provide my own opinion."forgot already?



Let's be clear. I will criticize someone for "believing" Paul Krugman, only because he is proven wrong almost daily. I will criticize someone for falling for the anonymous source stories from Maggie Haberman who has a batting average that would make your late inning utility infielder blush. I will even point out that linking politicalwire.com all day long is not productive for anyone. But if there is something I disagree with, I will provide an explanation above and beyond criticizing the source, unless that source is anonymous, then I will laugh at you for still believing them. 

There used to be "real debate". Now it is literally dominated by trolls trolling all day long calling each other names. Yeah, the name calling is on both sides, but the bulk of it comes from a handful.  The question isn't whether or not to turn off moderation, but whether or not to turn off comments again all together.

Biden says the truth and I don't believe reporter expected it...

 Seemed like a softball being thrown at the President...


During a brief Q&A that lasted about 5 minutes this morning as the President was moving from point A to point B  the subject of the Mar-a-Lago raid came up. A reporters asked what appeared to be a loaded set up question that went something like this:

Mr President - is it EVER appropriate for the President to take highly classified documents "home with them" for any reason? 

Obviously the reporter in question was expecting an answer from Biden confirming that never does any President for any reason have any reason or authority to leave with classified information and take it home...

But instead Biden was honest and told her something to the extent... Yes, of course there are times I take information home. I have a secure office and secret service around me so documents are taken with me from time to time when need be.

Pretty sure that is not what the reporter expected to hear. 


Reading the redacted Affidavit right now...

But it appears to be pretty much solely about recovering the 15 boxes of records that was believed to have had classified documents.... 

It that is the case, I am curious as to the justification of taking everything they did (rather than the 15 boxes that were clearly identified). There is a reference to having "reason to believe" that there might be evidence of other crimes, but those crimes are not named nor does there appear to be an explanation. Perhaps that explanation is somewhere in later parts of the document or redacted? But I cannot find it. Just someone (redacted) claiming that they "believe" that there might be other materials. 


Will have to wait to see how the buzz plays out.

For god's sake... please... no cut and pastes comments explaining what we already know. 

Turley: Suggests that the judge should have pushed back on this. Nothing in here that we didn't really know. States Government leaks information, and then produces a document that gives us nothing else.  Still believes that they needed to be more transparent and there really isn't an actual reason shown as to the "why" the raid had to happen. 

Mike David (former Gorsuch Clerk) - Nothing in the affidavit that undermines the 1988 USSC Navy v Egan (which gives President plenary power to declassify anything for any reason) or the 2012 DC Court decision that gives the President sole power to determine what is personal and what is presidential. 

McCarthy: After reviewing document and following the manner in which this is being handled, he is even "more" convinced that Garland has no plans to charge Trump with any crimes.

Brett Tolman (former US Prosecutor): Affidavit does not present a reason for the urgency or any intent that would suggest what makes the actions criminal. Believes this is a legal dispute where neither party has really been able to prevail. Sees it as more civil than criminal based on the affidavit. Like McCarthy does not see this is a document you would release like this if you planned to make a criminal case. 

Another point brought up: The manner in which the FBI is using a taint team and agents to comb through everything rather than a special master, not only suggests they do not want anyone standing in their way of total access, but also strongly suggests that the classified documents they are looking for are not so classified that an FBI agent would be allowed to view them. 

Personally... the idea that Mar-a-Lago was not a secure location as a justification for a raid? Can someone please explain to me why the FBI took a year and a half to come to that conclusion? If it was not secure and needed to be raided. Well why did they wait till 91 days before the next mid-terms to make a move? 

Is anything said here untrue?

Merrick Garland's Moral Compass Points in One Direction

Parents are labeled domestic terrorists. Selfie-taking grandmothers are sent to prison. People in Trump’s orbit are perp-walked off airplanes and handcuffed for extra humiliation. But protest in front of conservative SCOTUS home in violation of federal law and you get a pass. Hunter Biden’s laptop is suppressed because of politics, but Ashley Biden’s diary is treated like stolen nuclear blueprints. Journalists’ homes are raided over Biden’s diary. An unnecessary raid on a former president’s home, in violation of the 4th Amendment’s prohibition against general warrants, are forms of intimidation not by a tinpot South American dictator, but by the Attorney General of the United States.

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Question of the day?

Nothing to see here. We have a dispute about Presidential records that is much more important!

This is funny!

How one specific USSC ruling could undermine pretty much every relevant investigation into Trump...

Morton v. Mancari (1974) “where there is no clear intention otherwise, a specific statute will not be controlled or nullified by a general one, regardless of the priority of enactment.”


What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Who the heck is John Galt? What in god's name does this mean? Well in a nutshell, it means that if there is a specific law or statute that governs an action, that another "general" law cannot be used to charge a crime where the specific law is not broken. 

So what is a specific law? Well to use a relative example, the Presidential Records act of 1978 is a very specific law that oversees how the Presidential records of a former President are handled. While it might not be a law that has criminal implications, it does very specifically cover how these records are handled, stored, transferred, and everything else. 

So what is a general law? To use some examples of things we hear from nutty TDS legal experts when they talk about Trump, we would be looking at laws like treason or conspiracy or obstruction. Things that are exclusively used in real life situations when other crimes are proven, but the prosecutors feel that those illegal activities together warrant a higher crime should. 

To be clear, until everyone and their brother started investigating Trump, the idea of a series of legal actions becoming a nefarious illegal treasonist plot was unheard of. Until Mueller and his special counsel came alongs, the idea of an obstruction charge (that did not involve destruction of evidence or serious witness tampering) during an investigation that found no underlying crime would have been laughed out of court. 

So in terms of the most recent raid on the Trump Mar-a-Lago estate, the controlling law (and according to Morton v. Mancari the only law that should matter) is the Presidential Records act. If the President was following the explicit portions of the law, then no other generic law can legally or constitutionally be applied. In other words, he would have to be proven to be in violation of that act, before any murky legal semantical arguments are made about classifications or espionage. 

The act in question allows for the former President to have access to all of his own Presidential records.  According to the law, they do not belong to the Archives or the Government itself. In fact, other than the ex-President himself and employees of the archives, nobody else is allowed to view these records for five years after the President leaves office (or twelve years if the former President chooses to restrict them). Technically that could include the FBI agents reviewing them right now. They could be in violation of this law. What these records will eventually become are "public records". 

The law acknowledges that every President "leaves" with these records and does not provide a specific manner or deadline as to how to turn them over. The law leaves the process open to negotiations between the President and the Archives. The law also does not distinguish between classified and unclassified, which was a deliberate choice by the Congress that created the law. That 1978 congress (being grown ups without a grudge to hold) were aware that these records would very likely include both unclassified and classified records. That fact alone was not considered criminal. 

So if you view Morton v Mancari at face value (and I would suspect that at least 5 member of our USSC would do so) then charging Trump with espionage for retaining records when that retention was not in violation of the PRA would be seen as unconstitutional. Charging Trump with some sort of general election conspiracy when he broke no other laws would fall under the same category. That logic would apply to both a federal and state charge. Seriously, how many "generic" crimes have been investigation since Trump has been President without anyone really suggesting (much less proving) any underlying crime?

Think about it.... 
 

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Hey did anyone hear that 25 of the 30 School board candidates that DeSantis supported won in Florida?

Republicans could go Trump or DeSantis and be big favorites? 
Who do the Democrats have behind Biden and Harris?

 

Well there you go... some more Bidenomics for you!

 US business activity falls at its fastest rate since May 2020

Business activity at private US companies in early August dropped off at some of the sharpest rates seen since the beginning of the pandemic as rising interest rates and high inflation crimped consumer spending, according to data released Tuesday. The latest S&P Global preliminary flash composite purchasing managers index, or PMI, registered a level of 45 as of August 22, down from 47.7 in July. 
The rate at which business activity slowed was the fastest recorded since May 2020 when the pandemic shutdowns first took hold, according to S&P Global. This marks five consecutive months that the activity index has fallen and the second consecutive month that it has been in contraction territory.

Obviously business activity is a key economic indicator. Maybe second only to consumer spending. Right now the "blue chip" consensus is that the third quarter GDP will be right around 1.2 percent. Factor in more news like this and we could be looking at a third quarter of negative growth.  


Democrats overperform in NY special elections

Could the "red wave" be an illusion? 

A question many will ponder after last night

Now there will be much written about these two races for a variety of reasons. I would offer that on paper the Democrats overperformed expectations on the two special elections (19th and 23rd) by a margin that arguably approaches double digits. This is obviously a significant result and hard to ignore (even if it is a special election).

The 19th on paper is a pretty even district (Biden +2) where a good GOP candidate (Molinaro) has been expected to beat a different Democrat in November by a safe margin. He leads in every poll and has lead by as much as eight points in one. But Ryan (a temporary Democrat opponent who will be running in a different district in November) pulled off the upset and it looks like he will win by about 2 points. In the 23rd district, the Republican Sempolinski won as expected. But he is currently leading by 4-5 points in an area that Trump won by 11. 

I get that this might not seem like much. A Democrat holding Biden's ground in one district and Republican not living up the Trump numbers in another? But one has to consider that Republicans are supposed to be the ones overperforming, that makes the Democratic results over expectations ever larger.

For Democrats this will add to their narrative that Dobbs changed the game, or that the recent bill changed the game, or that Trump being back in the news changed the game. But regardless of the reason, the narrative will be that Democrats can hold both the Senate and the House (if you consider these results as a harbinger).

For Republicans, these will be bad results with a lot of "yeah buts".  I would suspect that they will bring up the tried and true reality that special elections are rarely good indicators of general elections. There is also suggestions that Democratic interest in New York (as a whole) has increased by some pretty big incumbent on incumbent battles going on. Whereas there would be less interest in a special election (that will be reheld in 11 weeks) from the Republican side. I would offer that Democrats (vote more mail in) might be more willing to vote twice in 11 weeks than Republicans would be (vote more in person). Those may be valid points, but they are still excuses for a bad performance. 

All that being said, most of the other bellwether indicators that have been watched over the course of the primary season has suggested that the GOP will have at least a "good" mid-term result and some still suggest fairly significant gains. Time will tell and we are only about 11 weeks away.


Tuesday, August 23, 2022

For those of you who feel upset over the new comment moderation...

There is still a legacy blog available for those who want to comment "without" moderation. 



There is also a Hub blog available with some links and a blogroll and a suggestion area to add suggestions for other links or blogs or features or whatever



But anyways!

Obviously the problems with the comments here have sort of forced my hand. I got too many complaints and I am sure that I would have complained to me if I was not me.

Bottom line: I would much prefer to see 15-20 legitimate on-topic comments from people providing their own opinions on the issues at hand than filter through a 100 comment thread that is dominated by two people cutting and pasting us into oblivion. Moreover, new people coming to this blog and looking at a comment thread likely ran away screaming when they saw some of these old unmonitored threads.

Yes, 100 comments looks impressive... until you look at them and realize that 80 of them are two people spamming back and forth with the occasional random person stopping by to complain.

That being said, waiting for a comment to be moderated and approved is a pain in the you know what if you are really looking for a real time debate. Not sure what the answer is (since I cannot sit around 24-7 and look at comments). But if you really need to spam a thread with the latest from NYT over and over and over... then head over to the legacy blog (perhaps it will need to be renamed). Perhaps there can be real discussions as well? Who knows?

I would probably even be open to having other "contributors" than just Roger like we once had. 

Here is an interesting question...

Given the FBI went to Mar-a-Lago previously. Given that they were allowed to search the documents in question and apparently were there for several hours. Given that they found and took approximately half of the 300 documents in question. 

How is it that they missed the other half of those documents? 

Moreover, Considering that the FBI was asking for the storage locker to have new locks installed, and asking for the video feed outside the locker. It seems pretty obvious in retrospect that they "knew" that they left documents behind? 

How is it that they missed the other half of those documents? 

Now obviously the former President of the United States was not going to personally go through boxes and boxes of materials that were packed up (for him) and shipped (for him) to this location. Certainly the FBI had to know that he was not going to go through these boxes personally, especially after the FBI had spent hours previously going through them?

How is it that they missed the other half of those documents? 

It is not like there were "new" documents being put there. Every box of documents were there for the FBI to have gone through previously. The boxes they went through on the 30 agent raid were the same boxes that the FBI previously went through?

How is it that they missed the other half of those documents? 

When they got a warrant to go back and perform their armed raid of the ex-President's home they had to have shown good cause that they were sure that documents were there? But if they were so sure that the documents were there after previously searching for them (and apparently finding many). 

How is it that they missed the other half of those documents? 


Does anyone have a good explanation for this?  

Because it's almost as if they purposely left documents behind.


Hypocrisy is the bedrock of liberalism!

Hillary Clinton having thousands of classified document on a lightly secured unapproved personal server that nobody was aware of?


Donald Trump having 300 classified document sent to his residence when he left the Presidency. At least half of them returned, and the other half under Secret Service watch (with video surveillance)  that the DOJ and FBI were aware of?


Interestingly not a single person has been able to provide a valid argument over why the former was acceptable, while the former called for 30 agents with guns to raid the personal residence. 

In the case of the Hillary Clinton, there was valid national security concerns. Valid as in the secured documents were in real time (classified at the time), that server was hackable, and almost certainly had been hacked. She also accessed the server with an unsecured blackberry. Many times out of the country where her phone records were under other jurisdictions. Moreover, she made the personal decision to house this information on her own server specifically to get around FOIA and other regulation. She was literally trying to hide her work product from both the US Government and the public,

But in the Donald Trump case, we don't know how many documents marked classified are even really classified two years later (either by Trump declassifying them or the security concerns waning)... much less if they are relevant.  These are also hard paper copies and someone would literally have to break into Mar-a-Lago to get to them.  There appears to be little real national security concern. Moreover, Donald Trump did not "personally" pack up any of the documents from the White House to be brought to Mar-a-Lago. We have no idea if he even wanted any of these documents in his possession or even knew what was there. 

Monday, August 22, 2022

The Kansas Abortion Referendum proves that Dobbs was the correct call

Recounts confirming abortion rights in Kansas is more powerful than a court decision


Dobbs really didn't take away any rights from Americans, but rather provided them first hand rights to make decisions on a state by state level. In Kansas, a referendum was offered to voters to clarify whether the Kansas constitution should ban abortion or assume abortion to be legal by default.  The vote went fairly significantly towards legal abortion. 

So now if you are pro-life you can no longer blame Roe or the courts for the fact that your state offers legal abortion. You must accept the will of the people as the reason that abortion is legal in your state. It then falls on you to win the hearts and minds of more voters moving forward is you want your viewpoint to be the one enacted into law. 

This is the way that these things should go. Obviously not every state will have a specific referendum or offer a constitutional amendment (although they could). But every voter in every state can now vote for state office holders that share their view on this issue and know that it could actually make a difference?

Hmmmm... having a vote that makes a difference rather than pushing to pack a court to make voting on certain issues irrelevant? Isn't that how Democracy is supposed to work? 

Is Fauci "really" retiring this time?

Has not been the first buzz about the fallen from grace doctor moving on?



Another sign of how bad things are under the Biden administration!

Wrong direction" on steroids: Gallup hits new all-time high in "suffering" index
The percentage of Americans who evaluate their lives poorly enough to be considered “suffering” on Gallup’s Life Evaluation Index was 5.6% in July, the highest since the index’s inception in 2008. This exceeds the previous high of 4.8% measured in April and is statistically higher than all prior estimates in the COVID-19 era. Across extensive measurement since January 2008, the suffering percentage has reached 4.5% or higher on a handful of occasions.
The most recent results, obtained July 26 to Aug. 2, 2022, are based on web surveys of 3,649 U.S. adults as a part of the Gallup Panel, a probability-based, non-opt-in panel of about 115,000 adults across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

But don't you worry your poor little suffering asses over any of this. Biden and the Democrats got this! They just passed a new bill that will give you a $7000 credit towards an electric car that on average has gone up in price by $8000 over the past two years. They have 87,000 new IRS agents to reduce American suffering. They will raise your taxes to help make things better.  

But most importantly, they are conducting 30 agent armed raids on former Presidents to garner disputed paperwork and still holding hearings on things that happened 17 18 19 months ago that will definitly help put more food on the table and giver you a warm place to stay! 

They most certainly have your priorities (not their own) in mind here! 

Just a friendly reminder for all of those wondering why the Biden administration is so desperate to find a crime to charge Trump with!

Polling Data

PollDateSampleMoETrump (R)Biden (D)Spread
RCP Average7/5 - 7/28----45.242.2Trump +4.5
Harvard-Harris7/27 - 7/281885 RV--4541Trump +4
Rasmussen Reports7/26 - 7/271000 LV3.04640Trump +6
Emerson7/19 - 7/201078 RV2.94643Trump +3
Trafalgar Group (R)7/11 - 7/141085 LV2.94843Trump +5

Polling Data

PollDateSampleMoETrump (R)Harris (D)Spread
Harvard-Harris7/27 - 7/281885 RV--4740Trump +7
Harvard-Harris6/28 - 6/291308 RV--4539Trump +6
Harvard-Harris5/18 - 5/191963 RV--4740Trump +7